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none of the human warmth characteristic of Shiwan sculpture. (Plate 18).
With familiarity, this very human art then becomes so charismatic that it is often referred to as loveable. The sentiment was well expressed by one of the potters of the Republican period who styled himself “Liang Zui Shi” (#45) (literally Liang drunken rock). Literally translated, Shiwan means "rock bay". As Liang's son explained, the style actually referred to the fact that his father was "drunk" with “Shi” wan.
In addition to its handicraft art, in the Qing period Fushan was also the pivot centre for Cantonese opera. Every year between autumn and summer, opera companies from all over the province would come to Fushan to hold auditions. This activity involved the whole community and especially the Shiwan potters who drew material from it for their iconography and figure sculpture, and who in their long rooftop friezes preserved and immortalized this evanescent drama which was so much a part of their lives. (Plate 15).
According to Fushan archaeologist Mr. Chen Zhiliang (陈志亮), these ceramic rooftop friezes had two meanings. On the one hand the gala opera scenes such as Jiang Tai Gong deifying the gods (姜太公封神), and Guo Ze Yi celebrating his birthday (郭子仪庆寿), unfolding on the rooftops were auspicious symbols. On the other hand they disguised the anti-Manchu sentiments of "overthrowing the Qing and restoring the Ming" (†). In his short history of Guangdong opera, one of Mai Xiaoxia's major thrusts is to reconstruct scattered evidence in emphasizing the opera's role, and especially that of the Guangdong branch, as a disseminator of revolutionary thought. With the fall of the Ming and the advent of the Qing dynasty, heads were shaved, dress and language changed, and the civil service examination system was proclaimed open. But actors and actresses were despised as people of the lower nine grades of society and were prohibited from taking the examinations. Mai describes the opera as being the one loophole in one hundred prohibitions in which everywhere was hidden significance of national revolution. Ming costumes were preserved, except for non-Manchu enemy barbarians who were dressed in Manchu clothing; themes of Song loyalists such as the Yang Family Generals were common. One thousand pieces, Mai says, shared
106
FREDRIKKE S. SCOLLARD
none of the human warmth characteristic of Shiwan sculpture. (Plate 18).
With familiarity, this very human art then becomes so charis- matic that it is often referred to as loveable. The sentiment was well expressed by one of the potters of the Republican period who styled himself “Liang Zui Shi” (#45) (literally Liang drunken rock). Literally translated, Shiwan means "rock bay". As Liang's şon explained, the style actually referred to the fact that his father was "drunk” with “Shi” wan.
In addition to its handicraft art, in the Qing period Fushan was also the pivot centre for Cantonese opera. Every year between autumn and summer, opera companies from all over the province would come to Fushan to hold auditions. This activity involved the whole community and especially the Shiwan potters who drew material from it for their iconography and figure sculpture, and who in their long rooftop friezes preserved and immortalized this evanes- cent drama which was so much a part of their lives. (Plate 15).
According to Fushan archaeologist Mr. Chen Zhiliang (✯✯✯), these ceramic rooftop friezes had two meanings. On the one hand the gala opera scenes such as Jiang Tai Gong deifying the gods (姜太公封神), and Guo Ze Yi celebrating his birthday (郭子儀
#), unfolding on the rooftops were auspicious symbols. On the other hand they disguised the anti-Manchu sentiments of "over- throwing the Qing and restoring the Ming" (†). In his short history of Guangdong opera, one of Mai Xiaoxia's major thrusts is to reconstruct scattered evidence in emphasizing the opera's role, and especially that of the Guangdong branch, as a disseminator of revolutionary thought. With the fall of the Ming and the advent of the Qing dynasty, heads were shaved, dress and language changed, and the civil service examination system was proclaimed open. But actors and actresses were despised as people of the lower nine grades of society and were prohibited from taking the examinations. Mai describes the opera as being the one loophole in one hundred prohibitions in which everywhere was hidden signi- ficance of national revolution. Ming costumes were preserved, except for non-Manchu enemy barbarians who were dressed in Manchu clothing; themes of Song loyalists such as the Yang Family Generals were common. One thousand pieces, Mai says, shared
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