A Sweet Art

Every time after school when I was a little kid in China, I would always stop at the corner of the street and got the sweet sugar painting. The old man was sitting in front of a wooden stand where there was a polished slab of marble in the middle. On the side of the stand were a rotatable bamboo arrow and a wooden plat painted with various patterns in a circle. I turned the arrow and waited it to stop. The pattern that the still arrow pointed at would be made with sugar. 

This is one of my most precious memories from my childhood in China. When I was holding the shinning sugar painting walking under the sunshine, the sweetness and vividness made my days full of happiness. 

As I shared my childhood story so far, I am sure you must be wandering what is a sugar painting. Is it another fantastic Chinese art? Or is it just a sweet snack for children? Sugar painting is a Chinese folk handicraft, which uses brown sugar as the material for creation. The artists first cook the sugar until it melts. Then they use a small spoon to scoop up the sugar melted, spread rapidly back and forth on the slab of the marble, drawing shapes of an animal, or a solid bike, or even a flower basket. Then they use a small shovel separate the sugar panting from the marble, putting a wooden prod on the painting or wrapping it with a transparent plastic bag. 

Producing aesthetic pieces with sugar made sugar painting a unique art. It is different from ordinary painting since the hot melted sugar can freeze in a second which acquires the painter to paint quickly. Besides, painters have to follow some orders of strokes and draw a continuous line into a picture of an animal or other pattern. In order to be deft with the entire process, painters have to practice skills of normal painting primarily. 

Sugar painting may have originated during the Ming dynasty when small animal patterns made of sugar were created in molds for religious rituals. This art form then became more popular during the Qing dynasty. Techniques had been improved during that period of time, and a more diverse range of patterns emerged. In Sichuan, further developments were made in production, seeing the replacement of the molds with the ladle often made of bronze or copper. 

Although fewer and fewer people learn the skill of sugar painting, a certain number of artists are making sustained efforts to preserve this unique art by offering classes and holding relevant activities. Nowadays, this art has gained support form both the general public and the government. It has been listed as Provincial Non-Material Culture Heritage by the Sichuan Government. Moreover, the sugar painting artists have gained increasing recognition.