Riding the wind of rebirth

The current Chinese carving industry does not pay much attention to labor costs. In other words, the craftsmanship of masters is not worth much and does not reflect the proper value of their labor. This leads to the fact that the jade carving exhibits here are made at all costs and are perfect.

The Hundred Flowers Award was first established in 1981. At that time, there were still a lot of materials collected by the Light Industry Bureaus in various places, so the materials used for carving were also not cost-effective.

Another feature is that the early Hundred Flowers Awards focused on craftsmanship, and the materials did not seem to be given much consideration by the craftsmen. Whether it was the precious Hetian jade, green jade, or the relatively low-value bloodstone, or even the common Fuxin agate and Xiuyan jade, and even some materials that could not be called jade such as She stone and yellow wax, they were all used by the craftsmen as a platform to showcase their creative ideas and superb craftsmanship.

Pure white jade and green jade are even carved by sculptors into ghost balls and hollow buildings, which are extremely material-consuming subjects. They often have to hollow out, dig grooves and holes. Fifty kilograms of material may result in less than twenty kilograms of finished product, and most of the remaining half becomes small scraps that can only be processed into small items such as pendants and rings. Mai Xiaomiao is extremely impressed by this, but Zhou Zhi shakes his head repeatedly.

Not to mention too far back, after two searches in Zhouzhi, the resources of top-grade Hetian jade - Lianghe seed material and 95 Yutian are basically exhausted. The prices of those still circulating in the market are rising almost every day. At this rate of increase, it may even be possible that jadeite cannot catch up, which is a reversal of the situation in the previous life.

This type of carving method used in many arts and crafts exhibits will probably no longer be seen on high-end stone in the future.

In addition to their exquisite craftsmanship, many of the carvings here have another very prominent feature: large.

A whole piece of jade often weighs over a ton, which is particularly suitable for the creation of large themes. For example, the large black jade jar has a diameter of more than one meter, which can easily fit several people inside. The huge outer wall of the jar provides a lot of space for relief creation, and nine dragons can be carved to coil around it. This is the creative idea of ​​the Black Jade Nine Dragons Jar.

Another example is a huge piece of Dushan jade. Dushan jade itself is a kind of altered plagioclase, which is associated with zoisite, epidote, tremolite, sericite, biotite and titanite as the matrix, and is also a material that reaches the gem craftsmanship level.

Because of the presence of a variety of minerals, Dushan jade has a mottled and warm color. There are six pigments in total, including green, blue, yellow, purple, red and white, and 77 color types.

In addition, jade is tough, dense, delicate and smooth, and its hardness is comparable to that of jadeite. Therefore, it has always been an important jade raw material for Chinese arts and crafts carvings and is one of the four famous jades in China.

So Zhou Zhi is now standing in front of this huge Dushan Jade Mountain, marveling at its colorful colors, ingenious composition, and perfectly coordinated carvings.

This is a big tree carved in relief. The upper part of the mountain is sky blue and white, carved into the blue sky and clouds, the brown and black part is carved into the trunk, and the largest area of ​​green is carved into green leaves.

There are some red and yellow crystals in the green, and some white mica at the junction of the two, which are now carved into clusters of lychees by the skillful hands of craftsmen.

Lychees come in both raw and ripe varieties. The ripe ones are red, while the raw ones are yellow or red and yellow. The white mica is cleverly carved into the flesh of the ripe lychee that is revealed when it cracks open.

“This is amazing…” Mai Xiaomiao looked at the relief sculpture carefully. “It feels like this stone was born for this sculpture and grew into this shape on purpose.”

"That's an interesting statement, but it's also the greatest compliment to the carving master." Zhou Zhi said. "Elbow, how much do you think this will cost?"

"Why do you want to buy this jade carving? This must be a permanent collection, it can't be sold."

"No, I just want to know."

"It's really hard to say." Zhou Zhi couldn't help but sigh. Even works that won major awards a few years later would only cost ten or twenty thousand yuan. For example, the "Free Jigong" cleverly carved from Fuxin agate, which won the Best Creativity Award at the Second Tiangong People's Artisan Exhibition, won wide acclaim and coverage across the country for its exquisite conception and superb craftsmanship. However, it was eventually sold to someone else by the sculptor, Master Yang, for only sixteen thousand yuan.

Fortunately, Master Yang really liked his sculpture and bought it back for 17,000 yuan a year later. He sold it again for 500,000 yuan a few years later.

This sculpture is hundreds of times bigger than "Zizai Jigong", but the material is very common. The output of Dushan jade is quite large, and it is not a precious stone material, and it is not even as precious as agate. Therefore, this sculpture is basically just a salary, but the salary of jade carving is very low nowadays, so if this sculpture had not been sent to the exhibition, it would have been sold for tens of thousands of yuan.

"A few hundred thousand." Zhou Zhi decided to quote the price ten years later so as not to disappoint Mai Xiaomiao.

"It's really too cheap." Mai Xiaomiao felt regretful.

"Now is the low period for collecting Chinese handicrafts." Zhou Zhi said: "If you are interested, you can indeed consider the income, but you have to consider the material and craftsmanship. Generally, it needs to be the work of a national-level craft master, and the material should also be precious. For example, Hetian white jade, green jade, jasper, Burmese jadeite, and chicken blood stone must be Changhua. If it is Bahrain, the quality must be Dahongpao. The appreciation potential in the future is very huge."

"Me? Forget about the others. I think our Nanhong is great. Those little dragons are so beautiful. I can't believe they were carved from the stone we picked up."

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

This is the skill of a skilled craftsman. Many gemstones and jade materials are ordinary in their raw state, and only after being skillfully carved and polished can they shine. Following Zhou Zhi, Mai Xiaomiao could only collect raw stones in the mountains and by the water. The finished products he saw were basically leftovers from jade carving factories, not as good as the simplest accessories such as earrings and water drop pendants that Zhou Zhi gave to his fellow villagers as gifts. The only carving he had seen was the one with the word "Wishing Your Son to Become a Dragon" from Shama.

In fact, Suihuaxuan also displays a lot of Nanhong and Hetian jade carvings, but at that time Mai Xiaomiao's mind was all on Zhou Zhi, and he even became a hacker for this purpose, and didn't pay much attention to those displays.

"It's a low point, that means cheap things are everywhere." Zhou Zhi said: "If you see Hetian jade and jadeite you like, you can take it. As for Nanhong, we are the discoverers and have the right to customize it."

At this time, Zhou Zhi's cell phone rang, and Zhou Zhi picked up the phone: "Teacher Zhu? Ah, we are here, in the hall. The feeling of seeing "One Hundred and Eight Dragon Sons" up close is very different from looking at the photo... Ah, not in the hall? Then where shall we meet... Oh, we are now in front of the Fengnian Dali Dushan Yushanzi. Hey, we are waiting here, right? Good! Good..." (End of this chapter)