In the summer of 1994, an incident occurred that left experts at the Palace Museum in Beijing speechless. Northern Wei Dynasty pottery figurines that were supposed to be rare are suddenly as ubiquitous as cabbage in Panjiayuan in Beijing. Experts who had just spent 900,000 yuan to purchase a batch of Northern Wei pottery figurines found it difficult to understand that such a situation had occurred. They suspected that an important tomb from the Northern Wei Dynasty might have been dug up by tomb robbers.
The police quickly intervened in the matter and discovered that these unexpected Northern Wei pottery figurines all came from a small village called Nanshishan Village in Luoyang, Henan. These pottery figurines were all made by a villager named Gao Shuiwang. He told the police that a man from Yuzhou came to ask for pottery figurines. There was a box full of thirty or forty pieces, and the disposal price was 4 yuan. Each pottery figurine was sold for only 1 cent! Now, not only the police, but also the experts who spent huge sums of money to purchase the pottery figurines and determined that they were genuine were dumbfounded. Gao Shuiwang is obviously familiar with the road, and this is not the first time such a thing has happened. As early as 1987, his neighbor took away an antique Tang Sancai he made and sold it as a cultural relic. This incident attracted the attention of the police. They arrested Gao Shuiwang and imprisoned him for four days and nights.
At that time, Gao Shuiwang seemed very helpless and could not understand what mistake he had made in counterfeiting cultural relics. His superb skills actually became a source of trouble for him, forcing him to have the idea of ??changing the direction of his work. This ridiculous situation was something that Gao Shuiwang, who initially plunged into antique craftsmanship, did not expect.
After practicing his skills for many years, he made Tang Sancai that looked just like the real thing, but it brought him great turmoil
Gao Shuiwang, who was born in 1958, is an authentic Henan native. Nanshishan Village, the village where he grew up, was famous for the unearthed numerous tricolor paintings of the Tang Dynasty in the 19th century. As a result, there was a wave of enthusiasm for imitating Tang Sancai in the village, and every household once opened a Tang Sancai workshop.
At that time, a true story was spread in the village. A villager bought an authentic pottery figurine in Beijing at a high price and took it home. When I showed it to my brother, I received an unexpected answer. The villager's brother was shocked when he saw the pottery figurines, saying that he had made them himself, and took out the one he had left at home. At this time, the villagers were completely dumbfounded.
When Gao Shuiwang heard this story for the first time, hope arose in his heart. He reasoned that if it was done well and sold at a high price, it would definitely make money. Isn't this a way to make money?
So, at the age of 17, Gao Shuiwang came into contact with Tang Sancai and painstakingly learned various techniques of Tang Sancai, including material selection, proportion, heat, fineness, etc. In order to maximize the authenticity of the fakes, Gao Shuiwang also worked tirelessly to visit many museums and inspect and compare them one by one.
He not only studied the appearance of Tang Sancai, but also more greedily challenged problems such as glaze composition, firing temperature, and aging treatment. After numerous failures, Gao Shuiwang finally formulated the ingredients of the Tang Dynasty glaze, found the heat of the Tang Dynasty kiln, and produced step by step high imitations of Tang Dynasty tricolor products.
Gao Shuiwang did not stop working behind closed doors. He also went to the Luoyang Arts and Crafts Research Institute in Henan Province to study as a teacher. At that time, Zhang Yingchun, director of the Luoyang Arts and Crafts Research Institute, was deeply impressed by Gao Shuiwang, saying that he was diligent, studious, and progressed very quickly.
Half a year later, Gao Shuiwang, who felt that everything was ready, returned to his hometown, borrowed money from everywhere, raised 900 yuan, and founded an ancient pottery imitation craft factory with his brother.
Of course, he never imagined that the imitations of Tang Sancai that he had worked so hard to make could look real, but because his neighbors were stealing them and selling them to others, they attracted the attention of the public security organs. The result was four days and four nights in jail.
The loss of customers made him see a turning point. From then on, his life was full of hardships
In 2004, Gao Shuiwang's life gradually stabilized. He was imprisoned and wrote introspections because of his superb skills; and because the market for "new craft three-color" and "colored porcelain" suddenly fell into the cold, the factory was on the verge of bankruptcy.
But he also became famous in the antique circle in an unimaginable way, and got more customers who came here.
Gao Shuiwang's carefully fired products are naturally several times more expensive than the crudely made pottery on the market. But once he suffered a setback and lost a big customer.
It turned out that this was a customer from Malaysia who originally wanted to spend 3,000 to buy the Tang Sancai Fat Girl pottery figurine made by Gao Shuiwang. Unfortunately, when the customer walked around the stalls, he saw that many stalls had similar Tang Sancai, and they only cost 200 yuan. The other party simply didn't buy any of them and left them empty-handed.
The unwilling Gao Shuiwang pondered over and over again. Later, he discovered that it turned out that these big customers who were not short of money were unwilling to spend a lot of money to buy a product that had so many inferior and similar competing products due to the mentality of "scarcity is more valuable".
So Gao Shuiwang quickly selected a Tang Sancai black hook-headed horse collected by the National Museum, repeatedly observed and compared it, and skillfully copied one according to the original shape, and sent a message to the Malaysian customers. Sure enough, Got a reply. In the end, this unique high imitation was quickly sold at a price that satisfied both parties.
Gao Shuiwang changed his mind and planned to make the product more refined and more expensive. At this time, he also received an interview from CCTV.
As early as ten years ago, when the oolong incident occurred, Beijing TV Station's "Collection of the World" used Wang Gang's words to say that it should avoid falsehoods and preserve the truth, expressing its disapproval of Gao Shuiwang's behavior. But ten years later, CCTV reporters who conducted on-the-spot investigations changed their original ideas and decided to report on Gao Shuiwang head-on.
As Mr. Guo Aihe, a master of Chinese ceramic art, said, "The aesthetic value of antique Luoyang Tang Sancai is the excavation and reproduction of the profound skills of our ancestors, and it is also the respect and inheritance of human culture."
Through personal study and practice, Gao Shuiwang has achieved superb skills in replicating fakes and real ones, and can imitate products that even experts cannot identify as authentic - or can be said to be works of art. Such a person has never used this technology to disrupt the market. Instead, he has been doing business in an orderly manner. What is wrong with him?
And Gao Shuiwang also had an epiphany. The debate about authenticity, inheritance and innovation that he had struggled with in the past finally came to a conclusion. He stamped all the Tang Sancai he imitated in his own style and wrote his own name on them, creating his own three-color art work.
The current Gao Shuiwang is a director of the Chinese Cultural Relics Society, a member of the Chinese Folk Literature and Artists Association, and a director of the Asian American Artists Association. His work "Tang Sancai Female Figurine" won the gold medal at the first China Folk Art Expo, "Eight-Human Camel" won the gold medal at the first China Cultural Relics Imitation and Folk Crafts Exhibition, and "Black Hook-headed Horse" won the gold medal at the China Tourism Trade Expo...
From a villager in a small mountain village who made a living by imitating, to an artist who is now famous at home and abroad, from a craftsman who was imprisoned for imitating and was repeatedly questioned by the police, to a man who has won multiple awards. A well-known master in the field of imitation of Tang Sancai...
Gao Shuiwang has experienced far more things than an ordinary craftsman can encounter, but he can only do what a craftsman should do.
Throw away your false reputation, put down your wealth, and then approach high water and prosperity. The elderly man lamented that as a craftsman, he most hoped that through his own efforts, the ancient Tang Sancai technique could be carried forward.
At the same time, I also hope that there will be successors to the skills of Tang Sancai. He not only edited and printed "Tri-Colored Colors of the Tang Dynasty" to fill the theoretical gaps in the industry, but also held a "Tang Tri-Colored Color Talents Training Course", giving step-by-step instruction to add fresh blood to the industry.
Gao Shuiwang is worthy of his title as "the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage (Tang Sancai firing technique)", and he deserves to be respectfully called a master and say thank you.