The Iron Picture (Tiehua)
A cross between painting and sculpture, the iron picture
is an art probably unique of China.
Reportedly it was first created by Tand Peng (alias Tang TianChi),
a blacksmith who lived in Wuhu, Anhui Province, in the mid-17th centruy
when the Ming was replaced by the Qing Dynasty. Using the anvil as his
inkstone and the hammer as his brush, he forged, filed and shaped iron
(or low-carbon steel) strips and wires into pictures by following the
principles of composition of the Chinese painting.
This art developed by the smith-artist has been handed down and cultivated
for threee hundred years. The picutre in iron is normally painted black,
with or without lustre, which forms a clear contrast with the light-coloured
wall on which it is hung. The landscapes, flowers and plants represented
in iron appeal to viewers with a three-dimensional effect of implicity
and boldness rarely found elsewhere.
A popular story tells how Tang Tianchi hit upon the idea of "drawing
in iron". A close neighbour to Xiao Yun, a painter of
some renown at the time, the blacksmith with an artistic penchant used
to go and watch Xiao at work, only to be sneered at as "stupid"
by the latter. Infuriated, he managed making picture with iron, pioneering
a new genre.
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