Qingtian stone carving is famous at home and abroad, and Yamaguchi village is the mother soil of Qingtian stone carving. During the Six Dynasties, Qingtian stone carvings appeared. In the Yuan Dynasty, stone carvings were introduced into art halls. In Longxi Temple at the head of Yamaguchi village, there used to be a Qingtian stone carving incense burner, which was as big as a grain basket and weighed about 100 kg. It is engraved with the inscription "Jingtai stands in the spring of Ren Shennian", with three legs standing side by side, no ears, no cover and no ornamentation. The furnace body is vaguely marked with a chisel, and the perimeter and three legs of the furnace mouth and belly are quite accurate. 1957, when a highway was being built in Yamaguchi, an epitaph of Qingtian Stone in the 22nd year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty (1543) was unearthed, which was 48 cm high, 24 cm wide and 7 cm thick, and was engraved with more than 270 words. 19 10 Qingtian stone carving was selected for the exhibition of Nanyang Banana Leaf Association and won the silver prize, which made it famous all over the world. By 193 1, there were more than 2,200 stone carving artists in qingtian county, while there were more than 2,700 stone carving artists in 597 households in Shankou Village. After War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression began, stone carving products were unsalable, many artists were forced to change careers, and stone carving technology was almost annihilated.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Party and the government cared about Qingtian stone carving, adopted the policy of protection, development and improvement, and quickly organized artists to return to the team. They set up stone carving production cooperatives and Qingtian Stone Carving Yamaguchi Branch successively, which enabled the whole stone carving industry to recover and develop. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, especially in recent years, stone carving production has developed rapidly, and there are 1992 people engaged in stone carving in the village. The stone carvings at Yamaguchi are full of talents. Zhang Shikuan, known as the master of stone carving, and President Zhu De praised Grape Mountain. Sorghum and Yongmei by Lin Rukui, a master of arts and crafts in China, attracted worldwide attention and were praised by Premier Zhou Enlai. China arts and crafts master Zhou Baiqi's "Spring" won the second prize of China Arts and Crafts Hundred Flowers Award Excellent Creative Design; "Gunma" by Lin Yaoguang, an apprentice of the original village stone carving factory and a representative of the Sixth National People's Congress, was selected as a national gift and presented to President Kim Il Sung of North Korea. Ni Dongfang, a famous stone carving champion and master of arts and crafts, won the first prize and the second prize for the creation of national arts and crafts Hundred Flowers Award respectively. In recent years, a number of stone carving rookies such as Ni and Zhang Aiguang have emerged. Ni Yu 1987 cooperated with others to participate in the national arts and crafts exhibition, which was rated as a treasure by the Ministry of Light Industry and collected by China Arts and Crafts Museum. Zhang Aiguang's masterpiece "Flat Peach Club" was introduced by France's "European Times" and was bought by Taiwanese businessmen at a large sum of money. 199265438+February 15 Four stone carving stamps, such as Sorghum by Lin Rukui, Spring by Zhou Baiqi and Full Moon Flower by Ni Dongfang, were grandly issued all over the country, and Yamaguchi Village also held investment promotion activities for the stone carving city. At present, Shankou Village has a strong technical force of carving and a supply and marketing team that is proficient in business and travels all over the north and south. This supply and marketing team is composed of 126 professional households, with footprints all over the country. Stone carving products are not only purchased by relevant state departments and some foreign businessmen, but also a large number of stone carving products participate in the Canton Fair in spring and autumn, with a quarterly turnover of more than 2 million yuan. 1992, the net income of stone carving in the village was more than 30 million yuan. The number of households with annual net income above 1 10,000 yuan accounts for about 70% of 2,266 households in the village, of which more than 60 households have annual net income of 654.38 million yuan. Ni Dongfang, Lin Rukui's Xi Shizhai and Zhang Aiguang's Fang Qiyi have collected hundreds of kinds of precious stones in China, with a value of over 5 million yuan, 3 million yuan and 6.5438+0 million yuan respectively.