Yixing Dingshu was rated as one of the first towns with Chinese characteristics by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development because of its superior natural endowments, rich historical heritage, location advantages and economic strength, but most people are familiar with it because of purple sand.
According to the archaeology of the ancient kiln site of Yangjiaoshan in Lishu Village in the 1970s, as early as the Neolithic Age, there were ancestors here engaged in pottery making. The Giethoorn Mountains belong to the Branch of Dingshu Huanglong Mountain, Tianmu Mountain meanders to the south of it, and the Nanxi River flows from the west, incorporates the two streams of Qi and Tao, crosses the Shu Mountains along the West Bridge, and then flows into Taihu Lake through Dongjian. Only painted creek by lake? The mountainous area turns to Dingshan via Tangdu and reaches the west bank of Taihu Lake, where it is renamed Lihe River. The hills on both sides of the Lihe River are rich in mud ore, and the slope of the source is suitable for building a dragon kiln, so there are many ancient kiln sites here.
Accompanying the ancient kiln site is the boiling life of the villagers cultivating pottery and fishing. Before the Song Dynasty, the Lihe River and the Shu Mountains had formed a prosperous ancient street and alley, and the large and small kiln households that came into being here were produced and sold by themselves, laying the foundation for the pottery industry. In the Ming Dynasty, with the disintegration of the "craftsman system", the pottery industry developed rapidly. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the fireworks of the Ding Shu people were even more hooked up, and they spread into the three old streets of the south, north and west, especially the number of merchants in Gunan Street, and the shops were lined up, which was the most lively. Its lingering charm can still be seen from the Deyilou Tea House that still exists on the back of the bridge during the Republic of China, and the Peking Opera Ticket Friends Club of Xinhualou in the north of the bridge. It is worth saying that there is also a rare fire brigade "Yanglong Palace" downstairs. As for Chinese and western clothing sewing shops, clinics and bookstores, they are all flawless. Of course, guild organizations such as the Purple Sand Guild are indispensable. In this way, Ding Shu became a commercial and trade center integrating firing and marketing. All kinds of purple sand produced by the Shushan Dragon Kiln entered Taihu Lake through the Li River and soon spread to the north and south of the great river.
As the world-famous pottery capital, many industries related to pottery making are distributed in the "Belt and Road" in Dingshu Town District, "One Road" refers to the "Belt and Road" from Gunan Street to Zisha No. 1 Factory no. 2 Factory, Huanglong mountain, GeBao Settlement, Qinglongshan Park, Qianjin Long Kiln and Tao BoGuan, each of which is full of stories, enough to attract people's attention; "One Belt" refers to the lihe river to the Tao pi station wharf, the Baidang River and the Tangdu Painting Creek River, the Lotus Dang area, this water system that runs through the old city has been rectified and transformed, and has revealed a beautiful scenery similar to the "Qingming Upper River Map". The travelers on the ship in the picture are thinking of the rich life created by the craftsmen who can work on the water and soil not only in the purple sand, but also in this water and soil.
It's just that the later story is a bit less than expected. With the increasing refinement of the division of labor, from digging mud, practicing billets to installing kilns, potters here began to pay more attention to the update of process technology, the unique old weight and stability that flowed on the utensils, as well as the temperament and charm of the pot makers, were unconsciously left behind, so that although from artistic pottery, daily pottery to industrial pottery and architectural garden pottery, new enterprises continue to rise, mechanized production attracts thousands of skilled workers, pushing the annual output value and sales to billions; and, for the sustainable development of the industry It has also set up a training base to train tens of thousands of junior, intermediate and senior arts and crafts artists; and held pottery competitions, with more than a thousand participants, but the special temperament of purple sand has not been further carried forward, and the channel for improving product value has not been opened. Looking at the Ming Dynasty Zhou Bogao's "Yang Envy Tea Pot System", Zhou Jiayan's "Yang Envy Tea Pot Atlas", as well as Qing Ren Zhang Tang's "Yang Envy Famous Tao Theory", Zhu Shimei's "History of The Kettle", it can be seen that "Fang Fei Yi Style" and "Round Discord" have always been the ideal of purple sand production. And now, either a thousand pots on one side, or a random kneading, or even a strange victory, such an ancient law without ancient meaning, has made a long tradition, although not to the extreme, but in the end obliterated can not be manifested. The land that gave birth to purple sand is so magical and imaginative, but just like Now Gunan Street, although the former residences, shops and workshops of celebrities still exist, and a trace of living traditions is retained, the whole has become increasingly dilapidated, and the workshop-style social relationship that can present the whole process of purple sand learning, production and sales, and the inheritance of master and apprentice, is even withering away. From the perspective of development, such a withering may be inevitable, but should something behind it disappear at the same time?
After all, the Ding Shu people love purple sand, rather than just seeing it as a craft for subsistence. In view of the fact that Ding shu's pottery industry is not strong, many products are in the middle and low end of the technology chain and value chain, there are few high value-added products, there are not many large-scale enterprises, the industrial support capacity is not strong, the degree of market organization and standardization level are not high, especially the quality and brand management of products need to be enhanced, just like the charm of Ding Shu's towns and cities, the profound historical and cultural heritage is scattered in the increasingly dilapidated ordinary alleys, which have not been rationally planned and effectively developed, and have not formed a full chain and multi-functional tourism industry that matches the influence of purple sand Although the life is good, the overall vitality is far from being released, the collective investment and participation in the urban construction transformation are not strong, the channels are not smooth enough, and the enthusiasm is far from being effectively stimulated. They could no longer sit still, began to change their thinking, widely attracted talents from all over the world, and designed many targeted upgrade programs. Seeing that some have achieved obvious results, I am very much looking forward to a deeper change. And, as the discussion deepened, they increasingly felt that the key to achieving this change lay in the culture.
I am really glad that the Ding Shu people have such an understanding. Originally, in the rich land of Jiangnan, the Ding Shu people who revered culture and re-taught since ancient times did not lack culture. Instead, cultivating heirlooms became a tradition. This point can be seen only by looking at the Jin Dynasty's Zhou Zhou's "Records of Yang Envy Andude", until the Northern Song Dynasty's "Records of Continuing Customs", "Yixing Zhi", "Guoshan Records" and other local chronicles. Later, the Ming Dynasty compiled it 4 times, and the Qing Dynasty continued to revise it 5 times. Until 1921, there was still a book called "Guangxuan Yijing Continuation". In addition to the township capital, fangxiang, streets, towns, mountains, rivers, and water conservancy, the cities and ponds, offices, warehouses, teaching grounds, table workshops, bridges, etc. belong to "public opinion", the "construction" of cities, offices, warehouses, teaching grounds, tables, bridges, etc., and the "food goods" of hukou, field endowment, servitude, tribute classes, and native products, there are always "school chronicles" that describe in detail the temple system, social studies, school offices, and academies, and solemnly commend the "character history" of Xunde, Rulin, Science, and Wenyuan, not to mention the "art and literature" that exhaustively carry forward the memories, prefaces, poems, songs, words, endowments, and inscriptions. All customs, orders, and civilities are all imbued with culture; if you want to say what you want to do and reason, you must highlight culture.
This culture is preserved in artifacts and is more evident in human affairs. The former, you can see the Shushan Bridge rebuilt in the year of Guangxu, the Yangwen joint sentence carved with a whole piece of stone on the north and south sides - "Bu Ji He Hong, Tianqian'e Emperor to supplement the stone; this mountain is like Shu, people Think Po old as the title bridge" and "Xuan She traces the source, the two sides of the river quiet culvert Jingshui green; Zhejiang Lake through the main road, a bow long embrace Shu Mountain Qing". From the hands of Xianfeng Jinshi, Hanlin Yuan Shu jishi, successive prime ministers of state affairs Yamen Zhangjing, and Zhou Jialin, who is named Yushi, yamed and appropriate. Zhou Shi also wrote 10 volumes of "The Book of Periods And Lives Up to the Government" and 5 volumes of poetry, but unfortunately not many people know about it today. In the 1980s, the bridge was rebuilt, and the carved stone was barely preserved, but it was built on the bank of the river by the cement bridge. The latter, such as Ding Shu Shu Dong, has a natural village called Lan You, which relies on the orchid-rich Lanshan Mountain. According to legend, the dragons came here one by one, watching the dragons escape into The Taihu Lake, and urgently ordered Lanshan to block, so Lanshan is also called "Blocking Mountain". The village is expected to be a clan of Cui clans, a four-door soldier, raising more than 20 people. The clan has always regarded "cultivating to establish the foundation" and "reading to seek advancement" as the family training, although they have widely purchased land and property, spread throughout the vast areas of Dagang and Baini to Qianlong, and traveled to and from Zhejiang, Anhui, and Gansu, and achieved business success, but they always remembered that Li De did good deeds, built bridges, built righteous warehouses, and enthusiastically built schools. Until modern times, Cui Heming was a ceramic industrialist, and all the factories he built were donated to the state and became the pioneers of modern industry. Of course, this land that has produced 4 titles, 10 prime ministers, and more than 300 jinshi, mountains and rivers Zhongling, River Water Yuxiu, "One YiYi Three Kui", "One Gate Nine Marquises" and "Four Generations of Yingjie" are in existence, far more than the Cui family name.
So back to pottery and purple sand. Yixing's "four masters" such as Dong Han, Zhao Liang, Shi Peng, and Yuan Chang, and the "three great masters" such as Shi Dabin, Li Zhongfang, and Xu Youquan, are not just craftsmen. In the Ming Dynasty, purple sand dominated by geometrical shapes, and the Qing people created a new style of natural instruments, during which culture played an important role. For example, Chen Mingyuan's success has a lot to do with his good friends with literati and the introduction of his design, which has a lot to do with the literati and scholars. In addition, such as Yang Pengnian, He Xinzhou and others have cooperated with literati a lot. Chen Hongshou, the author of the "Mansheng EighteenThought Style", is himself a famous calligrapher and painter. They combined the pot-making skills with the hanmo style, not only fabricating with ancient methods, but also re-creating naturally, and finally combining calligraphy and painting, gold stone and pottery, creating a brilliant era of purple sand pot art. Ding Shu pot masters such as Gu Jingzhou, Xu Xiutang and other masters who can deeply understand the intentions of the ancestors, where they are made, the bottom foot cover of the mouth and mouth is suitably configured, the buffer transition of the outer contour line is stretched and full, especially the high and low fat and thin of the shape of the instrument, from the shape of the god, the people are good at calligraphy and painting, not only inscribed rich in gold and stone, but also kneaded into a variety of cultural elements, and finally be able to make the technology rooted in the natural terroir become art. And those purple sand vessels, formed by pulling blanks, not only borrow wind and sunlight to catalyze solidity, but also have life and sublimate through culture. They do not apply color glaze, Qingming and quaint; natural and peaceful, never fade, after years of nourishment, more and more present a warm and soft texture, neither to seize the aroma of tea, but also without cooked soup, really can be better than the ancient gentleman, worthy of the excellent endorsement of the literati and scholars.
The feedback of pottery and sand making is like this, which is both magical and full of meaning, and then gives birth to another deep culture in China, that is, it has evolved over thousands of years by the handicrafts of primitive society, and has been fused with the great masters of Chinese culture such as an anbang governance, moral indoctrination and personality cultivation. Gai Han Wei descended, and every time people borrowed the burning of earth as a tool, the metaphor of pure and thick government was also like Zhen Tao Naicheng, which was called "Zhen Tao" and "Tao Yu". They believe that the heavens and the earth "contain yuan bao one, Zhen pottery category", "yin and yang two qi, tao yu group products", people "or benevolence or contempt, cultivated", "juddy mud in jun, only Zhen does", so "the holy king makes the world customs, independent of Tao Jun", thus giving rise to such words as "Zhen Tao Hua Yu", "Zhen Tao Tianxia", "Zhen Tao Guofeng", and so on, as well as "Tao Rong", "Tao Mu", "Tao Hua", "Tao Quench", "Tao Ye", "Tao Shuo", "Tao Dye", "Tao Refining", "Tao Yang", "Tao Yun", "Tao Washing" and so on. "Tao Washing" makes it clean called "Tao Ying", "Tao Yang" makes it successful called "Tao Cheng", and "Tao Ye" makes it beautiful called "Tao Shu". In addition, the metaphor of "Tao Rong Drum Casting" has a beneficial impact on people's thinking and personality, and the metaphor of "Zhou Hui Tao Jun" is repeated and tempered in many ways to cultivate and improve talents. In short, everything in between is inseparable from culture, no matter what profession people are engaged in, they must stand and stand for a long time, and finally they all rely on culture.
Pottery and sand making is like this, not a small skill but a great way to survive; not as Song Yingxing's "Heavenly Works and Things" says, it is "water and fire are both harmonious and earthy", and it also contains a deeper meaning. According to the ancient records, the former Shennong clan taught the method of making pottery to people who can be called "holy relics" and "holy deeds", and the so-called "creation of things by those who know, keep what they say about them, and what the world calls work." All the works of the saints are also the works of the saints." The reason why "condensed earth is a vessel" and "shuojin for the blade" and so on are called "holy things" is probably known to the Ding Shu people best. In us, there are only sighs, many things, separated from the culture, it is really not easy to say clearly.
Author: Wang Yonghao
Edit: Fan Jiale
Editor-in-Charge: Yang Jian
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.
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