Ran Longquan micro-carves a “big world”

Ran Longquan is a 61-year-old micro-carving artist living in Kunming, capital city of Yunnan. He is capable of carving artworks out of every piece of miniature object, including glass, metal, stone and rice grain.

As an intangible cultural heritage inheritor in Kunming, Ran Longquan was attracted by micro-carving when he saw a calligraphy work on human hair at the first sight. Then he assiduously practiced micro-carving for nearly 10 years until he mastered the skills of painting, carving and writing under magnifying lens. 

According to Ran, micro-carving is largely dependent on a craftsman’s abundant experiences and artistic attainment. Every step of the creation needs deliberate thinking and skillful carving. 

Besides carving, Ran Longquan is also skillful in miniature painting. His artwork “The View of Yunnan” is a scroll of traditional Chinese painting of 1.5 centimeters wide and 800 centimeters long. It depicts many representative sceneries in Yunnan, including the Baima Snow Mountain, the Three Parallel Rivers, the Dongchuan Red Land and the rain forest in south Yunnan. 

Editor: Wang Shixue