Taiwan · Painting / Architectural Craft
彩繪 (Caicui)
Caicui (彩繪 — 'color painting') is Taiwan's tradition of decorative painting applied to temple and traditional architecture — covering beams, eaves, doorways, and walls with narrative scenes, auspicious symbols, and deity images. Tainan (Taiwan's oldest city and former capital) maintains the most authentic caicui workshops, with master painters whose lineages extend to the Fujianese painters who established the tradition. The defining Tainan caicui technical knowledge is the zhufen (朱粉) ground preparation: a mixture of red lead (or iron oxide) and oyster shell powder applied to the wooden beam surface before painting — the zhufen ground seals the wood grain, provides adhesion for subsequent paint layers, and creates the characteristic warm red-orange that glows through the colored painting layers. The ground thickness — assessed by the depth of a fingernail-drag test — determines how much the warm base color shows through the overlaid painting.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Taiwan national ICH list; Tainan designated historical city with caicui heritage
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