If you love fine carvings and want to see thousands of amazing sculptures, you will enjoy a visit to Kuangsheng Village, Sanyi (三義廣聲新城). Not only can you see carvers at work, you will also save money by buying directly from the artists. Fifty of Taiwan's best carvers have been invited by the national government to live in this new village, crowned by the excellent Sanyi Woodcarving Museum.
After the Chinese Nationalist government moved to Taiwan in 1949, mainland-born artists settled around Sanyi. They brought in new knowledge and developed styles that pleased mainlanders. During the Vietnam War, the area's carvers concentrated on the production of pieces that appealed to American G.I.s. Two hundred shops lined the main road during those high times. When the soldiers left, Sanyi's fortunes declined. It is only recently that things have picked up again.
Carving nowadays differs from the past. Now, Taiwanese artists seek personal expression and the development of their own unique styles. To insure that carvers reach the highest possible levels of achievement, the government built Kuangsheng Village. Here the whole village carves wood, exchanging creative ideas and experimenting together. It's not far from Taipei and Taichung, offering buyers one-stop shopping for sculptures of great quality.
Although English is virtually non-existent, the exhibits are interesting enough without explanations. One section is a collection of international carvings, and another displays antique carvings from China and Taiwan. Mostly, the place is a showroom for top Taiwanese wood sculptors who first gained prominence in Sanyi.
Hundreds of carvings by local artists--and there are some really impressive pieces--dominate the three-story museum. If you'd like to visit the shops of particular sculptors, ask the management for contact information. Chances are very good that your chosen carvers live right in the village.
We chose to visit masters Tseng and Kang, who have very different woodcarving styles. Tseng Chin-tsai (曾進財), at shop #78, has been carving for over 30 years. He started carving at age 14 in a furniture factory, and then branched off into temple statues and other production pieces. Now he dedicates his efforts to memorializing Taiwan's agricultural past as well as folk values such as honesty, loyalty, and the dignity of labor. Each carving tells a simple story about the country life of Tseng's youth.
While he works on carving a ton of hardwood two meters long that might require up to six months to complete, Tseng turns out two or three smaller works per month, with the same country feeling. He often leaves the wood rough to suggest the true nature of rural life, although he's just as capable of creating a smooth and charming lady or a polished bust of President Lee Teng-hui.
Tseng also trains students such as Wang Chih-chang (王志昌), who graduated from the National Institute of the Arts. Wang will spend three years as an apprentice, after which he may open his own shop. "He lives with us and goes home to his family only twice a month," explains Tseng. "Already he could make his living as a carver, but I'm hoping he will be really great in time."
Commercialism vs. Style
Kang Mu-hsiang (康木祥) has a shop at #16. He first learned the art from his older brother, and made a modest living doing common sorts of carving. His metamorphosis began when
master carver Li Lung-chuan (李龍泉) visited the area and urged Kang to find his own style. That advice led to the blossoming of a unique use of negative space that expresses Buddhist and Taoist spirituality.
Yet Kang's work resembles modern art more than temple statues. Abstract human forms with fluid curves, and a deliberate use of light and shadow, characterize his work. One beautiful carving is a womb, in which light passes through an empty space in the carving to make the shape of an embryo within.
"The Great Mother's love is in all of us," Kang says. "We also need to love and help one another. That's the idea. My sculptures are modern, and modern people need each other most of all, so we can progress together." Kang often carves pairs of people, especially Madonnas.
Peng's shop is #11, and he speaks a little English. His specialty is large carvings of Kuan Kung, the God of War. In addition to his own work, he sells statues from mainland China and small temple gods of fragrant sandalwood. Like others in the neighborhood, he also sells furniture hewn from immense blocks of Southeast Asian hardwood.
Conserving Resources
"We use mostly Taiwan woods for carving," Peng explains, "but imported woods are good for furniture. In general, Taiwan wood is better than the imported stuff." Permits are required to harvest Taiwan's trees, and rare woods are not easy to obtain. Chinese yew, for instance,
grows only 10 centimeters per year, creating a very dense grain that carvers love to work with. Due to its very slow growth, the Taiwan Forestry Bureau allows carvers to take only a few trees each year.
How to Get There
To get to Sanyi, take a train or bus to Miaoli, and catch the Hsinchu Bus Company's Sanyi bus just outside the station. Local trains going to Sanyi from Miaoli or Fengyuan are infrequent and do not have air conditioning; they can be a pleasant means of getting there,
however, if the weather is not too hot. The same routine can be followed from Taichung. At the Sanyi station, you'll want to catch a taxi or cross the road and take a local bus up the hill to the Woodcarving Museum and Kuangsheng Village.