Jingdezhen glaze five-color is developed from the red and green colors of the Yuan Ming and the "Five Colors of daming". During the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, colorful and blue flowers became the two mainstream varieties. Colorful themes are extensive, the composition is novel, the image is summarized, the pen is refined, the lines are strong, the colors are bright, and there is a strong folk art flavor, which is an ancient and beautiful strange branch of the porcelain garden.
First, the glaze color characteristics of Kangxi five colors
Glaze five colors is an important representative work of Kangxi porcelain, the color in the five colors in addition to alum red, green, yellow, purple, blue colors are transparent and clear, the glaze is slightly protruding, there is a sense of gemstone, the color is bright and dazzling, and the firing temperature is about 780 degrees to 800 degrees.
(1) Red color: The red color in the five colors is made of saponin (iron trioxide). When making, it should be soaked in kraft glue, and it is better to use the alum red that has been soaked in the glue for 3 to 10 years. A certain amount of lead powder and kraft glue should be added to the color, gently stained with water, depicted with a center pen and a hanging wrist by pulling the line method. After firing, the color is bright and calm, red like a jewel, and there are layers. After the end of the Qing Dynasty, red color is often used to adjust the oil of Xi chi (selenium carbide) to fill, red in the orange and floating on the glaze, rough feel, not to mention the luster and lubrication of alum red.
(2) Blue color: A major breakthrough in kangxi five colors was the invention of glaze blue color. Blue color is often purple-gray, the color layer is particularly thick, and there is a clam halo on the edge of the color, but because the blue color is still in the initial stage, there are often cases of deglaze or opacity. In the past, the blue color was replaced by blue and white (underglaze), so it was called blue and white.
(3) Black color: it is a blue and white material to infiltrate rosin oil painting on the porcelain surface, covered with transparent glaze, and grilled in the oven. Due to the constraints of pen making, oil making and material making technology, the black lines of the early Kangxi multicolored colors appear to be not straight, intermittent and hairy, not black enough, and even brown. Later black colors were mixed with frankincense oil and pearls, and roasted at low temperatures, so that black colors began to become black and shiny.
(4) Yellow color: The yellow color of the Kangxi period is still based on iron trioxide as the raw material, which is characterized by the transparent and vivid color layer, fresh and eye-catching, which is very different from the opaque yellow color with a powder layer in the later period when antimony yellow (antimony oxide) was mostly used.
(5) Green color: generally thick like glass, glossy, and because the color is translucent, it is often used to set off black color.
(6) Gold color: The production of gold color glaze is to grind the gold, pour it into a porcelain bowl and mix it with water until a layer of gold precipitate appears at the bottom of the water, take it out and keep it dry, dissolve it in the appropriate amount of kraft glue when used, infiltrate into lead powder, depict and burn it on the tire, and never fade. However, gold color generally falls off with a static reaction with brush items, so it is forbidden to dust with chicken feathers.
(7) Purple color: During the Kangxi Dynasty, the purple color of the purple color was still unstable, often gray hair, and the color was easy to crack into broken lines, which could be seen with a magnifying glass.
(viii) Huacui (pink): This is a lesser-known color among the Kangxi Five Colors. It is made of a reddish transparent glaze made by formulating purple color. It is extremely similar in appearance to pastel carmine or magenta that appeared after Yongzheng and is easily confused. However, Huacui is made of snow white (lead-containing transparent glaze) infiltration quartz, which appears transparent, while the magenta of pastel is rendered red on glass white (containing arsenic) and appears opaque, the color base is the same, but the texture of the two is completely different, so Huacui has become a point of gold to distinguish the five colors of Kangxi. In fact, the five-colored utensils in the early Yongzheng period also used Huacui, so Huacui was easily mistaken for early pastels, but in fact, the appearance of magenta in the Yongqian period and the introduction of ceramic decoration really gave birth to pastels.
(9) Clam light: The color glaze of the Kangxi five-colored ware, its glaze and glaze are glowing with a soft and subtle clam rainbow such as the surface of the pearl, especially along the white ground around the painted ornament, which more significantly flashes this clam brilliance. The new imitation painters also use chemical raw materials to mix out the same brilliance at first glance, but the tread of these imitations and the color halo on the glaze float, more like the dazzling fire gas of various colors, such as the color halo reflected by fire or gasoline in the sun, a look at it will know that the year is still shallow, the heat has not arrived, the key is that the chemical composition of the new glaze and the ancient color is different.
Second, the kangxi five-color painting process
At present, we have not found any written records of the Kangxi five-color painting process in the Qing Dynasty writings. To explore related issues, only through the modern five-color process to express the same artistic effect as the Kangxi five-color, so as to understand the characteristics of the craft at that time.
The multicolored painting process is divided into painting and coloring (including dyeing). Black and alum materials are used for painting. The black material is mixed with oil to form a puree, and the alum red is mixed with glue. The brush should be full of material color, and the stroke of the pen shaft will vibrate when moving the pen, so that the material color in the pen belly is slowly injected into the nib. The brush pays attention to the wolf with a sharp and rounded point. Make the wrist move to make the pen edge change with the undulating surface of the utensil, and the lines drawn should be thick, uniform, and round. The fine dots drawn with a bald brush should be round and full. Pay attention to the strength of the pen, but do not be arbitrary and free. The speed of the pen will cause an approximate "flying white" and become a broken brush stroke.
Dyeing, multicolored only washed and dyed with alum red material. First use a material pen to fill the alum red material on the scene, and then use a washing and dyeing pen to dip it slightly in water, flatten the pen edge into a flat shape, and wash the alum red material with a pen. Use the pen lightly so that the red color has a natural transition from dark to light, from thick to light.
Fill color refers to the flat filling method used to fill in the green, blue, yellow, purple, gold and other material colors in the five colors into the contour line. These several material colors must be ground into mud in advance, when filling the color, the material color and water are adjusted to a certain concentration with a pen, and the filler pen should be full of material color, and the contour line of the black material painting should be filled one by one, and the concentration and thickness must be uniform and flat. All the Kangxi five colors that have been handed down to the world are only black (drawing contour lines), alum red (drawing contour lines, washing and dyeing), yellow, green (divided into large green, bitter green, water green), purple, gold and other inherent unchanging material colors, these inherent material colors do not match each other into new pigments. In addition to the alum red can be washed and dyed thick, the other material color shades, thickness and lightness are consistent.
Third, the decorative characteristics of Kangxi's colorful colors
1, the composition of the flat: Kangxi five-color decoration on the ceramic three-dimensional type, and the modeling characteristics of the requirements of coordination and unity, the main characteristics of the decoration is expressed in the flat. First, flat composition. In the "kaiguang" style composition, the composition characteristics of Chinese painting (actually imitating woodcut prints of the late Ming and early Ming dynasties) are borrowed, and the relationship between the main and secondary is emphasized.
2. Image stylization: The artistic image of Kangxi's colorful flowers and birds is first subordinate to the decorative nature of the instrument shape and is attached to the physical structure in the two-dimensional space. In such an artistic category, the author uses rich imagination and great creativity to refine and summarize the natural form, and highlight its typical characteristics with exaggerated and deformed techniques. The diversity and vividness of the natural ecology are summarized into a stylized pattern that conforms to the concept of ceramic decoration. The painterly dynamic characteristics of "foreign teacher creation" are stereotyped as static images of craftsmanship.
3. Color decoration: After the multicolored pigment is painted on the porcelain tire glaze, it is roasted at 750 ° C-800 ° C in the furnace, and the color is in a glassy state, and the transparency, brightness and purity are very high. Through the color, you can see the scene depicted by the black material below, and the glaze is covered with a layer of shiny and colorful colors. Due to the material characteristics of the multicolored color and the requirements of the painting process, the multicolored filler has a unique decorative nature.
Fourth, the six points of Kangxi five-colored porcelain identification
Multicolored porcelain refers to the use of red, yellow, green, blue, purple 5 kinds of red, yellow, green, blue, purple 5 kinds of red porcelain on the burned white porcelain (the variety can be more or less, but the red color is indispensable) basic color painting, and then baked at low temperature porcelain. It can be divided into two types: one is blue and white plus multicolor, and the other is pure glaze multicolor. There is a difference between blue and white multicolor and doucai, doucai is based on underglaze blue and white hook line, with glaze color filling; blue and white multicolor refers to the underglaze blue and white part is used as blue color, and the glaze color constitutes the picture. Five-colored porcelain was first seen in the Ming Xuande period, Jiajing, Wanli time widely used, to the Qing Dynasty Kangxi kangxi time the most prestigious, the late Yongzheng to Qianlong period gradually replaced by pastel, until Guangxu did not have imitation Kangxi five-color appear. The temperature of Kangxi five-color burning color is about 800 degrees, which is higher than pastel, so it is called "hard color"; and because it is mostly used as an antique instrument, it is also called "ancient color".
The main achievement of kangxi five colors was the invention of glazed low-temperature blue and black colors. Blue color is brilliant and eye-catching, mostly painted mountain stones, apostolic walls are radiant, used to replace the blue and white tones of the Ming Dynasty and make pure glaze multicolor, bright and dazzling colors. Black color black as lacquer, dark light, thick and composed, mostly used to outline the outline and dot dye parts, so that it receives the artistic effect of Chinese ink painting, greatly enriching the expression of multicolored porcelain, compared with the Ming Dynasty has a greater development and improvement.
Kangxi Five Colors is a generation of masterpieces, from the Qing Jiaqing to the Republic of China there are many imitations listed, to identify the authenticity should master the following main characteristics: (1) Kangxi plates, bowls, bottles, cans of the bottom of the utensils can generally see obvious spiral marks and black defects. (2) Except for a few official kiln vessels whose circle feet are rounded and lubricated, the rims of the circle feet of most folk kilns are pointed, and there are phenomena of plaque fragmentation. (3) The glaze is slightly convex, the glaze looks hard, there is a flickering "clam light" around it, and there is a halo around the ornament. Especially blue. (4) Because the characters imitate Chen Laolian's painting method, the landscape imitates Wang Yun, etc., and their painting styles should be generally similar. The faces of the characters are not correct, only the outline is not filled, otherwise it is a post-imitation. (5) The bottom foot of the bottle and can often has the hard folding angle of the two-layer table, and the folding angle is rounded for the latter imitation. (6) Most of the artifacts inscribed "Daming Chenghua Year System" or painting autumn leaves and bells are mostly products of the middle and late Kangxi periods.
Holly glaze multicolored plus gold flower bird pattern large flower pot
Qing Kangxi
Height 33.3cm, caliber 61cm, foot diameter 39cm
The pot is rounded, folded, deep belly, skimmed feet, and has a circular seepage hole at the base. The pots are covered with holly glaze, and the outer walls depict multicolored and gold flowers and birds.
The branches of the peach tree are dry and vigorous, the flowers and leaves are luxuriant, and the birds perch on the branches set off the artistic conception of birds and flowers.
The upper edge of the mouth depicts the pattern of the cloud crane and the peach tree arranged alternately, and the foot is decorated with parts of the dried flowers and leaves of the peach tree branches, which echo the ornament of the pot. At the bottom of the mouth, the blue and white material is written from right to left in six characters of the "Great Qing Kangxi Year System".
This flower pot is large and orderly, the composition is stretched, the brush is both rigorous and sophisticated, and the colors are rich and colorful, reflecting a high level of craftsmanship.
The style of porcelain painting in the Kangxi Dynasty is majestic and unparalleled. "Drinking Liuzhai Porcelain" contains: "Qing Dynasty colored porcelain changes and traces, almost impossible to square things,...... Hard color and blue flower are all based on Kangxi as the polar track". "Tao Ya" has "Kangxi color painters are exquisite, the official kiln characters are the best to cultivate and weave, and the rest of the dragons and phoenixes and passionflowers are the rules and regulations, and they must be respectfully stopped, or they are not as good as the passenger goods (folk kiln products). The multi-series monster old trees painted by Gai Ke Cargo dare to be reckless with the pen." This product is the majestic style of the Kang kiln stick mallet bottle, the size is huge, the plate is straight neck, the shoulders are bulging, the lower bearing is circled, because it resembles a mallet and is named, its abdomen is gentle and open, suitable for painting all kinds of character scenes, which is a bottle newly created by the Kangxi Dynasty.
The bottle body is based on multicolored decoration, using a general-view composition method, with rich patterns and rich coloring, which is breathtaking. The mouth is painted with a circle of patterns, the shoulders are decorated with four open lights, and the landscape figures are painted inside; the patterns taken from the neck and abdomen are traditional Qunxian Qingshou diagrams, which are different from the traditional multicolored decoration, the mountain stones, figures, and pine wood of this product are decorated with piles, and the neck is stacked with five immortals, one person stands with a fan, and the four people have different postures, holding a scroll to see the water and fire Kuang silhouette, and another sculpture of a crane dancing in the sun.
Interestingly, we can find similar scrolls from the different ornamental patterns of the same period, which can be seen in the British Museum's collection of multicolored fairy figure pen holders, collection number PDF.A.842 (Fig. 1); the abdominal background is based on the winding, undulating and changing mountain stones as the center line, the sky is layered with clouds, the waves below it are turbulent, and the ground of different shades of green and ochre tones reflects the sense of space and staggering of the picture.
Figure 1
Collection of the British Museum
Multicolored immortal figure pen holder
Collection number PDF.A.84
Qing Kangxi multicolored plus gold convex carving group immortal Qingshoutu large stick mallet bottle
This bottle has eighteen immortal figures piled on the abdomen, which is different from the traditional eight immortals Celebrating Shou, because the volume of this product is large, and the space can be presented is wider, so in addition to the traditional eight immortals, there are also auspicious characters in the upper eight immortals, middle eight immortals and lower eight immortals developed from the Ming Dynasty script. The overall picture begins with nanshan Bulao Pine, mainly a smiling sheep rider, Ruiyun above the sending son Zhang Xian, offering shou Magu, and the boy under the guidance of the crane to hold the immortal summons slowly. Riding the waves is Lu Xing, riding a deer, next to Cao Guo uncle, Lan Caihe, Tie Quan Li and He Xiangu; above the ground, Dongfang Shuo carries peach branches with a playful look, and Behind Han Xiangzi holds a gold scroll in his hand to symbolize the title of the golden list. On his side are Lü Dongbin, Zhong Liquan and Liu Hai Sanxian.
And liu hai and eight immortals appear together on the theme of celebrating shou, you can also see the Yongzheng Dynasty pastel group immortals Zhu Shou Tu double lion ear bottle (figure 2), "Appreciation of Porcelain in the Qing Dynasty", page 70, no. 73; the crowd or holding the magic instrument, or holding the auspicious gift of the birthday, the image is realistic and vivid, the painting method is exquisite, the coordination between the characters and the background is ingenious, this way of moving the scenery, giving people a tight and airtight look, although the picture is full and complete, but the relationship between the main and secondary is clear, the relationship between the characters is reasonable, and the rank is staggered, both comprehensive and focused.
Figure 2 Pastel Qunxian Zhu Shou Tu Double Lion Ear Bottle, Appreciation of Qing Dynasty Porcelain, p. 70, No. 73
The whole vessel is richly colored, with red, yellow, blue and green as the main colors, ochre, purple, black and other colors, and the clothing pattern and clouds are also applied with gold color, so that the picture presents a sense of richness and auspiciousness. The characters in the subject matter are depicted exquisitely, the eyebrows, eyeballs and hair and whiskers are outlined in black, or the beard is long or short, and the facial skin color also varies from person to person, and different looks are clearly visible. The clothing pattern moves with the wind, the flutter is natural, the line drawing is beautiful and smooth, the drawing method is exquisite, and the color shades are different, indicating the contrast between light and dark. This fine multicolor depends on the refinement of porcelain art in the Kangxi Dynasty. Ming Dynasty five-colored painted ornaments using spices containing moisture, the fluidity is fast and easy to disperse, to the Kangxi Dynasty Jingdezhen developed a frankincense oil blending material to mix with the five colors, not easy to disperse, can be better accurate painting decoration, and the finished emulsion is a glass-like luster, eye-catching, called the pole rail.
The character image of this bottle is strange and wanton, the appearance is exaggerated, the painting technique is elegant and flowing, the brushstrokes are dyed appropriately, and the character decorations are all stacked, which is extremely rare, and the volume is so huge that there is no deformation, and the hair color is excellent, the painter is fine, and it can also prove the proficiency of the kiln firing technique at that time. Similar in size, the TAFT MUSEUM in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA has this similar decoration (Figure 3), and an example of a group of immortals celebrating their birthday can be found in the John L. Severence Collection, donated to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1936, and later sold at Christie's in New York on September 21, 2000, No. 324, now in the collection of Jie Rui Tang;
Figure 3 TAFT MUSEUM Collection
For those with convex carvings, but slightly smaller in size, see the Victoria and Albert Museum, No. C.1257-1910 (Fig. 4); another example is the Boston Museum of Art's Collection of Colorful Eight Immortals Celebrating Birthday, No. 21.2283 (Fig. 5), whose human expression is similar to this product;
Figure 4
Figure 5
Slightly smaller in size, see the mallet bottle of the old Collection of the Qing Palace decorated with five-colored Fushou figures, see "The Palace Museum Collection of Cultural Relics and Treasures Of the Great Series of Colorful Doucai", page 80, no. 73; this book also contains a case of multicolored and gold convex carving Bogutu stick and mallet bottle, page 156, no. 143; and another case of a multicolored convex carved figure baby play bottle, which can be found in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Figure 6);
Figure VI Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
See The Palace Museum Collection of Cultural Relics and Treasures, Colorful And Doucai, 2011, Commercial Press, p. 80, No. 73
See "The Palace Museum Collection of Cultural Relics and Treasures, Colorful and Doucai", 2011, Commercial Press, p. 156 No. 143
There are also two examples of multicolored mallet bottles, similar in size, in R. L. Hobson, The Leonard Gow Collection of Chinese Porcelain, London, 1931, illustrated XXV and XLVIIIa, the former depicting the Dragon Boat Festival and the latter depicting Fulu Shou Three Stars. Another three examples are from the Benjamin Altman Collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Nos. 14.40.85, 14.40. 83 and 14.40.331; one more example, from the collection of J. Goldschmidt, in Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst, Berlin, 1929, p. 330, no. 892. Another example of a similar shape of a size vessel, painted with multicolored flowers and birds, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in The Grand View of Oriental Ceramics, vol. 11, New York, 1982, plate 131. Those who paint blue and white flowers of the same size can be seen in the Palace Museum's collection of blue and white blessing birthday sticks and mallet bottles, "Qing Shunzhi Kangxi Dynasty Blue and White Porcelain", page 455, plate 293, and another case of painting landscapes, for the collection of the Shanghai Museum, can be found in the "Kangxi Porcelain Catalogue", page 82, no. 52; the same book contains blue and white pen holders (page 66, number 44), the patterns painted are similar to the patterns of the neck figures in this product, which can be compared.
Kangxi's colorful crown is the best in the world, which can be said to be the right time, the Kangxi Emperor in order to maintain the long-term peace and stability of the regime, pay attention to learning and adopting Han culture; on this basis, the prosperous development of prints in the late Ming Dynasty profoundly influenced the decorative theme of Kangxi porcelain. At that time, the very famous printmaking centers were Jinling, Hangzhou, Huizhou and Suzhou, and Jingdezhen was at the junction with Huizhou, close to Jinling and Suzhou, and the excellent geographical location provided convenience for the combination of printmaking and ceramics, Xu Zhiheng's "Sayings of Drinking Liuzhai" had: "The character stories are different, the waves are implemented, the poverty is extremely witty, most of them are derived from novels, but they are combined with the Danqing painting methods of the past." For example, the theme of the immortal birthday celebration of this product, the shaping of the characters and the decorative techniques can be found in the opera prints of the same period or slightly earlier, so that it gives a erotic connotation and unrestrained artistic tension, which is unique and should be a wonderful product.
(The picture and text are from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author)