Perhaps the best known landscape in traditional Chinese painting is the scroll titled Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Composed by the famed artist Zhang Zeduan in the Northern Song Dynasty, back in the 11th century, the work has been copied and adapted to various other media over the past centuries.
This time, wood is the medium used to depict this panorama of Song Dynasty urban life nearly 1,000 years ago. Over a dozen wood blocks serve as a background for the 600 characters as well as the numerous boats, bridges and trade fairs depicted in the original painting.
More than nine meters long, the wooden version was made with an ordinary soldering iron. The changes in shade and lighting were achieved by adjusting the temperature of the iron. Artist Wang Shuchen has been painting with a soldering iron for over 20 years. So far he has produced about 1,000 landscapes and portraits with this unique tool. He began working on the wooden version of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival late last summer. It took him over six months to complete.
(CCTV.com February 18, 2004)
