Our host, retired teacher Lu Ying, a grey haired man in casual cotton clothing, busily moved his works out of the way as he apologetically asked us to have a seat: "My solo exhibition just ended two days ago; I was totally exhausted after the two-week show and haven't got around to putting things in order."
Lu lit a cigarette, then launched into a historical introduction to leatherwork in China:
"Thousands of years ago in northern China, countless daily-use products, such as wine flasks, saddles, hunting hats, and boots, were made from leather. The designs were burnt into these early leather products. Later, decorative techniques included cutting and hammered-impressions—attempts to enhance three-dimensional effects.
Leather lotuses strike a stately pose.
"After the Tang Dynasty, about 1000 A.D., Chinese leather craftsmen demonstrated increasing artistry. However, the leather arts have never reached a transcendental level in Chinese art history."
Lu said that in all his early years in the Chinese mainland, he had seen only three ancient leather works of true artistic quality—in both museums and in private collections; all three were in the mode of classic Chinese landscape painting.
Lu first became interested as a student at the Peking Art School, where his teacher, Kuan Ping-hu, a specialist in portrait painting, had begun to experiment with leather.
"At that time, we made most of the leather-working tools by ourselves. Hammer-dies were indispensable to the process, but could not be bought on the market. I helped Kuan Ping-hu grind the tips of iron nails flat for that purpose. And the leather quality was low—either too hard to take a good impression, or too soft."
Innovative methods breathe vitality into traditional rules of color and composition.
Ten years ago, when Lu retired from a southern Taiwan teaching position, he moved to Taipei to join his daughter and grandchildren.
Japanese style leathercrafts were then in vogue in Taipei, and seeing such work, the old man was stimulated to renew the creative efforts of his youth. He found the contemporary leather designs too stylized, the patterns lifeless, and drew his own designs from the academic traditions of Chinese painting—classic birds, insects, flowers, landscapes, and classic beauties.
Art scholars duly comment that the traditional Chine e artistry reveals very limited sketching skills and perspective techniques. Lu contends that the ancient Chinese leather artists mastered these in their basic training. But "with no 6B pencil, charred mullbery tree twigs were the only substitutes, and feathers had to do for erasers, to flick away errors.
"Even now I do pre-sketches before embossing the leather. I want my art to be vital, so every summer, when the lotus are blossoming in the pools at the Taiwan Provincial Museum, I rush to do sketches. And I frequently visit the zoo to sketch the appearances and movements of certain birds and animals."
Chrysanthemums in acrylics—new life for a classic form.
The embossing involves several skills. "The most important technique is not leather carving, but using the dies; it is the hammered impressions which cause figures to jut out of their background. To reinforce the three-dimensional effect, I innovate—first wet the leather and then hammer impressions along the reverse side of the leather, or apply special chemicals. I might add two or three extra layers of leather to increase the depth for three-dimensional elaboration."
His flowers are not only graceful, but plumply full; his animals not only lithe, but vividly solid.
Lu has long been a follower of master-painter Chi Pai-shih, known for his attainments in the long tradition of Chinese impressionism. "But Master Chi's impressionist works are very difficult to reproduce on worked leather; the few strokes and simple outlines may (in the leather) be misunderstood for crudeness," he says. Therefore, only the essence of that consummate-impressionistic style can be adopted, and more detail must be added.
Startled—a querulous peacock turns a haughty head.
Lu is proud of his interpretations: "My renditions of Master Chi's style—my pumpkins, grapes, and calabashes are much appreciated."
Although numerous items for specialized leather-work are now at hand in Taiwan, imported from Japan and the United States, Lu still relies on some home-made tools to meet his special artistic needs. He proudly shows off a hand-made equipment case, in which each leather-working tool, small or large, has its place.
The last step in Lu's process is the coloring. "In the current Japanese style, dyestuffs are applied, just as in dying a purse red or a pair of shoes black. But I dislike the dull colors, so I use American acrylics—the kind usually used for oil-type painting. The only obstacle is that acrylics dry and stiffen quickly on the Chinese brush-pen, so brushes must be immediately dipped in water after each use."
It is almost ten years, now, since Lu resumed working with leather. "After retiring from teaching, I have opened a new career window—'a second spring' in my life," he beams.