Having appeared only in recent years, bronze wire painting is a young kind of industrial painting, which is done by first inlaying bronze wire into glass to form a particular design and then spray painting over it. Paintings done with such techniques are imbued with a strong folk flavor, looking a bit pompous yet simple and unsophisticated at the same time. It came into birth as a result of both the rich experience and unique inspiration of Wang Jianhua, the art's creator.

According to Wang, the inspiration of bronze wire painting came by luck. At that time, he recalls, something went wrong with his radio, which he had had for so long that he was reluctant to discard it. He took the radio apart and found the problem in the regulator. Failing to find a right regulator in the shop, he set out to repair it on his own. He opened the regulator and put the bronze wires on to a table behind him. Turning around, he found they had wound up naturally on the table, which he thought was very nice. He was inspired and began to make paintings with bronze wires.

Ever since then, Wang Jianhua has forged an indissoluble bond with bronze wires. However, it is no easy job to replace the traditional line drawing of Chinese painting with bronze wires. First, he had to find something for the bronze wires to stick to. After numerous experiments, he chose organic glass, which is nicely transparent with good binding quality and whose surface is easy for things to be sprayed on.

From a chemical point of view, it is not easy to bind metal and organic glass, and still more difficult to arrange the bronze wires into design patterns according to one's will. After two years of many failures, Wang finally came up with the right way. As the first step, he carved lines on the glass and then carved grooves along the lines. After that, he glued the bronze wires into the grooves. If necessary, heating can be used to ensure that the wires adhere firmly to the glass.

Wang's first work of this kind was "Bronze Wire Painting of Landscapes", the picture of which has since become rusted, but with the bronzes wires still sticking solidly to the glass, showing no signs of falling off. Today, not only the problem of rust have been solved, the making techniques have also become delicate and standardized.

Author: Jessie