"Yang Envy Tea Pot System" (Ming) is the first Yixing purple sand monograph in China. The author Zhou Gaoqi, mingBogao, a native of Jiangyin County, Jiangsu Province, Zhou Gaoqi is a good tea pot and has a lot of research on purple sand.
In the "Divine Product" category in the book, the author praises Chen Zhongmei's works:
"Chen Zhongmei, a native of Wuyuan, first made porcelain in Jingdezhen. There are many people with karma, and they are not enough to become famous, and they are abandoned.
Good with pot soil, intended to make all kinds of play, such as incense boxes, flower cups, fox stoves, paperweights to ward off evil spirits, heavy hammers and engravings, fine ghost work.
The pot resembles a flower and fruit, embellished with grass worms, or a dragon plays with the waves of the sea, stretching out its claws. The statue of the supreme master, solemn and merciful, radiant, dazzling flowers, incredible.
Wisdom and dragon sleep, Daozi, the mind is exhausted, in order to die in the sky. ”
▲ Chen Zhongmei Beast pot
Chen Zhongmei, there are few historical records, and the records about him can only be known as the Ming Dynasty, who was originally a pot-making master in Jingdezhen, and later went to Yixing to engage in purple sand pottery. His contribution was to harmoniously combine the porcelain craft with the purple sand craft, creating the "heavy skeletonized" purple sand technology.
The Jingdezhen Taolu says that he sold the artifacts he created "to distant places, and the townspeople rarely obtained them." It can be seen that there are very few surviving works of purple sand ware produced by Chen Zhongmei, which are extremely precious. It is this kind of mysterious and rare work that Zhou Gaoqi designated Chen Zhongmei's work as a "divine product" in his "Yang Envy Tea Pot System".
▲ Chen Zhongmei, a beast
Fortunately, we can get a glimpse of Chen Zhongmei's pot art through those representative instruments, and see what those purple sand vessels known as "divine products" look like!
Purple sand rhinoceros
Zun, for the ancient wine or warm wine vessel, more bronze casting, at this time Zun is the common name of "ceremonial vessel".
▲ Chen Zhongmei Purple Sand Zun
Bronze ware imitated from purple sand is exquisitely made and used by the ancients to view the furnishings.
Chicken pot
The Tianji pot, also known as the chicken head pot, was called "poppy" during the Jin Dynasty, and was named because of the shoulder decoration of the chicken head.
▲Chen Zhongmei Tianji pot
This pot is pressed to the shoulders of the drum, round belly and three legs. The shoulders of the pot are pasted with a wide string pattern for a week. The lower side of the abdomen is decorated with strings, and the dragon-shaped pot handle is bronze solemn and ancient, inheriting the ancient and the present.
Hexagonal Dragon Pot
The pot is long and hexagonal, the mouth is slightly curved by the head of the unicorn, the handle is round and small, the pot is flattened and convex, the bottom has four animal horns with bottom feet, and the lid hexagon is slightly raised.
▲ Chen Zhongmei Six-square dragon
The overall shape is mellow, elegant, and smooth, and the unique structure and ingenious combination of techniques are vividly expressed.
Beast Pot
This beast pot has a strange shape, and the entire body of the pot is made into a cloud life water rise from the beginning to the bottom.
On one side, the head of the beast is leaning out, the fin tail is the handle, the square foot is the bottom, the flat circle yin and yang Taiji button, the cover and the body are in harmony with nature, and the two are integrated, suitable for what they want.
▲ Chen Zhongmei Rui Beast Pot
The most ingenious thing is that the cloud pattern of the pot body is not the traditional "plastering method" of Yixing, but the "carving porcelain method" of Jingdezhen, and the auspicious rui of the cloud is obtained in the "subtraction".
Purple sand
This purple sand statue is made by imitating the bronze statue of the Warring States period. It is an ancient cattle used for sacrifice, and the zun is a wine vessel. As the name suggests, the wine vessel is "carved in the shape of a cow and used as a respect".
The head is slightly longer than a cow, the ears are high, and the whole body is strong and muscular. The overall shape is stronger than the cow and is more intelligent and agile.
In the middle of the back of the ridge, there is a round lid similar to the lid of a wine jug, which cleverly forms a semi-circular lid button.
Under the lid button on his back, it is the entrance where the wine is poured in, and the wine is stored in the belly of the cow.
Chen Zhongmei is not a simple imitation of cattle, but has been processed by the artist, ingeniously conceived, and has a different taste.