It is impossible to miss Wu Tun-hou’s (吳敦厚) store on a stroll through Lukang, a small historic town in western Taiwan. Although there are no signs or advertisements to set it apart from the neighboring shops that line the narrow street, the front doorway is marked by a colorful array of paper lanterns. Several rows of bright red and yellow globes create a canopy over the entranceway, casting elongated shadows in the afternoon sun that seem to invite patrons into the store.
Just inside, more lanterns are stacked along the walls and across the floor, some in unadorned, subdued colors, others in bright primaries with bold Chinese characters sweeping across the surface. Appearing here and there from among the round and oval shapes is the daring expressing and undulating snake-like body of a dragon, or a fierce and muscular tiger, or the delicate image of a goddess amidst a decorative whirl of clouds.
Off to one side, on a low plastic stool, sits the master craftsman himself—a winner of several prestigious folk art honors—patiently cutting thin strips of bamboo for shaping into the base of a new lantern. The colorful fixtures that surround Wu not only serve to advertise his store, but also reflect the 71-year-old craftsman’s lifelong struggle between a devotion to his folk art and the need to make a living.
In the early years of his business, most of his income came from making standard lanterns for temples, teahouses, restaurants, and general home use. While Wu still produces some of these simple lanterns, he insists that they have little lasting aesthetic value. “They preserve neither cultural heritage nor traditional folk art,” he says. Where Wu really brings his creative aspirations into play is with the highly decorative lanterns that he makes for collectors and foreign tourists. With these, he keeps alive traditional subject matter and also explores new forms and themes.
Folk art promoter Huang Chih-nung thinks government recognition of Wu’s talent has encouraged two of the artist’s sons to carry on his lantern business.
But Wu did not achieve this balance between art and practicality overnight. During his first twenty years in business, he found few clients interested in lanterns as works of art. Most of his customers, including the local temples in Lukang, were more practical-minded. They were usually interested in only the least expensive products. “During that time, he could just break even between earning and spending,” says Wu’s youngest son, Wu Yi-teh (吳怡德), who often helps to interpret his father’s words. The senior Wu lost his hearing after an illness at thirteen, and though he is adept at reading lips and body language, his speech can be difficult to understand.
Although business was slim during those early years, Wu never gave up on his interest in making lanterns. When there were no customers, he took advantage of the extra time to perfect his craft, continually tearing old lantern covers off their frames and replacing them with new ones so that he could draw the same subject again and again. As his skills matured and business gradually improved, Wu began to gain a reputation for his fine craftsmanship and expert painting talents. Buoyed by a resurging interest in folk art in recent years and by winning one of the government’s Art Heritage Awards for folk artists in 1988, Wu is now recognized as one of the island’s few remaining traditional craftsmen to concentrate on lantern-making.
Wu is one of only a handful of lantern-makers who paint subjects as challenging as this fierce tiger, a traditional symbol of power.
He sells many one-of-a-kind works to collectors, and his lanterns have been featured in more than half a dozen major exhibitions around the island. One of the most recent was held late last year at the Taiwan Crafts Center and showcased nearly one hundred of Wu’s lanterns. Wu has also given numerous demonstrations of his craft at folk art festivals throughout the island and on television programs.
When Wu was a child, there were still numerous lantern shops in his hometown of Lukang. But they started to close down because of an unusual phenomenon: many of the owners had no sons to learn the family skills, which were traditionally passed down only to male heirs. Some people said that the lack of sons was related to the sound of the word lantern, which in Taiwanese is a homonym for the word “man” and thus used as a symbol for male heirs. Young wives, for example, traditionally walked under lanterns to ensure that they would give birth to sons. So selling lanterns was like sending potential sons away from one’s home.
Whatever the reason for the lack of heirs among Lukang’s lantern-making families, it was an ideal situation for Wu to begin learning the trade. Although he had only a primary school education, he had shown talent and a keen interest in painting, calligraphy, and handicrafts. At fifteen, he began watching and memorizing the steps for making lanterns. Although he never formally apprenticed with anyone, he was allowed to hang around the shops and watch how things were done. After a few years, he gained some attention in the community by designing several fancy lanterns for an exhibition at one of Lukang’ s largest temples.
Step one—The bamboo is cut into strips, which are then sanded to a smooth finish.
Round, oval, or collapsible forms are woven from the bamboo, then covered with gauze or paper.
At that time, Lukang’s most famous lantern-painter was Wang Yu-chueh (王玉珏), the fourth-generation scion of an old family known for its extraordinary skills in the lantern arts. Wang saw some potential in the young Wu, who frequently called on the old master for advice. Having no sons to carry on his business, he gave the fledgling craftsman a pair of delicately painted dragon-patterned lanterns that had been in the family for generations, with the expectation that Wu would carry on the art. Wu still has the pair of 200-year-old lanterns, although they have decayed considerably over the years. To this day, he considers dragons—the symbol of royalty and power—his favorite subject.
Most lantern-makers today decorate their wares mainly with auspicious Chinese characters, such as those for health, peace, or prosperity. But Wu continues to excel at the more difficult task of painting figures, animals, and scenes on the rounded lantern forms. Only a handful of craftsmen in Taiwan are adept enough to maintain this tradition. “The task requires a lot of advance mental planning,” Wu says. Although his shop also produces many lanterns decorated only with Chinese characters, his personal projects often involve intricate depictions of Buddhist or Taoist gods as well as mythological dragons and phoenixes. Other traditional subjects include the same flowers and plants found in Chinese paintings, such as plum blossoms, bamboo, and pine trees.
The first coat of paint is applied over a layer of rice-flour paste.
A dragon comes to life—The entire process for a mid-size lantern may take a week or more.
Although Wu can perform all the steps necessary for making a paper lantern, he usually leaves the making of the bamboo frame to another artisan, who weaves and ties thin strips of bamboo into the basic round or oval form. Wu then takes over, covering the lantern frame with at least two layers of fine gauze or high-quality paper, carefully gluing the edges so that they are nearly imperceptible. He then brushes on a layer of rice-flour paste to seal the material and to leave a smooth surface for painting. For creating his design, he uses the orthodox pigments of Chinese folk art, including cyanine blue and vermilion, mixed with a glue made from cowhide. This paint can withstand the effects of heat, wind, and rain for more than fifteen years—even in Taiwan’s humid climate.
The smallest lantern Wu makes is one the size of his palm. It usually has a simple design and takes about ten hours to cover with paper and paint. His largest work, reaching three meters in height and often decorated with a dragon motif, takes nearly a month. “This is a job requiring patience and good eyesight,” Wu says. But no matter how much effort a project takes, or how successful it is, Wu never keeps any of his lanterns for himself. Many of those in his exhibition last year were borrowed from collectors around the island.
Lanterns decorated with traditional glue-based paints can withstand at least fifteen years of heat, wind, and rain.
Wu’s talent and tenacity have been the main reasons he kept his lantern business going while many other craftsmen have turned to machine production or to other ways of making a living. But he has also benefited from government recognition. In addition to earning an Art Heritage Award, he has also been honored by having his lanterns appear on a series of stamps and lottery tickets.
“What the government has done may not be noticeable right away, but it works in the long run,” says Huang Chih-nung (黃志農), who helps promote folk art through his Tso Yang Arts Studio in Lukang. “The award highlighted Wu’s store and helped raise the price of his lanterns.” The recognition has also encouraged two of Wu’s five sons to carry on the family’s lantern-making tradition. Huang believes it has even given them a sense of calling. “They can see a future in it,” he says.
Winning the award has attracted the attention of the growing number of folk art collectors in Taiwan and abroad. These make up his major customers, especially since most temples are now opting to buy cheaper, mass-produced lanterns for onetime use at religious festivals. Government officials, who often buy folk art items to give as gifts to foreign dignitaries, have also become an important source of income. These new buyers, Huang says, have begun to develop a sense of responsibility toward preserving Taiwan’s cultural heritage. “In the past, they were just interested in trading antiques,” he says, “but now they want to preserve the folk arts and share these masterpieces with the public.”
Wu opened his shop when many others were closing down. Although the early years were a struggle, the slow him time to perfect his skills.
Wu’s efforts later paid off with good business and widespread recognition. He has held a number of exhibitions and his works have appeared on a series of stamps.
Wu’s work today focuses on creative designs for collectors. The dragon motif shown above is one of his own favorites. The pair below call for family peace and safety in an unusual Chinese script.