The Ming Dynasty inherited the rapid development of commercial trade from the two Song Dynasties, especially the Southern Song Dynasty. Business in the Ming Dynasty was very developed, and the people became wealthy as a result. The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of my country's feudal society. Pottery was in the same line as the Ming Dynasty. It achieved unprecedented development during this period, forming the last peak in the history of ancient Chinese pottery. It is known as "coarse pottery in the Ming Dynasty and purple pottery in the Qing Dynasty". .
The most famous ones at this time were the four famous pottery in my country, namely Zisha pottery, Nixing pottery, Jianshui pottery and Rongchang pottery.
Purple clay pottery refers to pottery made from clay produced in North Huanglong Mountain, Dingshu Town, Yixing, Jiangsu Province.
The purple clay pot originated in Yixing, Jiangsu Province. The founder was Gong Chun during the Zhengde and Jiajing reigns of the Ming Dynasty. He was known as "Gongchun" in the world. The "Gongchun Pot" he created was praised by people at the time for its "dark chestnut color. Just like iron in ancient and modern times, Dun Pang and Zhou Zheng are both strong and upright." In just 12 words, it is like seeing a pot.
Gongchun was later passed on to Shi Dabin and Li Zhongfen. Together with Shi Dabin's disciple Xu Youquan, they were known as the "three masters of purple sand" in the Ming Dynasty after Wanli. Shi Dabin's purple clay teapots are elegant and refined in style, with smooth and flexible shapes. Although they do not pursue exquisite craftsmanship, they are ingenious, simple, elegant and solid, which is incredible.
Xu Youquan has exquisite craftsmanship and is good at making purple clay pots in the shape of ancient bronzes, which are simple, solemn and simple. Legend has it that when Xu Youquan was a child, he learned pottery from Shi Dabin as his teacher. He begged the teacher to knead a clay cow for him, but Shi Dabin refused.
At this time, a real cow happened to pass by outside the house. Xu Youquan got a quick wit, grabbed a handful of mud, ran outside, and pinched the real cow. Shi Dabin praised him greatly and thought he was very good. He was talented, so he happily taught him all his unique skills, and later he became his own family.
The above four are the first batch of purple clay pottery masters. The masters of purple sand pottery in the second period were Chen Mingyuan and Hui Mengchen from the early Qing Dynasty. Chen Mingyuan uses the shapes of chestnuts, walnuts, peanuts, water chestnuts, sagittaria, water chestnuts, lotus, frogs, etc. that are common in life to put into the teapot. , turning the traditional purple clay teapot into a living sculpture art, full of vitality and vitality.
At the same time, Chen Mingyuan also invented the form of writing on the bottom of the pot and stamping the inside of the lid. By the Qing Dynasty, a fixed process was formed, which had a significant impact on the development of purple clay pottery. Because of Chen Mingyuan's superb works, he became famous for a while.
The masters of purple clay pottery in the third period were Chen Hongshou and Yang Pengnian during the Jiaqing and Daoguang years of the mid-Qing Dynasty. Chen Hongshou was a famous calligrapher, painter, and seal engraver in the mid-Qing Dynasty. He advocated innovation in art. He advocated that "poetry, calligraphy, and painting do not have to be very sophisticated", but they must be "naturally interesting".
He put this artistic idea into purple clay pottery art. The first major contribution is to combine poetry, calligraphy and painting with purple clay pottery, using bamboo knives to inscribe poetry and carving paintings on the pot. His second greatest contribution was that he used his talent to improvise and design many novel styles of purple clay pots at will, bringing vitality to the innovation of purple clay pots.
Purple clay pots can be divided into five categories according to their craftsmanship: bare pots, flower and fruit pots, square pots, ribbed pots, and ceramic decorative pots.
The light pot is mainly round, and its shape is evolved on the basis of the circle, and is made using various techniques such as lines, drawings, and inscriptions.
Flower and fruit pots are based on melons, fruits, trees, bamboos and other natural species as themes, and are artistically created to fully express the natural beauty and the principle of returning to simplicity.
The square pot is a shape that combines points, lines and surfaces. It comes from themes such as utensils and architecture, and uses calligraphy, painting, inscriptions, printing plates, painted sculptures, etc. as decorative means. The pot body is solemn and steady, with alternating hardness and softness, which better reflects the aesthetics of the human body.
The ribbed rhombus kettle is commonly known as the "jinbu kettle". It is a pot with regular lines radiating from the center of the top of the pot to the periphery. The vertical lines are called ribs and the horizontal lines are called lines, so they are also called "ribbon lines". device".
A pottery pot is a more abstract pot that looks like a circle but not a circle, a square but not a square, a flower but not a flower, and a tendon but not a tendon. It can be decorated with patterns and colors from oil paintings and traditional Chinese paintings. There are traditional and non-traditional ceramic arts.
Purple clay teapots can be divided into three categories according to industry:
Flowers are natural shapes. Teapots are made using sculpture techniques or relief and semi-circular carving decoration techniques, incorporating the things seen in life. Various natural images and various object shapes are artistically designed into teapot shapes, such as pine tree segment teapots, bamboo knot teapots, prune teapots, watermelon teapots, etc., which are full of poetic charm and full of life. The Ming Dynasty Gongchun Shuda teapot is the earliest known purple clay teapot made of flowers.
Light goods are geometric shapes, characterized by the geometric shape of the pot body and the smooth surface. Light goods are divided into two categories: circle goods and square goods. Circle goods, that is, the cross section of the teapot is round or oval, such as: round teapot, handle teapot, imitation drum teapot, ball-shaped teapot, etc.; square goods, that is, the cross section of the teapot is square, hexagonal, octagonal, etc., such as: Monk hat kettle, Chuanlu kettle, ladle shuttle kettle, etc.
Jinhuo is a style created from the melon edges, petals, and cloud and water patterns seen in life. This type of pot art requires that the mouth, lid, spout, bottom, and handle must all be made into rib shapes to match the texture of the pot body. This also makes the craftsmanship reach an extremely rigorous level. Common ribbed ware shapes in modern times include Heling teapot, Fengju teapot, etc.
The shape of the famous purple sand tree gall teapot imitates a tree gall. The surface of the teapot is uneven and has bark-like carvings. The whole teapot is dark maroon in color. It is a pot style created by Gongchun, a master pot maker in the Ming Dynasty.
Another example is the "Bing Xin Taoist" pot. The color of the pot is like the tea powder glaze in porcelain. On the front of the pot is a recessed niche with a person sitting inside. The outer wall of the niche is decorated with peach trees, peach blossoms and peach blossoms. leaf. The other three sides of the pot body are carved with cloud patterns, and the bottom of the pot is inscribed with "Bing Xin Taoist".
There is also an "Erquan" inscribed pot, which was made by Shao Erquan, a famous purple sand master in the late Qing Dynasty. This pot is simple in shape, earthy in color, and has a bamboo shape all over. A bat flies over it, which corresponds to the "blessing" wishes of the ancients. On one side of the ampulla, there is an inscribed running script: "The sky is bright and the air is clear, and the wind is gentle and gentle." This poem originated from Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Lanting Collection" and was signed "Erquan". There is a "Tang Bing" pattern on the bottom of the pot.
Nixing pottery originated in Qinzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It was called Yue pottery in ancient times. According to historical records, it may have been invented before the Tang Dynasty and became more sophisticated in the Tang Dynasty. Xiaoyao Tomb was discovered in Pingxin Village, east of Qinzhou City, at the foot of the mountain. It contains a pottery stele of Ning Dao Affairs and a pottery pot next to it. The stele is engraved with the words "Twenty Years of Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty".
Nixing pottery did not have an exact name in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, Qinzhou pottery developed at its peak, and Nixing pottery was widely used, so it was named "Nixing".
Nixing Pottery products mainly include 8 categories of tea sets, stationery, tableware, coffee sets, vases, flower pots, fumed tripods and antique products, with more than 600 varieties of designs and colors. There are large vases with a height of 2 meters, and small tea cups with a diameter of only 3 centimeters. Among them, various tea sets, vases and pen holders, bonsai and tableware are the most famous.
Nixing pottery became popular during the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty. The founder of Nixing pottery, Hu Laoliu, was an old pottery man who made Nixing pottery pupate and turn into a butterfly. Hu Laoliu made three new attempts when making small pipes: abandoning sandy soil and using Chengxi red mud, abandoning vats and replacing them with high-temperature calcination in kilns, and polishing them repeatedly after firing.
At that time, it was just to make the pipe he made more delicate and harder. What he didn't expect was that after making this modification, the fired pipe would be as delicate and smooth as jade after polishing, and it would appear as if it were made of jade. Mystical Bronze. This is the first time that Qinzhou pottery has experienced kiln changes.
What is even more unexpected is that the modified pipe is far more sophisticated than Yixing, Jiangsu and sells well both inside and outside the province. As a result, Qinzhou pottery that has been around for more than 1,000 years has its own name: Qinzhou Nixing pottery .
Subsequently, Nixing masters such as Zheng Jinsheng and Pan Yunxing emerged one after another, so that at one time there were more than 40 families producing Nixing crafts living in the small Nixing Lane in Qinzhou, which is famous throughout the country. All the officials who came and went bought Nixing utensils and gave them to relatives and friends. This was the beginning of the prosperity of Nixing in Qinzhou.
The products produced at that time included various small clay pots for smoking, teapots, small vases and stationery. There are more than 40 companies engaged in this production, among which the more famous ones include "Lijiayuan", "Renwozhai", "Fu Guangyin", "Maixingji", "Pan Yunxin" and so on.
During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, most families engaged in Nixing craftsmen settled in Yuliaoheng Street in the south of the city and set up shop, forming a Nixing Lane, namely "Pull Lane".
During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, Nixing pottery was already well-known in all provinces. Since the establishment of the Taoist Department, there have been more official visits, and they all purchased Nixing pottery and brought it out of other provinces, spreading its name to other places. During this period, he participated in world-wide ceramic art competitions and won awards in all of them.
One of the Nixing pottery is a unique style white clay pattern bottle, 29.8 cm high, with a Yang pattern "Qinzhou Official Kiln" stamped on the bottom. Judging from its carcass and production process, it can be concluded that the clay used is extremely fine, and it is polished after firing, giving it a jade-like effect. This is the main feature that distinguishes it from other pottery produced at the entrance of the kiln.
The craftsmanship of Qinzhou Nixing pottery has been passed down from generation to generation.
Artists used the highly malleable clay to carve poems and paintings on the vessel bodies. The poems were elegant in content, and the paintings were mainly based on landscapes, flowers and birds, and were full of traditional Chinese painting line drawing style.
People carve on the blank according to pre-designed patterns, such as fairy flowers, Guilin Elephant Mountain, Shuiyue Cave, Eight Immortals crossing the sea, or various flowers and birds, etc. The knife skills are old and clumsy, and the craftsmanship is exquisite. Handling a knife is like handling a pen.
After the pattern is carved on the green body, another kind of paste is filled in the notch, such as white paste. When the paste is wet, it is filled and fused. You can burn redware with white flowers and white paste. The effect of red flowers on the vessel makes Nixing pottery reveal a mellow and strong humanistic flavor in its simplicity and simplicity. It is an elegant handicraft with high practical value and has won people's love.
Nixing pottery can produce kiln variations without adding any ceramic pigments during the firing process. During the firing process of traditional techniques, its color is mostly vermilion or purple-red.
Occasionally, one or a few products will produce dark green or bronze "kiln changes", which are unpredictable and unpredictable, and are known as "kiln treasures". The "kiln transformation" technology of Qinzhou Nixing Pottery can be called "a unique skill in China".
Nixing pottery products have been transformed in the kiln, and the surface layer still retains the original color of vermilion or purple. After polishing off the surface, its true appearance was discovered, forming a variety of gorgeous natural colors, such as looming bronze, dark green, purple, tiger stripes, sky blue, sky spots, golden, maroon, iron blue and many other colors. The texture is fine and smooth, and has a very High appreciation and collection value.
Nixing pottery is acid and alkali resistant and non-toxic. It has a unique natural double pore structure that is breathable but not water-permeable, which is beneficial to long-term storage of food. Practice has proved that tea leaves will not become moldy after being placed in Nixing clay pots for several years. Use the tea set to make tea, and the taste will be mellow and the color and taste will remain unchanged overnight. An empty pot that has been used for a long time will still have a fragrant tea flavor when poured into boiled water, making it a top-grade tea set.
The traditional carving technique of Nixing pottery is to use a sharp steel knife to carve words and patterns on the semi-finished body of Nixing pottery. It is divided into two parts: flat carving technology and relief carving technology. Carving is done on semi-dry and slightly wet mud, with techniques such as line carving, hollowing, sculpture, and inlay. Relief is carried out on the completely dry body, and there are techniques such as high relief, low relief, positive engraving and negative engraving.
Jianshui pottery, also known as Jianshui purple pottery, was produced in the Qing Dynasty and began during the Daoguang period. It was developed on the basis of the prosperity of rough pottery production in the Ming Dynasty.
There is a kiln-fired village "Wanyao Village" in the northern suburbs of Jianshui Ancient City. There is no way to verify when Wanyao Village began. Later generations only know that pottery has been the industry here for generations, and the village was born from pottery making. The red clay slope behind the village stretches for several miles from east to west, and contains a large area of ??well-traveled ancient kiln ruins and mountains of ceramic fragments.
The clay material for Jianshui purple pottery is taken from Jianshui. The traditional clay-making method is: pound different pottery clays into powders, sieve out the coarse sand, mix the different powdered raw soils according to the requirements of pottery making, then put them into a tank, add water to make a slurry, stir and mix. After the mortar-containing mud has settled to the bottom of the tank, use a spoon to take the bleached slurry and pour it into another tank for washing again.
After repeating this for five or six times, let it dry naturally into mud in a closed state. At this time, the mud is as greasy as grease without any sand particles. Due to the fineness of the mud, its plasticity in a wet state is relatively weak. Therefore, Jianshui purple pottery is generally not made by grouting and injection molding, and it is not suitable for making large devices. Because of this characteristic, it has also achieved Jianshui purple pottery can be made with special techniques of fine carving, mud filling and unglazed polishing on the surface of the object. This is also the most essential difference between Jianshui purple pottery and other sandy pottery.
The base material of Jianshui Purple Pottery is red clay, and the colored mud is white clay. Some gray-green, light crimson, and orange natural colored mud are cleverly covered with purple. Pottery blanks, this artificial innovation and development, greatly demonstrate the artistic expression of Jianshui purple pottery.
The "remnant paste" is a superb interpretation of the art of applying clay as color on the pottery blank. The method of residual pasting is: carve out the calligraphy and painting on the blank using the Yin and Yang engraving methods, and alternately fill the carving mold with colored mud. There are no more than five or six pieces, and as few as two or three pieces. Follow God's direction and let your imagination run wild.
At the beginning of the production of Jianshui purple pottery, it mainly produced pipes, tea sets, vases, pen holders, printing boxes, candlesticks and other objects. The "Yang Lin Pot" with a unique shape of a chicken, also known as "Yang Nie", is unique. Its appearance is decorated with pictures of flowers, birds, insects, fish, grass, wood, mountains and water, and poems and inscriptions. It is exquisite and has "a show of pottery". reputation.
The literati’s calligraphy and painting were moved onto the purple pottery, turning the ancient Jianshui pottery into a classic. When using pottery as paper, it is necessary to retain the style of writing and ink, while also taking into account the soft and waxy characteristics of the pottery base in different curved surfaces and wet conditions. To grasp the fine hair and wet the ink, it is necessary to use a thick hanging elbow to move the pen.
The calligraphy and painting on the purple pottery do not impress with the beautiful perspective, but communicate with the viewer with a pure and peaceful elegance, conveying a kind of beautiful and simple tranquility.
The charm of Jianshui purple pottery also lies in the contrast between the traces of the pottery and the roundness and roundness formed by the carving and mud filling process. After the ink is applied to the pottery base, the engraving craftsman immediately carves the ink marks on the pottery base in a wet state into a mold. The incisions are smooth and angular, and there are no rough edges that naturally break down like carved stone lines.
However, the wonderful thing is that after the carving mold is filled with mud, trimmed, air-dried, baked, and polished in stages, the lines actually show variegated texture changes that appear to have been caused by thousands of years of rust and weathering, so there is The natural simplicity of metal and stone. Most of the carving craftsmen are female workers, and most of them are not familiar with the principles of calligraphy and painting, but they are very familiar with the properties of clay and knife skills.
“Glaze-free polishing” is the most distinguishing feature of Jianshui purple pottery from other pottery products. A good work needs to go through seven or eight processes. It can be completed by using grinding tools that are first coarse and then fine. Use coarse sandstone to grind away the fire skin, then use fine sandstone to polish the remaining wire drawing, and finally polish it with pebbles. After a meticulous and complicated process, the originally dull and rough pottery body is polished. Exposed to the mirror light, it shows its smooth texture and changes in gloss.
The representative works of Jianshui purple pottery include purple pottery residual stickers, fragrance jars, three-legged pen holders, Bogu bottles, medium pen holders, imitation bronze table lamps, large purple pottery flower jars and other pottery treasures.
The origin of Rongchang pottery is Anfu Town, Rongchang County, Sichuan Province. Before the Qing Dynasty, it was called Ciyaili. The pottery with documented history first appeared in the Han Dynasty and was widely developed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Rongchang Pottery mainly produces daily-use pottery, packaging pottery, arts and crafts pottery, and garden building pottery. Due to the strong stickiness and plasticity of Rongchang pottery, the fired containers have the characteristics of no leakage and good preservation. Known as the "mud essence", people have given Rongchang pottery the following nine words: "as thin as paper, as bright as a mirror, and as loud as a chime".
Rongchang pottery has a wide range of varieties. Among the craft pottery, the unfired "mud essence" has a natural color and gives people a simple and elegant feeling. "Glaze goods" decorated with various colored glazes have a crystal clear shape when viewed and a crisp and sweet sound when struck. The decoration is generous, simple and full of changes, with strong national style and local characteristics.
Anfu Town has high-quality red and white clay, which is fine in quality and color, and has strong plasticity. It is suitable for making pottery. What is especially famous is that Rongchang pottery does not transfer odor to the stored items, does not change taste, and does not change the taste. It can prevent color bleeding and can preserve quality, taste and freshness for a long time, which is very practical.
Rongchang pottery has added an indispensable link to my country's ceramics and arts and crafts. At the earliest, Rongchang mainly produced rough pottery products such as jars, basins, bowls, and pots, with simple and natural shapes, and a rough and wild beauty. From the Jiaqing period, it gradually developed into the "mud essence" of the Qing Xianfeng period, which was a fine pottery.