(Continued from the previous issue)
Regarding the jade characteristics of Hongshan culture, with the content of the video column, we specially introduce the ornamental characteristics in Hongshan cultural jade in this issue.
There are many articles on the Internet that introduce and identify various articles, in fact, after reading more, you will understand that everything is not far from its origin, and it is constantly reprinted and excerpted on the basis of a version, and there are very few views that really belong to the original.
The reason for this is nothing more than two points:
One is that there are few real researchers, most of them are learners; the biggest difference between researchers and learners is their own point of view, and what they have figured out is not the same level as forwarding others.
The other is to be plagued by links and objects, real archaeologists have the opportunity to contact real excavated objects, but how many of these professional archaeologists are jade collectors? Every day, they were confronted with skeletons and debris excavated from various tombs, and a few of them would seriously study the ornamentation and details of one of its jade pieces.
In the same way, there are practitioners in all walks of life now, how many of them can really do "do a line, love a line"? In addition to the most basic livelihood needs, it is a very brain-draining thing to write a clear daily archaeological diary, so it is not to slander the archaeological staff as unprofessional, professional masters must have, otherwise there are so many written insights on the market.
But I have come into contact with a lot of archaeologists, from the perspective of archaeology and the perspective of collection are completely different from the perspective of two perspectives, archaeologists need to understand more is the historical age of such items, isotopes, excavation location, actual role and reference value, they do not need at all, and the only thing that does not need to be considered is the authenticity of the object.
If we go to the museum to see the introduction of the collection, we will know that the introduction of a piece of jade is limited to the age, name, size and excavation time, and the material, ornamental characteristics and modeling background cannot be obtained from the introduction of the artifact.
And the collector's perspective is different, I have participated in many key archaeological sites and construction sites in China, many famous tomb sites also have the opportunity to actually participate, but from the perspective of collection, I am only very concerned about the types of jade unearthed, material characteristics, ornamental characteristics and the number of excavations every time, I need to keep its characteristics firmly in mind, because many on-site items are not allowed to shoot privately, I want to compare the items I see at the archaeological site with the items I see in the market, Summarize the truth that I think can convince myself, and then record it in writing, summarize and publish it, and maybe it will be copied, forwarded, and so on.
In this issue, we will talk about the jade ornaments of Hongshan culture that I focused on in the last class of the video course, and explained in detail my theoretical and practical understanding of hongshan jade identification.
First of all, we must understand that ornamentation is only the ideological concept of an era, and it is a concrete expression of aesthetic consciousness and belief in the aesthetics of jade craftsmanship.
In the video course, I summarize with you that the two cultural differences between the Liao River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin, the performance on jade, can be directly reflected from the two representative jades, and the ornamentation of the Hongshan culture jade is simple and profound compared to the Liangzhu culture.
Why? Hongshan culture history prevails in time, more ancient history also shows a more primitive aesthetic creative thinking, in the Red Mountain culture jade ornamentation, basically are flat and flat, the use of thick yin line composition of the line combination, very few delicate processing lines, a large area is bare bare surface, looks extremely simple, but is the most perfect interpretation of the elegance, leaving extremely limited clues; if you do not have a deep understanding of the historical and cultural background of this stage, the relative familiarity with similar items at this stage, It seems that the easiest is often the most difficult to identify, which is the difficulty coefficient of the general appraiser is much greater than that of the Liangzhu culture, and it is difficult to make a correct judgment on the jade piece without first-hand information.
But everything will have two sides, this simple and simple production process, coupled with the local materials that can be seen everywhere, also provides a lot of commercial opportunities for modern imitation profits, so why the market Hongshan jade is difficult to see the real thing, is that too many people only rely on one side of the cognition to dare to rush into the market, crazy rush to buy, now sell no door, do not feel deceived, but blame the unfair trading environment.
The ornamentation of Hongshan jade is limited by the development of its social productive forces, only a few kinds of prevalence, the representative of the ornamentation is divided into tile groove pattern, convex string pattern, yin line pattern, etc., remember these several, in other words, keep in mind one of them, carefully distinguish, will enhance your true cognition of the real object.
1. The tile groove pattern in the Hongshan cultural jade
In the video course, I said that the most basic identification of Hongshan jade is to be able to see the grooves, and the tile grooves are the iconic ornaments of the Hongshan cultural jade, and also the "originator" of all jade ornaments;
This is due to its specific historical background, in the period when the original aesthetic had just had its embryonic stage, the use of tools that can be used, that is, on the flat jade pendant or round carved jade, grind out a flat and symmetrical groove-shaped ornament,
The presence of this ornament can be found on most of the Red Mountain jade, and it is often used to hook the bodies of the facial birds of the cloud-shaped vessel and the fronts of some utensils.
The tile grooves on the utensils are polished very smoothly, which is caused by its special polishing materials and processes;
At that stage, the ancients did not have the use of stone tools, nor did they solve the thickness of jade sand, all the results were formed after long-term low-speed grinding by hand, and there was a feeling of "touching the wired and seeing nothing" at the bottom of the tile ditch and the junction of the plane;
This feeling is completely different from the feeling created by modern mechanized equipment, and only long-term touching and observing of physical objects can be experienced.
Second, the convex string pattern in the jade of Hongshan culture
Convex string pattern, also known as "ridge line", is one of the only few kinds of ornaments in the Jade Ornament of Hongshan Culture, and it also appears on the basis of the tile groove pattern, with significant decorative features.
The convex string pattern is thick and thin on the jade, the top is round, and the decorative effect is simple and atmospheric.
Such patterns are most common in bird wing tail feathers, dragons with long manes and the strings of cloud hooks.
This kind of ornamentation is based on the formation of grooves, leaving traces of the original wound of the jade, but the ancients cleverly used this ornament to express the different identities and characteristics of the object, and finally became a method of its decoration.
Third, the yin line pattern in the Red Mountain culture jade
On the basis of the countertop formed by the groove, the opposite of the convex string pattern is the yin line ornament, and the yin line pattern is actually until the Liangzhu culture period to truly usher in the period of glory and development;
The jade smiths in the Hongshan culture period had a high degree of generalization ability and composition grasp, but that also took into account the social productivity of the time;
In a jade carving work, sometimes only a few yin carved lines can accurately express the physiological structure of the work, which is relatively difficult, and it must be the hardness material that can be used to carve jade, or a grinding tool that can be rotated automatically, that is, the prototype of the stone.
For example, the beak of the jade pig dragon, probably only two or three knives carved a single thick line, can fully express the performance ability of that era to summarize the pig shape, and the skilled craftsmen of the future eras are far from reaching.