Riding the wind of rebirth

If you want to grade the difficulty of painting according to the subject matter, figure painting is the most difficult, followed by animals, then plants, and finally landscapes.

This skill gap is mapped to painting and porcelain, which shows that the gap between porcelain figures and painted figures is the largest, while the gap between landscapes is the smallest.

Although the art category of porcelain plate painting began to appear from the third generation of Qing Dynasty, some craftsmen have painted with colored glaze on white porcelain plates, and after firing, they are placed on the table with a wooden frame, which is called "inserting screen"; Some of them are hung on the wall and are called hanging screens.

This has broken away from the traditional practical way of porcelain and has become a carrier of art, with the purpose of purely satisfying people's spiritual needs.

But to be honest, the level of painting is not high.

This situation was changed until the appearance of "Eight Friends of Zhushan".

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the royal family attached great importance to the production of Jingde ceramics, and concentrated the talents and material resources of the whole country to ensure the quality of the royal official kilns. JDZ ceramics have fine carcass, clean enamel, regular production, and various varieties, especially color glazed porcelain. It can be said that it has reached an unprecedented situation in history and promoted the development of JDZ ceramic art.

However, due to the rule of the government, there are strict restrictions and requirements on each type of porcelain, which are collectively referred to as "official samples", which stifles the publicity and display of the individuality of ceramic artists, and has become a shackle for the development of Chinese porcelain art.

With the decline of the national power of the Qing Dynasty and the decline of the Royal Kiln Factory, a group of outstanding folk ceramic artists emerged. The group is called the "Full Moon Meeting".

The main representative figures are Wang Qi, Wang Dafan, Wang Yeting, Deng Bishan, Bi Botao, He Xuren, Cheng Yiting and Liu Yucen, who are later known as the "Eight Friends of Zhushan".

Counting Xu Zhongnan and Tian Hexian, the Eight Friends of Zhushan are actually ten people.

That era was actually very turbulent, but it also contributed to the Zhushan Eight Friends' inheritance of the Jingde ceramic tradition, taking the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou as a model and Shanghai-style artists as an example, accommodating Western ceramic art styles and techniques, and using the full flavor of the times and Full of patriotic enthusiasm, he devoted himself to the creation of porcelain art, breaking through the barriers of the official kilns of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, like a clear spring, flowing down unstoppably.

They overcame various difficulties, created various methods, and for the first time expressed "literati painting" on porcelain.

Everyone has their own unique skills.

For example, the founder, Wang Qi, first absorbed the freehand brushwork of the famous painter Huang Shen, and expressed the clothing patterns and demeanor of the characters on the porcelain, which achieved quite wonderful effects.

Wang Dafan did not use glass white as a base, but directly applied the color material to the porcelain body, creating the technique of "falling color" and creating a genre, which directly ushered in the second spring of light crimson color.

Deng Bishan was the first porcelain painter to paint portraits on porcelain plates.

On the basis of his predecessors, Wang Yeting used the splash-ink method of traditional Chinese painting to paint landscapes on porcelain. The Chinese painting effect of "ink divided into five colors" also appeared, injecting life into the landscape works of JDZ ceramics.

Liu Yucen created the "water point" technique by virtue of his profound skills. This technique was later applied to firing woolen porcelain.

In the context of ceramic culture before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the task of ceramic craftsmen was to serve the ruling class. Their identities and creations had no autonomy, and there was no natural condition for association. Their identities were like employees.Time series developed to modern times, and the identity of ceramic craftsmen has been greatly freed and released, so they, like other literati, have the conditions to form art gatherings or art societies.They often share a common interest or purpose in life.

These people's cultural accomplishment is already very high, they have characters, numbers, and fasting, and they are literati and painters themselves.

They will take the initiative to pursue and imitate the essence of calligraphy and painting of their predecessors, such as Wang Qi learning from Huang Shen and the Eight Monsters of Yangzhou; Wang Dafan learning from Wu Daozi; Wang Yeting learning from Shen Yuan and Wang Shigu; Who learns from Dong Yuan and Ju Ran; Xu Zhongnan learns from Dai Xi; Tian Hexian learns from Wang Mian.

And Bi Botao himself was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, and his painting style and Liu Yucen, another master among the eight friends, were greatly influenced by the Qing Dynasty painter Xinluoshanren.

From such inheritance and pursuit, it can be seen that Zhushan Bayou has actually left the category of "porcelain craftsman" and advanced to the level of "painter". They are only the raw materials for painting, which are porcelain bodies and glaze colors.

The fact is also the same, just like Wang Dafan's poem in "The Picture of Eight Friends of Zhushan": "There is a reason for the mutual trust between morality and righteousness, and the association of Zhushan is new. .The painting method is based on the northern and southern schools, and the style does not allow east and west to be adjacent. If we talk about this painting, we can only treat it as our own portrait."

It can be said that painting into porcelain did not really enter the period of great success until the eight friends of Zhushan. Various theories, techniques, and methods of Chinese painting were realized on porcelain one by one by the explorers, and finally realized a perfect transfer.

However, such exquisite works of art are not valued at all in today's market.

Because of its "cross-border" attribute, it has brought me a lot of embarrassment. In the world of calligraphy and painting, the pursuit of artworks carried by paper and silk; Don't suffer".

So Zhou Zhi had to find his own way down the stairs, and said with an awkward smile: "Even if it's not valuable now, it will become an antique in 30 or [-] years..."

Lin Wanqiu took a piece of mottled bamboo skin to scratch off the broken glass on the surface of the porcelain panel painting: "It's good to hang this in the Suihuaxuan library, it's not afraid of the sun, it won't fade, the calligraphy and painting can be taken down and sent to the inner room for safekeeping .”

Zhou Zhi carefully checked the condition and inscriptions of these porcelain plate paintings. I wonder if it was because they were not taken seriously, but they were not deliberately damaged.

The binding at that time was also fine enough, there was still a small distance between the surface glass and the porcelain plate, and the shattering of the glass was more likely to be caused by careless stacking after delivery.

The development of porcelain plate painting reached the stage of the Eight Friends of Zhushan, when large flat plates could finally be fired. These plates all reached an area of ​​1.2 meters by [-] centimeters. With the frame, they had reached the size of a "strip screen", which could be hung until the age of It is indeed very suitable in the Huaxuan sunken library.

This batch of porcelain plate paintings included all the masters at that time, and all of them were the best themes of the famous masters, including Wang Qi's "Picture of Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", Wang Dafan's "Packet Arhat", Wang Yeting's "Imitation of Part of Fuchun Mountain Dwelling", Deng Bishan Kingfisher in Autumn Pond, Bi Botao's Maple Colors in Cloud Mountain, He Xuren's Snow Path in Xiaoshan Mountain, Cheng Fu's Sketch of Flowers and Birds in the Palace Garden, Liu Yucen's Spring Breaking Through Bamboo Fence, Xu Zhongnan's Pine Eagle ", Tian Hexian's "Meishan Yi Lao Tu", a total of ten paintings.

If it weren't for Ouyang Youhe, an expert, it would be impossible to gather so neatly and finely.

Especially Xu Zhongnan and Deng Bishan, who are the oldest, their works were made before the Republic of China ten years ago.

As for the youngest Liu Yucen, he still insisted on creating until five or so years ago, with a time span of several decades in between. (end of this chapter)