Among the many collectibles, porcelain is a large category, and the team involved in collection is also the largest, with complex personnel, uneven cultural heritage and economic ability. If you want to divide this huge crowd into types, you can divide it into three levels: the bottom, the middle and the top.
The so-called group of people at the bottom is basically blind people. Although they do not have the vision to distinguish between authenticity and falsity, new and old, they can also say that they are ugly and ugly in the categories and evolution of porcelain in history, and they have also read some books and often checked the catalogue. He is also very confident, with sufficient financial resources, with a fluke mentality, often at a low price to buy a large number of high imitations, feel that as long as you receive one piece, you can turn it all over. In fact, this is less likely than winning the lottery. Some of them have built museums, some have published albums, some have held exhibitions, and they are intoxicated by their own enjoyment.
The middle level is the crowd of people who play with broken, broken, damaged or porcelain pieces, who often have a certain year of involvement in this trip, and can also distinguish between new and old, but only recognize those more broken official kilns or folk kilns, and do not recognize the "old as new" official kilns. There are also many so-called experts living in museums at this level. They have seen very few top-level official kilns, and occasionally they do not recognize them, let alone have the opportunity to get started.
Their eyes have adapted to these dilapidated things, and their minds only recognize such items, only guarding their own small world, shaking their heads in denial about the world outside the world, and not even wanting to look at it more. Therefore, the eyes will always only stay on those things that are broken, old, and damaged. If they were to identify the collection of David David of the British Museum and the lots of Christie's Sotheby's, they would not hesitate to deny it and make it a new imitation.
Once, two plates from the Song Ying Qinghu Tian Kiln brought by a good friend made a so-called "expert" cut off the old and new. I happened to be there, one of them had been broken, a few less flaps, and then restored it to the prototype with a plaster mold. Two don't have to get started, they belong to the same kiln mouth and the same pit. Unexpectedly, the "expert" said that the damaged piece was the generation, and the intact piece was a new imitation. I couldn't help but laugh out loud a few times, and restrained myself, out of courtesy, for fear of embarrassing him. People at this level have a deep-seated belief that old things must leave traces of use, or cause damage, and they think how can something that has gone through hundreds of years not be damaged or scratched? No one should try to change their mind. Just as Columbus could not change the indians' perceptions.
They often like to visit the lowest-level stall markets, such as the Two Hundred In Hangzhou, the Treasure House in Shanghai, the Panjiayuan in Beijing, etc., and only believe that these places will encounter the old real thing. At the sight of the fine, the top official kiln of truth, goodness and beauty immediately scoffed and dismissed it. Some of these people also have no access to high-tech kilns due to their financial resources, and will produce a kind of grape sour jealousy and deny it!
The highest-ranking people account for the least number of people, belonging to the pagoda spire, they are the true most discerning and powerful collectors. They don't deny the middle-class people's stuff, and objectively evaluate their stuff as old, really, but low-grade. They can perceive the old atmosphere left by the years from the new, have a deep cultural heritage, and have a flexible way of thinking, look at problems more objectively, and have unique judgment ability. These figures living on the tip of the pagoda are also relatively lonely, and it is common sense that the height and the widow are common sense.
Middle-level people will never understand the speculative way and eyesight of high-level people, and they can't understand the things that high-level people play, while high-level people can understand and understand the things that middle-level people play. In this regard, my friend H said it well: "This is a proposition that belongs to the scope of philosophy, bugs, chickens and people, bugs are pecked by chickens, can never understand the ideas and requirements of chickens, chickens are slaughtered, and they are always in a state of ignorance, they cannot understand people's needs, and people are in the waking stage, he knows and can distinguish all the processes of things." The low does not understand the high, and the high must understand all the behavioral trajectories of the low level. Such a metaphor seems a bit harsh!
For this reason, whenever collectors who only collect high-end collections feel lonely, I often comfort them with the example of "climbing the mountain and watching the sea": you stand on the top of the mountain, you look at everything, and everything is clear; and how is it possible for people who are still at the foot of the mountain and on the mountainside to see the whole picture in front of you? Their eyesight is limited to the situation in which they are located, and they cannot be required to see beyond time and space, let alone that they can reach the same height as you.
Whether some people will say: "As long as middle-level people work hard to improve their eyesight and accumulate experience, they will slowly reach the upper stage." Wishes are good, but often this good wish will not come true. The Ming Dynasty Great Seal Engraver Wen Sanqiao has a poem about the seal of the ming Dynasty, which has a sentence that is "vulgar to the point of incurability". Calligraphy and painting, seal carving, a set of customs will be more and more vulgar, the more painting into the mortar, the same is true for the seal, the eyesight of identifying antiques is even more so, once the road is deviated, into a crooked road, it will never turn back, a lifetime can not reach the top of the pagoda. Middle-level people can only look at those dilapidated and damaged things, such as the new official kiln, which they absolutely cannot expect to understand.
However, the bottom group of people who are playing high imitations may rise to the top, the reason is that most of this group is successful people, quite accomplished in a certain field, they fell into the trap in playing porcelain is not lack of understanding, more is too smart and overconfident, want to take the fastest shortcut caused, once they have realized the difference between high imitations and real official kilns, they can often re-choose the road of collection, starting from scratch. I have seen several such collectors, they are different from the middle level of the people who play with broken goods, the middle level of the crowd is a frozen crowd, a group of self-contained and uncivilized groups, can only stay at the bottom of their own well forever to look up at the small piece of sky and enjoy themselves. The former, on the other hand, can start over and walk out of a new world.
A small number of collectors in the high-end group should not give their high-end collections to such a middle-level group, in addition to being bored with themselves, they will be unnecessarily ridiculed. The tao is different from the inadequacy and conspiracy! The antique industry is exactly the same as the painting and calligraphy industry, the more high-end calligraphers and painters often agree with the fewer people, how many great calligraphers and painters in Chinese and foreign history are unknown, poor, not optimistic, until a hundred years later, they are slowly recognized their true meaning, showing a distinctive brilliance.
Collectors of different levels are best to play with their own things, and each person communicates and plays in their own circle. Enjoy the collection. High and low, always the unbreakable truth of the art world and the collecting world!
(The picture and text are from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author)