Riding the wind of rebirth

"Let's not make Mr. Zhou laugh at such bragging." Xu Zhimian waved his hands: "We can talk about Mr. Zhou's thoughts and ideas first."

Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "I want to show you two things."

After speaking, he pulled out his suitcase, opened it, removed the bubble wrap, and took out three pieces of jade and placed them on the table.

"What a good item!" Xu Zhimian's somewhat cloudy eyes suddenly seemed to clear up: "This piece of yellow jade is a good item with a hairspring and double hooks!"

"This tapestry ring is also good." Zhu Qinghong is a plump and rich woman, but her strength is in making antique and finely crafted small pieces. She couldn't put it down with the spring water and autumn mountain white jade tapestry ring: "This is the standard Qianlong Worker! Still a Qianlong worker from the Manufacturing Office!"

Lu Man and Zhang Mingyu, however, set their sights on the Qingyu Cha of the Immortal Zhizhi. To be honest, craftsmen during the Qianlong period were limited by their tools. It was difficult to deal with people and animals, especially the appearance of people and the eyes of animals, in a modern way. The ultimate.

However, this sapphire tree is extremely sophisticated in its use of materials. The best parts of the overall jade are carved into figures and animals. The sapphire skin and green parts are made into driftwood crowns; the purple-red ones are Part of it was made into a large Ganoderma lucidum that the immortal held on his head to provide shade, while the tawny leather shell part was carved into a tree trunk and roots, but no material was wasted at all.

Although the details are somewhat unsatisfactory, the overall layout and shape are very consistent with the aesthetics of traditional Chinese painting, making this sculpture full of magical charm.

Zhou Zhiyou and the others admired these three items and humbly asked Xu Zhimian: "General Manager Xu, may I ask what double hairspring hooks are?"

"The double hook method of hairspring is an exquisite technique of jade carving in the Han Dynasty. Collectors of ancient and modern jade play and talk about jade, and they all highly praise the subtlety, ingenuity, maturity and beauty of this technique of Han jade."

"This formulation was first seen in "Eight Notes of Zunsheng" by Gao Lian of the Ming Dynasty: "The Han people pondered that the beauty lies in the double hook. The grinding method flows gracefully and finely, and there is no uneven density or intermittent handover, just like a gossamer line drawing. No stagnation.'"

"That is to say, when the Han people carved jade, they would use two negative lines as thin as hair to create the effect of a positive line on the carving surface to shape the outline edge of the shape."

"Of course, this alone cannot express the exquisite craftsmanship of the Han Dynasty, so there are several additional requirements." Xu Zhimian looked at the yellow jade dragon's head: "First of all, as mentioned just now, the lines are polished using the 'double hook grinding method', and the shape is The structure is a 'double-hook inscribed line'; secondly, the inscribed line is as thin as a hairspring, with gentle curves and smooth lines;"

"Xiao Zhou, look here again. These parallel lines need to be neat, clear, and evenly spaced, with no traces of discontinuity or blockage visible. In order to be expressive."

Zhou Zhi finally understood, but a huge question arose: "Uncle Xu, jade carving craftsmen in the Han Dynasty still used a weight machine, right? It is a rotating grinding wheel. The jade worker took the jade material and put it on the grinding wheel. Touching, thus carving out the shapes and lines on the jade piece.”

"How did they use such a tool to carve these negative lines on the hairspring? And each line is exactly the same, with the same spacing and the same width?"

The two of them forgot to be polite when they were discussing the craftsmanship of jade carving. One of the bosses in charge of capital management called him "Xiao Zhou", and the other called him "uncle" along the way. Neither of them noticed this difference.

"So, there is a saying in the industry that Han jade is genuine." Xu Zhiman took out a small high-power magnifying glass from his pocket, pushed it and handed it to Zhou Zhi: "This needs to be magnified sixty times to see clearly, Xiao Zhou, you Take a closer look at the lines and traces of the dragon's head, and what do you find?"

Zhou Zhi pressed his eyes on the magnifying glass and took a closer look at the chalice. Then he felt the hairs on his back counting down: "These hairspring threads, they... they are not one! They are composed of countless... countless traces of vellus hair. Yes!" "That's right!" Xu Zhimian chuckled and said, "So the technique of this craft is called 'Mao Carving'!"

"So..." Zhou Zhi suddenly came to his senses: "Uncle Xu just said that Han jade has no imitation, does it mean that we cannot reproduce such lines using modern technology?!"

"Such a line, which looks like a curve, is actually composed of countless small straight lines, but it is just hidden from the human eye. This is the real hairspring craftsmanship."

"Now we use a tooth engraving machine to make such lines. The lines are drawn directly with the tip of a grinding needle. It is impossible to see such hair engraving lines."

"But what if someone uses a motor to install abrasive discs and uses jade pieces to touch these lines like ancient craftsmen made jade carvings?"

"Hahahaha..." Xu Zhimian seemed to have heard some very funny joke: "It can be said that all new jade workers have thought about your idea. But it is absolutely impossible to succeed."

"why?"

"Because the ancient weight machine was driven by human feet, the speed was extremely slow. The abrasive was jade sand, and the hardness was not at the same level as today's corundum and emery. Therefore, these lines were drawn at an extremely slow speed for an extremely long time. , slowly figured it out bit by bit.”

"It may take a month to make such a line. This jade piece will take several years to carve at least." Xu Zhimian smiled and said, "So unless you use the same method as the ancients, With the same tools and the same amount of time, you can’t imitate something like this.”

"I understand." Zhou Zhi suddenly understood: "If anyone can really spend a few years to imitate the fake ancient Han jade, then he is definitely a master in this industry, but he is already a master, and he still has to make it. Do you make money from fakes? So this is the true meaning of Hanyu’s authenticity!”

"Hahahaha..." Xu Zhimian was very happy: "Xiao Zhou is really a smart man, he will understand it as soon as he mentions it!"

"This kind of inscribed lines can be expressed in various forms in Han jade, such as single inverted lines, double inverted lines, short diagonal lines, straight lines, curves, etc. They generally express geometric moiré patterns, modified animal face patterns, bundled silk patterns, and floral branch patterns. , reticulated pattern, short parallel diagonal lines, etc.”

"In addition to the well-known eight-knife technique of Han jade, hairspring craftsmanship is another typical type of Han jade. It is most prominent on exquisite work surfaces such as antique ritual vessels, animal-faced cloud and dragon patterns, and gluttonous patterns with grain patterns."

"This dragon's head hibiscus is not the most exquisite and outstanding one. If you have a chance, go and take a look at the jade-inlaid gilt pagoda unearthed from the tomb of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan in Manchengling Mountain. The animal-face patterns carved on the jade-inlaid are... The fine hair-like silk patterns on the forehead, eyebrows, beards and other parts of the animal's face are the pinnacle of gossamer craftsmanship."

"Of course, hairspring workers began to appear in the Zhou Dynasty, experienced the development of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and finally reached Dacheng in the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are also differences in between. Generally speaking, the hair marks are thick and short in the early stages, and become thinner and longer as they go later. But regardless of Which one is it? If you look at it more often, you will be able to distinguish the wear marks caused by slow weight and soft sand work, which are very different from the marks of modern machinery."

"So as long as you know the hairspring craftsmanship and hair carving craftsmanship, you can tell the difference between real and fake ancient jade. This is the origin of the saying 'Han jade is not fake'."

"If you can't even see this, then it's best not to play with ancient jade. After all, money doesn't come with strong winds."