Chapter 1053 The Eight Friends of Zhushan
If you want to grade the difficulty of painting according to subject matter, figure painting is the most difficult, followed by animals, then plants, and finally landscapes.
This skill gap is mapped to painting and porcelain, which means that the gap between porcelain figures and painted figures is the largest, while the gap between landscape and landscape is the smallest.
Since the third dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, the art category of porcelain plate painting has begun to appear. There are already craftsmen painting on white porcelain plates with colored glazes. After firing, they are placed in wooden frames and placed on the table. This is called " "Insert screen"; larger ones, hung on the wall, are called hanging screens.
This has broken away from the traditional practical approach of porcelain and has become a carrier of art, with the purpose of purely satisfying people's spiritual needs.
But to be honest, the level of painting is not high.
This situation changed until the appearance of "Eight Friends of Zhushan".
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the royal family attached great importance to the production of Jingdezhen ceramics, and concentrated talents and material resources from all over the country to ensure the quality of the royal official kilns. The ceramics in Jingdezhen have fine carcass, smooth enamel, regular production, and diverse varieties. In particular, the exquisite attention to color glazed porcelain can be said to have reached an unprecedented level in history, promoting the development of Jingdezhen ceramic art.
However, due to the rule of the official family, there are strict restrictions and requirements for each type of porcelain, collectively called "official style", which stifles the expression and expression of the individuality of ceramic artists, and becomes the Chinese porcelain art. constraints to development.
With the decline of the Qing Dynasty’s national power and the decline of the royal kiln factory, a group of outstanding folk ceramic artists suddenly emerged. After the imperial kiln factory stopped firing, they lived among the people. Several pastel and porcelain printmakers The masters formed a small group called the "Full Moon Society".
The main representative figures are Wang Qi, Wang Dafan, Wang Yeting, Deng Bishan, Bi Botao, He Xuren, Cheng Yiting and Liu Yucen, who are later known as the "Eight Friends of Zhushan".
Including Xu Zhongnan and Tian Hexian, the Eight Friends of Zhushan are actually ten people.
That era was actually very turbulent, but it also promoted the Zhushan Eight Friends to inherit the Jingde ceramic tradition, take the Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics as a model, and follow the Shanghai style artists as an example, and accommodate Western ceramic art styles and techniques. With the full flavor of the times and full of patriotic enthusiasm, he devoted himself to the creation of porcelain art, breaking through the barriers of the official kilns of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, like a clear spring, flowing down unstoppably.
They overcame various difficulties and created various methods, expressing "literati painting" on porcelain for the first time.
Everyone has a unique skill.
For example, the founder Wang Qi first absorbed the freehand techniques of the famous painter Huang Shen to express the clothing patterns and grace of characters on porcelain, and achieved quite wonderful effects.
Wang Dafan did not use glass white as a base, but applied color materials directly to the porcelain body, creating the "floor color" technique and creating a genre, which directly ushered in the second spring of light Jiangcai.
Deng Bishan was the first porcelain painter to depict portraits on porcelain plates.
Based on the work of his predecessors, Wang Yeting used the splash-ink method of traditional Chinese painting to paint landscapes on porcelain. The Chinese painting effect of "ink divided into five colors" also appeared, injecting life into the landscape works of Jingdezhen ceramics.
Liu Yucen relied on his profound skills to create the "water point" technique. This technique was later used in firing wool porcelain and was known as a contemporary official kiln. The "Water Point Peach Blossom" series collected by Zhou Zhi are all It is the creation of Master Liu.
In the ceramic culture situation before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the task of ceramic craftsmen was to serve the ruling class. They had no autonomy in identity and creation, and no natural conditions for association. Their status was like that of employees.
With the development of modern times, the identity of ceramic craftsmen has been greatly freed and released, so they have the conditions to form art gatherings or art societies just like other literati. They often have common interests or goals in life. The cultural quality of these people is already very high. They have words, names, and habits. They are scholars and painters themselves.
They will take the initiative to pursue and imitate the essence of calligraphy and painting of their predecessors, such as Wang Qi learning from Huang Shen and the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou; Wang Dafan learning from Wu Daozi; Wang Yeting learning from Shen Yuan and Wang Shigu; and Deng Bishan learning from Song Dynasty palace painting, Lingnan School and Oriental painting; who studied Dong Yuan and Ju Ran; Xu Zhongnan studied Dai Xi; Tian Hexian studied Wang Mian.
Bi Botao himself was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, and his painting style and that of Liu Yucen, another master among the Eight Friends, were greatly influenced by the Qing Dynasty painter Xinluo Shanren.
It can be seen from this inheritance and pursuit that the Eight Friends of Zhushan have actually broken away from the category of "porcelain craftsmen" and advanced to the level of "painters". The only raw materials for painting are porcelain bodies and glaze colors.
This is also true, just like Wang Dafan's poem in "The Gathering of Eight Friends of Zhushan": "There is a reason for the intersection of morality and justice, and the association of Zhushan has new aspirations. The feathers, mountains, rivers, plums and bamboos, Flowers, fish, insects, animals, and people are all painted in the northern and southern styles. This painting, with the claws left on it, can only be regarded as a self-portrait by one of us.”
It can be said that the Eight Friends of Zhushan truly entered the Dacheng period when painting was incorporated into porcelain. One explorer was realized on porcelain and finally achieved the perfect migration.
However, such exquisite works of art are not valued at all in today's market.
Because of its "cross-border" attribute, it has brought a lot of embarrassment to itself. In the calligraphy and painting world, it pursues artworks with paper and silk carriers; in the antique world, it pursues age and official kiln lineage, and porcelain plate paintings. It just so happened that there was a "two bad things".
So Zhou Zhi had to find the steps for himself, and said with an awkward smile: "Even if it is not valuable now, it will become an antique after twenty or thirty years..."
Lin Wanqiu scratched the itch with a bamboo-skin hand. Peel off the broken glass on the surface of the porcelain painting: "Take this and hang it on the New Year's Eve The Huaxuan Library is quite good. It is not afraid of being exposed to the sun and does not fade. The calligraphy and paintings can be taken down and sent to the inner room for safe keeping.”
Zhou Zhi carefully checked the condition and signature of these porcelain plate paintings. Because of the attention it received, it was not deliberately destroyed.
The binding at that time was also delicate enough, with a small distance between the surface glass and the porcelain plate. The breakage of the glass was more likely caused by careless stacking after delivery.
The development of porcelain plate painting reached the period of the Eight Friends of Zhushan, and it was finally possible to produce large flat plates. These plates all reached an area of 1.2 meters by 40 centimeters. With the frame, they have reached the "strip screen" The size is really suitable for hanging in the sunken library of Suihuaxuan.
This batch of porcelain plate paintings includes all the masters of the time, and all of them are the best subjects of famous artists, including Wang Qi's "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", Wang Dafan's "Budou Arhat", Wang Yeting's "Part of Imitation of Fuchun Mountain Residence", Deng Bishan "Autumn Pond" "Kingfisher Picture", Bi Botao's "Maple Colors in Cloud Mountains", He Heren's "Snowy Path in Xiaoshan Mountain", Cheng Fu's "Sketching of Flowers and Birds in the Palace Garden", Liu Yucen's "Bamboo Fence Breaking in Spring", Xu Zhongnan's "Pine Eagle Picture", Tian Hexian "Meishan Yi Lao Tu", a total of ten paintings.
If it weren’t for the master Ouyang Youhe, it would not be possible to gather so many people and be so sophisticated.
Especially the works of Xu Zhongnan and Deng Bishan, the oldest ones, were written ten years ago.
The youngest Liu Yucen continued to create until more than five years ago, with a span of several decades in between.
(End of this chapter)