What is the history of the Eight Immortals' birthday brick carving?

Brick carving refers to carving landscapes, flowers, figures and other patterns on blue bricks, which is a very important art form in ancient architecture carving. The production process and core is the deep-seated carving of the finished brick of BRIC, which is a real brick carving in the traditional sense in China for hundreds of years. Traditional brick carvings are exquisite and vivid, and they are very bookish. Brick carving is an imitation of stone carving, but it is more economical and labor-saving than stone carving, so it is more widely used, especially in folk buildings. From the practical and ornamental point of view, folk brick carvings are simple in image and rich in style, and do not blindly pursue exquisiteness and thinness, so as to maintain the firmness of building components and withstand the sun and rain. In residential buildings, brick carvings are mostly used for gates, gables and walls. Their performance style is lively. The technological process of brick carving;

The most commonly used brick carvings in China are specially fired blue bricks, all of which are made of extremely fine clay or silt deposited at the bottom of the river, and sometimes special firing technology is adopted to ensure that the finished product has uniform texture, moderate hardness and no pores. For example, the bricks used in Huizhou brick carving only use the highest quality clay on the north bank of Xin 'anjiang River, and the bricks made must be polished before they can be used. Proofing: Rub the design draft on the brick surface coated with limewater, or draw the draft directly on the brick, and adjust the basic layout and proportion. Blanking: Use a chisel or carving knife to roughly outline the picture and divide it into basic levels. Fine: use various tools, shovels, engraves, picks and other plans to describe details. Brick carving is similar to wood carving and stone carving in carving techniques, including ground carving, hidden carving, relief carving, general carving, round carving and multi-layer carving.

Brick carving has both the firm texture of stone carving and the delicate softness of wood carving, showing a simple and delicate style of combining rigidity with softness. Brick carvings generally retain the true colors of bricks and are not dyed separately, but there are also a few brick carvings painted. Therefore, the sculptor needs to carve multiple levels and use the shadows generated by light to enhance the artistic effect. The Ming and Qing dynasties were the peak of brick carving, and craftsmen could carve 9 levels on square bricks with a thickness of less than inches. However, due to the material relationship, the number of layers carved by bricks other than blue bricks is not as much as that carved by blue bricks. The artistic feature of brick carving is artistry. Brick carving can be far and near, and it has a complete effect. From the subject matter, brick carvings are mainly composed of auspicious and jubilant figures such as dragon and phoenix, He Erxian, Liu Hai drama Jin Chan, Sanyang Kaitai, Guo Ziyi's birthday, Kirin's gift, lion's rolling hydrangea, pine and cypress, orchid, bamboo, camellia, chrysanthemum, lotus, carp and Fulu's birthday.

In terms of carving techniques, there are mainly intaglio carving (outlining, like sketching in a picture), shallow relief, deep relief, round carving, carving, and flat carving (sketching the outline of the image with negative lines and chiseling the open space outside the outline of the image). The historical evolution of brick carving can be traced back to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Brick carving experienced the development of dynasties and reached its peak in Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is beautifully carved, partly set off by plaster sculptures or tiles, and looks gorgeous. Brick carvings in the late Qing Dynasty tend to be complicated and exquisite, with artistic interest in painting, which fully shows the artistic talent of the working people of the ancient Han nationality.