A former railway worker has dedicated his life to crafting inkstones from bricks resurrected from 1,800-year-old tombs. Zhou Tao talks with the man who has given the bricks new life and at the same time created a new version of one of China's "four treasures of stationery"
When Wu Baorong retired from his job with the Shanghai Railway Administration, he was finally able to make his youthful dream of having an artistic career come true. The 59-year-old ex-railway repairman is now the star of a solo exhibition of his works - inkstones crafted from bricks removed from Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) tombs.
Born in Shanghai, Wu is thin but energetic and when he starts talking about his inkstones, he becomes so excited that the words tumble out in a torrent, too fast sometimes for his listeners to follow.
Wu's latest exhibition in the Tangbai Gallery consists of more than 100 Han Dynasty brick inkstones which are unlike any others. Wu's works feature rough surfaces and some even have splits in the main body or with parts of the inkstone broken. Typically, conventional inkstones are carved from rock and have a smooth surface.
On the upper surface of Wu's inkstones, there is a smooth area on which to grind the ink and a little "pool" for the water, just like conventional inkstones.
But in addition, Wu's creations have carvings of men and horses of ancient China that have been crafted with bold strokes, in relief. On the four sides of his inkstones, unlike conventional ones, "abstract" patterns emerge that were there long before the brick was made into an inkstone.
"These 'stones' are decorative pieces from the ancient China of 1,800 years ago," Wu says.
Wu is a self-taught artist with no professional training but his love of carving goes back to his childhood.
"Longhua Town (in Shanghai's southwest), where I grew up, has many temples and pagodas and as a child I was always trying to make clay statues of Buddha," Wu recalls.
He also practiced elaborate paper cutting and embroidery to help his mother. "That's a thing that even girls can't do well but I love it," he adds.
In 1963, Wu entered Shanghai Railway Administration right after graduating from junior high school and his first job was a long way from the world of art - he was employed carrying out repair work along the city's railway lines.
It was not until 1984 when he saw an exhibition of antique inkstones that he knew in which direction a career in art would take him.
"The inkstone is one of 'the four treasures of stationery' in China - the others are brush, ink and Xuan (rice) paper. Compared with calligraphy or making seals, fewer people are engaged in inkstone carving and that's why I wanted to do it," he says.
After studying and researching the craft, Wu has created more than 200 inkstones since 1984. In 1994, when he was pondering how to achieve an artistic breakthrough in his work, he read about an inkstone made from Han bricks.
"It's certainly not a new thing," Wu says. "Scholars in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties made inkstones out of Han bricks."
The Han Dynasty bricks Wu uses come from the tombs built during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD). At that time,      rich and powerful people built huge tombs in which to spend the afterlife, just like the ancient Egyptians.
The bricks have lain buried in the earth for millennia and Wu's unearthing of the bricks is an interesting story in itself.
Wu first started to look for the bricks in Xuzhou in neighboring Jiangsu Province because he had read that around Xuzhou are many Han tombs. Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty, came from Xuzhou.
Wu was surprised to see that many of the tombs had been opened by farmers when they were digging wells and a lot of the bricks from the tombs were now parts of walls or even used to make pig sties.
Wu asked the farmers if he could buy some of the bricks. His request struck the farmers as odd because they did not think that the bricks - which they could pick up everywhere - were of any value let alone that someone would want to pay for them. They told Wu to take as many as he liked and his first load of bricks cost him a mere 10 yuan (US$1.24).
"But gradually the farmers realized the commercial value of the bricks and began to sell them for ever-increasing prices," Wu says. "Now I have to pay about 400 yuan for one brick."
After acquiring these ancient cultural relics that had been sleeping in the earth for nearly 2,000 years, Wu worked to give them a second life through his skill at carving.
Under Wu's hands, the finished inkstones combine the features and techniques of seal-making as he carves images of people, horses, the sun, the moon, deities and Chinese characters. He prefers typical Chinese themes and images which symbolize luck, happiness and longevity.
The Xuzhou Museum of Han Carved Stone today supports Wu's work by offering him material to work on.
Proud of his large collection of Han brick inkstones, Wu thinks it's his duty to show them to the world. "I bet hardly any foreigners have seen such a thing. Well, now they can," he says.