"Just looking at the finished tea soup painting, you may feel similar to the coffee flower; looking at the process of tea, some people will think that it is similar to Japanese matcha." But in fact, this is a unique tea culture that originated in China. A few days ago, 40-year-old Shanghai designer Han Zheming was interviewed by reporters and showed the "resurrection" tea soup painting skills in his hands. In the past 6 years, he has completed more than 200 paintings on tea soup.
Pictured: Han Zheming is showing tea soup painting Xinmin Evening News reporter Wang Kai photographed (the same below)
Instant art Of tea in the landscape
Han Zheming took out a small jar of Tea Powder of Fujian White Tea and mixed it into two kinds of tea pastes with different thicknesses and shades, which are equivalent to the "thick ink" and "light ink" of landscape painting. Wet a paper towel as a "pen lick", and the tea spoon is the "paintbrush". The tea bowl also left half of the tea powder, Han Zheming while pouring hot water into the bowl 7 times, while using the tea basket to make a snow white foam, this tea point technique is the Song Dynasty "seven soups point tea method", the white foam produced by tea is the "painting paper" for painting.
Illustration: A tool for painting tea soup
Picture description: Han Zheming uses the foam produced by the "Seven Soups Tea Method" as the "drawing paper" for painting
When ready, Han Zheming reversed the tea spoon, dipped the tea paste with the handle of the spoon, and immediately drew on the foam of the tea soup. I saw his fingers tremble slightly, first sketching, and then fainting, as if it were a falun gong. Within 5 minutes, a landscape painting dotted with pavilions in the mountains jumped on top of the tea soup. "Chinese painting landscape is 'soft to hard', soft brush to paint on hard paper, and 'tea landscape' is 'hard to touch soft', and hard bamboo spoon to paint on soft foam." While painting, he introduced, "The foam of the tea soup will disappear, the painting must be controlled within 3-5 minutes, and the final product can only last for 45 minutes to 1 hour." So tea soup painting is a kind of instantaneous art. ”
Pictured: Han Zheming's "Tea Landscape" work
Resurrecting traditions challenges
Due to the gradual replacement of tea by the Ming and Qing dynasties at the end of the Tang and Song dynasties, the tea ordering method declined, which also led to the long-term loss of tea soup painting skills. Tea soup painting has high requirements for the artist's artistic accomplishment, and in the Song Dynasty, only the literati could achieve it, and there were only few texts for the record of this skill, which made Han Zheming's road to recovery face challenges.
Pictured: Han Zheming is painting on a tea soup
Han Zheming graduated from the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts with a major in design, and he has a deep love for traditional culture, especially Song culture. In 2012, in order to learn from the Song Dynasty, Han Zheming went to Shandong to pay homage to Qu Yongtao, the representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage. The brewing of tea soup will constantly change and disappear during the painting process, and he tried to change different tea powders, improve the painting method many times, and hone his painting skills, and finally achieved this skill. However, even if he has mastered the art of tea soup painting with maturity now, he has not been successful in every creation. "In 6 years I created more than 200 works and launched 3 collections, but I actually painted more than 1,000 behind this." In the fourth collection, Han Zheming intends to restore song painting as the theme, "Song painting is accurate in shape, rigorous in style, subtle and delicate, and it is more difficult to be copied to the tea soup than the rough and freehand works." But I think that since the peak era of tea ordering is Song, it is very necessary to restore Song paintings on tea soup, which is worthy of challenge, and also makes the teachers and friends around me full of expectations. ”
Pictured: Han Zheming invited his friend to taste tea
In Han Zheming's eyes, tea soup painting is not only a skill, but also a romantic poetry and reflection on natural philosophy that has remained unchanged from ancient times to the present Chinese. "Tea is taken from between the mountains and rivers, and the tea soup painting and the landscape are 'returned' to the tea, which is not only a literati taste, but also reflects the attitude of the Chinese to nature." The reason why he has to spend a lot of energy to restore the art of tea soup painting, and even give up the work of a designer, specially set up courses and lectures to promote tea culture, is also because he feels that "traditional culture will fall into daily life": "What I want to do is 'resurrection', not 'reproduction'." If every Chinese on the street now knows that there are various ways to drink tea, such as sencha, tea brewing, and tea ordering, if people can be familiar with tea soup painting like they are familiar with coffee flowers, our Chinese tea culture will naturally be 'alive'. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Wu Xuying)