Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 635
The reason why it is said to be a set is because the five things all have the same subject matter - folding peach blossoms.

"Old Wang, do you still remember this set of porcelain?" Although Director Liao is a cadre in Jiangxi Province, his stature and accent are obviously from the north, and he is obviously friendly with the old man.

"Water touches peach blossoms." The old man nodded, "If Yafeng hadn't worked so hard on the unique skill created by Liu Yucen, the eight friends of Zhushan, how could he have mastered this technique so quickly."

"Painters alone are not enough," Director Liao said with a smile, "It took a lot of effort to find this peach red formula, but in the end it was your rich experience, old man, that allowed us to complete this basically impossible task. "

"Uncle Liao, tell us the story of the past." Even a pure layman can appreciate the fineness of this set of porcelain. Both of them are people who know how to paint, especially the hand-painted peach blossoms on it. Praise, regardless of the branches and leaves, the petals of the peach blossom are dense and dense, the shades are suitable, the colors are bright and full, the petals are delicate and tender, and the transition is natural and perfect.

It is really a wonderful workmanship that a small branch of peach blossom can appear delicate, delicate, handsome and elegant on porcelain.

"We encountered too many difficulties at that time." Director Liao said with a smile: "Just the clay is a big trouble. In order to achieve the luster that the previous porcelain could not achieve, the institute decided to raise the firing temperature to 390 degrees." [-] degrees."

"So tall?" Zhou Zhi was a little surprised: "I'm afraid it's not just the fetal soil that's the problem? Wouldn't the kiln be overturned?"

Inverting the kiln is a common accident in porcelain factories, because the porcelain is now fired in a sagger, which can prevent the porcelain from being contaminated by furnace ash and causing ash accumulation.

But this will bring another problem, that is, the sagger itself needs to be able to withstand high temperatures, and it must still be able to bear the weight of the upper layer of saggers when the furnace temperature is extremely high.

The painting technique of "Water Dot Peach Blossom" was created by Liu Yucen, one of the "Eight Friends of Zhushan" during the Republic of China.

Zhou Zhi turned over the bottom of the pen holder suspiciously, and observed the tire quality underneath.

"It's really beautiful." Zhou Zhi gently pushed the pen holder on the table: "This kind of watercolor effect is better than Master Liu's original creation."

After that comes the detailed drawing and glazing.

"When the craftsmanship is fully explored, there are only 20 days left before the gift." The old engineer couldn't help but feel lingering: "Fortunately, we finally completed the task on time and with high quality. After sending it to the capital, the great man liked it very much. 'Shuidian Peach Blossom' has also become a special porcelain for Jurentang."

If he hadn't been reminded, Zhou Zhi would never have noticed that there was an extra layer of "makeup soil" between the glaze.

"The petals are broken. Of course, such porcelain is unqualified." The old engineer said: "The task fell to the pigment research team in the technical room at that time."

"In addition to Ju Ren Tang, there are also Fengze Garden and Dishui Cave in Jiangxi Province." Director Liao said: "In addition to the in-glaze water-dot peach blossom porcelain in the 7501 project, there are also under-glaze red plum porcelain."

"Inverting the kiln is actually a problem that is easy to solve." The engineer said: "At that time, the department ordered that we should allocate enough electricity so that we could reduce the number of saggers and fire them in multiple batches to solve the problem. kiln accident."

However, the official kiln porcelain has never considered the cost, and it is impossible to use rough tires. The old man can think of using makeup soil to solve the problem. What seems to be an understatement is actually a wealth of knowledge accumulation and flexible thinking.

The purpose of this trick is obvious, it is to reduce the cost of porcelain kilns, and it has been widely used since the Song Dynasty.

"In the end, Mr. Wang solved this problem for us." Director Liao said, "Mr. Wang consulted ancient books and found an ancient recipe for makeup soil for us. He applied it on the fetal soil, and then painted and glazed it. It perfectly solved the problem of too large expansion coefficient difference among body, color and glaze, and finally produced perfect porcelain.”

"This kid knows how to make porcelain." The engineer of the porcelain factory said: "During that time, we became used to turning the kiln upside down."

The water content in the color material is "not wet, not dry", and the writing is accurate and light, and the effect of watercolor peach blossom can be obtained.

"The fetal soil was also solved later. The best kaolin in China is in Fuzhou. Because of its smooth texture, it is called talc by the local people. The Ministry of Light Industry issued a document and allocated ten tons for us."

However, the first creation was indeed used to describe peach blossoms, and the effect is also the best.

"The result is disappointing. The cracks on the peach blossoms still exist. To solve this problem fundamentally, we still have to work hard on the glaze formula."

"The most difficult thing is the glaze, especially the formula of pink underglaze. It is really difficult to find it." Director Liao still has lingering fears when he thinks about it.

If there is a melting phenomenon, which makes it impossible to support the upper sagger and porcelain, an accident will occur when the kiln is inverted.

He borrowed the techniques of Chinese painting, first dotted the petals with glass white water, drew the flower pattern without hooking the outline of the flower head, and then painted the glass white with water for the second time.

"That's right." The old engineer said with a smile: "After all, the eight friends of Zhushan didn't have our formula at that time. Master Liu's Water Spot Peach Blossom, limited by the coloring formula, couldn't achieve our effect."

In Chinese painting techniques, this is called "freehand brushwork without bone" painting method, and in porcelain painting techniques, the "water dot peach blossom" technique is not only used to paint peach blossoms, except for peach blossoms, hibiscus flowers, winter jasmine, and purple radish. Flowers, new leaves, distant views of landscapes and bamboo trees with blurred backgrounds can all be expressed with this technique.

The texture of the tire is extremely delicate, and there are some traces of normal shrinkage, but these traces cannot be regarded as flaws, on the contrary, it makes the porcelain body very shiny and has a texture of white jade.

"This kind of phenomenon has never happened to us before." Director Liao said: "In the end we still counted the problem on the high firing temperature."

"When the first batch of patterns were fired, we were very satisfied with the color." Mr. Wang couldn't help but sigh: "When I showed it to the craftsmen, some people found that the petals had some cracks in the sun. "

The make-up clay technique is to use rough clay to make the tire first, and then apply a layer of fine, white and clean mud on the tire to cover up the rough tire, just like the foundation and concealer applied by women when making up.

"Later, we thought it might be because the firing curve was not long enough, resulting in inconsistent expansion and contraction ratios between the surface and interior of the porcelain, so we deliberately increased the firing time, adding one hour each to the oxidizing flame and the reducing flame."

"So we switched to ingredients from Hunan Province, but it didn't work, and we changed to expensive imported West German ingredients, but it still didn't work."

"Because it is in-glaze color, there is no space for lowering the temperature and low-temperature firing of over-glaze color, which will lead to greater flaws."

"Among them, the peach blossom porcelain has 98 head sets and six sets of tableware; the red plum porcelain has 47 sets, a total of five sets."

"The rest of the incomplete sets are now mainly stored in the Ministry of Porcelain Research Institute and several porcelain factories that participated in the development of porcelain at that time."

"The efficiency of the porcelain factory is not very good now." Director Liao touched his forehead: "This is not an exhibition held by the Ministry of Light Industry. The first factory sent such a five-piece set, so I have to bring it."

"Uncle Liao, what's the price for this set of water-point peach blossom porcelain?"

(End of this chapter)