Computer engraving is popular, and the business of seal carvers is slow.
This newspaper (reporter Shi Shanwei photographed Qin Yang) only needs a carving knife to put the names, flowers, birds, insects and fish into the square inch. Xiang Songqiu, who lives in Laoxiguan, Guangzhou, has been in business for 50 years for three generations. Although he is famous far and near, he can’t get a single business in January. Computer engraving is all over the street, and a seal can be done in one minute, which is convenient and at the same time, it also makes the fake official seal flood and hard to prevent. Manual seal cutting is unrepeatable, but few people care about it, and this traditional craft is facing extinction.
Fifty years into the business, carving official seals to become famous.
In Heping West Road, Liwan District, I saw a sign of "Autumn Carving" on the roadside. Walking up the narrow staircase to the second floor is Xiang Songqiu’s living room, and a wooden table in the corner is his workbench.
Xiang Songqiu, 63, is the third generation descendant of Xiang Jia’s seal cutting, and Yin Chuang, the wooden table, was handed down by his ancestors. His uncle Xiang Xinnan was a famous stone engraver in Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, and his father Xiang Shaonan was also a minor famous stone engraver. He worked as an artist for more than 80 years and carved seals for many celebrities and politicians. Xiang Songqiu entered the Red Seal Engraving Factory in Guangzhou on January 1, 1960, and has been in the business for 50 years.
"Horn, ivory, jade, pear wood, boxwood, pen wood … all can be used for engraving, but different materials need different carving knives." Talking about this craft, Xiang Songqiu gushed.
Not only is Xiang Songqiu well-known in the industry, but he has also been interviewed by many English media, and the British and German consuls in Guangzhou have also come to him to carve seals. Compared with his predecessors, he also carved the zodiac, flowers, birds, insects and fish into it when carving leisure chapters. Once a man asked all over Guangzhou to engrave his name in a painting, but his peers said that he could not engrave it. Finally, he found Master Xiang, and this seal became his masterpiece.
After 50 years in the business, Xiang Songqiu is best at carving official seals. Before the reform and opening up, many banks, police stations and other government departments in Guangzhou appointed him to engrave the seal. "The business of engraving can also reflect the ups and downs of the economy. The 1980 s was the golden age of engraving." Xiang Songqiu recalled that at most, he took over thousands of orders to engrave the company’s official seal in a month.
Computer engraving "encourages" fake official seal fraud
However, in the late 1990s, computer engraving began to rise because of its low price and high speed, which quickly occupied the market. Master Xiang’s business has plummeted, and now there are so many "autumn engravings" that he can’t get a single business for a month at the worst.
"Computer engraving is the same and easy to counterfeit." Xiang Songqiu said that the hand-carved chapter is unrepeatable, and the fake chapter can be known at a glance. Xiang Songqiu plans to cooperate with a computer engraving shop.
(Source: Guangzhou Daily)
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