Tu Yidao Root Art Collection Museum

　　The Tu Yidao Root Art Collection Museum is situated in the northeast corner of Hongmei Park, spanning 2,000 square meters. It is a complex of antique-style courtyard buildings featuring white walls and black tiles, carved beams and painted rafters, curved bridges over water, and lush greenery, offering a very beautiful environment. The interior decoration is elegant, with display stands at varying heights and collections arranged in an orderly fashion. Mr. Tu Yidao was born in 1913 in Douxiang, North Gate, Changzhou, and later settled in Fuzhou. His works have gained fame across China and overseas, and are hailed as “treasures of the world.” In the 1980s, the Changzhou municipal government invested several million yuan to build the Root Art Museum to permanently preserve and exhibit Mr. Tu’s rare masterpieces. A half-length bronze statue of Mr. Tu Yidao has been erected in the exhibition hall of the Root Art Collection Museum, making it a new scenic attraction in Changzhou.

　　The museum displays over 200 root carving masterpieces created by Mr. Tu Yidao with his lifelong dedication and artistry, making it currently the largest and most richly endowed root art institution in China. Mr. Tu Yidao’s works are collected by multiple art museums both in China and abroad. He has also donated over 200 of his finest root art pieces, which he painstakingly created, to his hometown of Changzhou. Party and state leaders have given full recognition and high praise. The former Vice Premier of the State Council, Gu Mu, personally inscribed words for him: “Exquisite craftsmanship, naturally formed art.”

　　As a form of plastic art, root carving uses old tree roots as raw materials, with the sculptor’s unique insights and concepts as its soul. It simulates the images of flowers, trees, birds, beasts, ganoderma, and even Taoist and Buddhist deities for artistic creation, blending object and self, form and meaning into one. There are grand creations over ten feet tall, as well as exquisite miniatures just a foot square; there is the breathtaking "Eagle Capturing Snake," as well as the gentle music-like "Rain on Lotus." Each piece is vivid and lifelike, combining the resonant boldness of bronze with the resilient subtlety of aged wood, giving viewers a sense that the artworks might come alive and instantly captivate them. Their artistic quality reaches almost the pinnacle of perfection. Gu Mu’s impromptu inscription truly captures these exceptional root art pieces and their creator. Viewing the museum’s treasures makes it even clearer that Gu Mu’s high praise is entirely justified without exaggeration. “When man and nature unite in root carving, the heart and eyes delight in beholding the art.” It is because root carving achieves a realm where man and nature become one in art that viewers feel as if they are hearing heavenly music, experiencing mental serenity and joy, and receiving aesthetic shocks and pleasure.

　　Address: No. 75, Xiaodongmen Road, northeast corner of Hongmei Park, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province

　　Transportation: Take bus B23 within Changzhou City and get off at Xiaodongmen Shangcheng or Hongmei Park station.

　　Tu Yidao (1913~?)　　Tu Yidao, born in 1913, was both an entrepreneur and an artist—passionately devoted to the art of root carving. For decades, he traveled year-round through high mountains, deep valleys, cliffs, and rapids, wearing out iron shoes and discovering materials with keen insight. He had unique discoveries and creative achievements, with unmatched mastery, and is a world-renowned master of root carving. Tu Yidao is honored as the founder of the root carving genre and the foremost modern root carving artist in China. He once served as the Director of the Root Carving Art Committee of the Folk Artists Association of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and as the Director of the Academic Committee of Flower Arrangement, Potted Plants, and Root Art of China. Tu Yidao’s works are renowned nationwide and abroad, hailed as “treasures of the world,” and have received full affirmation from party and state leaders... Details+