TANG, THE IRON FORGER

Taranaki Daily News, 12 October 1929, Page 24 (Supplement)

TANG, THE IRON FORGER

(By

C. Romanue-James.)

This the story of Tang Tien Chih. the Chinese forger of iron, who, from being the maker of common tools after the 'fashion of his father and grandfather, grew to be a world-famous artist. In the year 1044, Tang was born in the village of Wuhu. His father was an iron forger, and, as soon as he was able to handle a tool, the boy was set to work at the trade. In a. blackened, dreary "shop in a narrow, dingy street, he had to fashion locks, tools, and such like things on a primitive anvil after the patterns of his forefathers. But Wuhu looked out upon the mountains. Not far from the ugly crowded street ran silver streams that came from the snows. Along their edges grew the lotus or wild water-lily, the cherry, the bamboo. Tang thrilled to the beauty about him. Loveliness called to him. 'Even the din of the forges could not drown its voice. When the street was deserted at night, the blackened walls of his shop were lit by the fire of the forgo. Then the tools of the other iron-workers were

still,'but the'tools of Tang were hammering out of the coarse lumps of metal''things that are to-day among the art treasures of the world.

Tang first fashioned flowers; a single bough°of a cherry tree in bloom perhaps, or a slender, graceful spray of wistaria or bamboo. Next.lie tried bowls, beautiful in design, from which drooped bunches of chrysanthemums or single wild lilies surrounded by spear-like leaves.

As hie touch became more skilled, Tang depicted the life and scenery of his village. He beat slender strips out of iron and curved them to suggest the distant mountains. He made threadlike ones for the banks of the streams, the curving bridges and the quaint temples! He fashioned flowers and dwarf trees with their spreading branches, piece by piece—all exquisitely designed and proportioned. By and by he assembled the delicate .pieces into one whole with small prongs by which he attached each to a background of -cloth.

Tlie four screens called The Seasons are the finest of Tang’s work. They show the life of a Chinese village at different seasons, each scene having below it the flower in bloom at that' Lime. Against a background of silk, they are the more charming for their plainness and purity of line. Those screens, now among the most precious curios of the. world, were sold some years ago —and like many other valuable ' antiques they went to America.