Riding the wind of rebirth

"Elbow, do you want this?" Lin Wanqiu was already looking through the porcelain over there, and found a small mouth bottle with kiln-changing glaze, and took it out.

The object is shaped like a large apple, with a short neck, a small mouth, and a round belly.

In terms of device type, it is called "Apple Zun".

If the apple part of the apple statue is made with a few tile grooves and ribs, the apple statue will become a "pomegranate statue".

Among Zhou Zhi's collections is a Kangxi Dynasty cowpea kiln-turned red pomegranate statue that was picked up from a street stall. If this object had arrived, it could be paired with the pomegranate statue.

"Qingbo Miscellaneous Notes" once mentioned: "Jingde, Raozhou, there is a kiln change in the Grand View, and the color is as red as cinnabar. The abnormality is a demon, and the kiln owners are eager to destroy it."

Kiln change is actually the natural color formed by the indeterminate change in glaze color on the surface of porcelain caused by accidental changes in the firing temperature and reduction environment inside the kiln.

Of course, this kind of color is divided into good and bad, and most of them will become dark and ugly. Those things are called "kiln disease", and only a few parts are colorful and dazzling, which can be called "kiln treasures".

Before kiln treasures became aesthetically popular, the appearance of one kiln treasure was no match for the huge loss of a kiln of discarded porcelain, so kiln workers hated kiln corruption.

Later, with the relentless pursuit of porcelain firing art, people gradually mastered the secrets of kiln transformation and began to be able to reduce the failure rate of kiln transformation. Kiln transformation glazed porcelain, with its colorful and natural color changes and unique aesthetic appeal, began to Got people's favor.

In fact, kiln glazed porcelain and Jun kiln kiln porcelain have quite a lot in common. Although the glaze and clay are different, the principle of color formation and the form of color expression are generally similar.

The Kangxi and Yongzheng dynasties have been working hard to imitate the famous kiln porcelain of the Song Dynasty, and the kiln-changed glazed porcelain has become the main force in the imitation of the Jun kiln.

Even on this basis, it has gone to the extreme, pushed the furnace temperature control and reduction environment control in the kiln to the pinnacle, and fired a kind of porcelain that can be uniform and pure in color even though it is a kiln-changed porcelain-cowpea red , Jihong, until the last Langhong.

Yes, Lang Hong, whose color is extremely pure, is actually fired by kiln-changing glaze technology, which requires controlling the changing kiln environment to an extremely stable and constant level.

In an era when there were no electric furnaces or monitoring instruments such as furnace temperature and oxygen concentration, this kind of operation was like dancing on a tightrope.

Adding firewood or opening a window to observe may change the environment inside the kiln. A slight error may turn a kiln into a garish and defective product.

In contrast, kiln-change glaze is much better. It encourages such environmental changes, because environmental changes will bring about color changes. The difference between kiln-change glaze and Lang Hong is that Lang Hong focuses on "constant", while kiln-change glaze The focus is on "change".

Two ends of one thing.

This kind of technology was not truly mature and controllable until the Qing Dynasty.

The apple statue in Lin Wanqiu's hand is a typical example. From top to bottom, the mouth is light green, the short neck is yellow-green, transitioning to orange, then red on the belly, and then transitioning into a circle of purple on the lower abdomen. Flowing glaze began to appear at the bottom, but the flowing glaze and the base color merged into royal blue.

In terms of the color level of the kiln, this apple statue includes a complete transition from warm to cool colors, and the colors are much richer than Zhouzhi's existing three-color pomegranate statue of green, yellow and red.

Looking back and forth for a while at the Apple Zun, Zhou Zhi was very satisfied when he put the small jar back on the table: "This is a real good thing. The Qianlong official kiln glazed Apple Zun."

Zhang Cheng immediately reached out to pick it up, and turned it over to look at the inscription. It was clearly a four-character square inscription in two lines of seal script "Yongzheng Year System".

"An entrustment money again?" Zhang Cheng was a little confused. He came from a folk wild way. He is best at identifying the most common types of porcelain in Jingde Kiln, such as blue and white, red bucket color and pastel enamel. There is also a lot of research on monochrome porcelain among kiln porcelain, but for some special varieties such as cowpea red, Langhong, kiln change glaze, tea dust glaze, etc., I am not as knowledgeable as Zhou Zhi.

However, judging from the fineness of the mark and the bottom of the tire, this is something from an official kiln. Even if Zhang Cheng didn't know whether it was a sustenance payment, he could tell that it was from the third generation of the Qing Dynasty.

Because the aura of this utensil opening the door is still very conspicuous, otherwise Lin Wanqiu would not have pointed it out after just a glance.

This is not digging the house. Today's situation is already special, so everyone didn't hide anything, and simply held an appraisal exchange meeting.

"Elbow, what's the specific difference between the Yongzheng Kiln and the Qianlong Kiln?" Lin Wanqiu looked at it over and over again, and put the jar back on the table, leaving it for Fei Guan to start with.

"The Qing Dynasty kiln-made glaze was restored by Tang Ying, the pottery supervisor, and its purpose was to satisfy Yongzheng's aesthetic pursuit of the Song Dynasty Jun kiln-made porcelain."

"The newly fired porcelain has basically reached the artistic effect of the Jun kiln porcelain of the Song Dynasty's 'clouds, water, light and floating purple', and at the same time created three new types of 'flame green', 'flame red' and 'new purple'. color features."

"The so-called flame green and flame red are the intersection of kiln-changed color and non-kiln-changed color, showing a filamentous structure in the shape of flame, which is from bottom to top, compared with the original Jun porcelain from top to top. The flowing lines under it create a more wonderful artistic feature."

"The new purple is a kiln color that appears when the glaze is purer. This purple is more pink and brighter than Song Jun's purple, so people use the word 'new' to describe it."

"It's a pity that this craft was lost after Tang Ying. The kiln glaze of the Qianlong Dynasty degenerated into color spots, lacking the delicate expression of flame filaments. The transitional color parts, especially the purple and orange-red areas, were distributed in flakes, regardless of relative The flowing smoke pattern of Song Jun and the flame pattern of Yongzheng kiln glaze both appear to be dull."

"These three characteristics become the characteristics that distinguish the kiln glaze changes before and after the Yongzheng Dynasty. Therefore, this Apple Zun is not from the Yongzheng Dynasty, but a sustenance in the middle and early Qianlong period."

"Then why wasn't it from the late Qianlong period or even the later dynasty?" Fei Guan's appraisal level was the worst among the crowd, so he raised this question.

"Because of fetal feet." Zhou Zhi said: "As I just said, kiln-changing glaze is a type of porcelain produced to imitate Jun kiln, and the porcelain body used in Jun kiln is from the Song Dynasty. At that time, kaolin was not commonly used. Song Jun's porcelain body It's black and reddish-brown like pottery."

"Jingde porcelain uses kaolin, so in order to imitate the Jun kiln of the Song Dynasty, the kiln workers can paint a layer of sauce-colored glaze on the bottom of the porcelain body to simulate the dark brown body of Song Jun."

"Yongzheng kiln imitates the changing glaze very carefully, and deliberately creates a distribution of shades on the bottom glaze to make it more antique."

"The kiln glaze in the Qianlong Dynasty was much rougher, which may be caused by the different aesthetic tastes of Qianlong and Yongzheng."

"Qianlong's preference for kiln glaze is not as good as that of Yongzheng, so the kiln workers are happy to be lazy. Whether it is repairing the bottom or glazing, they are not as fine as the Yongzheng Dynasty. In the end, they simply canceled the soy sauce on the bottom tire and replaced it with the turquoise green glaze that Qianlong liked. , plus blue and white inscriptions."

"Although the bottom tire of this apple statue is also painted with sauce glaze, the tire repair is not as fine as that of Yongzheng, the soil is not as delicate as Yongzheng's, the inscription is not as delicate as Yongzheng's, and the bottom glaze is evener than Yongzheng's. These are the characteristics of the Qianlong Dynasty."