Our art should stand taller than reality, and it should make people not detached from reality and be higher than reality.
No matter when, art exists all the time, and the emergence of civilization means that art will eventually appear. Ancient works of art are now called "antiques", and there are many people who like to collect antiques.
Of all the lies, art is the truest. But the most authentic art also has illusions, and there are often imitations in the antique world. The person I am talking about today is closely related to the imitation of antiques, and his name is Fang Xingqing.
The imitations he made were often sold as genuine, and Fang Xingqing was often approached by the police, so he taught his old techniques to the whole village, and now the whole village has become the first village to counterfeit.
The "Father of Bronze" in the "Counterfeit Village"
This "counterfeit first village" is an ordinary small village located in Yichuan County, Henan Province, called Yanyunjian Village. Almost everyone in this village will do old technology, and there are reports that the annual sales of bronzes produced in the village reach 100 million yuan.
Yanyunjian Village was originally just an ordinary small village in the Central Plains, and like countless other small villages in China, everyone survived on hard work, and there was nothing special about it. But Yanyunjian Village was special from the beginning, different from other villages, because there was a person named Fang Xingqing in this village.
Fang Xingqing is considered to be the "father of bronzes" in Yanyunjian Village, and he led the entire Yanyunjian to a different path from other villages.
In 1963, Fang Xingqing saw workers in the factory take out the products in the sand mold, and this process made Fang Xingqing extremely interested, and he found a "business opportunity" in the factory who took the product out of the abrasive.
Fang Xingqing believes that if he can also make abrasives and sell them, then he can solve his own life problems, at that time Fang Xingqing only thought of solving his own life problems, and he did not expect to change the fate of himself and the entire village afterwards.
Fang Xingqing's home originally had a broken bronze ancient mirror, and At that time, Fang Xingqing's idea was also very simple, that is, if he could repair the ancient mirror, he could sell the ancient mirror for a good price.
Thinking like this, Fang Xingqing also paid for action. He kept carving, making abrasives, and carefully studied the recipe of bronze, after two years of continuous experimentation and trial, Fang Xingqing finally made an antique bronze mirror, not only that, he also summed up the skills himself.
After making his first antique bronze, Fang Xingqing also felt that his technology was very mature, so he showed the bronze mirror he made to a cultural relics worker in the county at that time.
What surprised him himself was that the worker did not even see that he was giving a copy, which would make him feel happy no matter who put it on, and also made Fang Xingqing feel very accomplished. After that, he went further and further down the road of imitation ancient bronzes.
Counterfeits found
There is no impermeable wall in the world, And the artworks that Fang Xingqing shot really make people unable to distinguish between true and false, but what is false is false, and it can never become true, and when the fake meets the real, it will appear from above.
In 1991, a large number of bronzes were found in routine inspections at Chengdu Airport and Shanghai Customs, ancient bronzes are antiques and "rare objects", most of which are locked in national museums, so the sudden appearance of a large number of ancient bronzes is naturally shocking.
Finally, after identification, one of these bronzes was exactly the same as the one collected in the museum in Luoyang at that time, which is obvious that there must be a fake of the two things, no matter which one is fake, there must be someone who made a fake, so it attracted the attention of the public security organs, and after investigation, Fang Xingqing was naturally found.
At first, the police thought that Fang Xingqing was reselling cultural relics, but Fang Xingqing said that he was very dazed - he did not resell cultural relics, but only made some imitation artworks to make a living, and even directly took out the remaining works in his home to show the police.
And because his antique technology is so sophisticated that it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, this kind of being found by the police often happens, and after several times, Fang Xingqing decided to teach this technique to the people in the village.
Many people on the Internet have made remarks about "crusading" Fang Xingqing, calling him a liar, but Fang Xingqing did not think of making huge profits by faking the real when he originally began to imitate the past, he just wanted to have a money-making technology to make a living, no matter where people are hoping to find a good way to make a better life.
Even because Fang Xingqing is often found by the police, he will deliberately state to customers when selling his own works that what he sells is not ancient bronzes, but only handicrafts made by himself, whether buyers use it for collection or to give away, they cannot treat it as genuine, otherwise it is illegal. This can also be seen that Fang Xingqing really did not deliberately confuse the truth with falsehood.
Crafts are not deceptive
After Fang Xingqing taught the villagers of Yanyunjian antique technology, the village embarked on a different path from other villages, they made antique bronzes to sell for money to make a living, and the sophisticated antique technology made the reputation of the village come out due to the high degree of simulation, and since then the village has become a unique existence.
For some of the remarks on the Internet that they think they are liars, yanyunjian people are very puzzled, they do not sell their own crafts as genuine, nor will they say that they are genuine with their conscience, they sell handicrafts but do not deliberately cheat, and whether "crafts" exist in the outside world or exist in the outside world as so-called "real goods" after the products are sold is not something they can decide.
There are many Chinese and foreign people who like to collect antiques, but I think it is a more suitable place for antiques at the National Museum.
Collecting antiques yourself, the risk of authenticity is one, and easy damage is the second.
The collection of antiques is used for viewing, the antiques placed in the museum are also used for display, in the museum those antiques are more likely to be preserved all the time, and each piece of the collection that is collected in the museum is identified layer by layer, so that the possibility of "fake goods" will be reduced.
As for the unique village of Yanyunjian, they do not resell imitation items as genuine goods, which is a kind of bottom line when they imitate, so customers who buy hope to keep this bottom line.
Beauty is everywhere, we have the eyes to find beauty, to know that not only ancient art is valuable, imitations are imitations of antiques, but also crafts, so do not have to hold imitations to say that they are genuine, crafts are as ornamental.