In March of this year, Guangzhou released the first listing of its intangible cultural heritage, and the grey model art is one of them.

6 months later, when displaying the grey model art in Huadu District, Shao Chengchuan, the inheritor of Guangzhou's grey model art, who was a 5-time participant in the overhaul of the Ancestral Temple of the Chen Family, said that the grey model art has currently been elected the intangible cultural heritage of Guangdong Province and is currently applying for national intangible cultural heritage.

The grey model is the traditional construction and decoration technique in Lingnan, especially in Guangzhou. According to recorded historical data, the existence of the grey model technique could date back to as early as the year 884 in the Tang Dynasty. It was widely applied to ancestral temples, temples & nunneries, monasteries and the mansions of many rich and powerful families in the Ming and Qing Dynasty.

Shao Chengchuan said that the grey model looks like the cement imaging or sculptures, but in fact they are quite different. The lime used in grey model is air-dry, which is both easier for the color to penetrate but also not so easy to distort so as to keep the fictile image for a long period of time. One thing worth mentioning, the grey model was to design the pictures according to the shape on site, therefore, almost every grey model is unique, which modern streamlined art is unable to match.