"The more precious type among the styles is those not made in the Xuande year of the Ming Dynasty. Copper stoves of this type are generally genuine government-made ones at that time. The quality is of course much higher than that of civilian imitations, and even The quality is higher than the official imitation Xuande six-character model. "
"In other words, this "Chongzhen Renwu Dongyue Qinglai supervision" style is actually better than the "Ming Xuande year production" style. Does the style need to be more precious?" Host Wang asked.
“Actually, it should be understood this way.” Mr. Wang smiled and said: “The real copper furnaces made in the Xuande Year of the Ming Dynasty can no longer be seen. Basically, we have all the copper furnaces made in the Xuande Year of the Ming Dynasty. You might as well regard it as a post-imitation. Let’s not talk about civilian imitations. The quality of official imitations and year-marked models are almost the same. The degree of rarity of the two is better, which mainly depends on the quality of the maintenance plate in the later period. .”
“However, the quality of official-made vintage models is guaranteed, and the authenticity is easy to determine, while the deposit money is easily confused with civilian imitations, which increases the difficulty of identification and the relatively high threshold for collection. Therefore, in the industry, official-made models are The popularity and popularity of the stoves made in the period are better than those made by the government. "
"This is not caused by the quality of the thing, but by the market."
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"It turns out that no matter which collection it is, it is not easy to study." Host Wang carefully put the copper stove back on the table, and then picked up the small lacquer box on the table: "Research on Ming-style Furniture" and "Explanation of Paintings and Decorations" are Mr.'s masterpieces, and they are widely praised. These two subjects are Mr.'s favorites, right? ”
"Actually, not really." Mr. Wang said: "I prefer bamboo carvings, paintings, bronze Buddhas, gourds, and even boiling eagles, walking dogs, raising fish, and raising pigeons. But the one that can be considered elegant is "Research on Ming Style Furniture" It is two books apart from "Explanation of Paintings and Decorations", mainly because of its detailed introduction and sources, which I personally think is very important."
"For example, "Research on Ming Style Furniture" and "Explanation of Painting and Decoration Records", I think the content is actually average. The most important thing is the index part at the back of the book. Those are things I have spent a lot of effort to build over the past few decades. ”
“There is a common problem in our academic circles now, that is, ‘books without indexes’. This is not true. I think it is necessary to avoid all kinds of stinky problems, big or small, that are painful and itchy.”
“The index greatly facilitates retrieval and is particularly useful for research. In the 1980s, the "Complete Collection of Chinese Art" was compiled and published, and I was fortunate to be in charge of it. Editor-in-chief of "Lacquerware Volume", he wrote an introduction to "Ancient Chinese Lacquer Craft" of more than 50,000 words. ”
"I don't dare to say that our knowledge is true, our insights are profound, and our information is comprehensive, but at least we are rigorous in verification, original, and well-founded."
"I think we are academics and cannot play with ghost market literature at the stall. The hawkers are so free-spirited that everything written in the book must clearly explain its origin, and must stand up to everyone's discussion and verification. ”
“The first big problem encountered when studying antiquities is whether they are authentic or fake and of their time. Although handed down items often have higher artistic value, they often have less scientific value due to their unclear origins and unknown era. "Low." Mr. Wang said: "The unearthed objects are different and often have the advantages of clear origin and clear era. They are the most reliable physical information."
“Forty years ago, when studying the Ming and Qing Dynasties, everyone still paid more attention to the handed down items, and rarely paid attention to the Ming and Qing Dynasties from an archaeological perspective. Most of my research was on the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and then I discovered To solve this problem, most of the writings do not cite the new archaeological results of our country.”
“But lacquerware is special. Except for the Ming and Qing dynasties, it has never been published. Since the earliest Hemudu period, there have been a large number of archaeological discoveries. Therefore, the main physical basis for my research on early lacquerware is the selected archaeological data. "I have introduced these things as a brief history and introduction to Chinese lacquerware. , lists 240 annotations for the introduction, clarifying the sources of the ancient and modern documents cited. ”
Zhou Zhi nodded repeatedly as he listened. This is actually the difference between collectors and scholars.
Mr. Shixiang is a liberal scholar and a pragmatist. He has researched many ancient intangible cultural heritage and made significant contributions. Of course, his highest achievements were in the study of Ming-style furniture and lacquerware, but Zhou Zhi believed that the most important thing was that he set an example of scientific spirit in these two studies.
Emphasis on appendices, indexes, and reference to archaeological data have become very important means of writing papers in later generations. However, at this time, in literary and historical research, there is a disadvantage of underestimating citations. Previous writings often ignored annotations and did not give the results. If the source of the theory was not suggested in the text and the source was not mentioned, it was the norm.
The funniest thing is that those works are still being developed by the academic community under the pretext of "old academic standards".
For the appendix index, the old man spent so much energy and money. At the time when he wrote his book, most experts were still relying on handed down cultural relics to make circular arguments, but he had already jumped out of the box, which undoubtedly showed the profoundness of his knowledge and the scientific method.
Many people attribute this to the fact that the old man graduated from Yenching University and received formal modern education in his early years. However, in the past hundred years, there have been too many scholars with modern education, and there have been a vast number of academic works, but there are still not many works with indexes, which is difficult to explain.
This is probably the reason why people like Mr. Wang and Mr. Qi are very fond of Zhou Zhi, because Zhou Zhi and Zhou Zhi’s teacher, Mr. Gu, have three generations of his family. They are the same type of people and pay great attention to historical materials and The archaeological data are combined with each other, the arguments cited by the theory are unmovable, and everything has its source.
Even when Zhou Zhi used some imagination in the class "Oracle Bone Inscriptions Appreciation", Mr. Gu got into trouble, which shows how rigorous his family style is.
Zhou Zhi has taken this to the extreme, and has developed a digital library and search engine for this purpose. The emergence of this thing will undoubtedly relieve the huge burden on the majority of literary and historical workers, and will also Let the style of study and research methods develop in the direction that these old men hope.
Sure enough, I heard Mr. Wang say: "Now that we have computers and good tools, the time required to search for documents has been greatly reduced compared to what we used to do back then. Now we no longer need to store books in our heads, we can Using computers to facilitate retrieval solves a major problem in literary and historical research. It can save more energy and use it for more comprehensive and in-depth research."
"It's just like the research on lacquerware," Mr. Wang habitually played with the Yongle gold color in his hand. The lacquered Double Dragon Playing with Pearls rectangular box said: "For example, Majia Bang Wen The painted pottery of the Hua and Liangzhu cultures is not cited in the "Explanation of Paintings"
"It seems that there was an important stage in the Neolithic period, which was wood-bodied lacquerware and lacquerware. During the period when pottery-body lacquer ware was in parallel use, it was difficult to preserve wooden-body lacquer ware, but pottery-body lacquer ware was The origins of many lacquer decorations were left behind. These patterns and methods of lacquer decoration had a profound impact on many categories such as pottery patterns, lacquers, inlays, bronzes, silk paintings, and even wood carvings, statues, and enamels in later generations. ."(End of this chapter)