Stone carving, also known as "stone carving", is one of the five traditional sculptures in ancient China, including stone carving, pottery carving, wood carving, bronze carving and clay carving. It has a glorious history that can be traced back to the Paleolithic Age hundreds of thousands of years ago. It was the way for primitive ancestors to make a living, and it has different forms in different eras. According to its characteristics, it can be divided into two categories: one is full, compact and full, with clear layers, staggered and decorative; the other is concise and generous, with the same density, and the composition is open and closed, like the art of collecting paintings, and it is mainly shallow relief and line carving, and is good at using light to make things straight and curved. The artistic expression of stone carving is restricted by the characteristics of materials and practicality from beginning to end. Its characteristics are: "art is applied according to the material, and the carving method changes." Lion carving is a special subject in stone carving. Compared with elegant brick carving and gorgeous wood carving, stone lion has a unique style because of its suitable materials, tall and solid image. It is a decorative idol that folk artists have boldly imagined, exaggerated and deformed. Wang Hualin, a stone carving artist in Lejia Township, graduated from elementary school and studied stonework. Because he loved art and his family was poor, he learned human and animal portraits from comic strips and studied how to carve human and animal portraits on stone. After nearly 20 years of exploration, he finally entered the field of stone carving art, and there are 20-30 people learning from him. The main stone carving works include: 36 stone lion carvings at Jiuyan Bridge in Chengdu, flower and grass reliefs at Chunxi Road, and sports art walls at Balizhuang Experimental Primary School; there are more than 40 calligraphy and painting carvings in the Forest of Steles at Fule Mountain in Mianyang, more than 20 carvings of characters from the Three Kingdoms, stone lion carvings at the gate of the Municipal Silk Company, two stone carvings of six-lion-seated and six-screen water tanks at Ji Meishi Mansion, a 16-meter-high giant dragon-embracing column in Zhongjiang, carvings of the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, stone dragon-coiled column carvings at Santai Zizhou Park, stone carvings at the gate of Sichuan Conservatory of Music Mianyang Art College, and stone carvings in Zitong and other places. Currently, there are more than 20 apprentices developing stone carving stores in Xi'an. Many celebrities have requested to purchase stone lions as their house-guarding rooms. Lejia stone carvings have many historical, artistic, and social values, and are in urgent need of protection and inheritance. Information source: Mianyang Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center Information source: Mianyang Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center