The current Chinese carving industry does not pay much attention to labor costs. In other words, the master craftsmen are not valuable and do not reflect the value of their labor. This has resulted in the jade carving exhibits here being perfect at no expense.
The Hundred Flowers Award was started in 1981. At that time, there were still many materials collected by the light industry bureaus in various places, so the materials used for carving were also regardless of cost.
Another feature is that the early Hundred Flowers Award paid great attention to craftsmanship, and the materials seemed not to be too much consideration by the craftsmen. Whether it was precious Hetian jade, sapphire, or the relatively low-value soapstone, or even the commercially available Fuxin agate, Xiu Jade, and even some materials that cannot be called jade such as jadeite and yellow wax, are used by craftsmen as a platform to display their whimsical ideas and superb craftsmanship.
Pure white jade and sapphire are even carved into craft balls by sculptors. For extremely material-consuming subjects such as hollowed-out buildings, they are often dug out, ditched, and holes made. The final product of fifty kilograms of material may be less than twenty kilograms. , the remaining half became scraps, which could only be processed into pendants, rings and other small items. Mai Xiaomiao was extremely impressed when he saw it, but Zhou Zhi shook his head repeatedly.
Not to mention too far, after two careful searches, the top Hetian jade resources - Lianghe seed material and 95 Yutian have basically been exhausted. Now they are still circulating on the market, and the price is rising almost every day. According to this increase Fa, there may even be a situation where Jade cannot catch up, and the situation in the previous life will be reversed.
This kind of carving method in many industrial and artistic exhibits will probably no longer be seen on high-end stone materials in the future.
In addition to exquisite craftsmanship, many of the carvings here have another outstanding feature, which is their large size.
A whole piece of jade often weighs tons, which is particularly suitable for large-scale creations. For example, a large black jade vat with a diameter of more than one meter can easily fit several people into it. The huge outer wall of the cylinder gives a large space for relief creation. In the space, nine dragons can be carved around it. This is the creative idea of the ink jade nine dragon vat.
Another example is a huge piece of Dushan jade material. Dushan jade itself is an altered anorthosite, which serves as a matrix and is associated with zoisite, epidote, tremolite, sericite, biotite and sphene. Materials that reach the level of gemstone craftsmanship.
Due to the presence of a variety of associated minerals, Dushan jade has a variegated and warm color, with a total of six pigments: green, blue, yellow, purple, red and white, and seventy-seven color types.
In addition, jade is tough, slightly dense, delicate and soft, and its hardness is comparable to jade. Therefore, it has always been an important jade raw material for Chinese arts and crafts carvings, and is one of the four famous jade in China.
So now Zhou Zhi stood in front of this huge Dushan Yushanzi, marveling at its colorful colors, ingenious composition, and seamless carvings.
This is a big tree carved with relief techniques. The upper part of the mountain is sky blue and white and is carved into the blue sky and clouds. The brown and black part is carved into the tree trunk. The largest area of green is carved into the green leaves.
There are some red and yellow crystals in the green, and some white mica at the junction of the two. Now they are carved into groups of lychees by the skillful hands of the craftsman.
The lychees are either raw or ripe. The ripe ones are red, the raw parts are yellow or red and yellow, and the white mica is cleverly carved into the pulp of the ripe lychees exposed after they are split.
"This is so amazing..." Mai Xiaomiao looked at the relief mountain carefully: "It gives people the feeling that this stone was born for this carving and was specially grown like this."
"This is an interesting statement, but it is also the greatest compliment to the carving master." Zhou Zhi said. "Elbow, how much do you think this costs?"
"Why do you want to buy the jade carving? This must be a permanent collection and cannot be sold."
"No, I just want to know."
"It's really hard to say." Zhou Zhi couldn't help but sigh. Even if the works that won the grand prize a few years later, some of them only cost 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, such as the Fuxin Agate Carved Artwork that won the Best Creative Award at the 2nd Tianxian Craftsman Competition. "Zi Zi Ji Gong", with its exquisite conception and superb craftsmanship, has received widespread praise and reports across the country. However, it was eventually sold to others by the sculptor, Master Yang, for 16,000 yuan.
Fortunately, Master Yang really liked his carving, so he bought it back for 17,000 yuan a year later, and sold it again for 500,000 yuan a few years later.
This mountain is hundreds of times larger than "Zizai Jigong", but the materials are very ordinary. The output of Dushan jade is quite large, it is not a precious stone, and now it is not even comparable to agate. Therefore, the current "Good Years and Great Profits" is basically just wages. However, the wages of jade carving nowadays are very low, so if this mountain is not sent to the exhibition, it is estimated that it can be won for tens of thousands of dollars.
"Several hundred thousand." Zhou Zhi decided to quote the price ten years from now to avoid disappointment.
"It's so cheap." Mai Xiaomiao really felt regretful.
"Now is the trough period for collecting Chinese handicrafts." Zhou Zhi said: "If you are interested, you can indeed consider income, but you must consider the material and craftsmanship. Generally, it needs to be the work of a national-level craftsman, and the material is also preferably made of precious materials. For example, Hotan white jade, sapphire, jasper, Burmese jade, and bloodstone must be from Changhua. If they are from Bahrain, the quality must be Dahongpao. The potential for future appreciation is very huge.”
"Me? I don't want anything else. I think our Nanhong is very good. Those little dragons just now are so beautiful. I can't believe they were carved from the kind of stone we picked up."
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This is the skill of a skilled craftsman. Many gems and jade materials are ordinary when they are in their original mine state. They can be radiant after being carved and polished by skillful hands. With careful mixing, Mai Xiaomiao can only collect rough stones on the mountains and rivers. See The finished products that arrived were basically scraps sent by the jade carving factory. They were not as simple as the ear beads and water drop pendants that Zhou Zhi gave as gifts to the villagers. The only carvings I had seen were Shama's "Hope for a Child to Become a Dragon".
In fact, Suihuaxuan also displayed a lot of Nanhong and Hetian jade carvings, but at that time, Mai Xiaomiao was all about Zhou Zhi, and even became a hacker for it, and didn't pay much attention to those displays.
"Well, cheap things are everywhere." Zhou Zhi said: "When you find Hetian jade that you like, you can take it. As for Nanhong, we are the discoverers and are qualified to customize it."
At this time, Zhou Zhi's cell phone rang, and Zhou Zhi answered the call: "Teachers? Ah, we are here. In the hall, we are visiting "One Hundred and Eight Dragon Sons" up close. The feeling is very different from looking at photos... ...Oh, not in the hall? Then where should we meet...Oh, we are in front of Fengnianda Dushan Yushanzi. Hey, let's wait here, right?" (End of this chapter)< br>