Stone carving is a kind of plastic art, also known as sculpture. It is a general term for the three creative methods of carving, engraving and molding. It refers to using various plastic materials (such as gypsum, resin, clay, etc.) or hard materials that can be carved and carved (such as wood, stone, metal, jade, agate, etc.) to create a visible and certain space. Tangible artistic images are art that reflect social life and express the artist's aesthetic feelings, aesthetic emotions, and aesthetic ideals. Commonly used stones include granite, marble, bluestone, sandstone, etc. Stone is hard and weather-resistant, and is the main material for large-scale monumental sculptures. my country has a long history of stone carving production and was selected into the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008. There are many stone carving design techniques, which can be divided into relief carving, round carving, sunken carving, shadow carving, openwork carving and openwork carving.

Relief. That is, a three-dimensional image is carved on the surface of the stone, which is a semi-three-dimensional sculpture. Because the image is embossed on the stone surface, it is called relief. According to the different degrees of stone removal on the stone surface, it is divided into low relief and high relief. The bas-relief is a single-level sculpture with a relatively simple content and no hollowing out. High-relief sculptures are multi-layered sculptures with complex contents, often using openwork techniques to make them more attractive. Reliefs are mostly used for wall decoration of buildings, as well as dragon columns and drums in temples. The royal road to the Forbidden City in Beijing is the relief sculpture. Round sculpture. It is a three-dimensional pseudo-shaped work of art that exists in a single body. Each surface of the stone requires processing. The craftsmanship is famous for hollowing techniques and fine chopping axes. There are many types of such carvings, most of which are made from a single stone, and some are composed of multiple stones. Many miniature products have been developed for this kind of carvings, some are as small as fruit cores, some are as thin as cicada wings, and some are as thin as cicada wings. It is an ingenious workmanship and is called "micro-carving". Such products have completely separated themselves from architectural practicality and become pure handicrafts. Because they are compact and easier to carry, they are commemorative treasures and have great development prospects.

Shen Diao. Also known as "thread carving", it is a work of art that adopts the "water-milled and sunken" carving method. This kind of carving method absorbs traditional brushwork techniques such as Chinese painting and meaning, overlapping, and line-shaped scatter perspective. After the stone is processed and polished, the pattern and text are traced, and then lines are engraved according to the drawing. The thickness of the line is determined by the depth of the line, and the shadow is used to create a three-dimensional effect. Most of these products are used for surface decoration of exterior walls of buildings and have strong artistic quality. Shadow sculpture. A new handicraft developed based on the early "needle black and white" craft. The earliest works were created by Hui'an artists in the 1960s. Because the works were based on photos, they were called "shadow sculptures." This kind of carving is made of Yujing Lake bluestone cut into flat plates. The surface is first polished, and then the fine tools are used to carve out microscopic patterns of different sizes, depths, and density by using its characteristic of showing white spots after being chiselled. Dots are only divided into different levels of black and white, so that the image is displayed not only delicately and realistically, but also with unique charm. It is the development of stone carving into pure art and opens up a new path for stone carving craft production. Engraving. Hollow carving is a form of sculpture, also known as hollow carving, that is, hollowing out the parts of the stone that do not express the image, leaving the parts that can express the image.

Openwork carving is a technique developed from round carving. It is a Shoushan stone carving technique that expresses the three-dimensional spatial hierarchy of objects. It is developed from traditional Chinese stone carving craftsmanship. Ancient masons often carved dragons with stone balls in their mouths. The dragon ball is peeled off the original stone and is larger than the dragon's mouth. It rolls in the dragon's mouth without slipping out. This kind of "bead" moving in the dragon button stone seal is the simplest hollow carving. Openwork. In relief works, retaining the protruding part of the image and partially hollowing out the back part is called openwork. The similarities and differences between openwork carving, openwork carving and chain carving are that all three are penetrating, but the back of the openwork carving is mostly expressed in the form of a screen, which can be divided into single-sided openwork carving and double-sided openwork carving. Single-sided openwork carving only carves the front side, while double-sided openwork carving carves both the front and back sides. Regardless of single-sided openwork or double-sided openwork, they are essentially different from openwork and chain carving, that is, both openwork and chain carving are 360-degree all-round carvings, not front or back. Therefore, openwork carving and chain carving belong to the round carving techniques, while openwork carving is an extension of the relief carving technique.