Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1714 God Chasing the Ancients

On a huge wooden tray with primer, Deng Hehuan, a senior female worker at the Autonomous Prefecture Lacquerware Factory, began to demonstrate her painting skills.

She is creating a lacquer plate imitating an ancient Chu State.

The lacquerware of the Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period ranged from large to small, complex to simple, ranging from large ones such as tomb guardian beasts, bird drum stands, and coffins to small ones such as ear cups, soup spoons, and hairpins.

But all of them are exquisite and beautiful, especially the patterns. Not to mention the hundreds of patterns, they have also been abstracted in the aesthetic sense, achieving the superb achievement of "similarity in spirit and form" and "movement in stillness".

During Zhou Zhi's trip to the Three Gorges, he saw a lot of ancient Chu lacquerware from the Spring and Autumn Period. He always had a question in his mind: how were those abstract and beautiful lines on it, some of which were several meters long and some coiled like vines, drawn?

He is a master of calligraphy, and because he is a master, he understands how difficult such brushstrokes are.

From the convergence of the brush tip, it can be seen that such a dense spiral was completed by the craftsman at a very fast speed, which is incredible.

Now the mystery has finally been solved. Deng Hehuan can use the wooden plate in different ways, with a certain point in different parts of the plate as the center, rotating it in his left hand, and moving the point with his right hand holding the pen, to form standard circles, spirals and arcs on the plate.

Of course, this is just a small skill. After the lines are arranged, Deng Hehuan will quickly outline cloud patterns, dragon patterns, and phoenix patterns on the lines.

These free and unrestrained patterns appear on the plate at an extremely fast speed, as if they were living creatures created by magic, which is very magical.

In addition, the gaps between the concentric circles also need to be filled with complex textures such as cloud-thunder patterns and coiled dragon patterns. Deng Hehuan's hands draw these textures one after another, interlocking with each other, and they are exactly the same size, with the precision of a printer.

Zhou Zhi finally understood why the patterns on the ancient Chu lacquerware were so artistic. It was the same as any traditional Chinese art. To reach the pinnacle, one must "become fluent through mastery", "do what one wants without breaking the rules", "dance in shackles", and reach the realm of "the man from Ying chopping chalk" as described by Zhuang Zhou.

Zhuangzi was attending a funeral and passed by Huizi's tomb. He told his followers, "The tip of a man from Ying had chalk as thin as a fly's wing on his nose. He asked Jiangshi to wipe it off. Jiangshi swung his axe and shaved the chalk off the man's nose. His nose was not hurt at all, and the man was not afraid at all."

Zhuangzi himself was a minor official in the lacquer garden of the State of Chu. Perhaps he had seen lacquer craftsmen of the State of Chu, such as the current painter Deng Hehuan, which enabled him to come up with such an imaginative prophecy.

In less than a minute, the concave side of the plate was completed.

The painted lacquerware will be sent to the paint room to wait for curing. After completion, it will be taken out and the other side will be painted. After completing the topcoat or polishing process, it will be finally completed.

Lesoag introduced: "The carving techniques you told us about, red and rhinoceros carving, involve carving techniques, which are not something that the factory workers can learn in a short time. Therefore, we combine the actual situation and mainly imitate the Chu and Han lacquerware and the Japanese lacquerware, and continue to play our strengths in painting techniques."

"But I did try to play with the ideas you proposed and came up with something. I wonder if it will please you."

"Really? Where?"

"Let's go to the conference room to talk. The guests are probably very frustrated."

"Oh, yes." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "I was so engrossed in watching Teacher Deng's craftsmanship that I forgot there were several fully armed soldiers."

Like many craft factories, the factory's conference room was originally a showroom, where many of the factory's crafts were displayed. The newest items were a few lacquer paintings on the wall and a few gourds. "So beautiful..." Matsui Zao exclaimed sincerely as he looked at the lacquer paintings on the wall.

The picture shows a very natural stacked pattern of various colors, like the cross section of marbled beef, or the natural texture of marble, but the colors are more colorful, bright and smooth.

Natural, magnificent and magical, just like the Yaobian glaze, which is half artificial and half natural.

In human aesthetic psychology, this is a pattern that people naturally feel close to, like an abstract painting that allows people to give full play to their imagination.

Zhou Zhi only took a look and said with a smile: "Brother Ag, did you come up with this yourself?"

"Yes." Lesoag said, "I received the atlas you sent me. I combined the rhinoceros carving technique with the Japanese meat-combined Maki-e technique. I used 65% raw lacquer and egg white emulsion to make a thick lacquer. Then I used dripping, shaking, rolling and dragging with a loofah to create a concave and convex surface on the primed board. After it dried, I used different colored lacquers to paint in layers. After that, I repeated this process several times. After the lacquer solidified, I ground it."

"Because the heights of the paint layers are different, various natural patterns can be seen after polishing. Personal creation accounts for at most one-third of the work, and the remaining two-thirds cannot be known until the polishing is completed. Therefore, the work can only be named according to the appearance of the pattern after the creation is completed."

"I understand." Zhou Zhi said, "It's just like when people in my hometown pick up Yangtze River stones by the Yangtze River, and see colorful and unique patterns, and then rack their brains to come up with a name that sounds like a god, the stone immediately becomes very valuable."

He pointed to a large painting on the wall made of black, brown-red and gold lacquer and said, "For example, this one looks like a buckwheat field. It would be a good name to call it 'Golden Wheat Field'."

"That's what I mean!" Lesoag nodded repeatedly: "Elbow understands what I mean!"

"It is indeed very beautiful!" Zhou Zhi said, with a tone of laughter and tears: "But Brother Ag, I forgot to tell you that our country has another lacquerware craft called rhinoceros skin lacquer. It is almost exactly the same as your current creative method. Yours cannot be considered an original craft. At most, it can only be regarded as a follow-up to the ancients."

"Really?" Lesoag was not upset after hearing this, but was even more surprised: "Are you saying that this is an ancient method?"

"Yes, the lacquerware monograph "髹饰录" compiled by Huang Cheng, a famous lacquer craftsman in the Ming Dynasty, comprehensively describes various lacquer techniques. There is a paragraph describing 'Rhinoceros skin or western skin, or rhinoceros skin. The patterns are like clouds, round flowers, pine scales and green'. Recently, there are jar surfaces, and the smoothness is considered beautiful."

"This means that in the Ming Dynasty, there were lacquer workers who were able to apply this technique to the surface of large vats and create huge works."

"As for when people first created this lacquer technique, one theory is that it was inspired by the saddle."

"This view originated from the records of Zhao Lin in the Tang Dynasty, and was later cited by Tao Zongyi in the Yuan Dynasty. In "Chu Geng Lu", he quoted Zhao Lin's view and believed that "the reason why Xipi lacquered utensils are called Xipi is that people mistakenly think that they are rhinoceros horns, but it is not. It is the saddle of the Western horse, which changes from black to red, and from red to yellow, and changes from time to time, with five colors overlapping."

"The stirrups had indentations from friction, which formed patterns, so we used lacquerware to imitate them."

"The translation means: when people explain rhino skin paint, most people think of rhinoceros as the name suggests, but this is actually a misunderstanding."

"In fact, the saddle was painted with multiple layers of paint, and then due to constant friction, there were concave places, which revealed layers of color. The lacquer craftsman deliberately copied this naturally formed pattern and created rhinoceros skin paint."