Riding the wind of rebirth

"Wow!" Mai Xiaomiao came to the window and exclaimed like many other girls who had come to see it before: "Is this the 'Dragon Son Picture'? It's much better to see it in person than to look at a photo."

This is another peculiarity of Nanhong products. They are very well made, but they always lose points when presented through photography, and are far less stunning than what you see with your own eyes.

As a result, Mai Xiaomiao's next move made everyone look sideways. She rolled up her sleeves and showed a string of red beads on her wrist: "Elbow, is this carved from the stone we picked up?"

The people around immediately cast strange looks at her. If it weren't for the beautiful string of red beads on Mai Xiaomiao's wrist, some people would have probably made sarcastic remarks.

Zhou Zhi quickly pulled Mai Xiaomiao's hand down and pulled down his sleeve to cover her: "Your string is carefully selected water seeds, playing with the original ecology, the variety is also different, yours is flame red, Master Chu and the others use cherry red, the appreciation direction is also different."

"Student, do you know the origin of this cherry red? Then can you tell us about it?" A middle-aged man in the crowd asked Zhou Zhi, "Such a beautiful stone, at first glance it looks like glass, but the introduction says it is a natural material. How come such a thing has not been discovered before?"

"Oh." Zhou Zhi thought about it and decided not to miss this precious opportunity to promote Nanhong: "Speaking of this kind of stone, it has been used as a gemstone in our country for a long time, but later the mine was exhausted, so it faded out of everyone's sight."

"This stone is called Nanhong, a type of agate, but it is different from ordinary agate in that its texture is pure and uniform. The ancients used it as a substitute for coral, and it is even harder. The earliest material used was from Longnan, so it was named 'Nanhong' after its origin and color."

"During the Qing Dynasty, coral imperial beads were widely used, and a large amount of jewels were also needed to win over the Mongols and Tibetans. Therefore, after Gannan red was discovered, it was quickly used by the imperial court, and within a hundred years, it had been mined out."

"During the Qianlong period, people discovered another vein in Baoshan, central Yunnan. The texture and color were similar to Gannan red. The only problem was that the material was broken too much."

"Defective products are better than nothing. Besides, the roads for transporting Yunnan copper out are now open, so the development of Baoshan Nanhong has quickly become popular. Even the materials with more fragments are quickly mined out."

"From the late Qianlong period to a few years ago, this type of Nanhong products, apart from some cultural relics left in the Forbidden City, occasionally some loose beads can be seen in the cultural relics market, but the rest are hard to come by."

"Until the year before last, some scattered veins were discovered in the upper reaches of the Jinsha River, and a kind of red agate was also produced, but the patterns were varied. There were white agates with cinnabar spots, called ice agate, pure agates called persimmon red, mixed with meat jelly called flame red, and slightly transparent agates with bright red colors like cherries. For example, the material used to carve the "One Hundred and Eight Dragon Sons" was called cherry red."

"Then you just said that the thing in this little girl's hand is called Shuizier..."

"Oh, that's another way to classify it." Zhou Zhi said, "Nanhong is produced in mud caves on the mountain. Because of landslides and mudslides, some minerals will be carried into streams and rivers. Agate is more hydrophilic than Hetian jade. After a long period of washing and friction with water and mud, the stones will become round. Those that can be shaped and retained are the essence."

"Just like the earliest Hetian jade, the earliest Hetian jade refers to the seed material in the two rivers." The middle-aged man understood: "The quality of the jade left after being washed in the water for tens of millions of years is much higher than that of the jade mined in the mountains."

"That's what I mean." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "Nanhong also has water seeds, but the most common water seeds are flame patterns. If there are pure colors, their quality is generally much better than mountain materials. This is most easily reflected in the color. The bright red like the color of the national flag is the best among persimmon reds, called 'Jinhong'." "Although there are also rose reds that are darker and more purple in Nanhong, and ox blood reds that are redder but darker in tone, they are ultimately a level lower than Jinhong."

"So that's how it is. I'm glad to learn from you." The middle-aged man smiled and said, "Thank you for helping us solve this puzzle. But where exactly is this material produced?"

"I heard from the elders that it comes from a tributary of the upper reaches of the Jinsha River." Zhou Zhi is determined to keep this a secret: "But here, Nanhong is just a material, a carrier of the masters' exquisite craftsmanship."

“Don’t just buy the casket and return the pearl. Instead, pay more attention to the craftsmanship and ingenuity of the masters.”

"I found a career that's perfect for you." Mai Xiaomiao squeezed out of the crowd and held Zhou Zhi's hand tightly, "Being a tour guide, you can come up with a story about anything."

"This is the temple of Chinese arts and crafts. We shouldn't show off our skills in drilling holes in stones." Zhou Zhi said, "We still waste a lot of stones, and the holes we drilled are not aligned."

Mai Xiaomiao found it a bit funny when thinking about this. Different trades, different worlds. Agate is extremely hard but also relatively brittle. To drill a hole in it you need a diamond needle. How to drill the precise hole you want is really a difficult problem.

If you drill directly from one end to the other, the hole will definitely be broken when it is about to reach the exit. You must remove the stone when it is about to reach the exit, and start drilling in from the other end. The hole can only be drilled successfully when the channel meets the middle of the stone.

However, the stone is natural and irregular in shape, which makes it difficult to align the hole for the second time. Just how to ensure that the existing hole in the stone is vertical on the fixture so that the vertical grinding needle can be driven in from the other side to align it took a lot of thought.

"I think yours looks better. It's more rosy than those dragon descendants. It's not so smooth and reflective, and it's not so ostentatious."

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

"Don't say that when you meet the masters later." Zhou Zhi didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I'm afraid they'll scold us for wasting materials. Even a small stone the size of a peanut can be turned into a beautiful work of art in the hands of Suzhou's skilled craftsmen. Let's wait and see."

The Hundred Flowers Award works exhibited here are not just from this year's competition. Many important entries were directly collected by the National Art Museum of China after the competition. In particular, those completed with funding and labor from the light industry systems of various provinces are proud to have their exhibits collected by the National Art Museum of China.

This phenomenon has gradually changed in recent years. In addition to the traditional participating units, there are now more private orders from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and even craftsmen from Taiwan have sent their works to participate in the competition. It is no longer easy for Gome to retain these winning works.

Fortunately, the award criteria are still up to par, and have not declined as much as they did after the pure commercialization in the future. Every award-winning work is a well-deserved masterpiece. (End of this chapter)