Dough model of renowned painting

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INTRO

Riverside Scene During the Qingming Festival is one of the most renowned works in Chinese paintings. The city life of China's Song Dynasty is vividly depicted on the long scroll using cavalier perspective.

More than nine hundred years later, a dough modeling artist has brought forth a 3D version of the scroll.

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The re-creator of the painting is Yu Qiquan, whose studio is located in a residential area in northeast China' s Shenyang.

In this six-meter-long Riverside scroll, almost a thousand figurines, some one hundred livestock and nearly forty boats made of dough are brought alive.

A figurine can be small in size, but no detail has been omitted.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, Dough modeling artist

"I have been thinking about the scroll for some ten years, for I have no reference to make. A painting is abstract. It is hard to make it lifelike in three dimensions. "

Moreover, creating all the figures, livestock and buildings proportionally in soft and dry dough can be another challenge.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, Dough modeling artist

"To tell you the truth, it is hard. The dough is a soft material and its contraction has to be carefully handled. You need to try several times to merely model a house. We used up some 100 kilograms of flour. Take the trees for example, there should be more than 200 trees, but we made three to four hundred to choose from."

Dough modeling dates back to China's Han Dynasty, and after thousands of years, there are few artists who can master it. Yu was born into a dough modeling family, and started practicing at the age of five.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, dough modeling artist

" My family is from Shandong where people love flour-made dishes. I used to make rabbits, hedgehogs along with other animals and figures, and then eat them. The charm of it is it's convenience. you can make whatever you want. When I was young, I naturally learnt from my parents."

Through hard work and instructions from his parents, Yu mastered dough modelling at teenage. After decades of practice, ten years ago, a bold idea came up.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, Dough modeling artist

" My intention was to introduce dough modeling to all, and that it is not only intended for small figures. It could be art, a complete art piece. Through the dough modeling of Riverside, people would know better about the original work as well as the traditional dough modeling."

After Yu had the idea, several attempts were made but failed.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, Dough modeling artist

"Traditional dough modeling is often small pieces of work, for example, the monkey king, several figures or a hundred at most. Our work contains hundreds of figures and is six meters long, and is a re-creation of a famous artwork. It takes far more than a thought to complete it. I can hardly describe the difficulties I met, and sometimes I felt reluctant to move on after days of work. When inspiration comes to me, I would work for days without sleeping. I am so exhausted."

To better re-create the painting, Yu studied many literatures. And he says dough modeling has its unique advantages.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, Dough modeling artist

"Dough modeling has advantages in recreating such an antique as the Riverside scroll. For example, when a house I made dried, it just looked like an old one. If I was to use woodcarving, it is hard to realize that effect."

Because dough dries fast, modeling must be finished in a short time. Yu invited three of his craft fellows to help. And for better conservation, Yu uses new chemical glue to replace honey.

SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) YU QIQUAN, Dough modeling artist

"The traditional sticking material of honey is all replaced by new chemical materials, which can improved the work's life-span and is waterproof. Otherwise it could not be finished. "

Yu's work has been invited for a national tour. He says his next target is to dough model the four classical novels of China.