Chapter 636: Water-dotted Peach Blossoms
The reason why it is said to be a set is because the five items all have the same theme - peach blossoms with broken branches.
"Mr. Wang, do you still remember this set of porcelain?" Although Director Liao is a cadre from Gan Province, his stature and accent are obviously from the north, and he obviously has a good relationship with the old man.
"Peach blossoms in water." The old man nodded: "The unique skill created by Liu Yucen, the Eight Friends of Zhushan. If Yafeng hadn't worked hard on it, how could he have mastered this skill so quickly."
"Light has paintings You can’t even do it at work,” Director Liao said with a smile: “It took a lot of effort to find this rosé formula. In the end, it was your rich experience that allowed us to complete this basically impossible task.”
"Uncle Liao, please tell us the story of that year." Even a layman can appreciate the sophistication of this set of porcelain. Both of them are people who know how to draw, especially the hand-painted peach blossoms. Admire, no matter the branches and leaves, just look at the petals of the peach blossom, they are dense and dense, the shades are appropriate, the colors are bright and full, the petals are delicate and dripping, and the transition is natural and perfect.
A small peach blossom can appear beautiful, delicate, handsome and elegant on porcelain. It is really a work of art.
“We encountered too many difficulties at that time.” Director Liao said with a smile: “The fetal soil alone was a big trouble. In order to achieve the luster that previous porcelain could not achieve, the institute decided to burn The temperature rose to one thousand three hundred and ninety degrees.”
"So high?" Zhou Zhi was a little surprised: "I'm afraid it's not just the soil that is the problem, right? Can't the kiln be turned upside down?"
Kiln breakdown is a common accident in porcelain factories, because nowadays, saggers are used to store porcelain. , this can prevent the porcelain from being contaminated by furnace dust and causing dust accumulation.
But this will bring about another problem, that is, the sagger itself needs to be able to withstand high temperatures, and it must still be able to withstand the weight of the upper saggers stacked when the furnace temperature is extremely high.
If melting occurs and the sagger and porcelain above cannot be supported, a kiln collapse accident will occur.
“This kid knows how to make porcelain.” The engineer of the porcelain factory said: “During that time, we were used to dumping the kiln.”
“Inverting the kiln is actually a It’s an easy problem to solve.” The engineer said: “At that time, the department issued instructions to provide us with enough power so that we could We can reduce the number of saggers and fire them in multiple batches to solve the kiln collapse accident.”
“The tire clay was later solved. The best kaolin clay in China is in Fuzhou because of its smooth texture. It was called talc by the local people, and the Ministry of Light Industry issued a document and transferred ten tons to us.”
"The most difficult thing is the glaze, especially the formula for the pink underglaze color. It is really difficult to find it." Director Liao still has lingering fears when he thinks about it.
"It's indeed very beautiful." Zhou Zhi gently pushed the pen holder on the table: "This watercolor effect is better than Master Liu's first creation."
"That's right. "The old engineer smiled and said: "After all, the Eight Friends of Zhushan didn't have any Our formula, Master Liu’s water-dotted peach blossom, is limited by the color formula and cannot achieve our effect.” Liu Yucen, one of the "Eight Friends", created the unique stippling technique.
Learning from the techniques of Chinese painting, he first dotted the petals with white water on the glass, and drew the flower shape without outlining the outline of the flower head. Then he mixed the color with water and dyed it for the second time on the white glass.
The water content in the color material "doesn't flow when wet, and doesn't dry when dry", and the brush strokes can be accurate and light, and the effect of watercolor peach blossom can be obtained.
In traditional Chinese painting techniques, this is called the "freehand brushwork" technique, and in porcelain painting techniques, the "water point peach blossom" technique is actually not just used to draw peach blossoms. In addition to peach blossoms, hibiscus flowers , winter jasmine, violet flowers, newly sprouted leaves, distant views of landscapes and bamboo trees with blurred backgrounds can all be expressed using this technique.
However, it was first used to depict peach blossoms, and the effect is also the best.
“When the first batch of patterns were fired, we were very satisfied with the quality.” Mr. Wang couldn’t help sighing: “When I showed the results to the people in the crafts team, someone found that the petals were in the sun. , there will be some cracks. "The petals are broken, and such porcelain is certainly unqualified," the old engineer said: "The task fell to the pigment research team of the technical room at that time."
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"This phenomenon has never happened to us before." Director Liao said: "In the end, we attributed the problem to the firing temperature being too high."
"Because it is a glaze-in-glaze color without glaze. Painting in a space where the temperature is lowered and fired at a low temperature will lead to greater defects.”
“Later, we wondered if the firing curve was not long enough, causing the surface and interior of the porcelain to expand. Shrinkage ratio The inconsistency was caused, so the firing time was deliberately increased, and the oxidizing flame and the reducing flame were added by one hour each. "
"The result was disappointing. The cracks on the peach blossoms still existed, and we had to fundamentally eliminate them. To solve this problem, we still have to work on the glaze formula. ”
“So we changed to Hunan materials, but it didn’t work, and then we changed to expensive imported West German materials, but it still didn’t work.”
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"In the end, it was Mr. Wang who solved this problem for us." Director Liao said: "Mr. Wang consulted ancient books and found us an ancient recipe of cosmetic earth. He applied it on the fetal soil, and then painted and glazed it. This perfectly solved the problem of excessive expansion coefficients among the body, color, and glaze, and finally produced perfect porcelain."
Zhou Zhi turned the bottom of the pen holder over in confusion and looked at what was underneath. Fetal quality.
The quality of the fetus is unusually delicate, with some traces of normal shrinkage. However, these traces cannot be regarded as flaws. Instead, they make the porcelain fetus very shiny and have the texture of white jade.
If Zhou Zhi had not been reminded, Zhou Zhi would not have been able to tell that there was an extra layer of "cosmetic soil" between the glazes.
The make-up clay process is to first use rough clay to make a body, and then apply a layer of fine, moist and white clay on the body to cover up the rough body, just like the foundation and concealer that women apply when putting on makeup.
After that comes the detailed painting and glazing.
The purpose of this trick is obvious, which is to reduce the cost of the porcelain kiln. It has been widely used since the Song Dynasty.
However, official kiln porcelain has never considered the cost, and it is impossible to use rough tires. The old man was able to think of using makeup soil to solve the problem. What seems to be an understatement is actually a rich accumulation of knowledge and flexible thinking.
“When the process is completely figured out, there will only be twenty days left before the gift is presented.” The old engineer couldn’t help but feel lingering fear: “Fortunately, we finally completed the task on time and with quality. After sending it to the capital, the great man I also liked it very much after taking a look at it, 'Shuidian' "Peach Blossom" has also become a special porcelain for Jurentang. "In addition to Jurentang, there are also Fengzeyuan and Ganzhou Dishui Cave," Director Liao said, "In addition to the glaze-colored porcelain. Water-dotted peach blossom porcelain, and underglaze colored red plum porcelain.”
"Among them, the peach blossom porcelain is a set of 98 pieces and six sets of tableware; the red plum porcelain is a set of 47 pieces, a total of five sets."
"The remaining ones are not complete sets and are now mainly in the provincial department. The Porcelain Research Institute and several porcelain factories involved in the development of porcelain at that time"
"Now the porcelain factory. The efficiency is not very good.” 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 and I had to bring it.”
"Uncle Liao, how much is the price of this set of water-dotted peach blossom porcelain?"
(End of this chapter)