Jiangsu Yixing is known as the "pottery capital". Yixing Juntao has become a magnificent flower in the world's ceramic garden with its unique and skillful thumb stacking process and warm, mellow, hazy and elegant glaze. In 2014, Yixing Juntao was listed as a representative project of national intangible cultural heritage.
Fang Xuefei is "piling flowers with his thumb"
Yixing Jun Tao Research Institute, national senior arts and crafts artist Fang Xue Fei introduced, Yixing Jun Tao from the ancient ceramics development and evolution, originated in the Song Dynasty, prevailed in the Ming Dynasty, is a specific glaze and (or) pile of flower decoration of pottery, also known as Yijun pottery, Yixing glaze pottery, with its warm and elegant glaze color and beautiful pile of flowers famous at home and abroad. During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Yijun pottery began to enter the imperial palace, became the imperial utensils, and exported to overseas countries, won the praise of "famous pottery, no class in the world".
"Yixing Juntao mainly uses the local unique white mud and nail mud two kinds of clay as the tire, through the patting molding, the inlay molding to make a good body. Some vessels are glazed with Yixing's unique uniform glaze, which is fired at a time under a high-temperature oxidation flame; Some of them are decorated on the finished clay blanks by Yixing's unique thumb stickers and stacking plastics, and then applied uniform glaze and then fired in the kiln. Fang Xuefei said.
The beauty of pottery, the beauty is in the glaze. Zhang Li, deputy director of Yixing Juntao Research Institute, told reporters that the glaze layer of Juntao is thicker, with azure, kidney beans, moon white and other colors, and the tire has purple mud and white mud. In the Qing Dynasty, the glaze was more abundant, the color and blue halo were further than those of the European kiln, and its utensils included fire bowls, flower pots, vases, etc. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the glaze color of the pottery has developed to dozens of kinds, and the products are mainly large and medium-sized garden furnishings, including all kinds of pottery benches, dragon tanks, goldfish bowls, vases, water basins, etc.
Yixing Jun pottery has lasted for hundreds of years and is still highly concerned and sought after, in addition to the unique glaze, the pile of flower decoration technology is also a characteristic highlight. "The art of piling flowers is to use the thumb as a pen, the five-colored clay as the ink, the clay blank as the paper, the mud in the hand into a mud point, mud strip or mud piece, according to the pre-conceived theme graphics, the color mud pile paste on the body, the comprehensive use of 'rubbing, twisting, wiping, pinching, pinching' five fingerings, piled up to post flowers and birds, landscapes and other exquisite pictures, not relief is better than relief." Zhang Li said.
According to historical records, as early as the Western Jin Dynasty in the Yixing area there have been a pile of flower pottery, to the Tang Dynasty and some development, pottery piled up figures, pavilions or turtles, fish, snakes, dogs and other animals, pottery tires are mostly red, coated with a very thin layer of golden yellow glaze. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the varieties of pottery with flowers increased day by day, and new styles such as calligraphy and seals were added to the stacked pictures. During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, Yixing kilns successively appeared professional in the pile of flowers, or the son inherited his father's business, or apprenticed to learn the arts, the apprentices must first practice calligraphy, painting and other basic skills, so the "thumb pile flowers" technology is increasingly sophisticated.
"The thumb piles up a good scene, and the small bamboo pieces point out the dragon and tiger eyes." Fang Xue Fei introduced, today's Yixing pottery pile flower artists, on the basis of inheriting the tradition of innovation and change, the use of freehand and the combination of brushwork, bold attempts to "flat paste method", "semi-relief stacking" and "three-dimensional relief stacking" and other craft skills, and drawing on sculpture, stone carving, paper-cutting and other folk craft techniques, so that the pattern is vivid and expressive, unique style, quiet in the aura, majestic in the overflowing fresh, to achieve the effect of form and content blending with each other.
The tireless efforts of generations of potters have pushed the skills of pottery piles to a new height. Among these artists, Li Shoucai, known as the "King of Pile Flowers", has become a representative of Yixing's pottery industry with his exquisite skills and profound theoretical skills. Li Shoucai, who was born in June 1954, has been engaged in the production of pottery for nearly 50 years, breaking the traditional decorative means of pottery pile flower frame, introducing the overall decoration technique, on the basis of the traditional pottery flat pile decoration method, to the development of a variety of skills combining semi-floating, floating pile and tired carving, and breaking out of an innovative road of pottery pile flower technology, with more than 20 national intellectual property patents.
Li Shoucai said that the art of pottery and flower is the art of sexuality, so artists should have a wise heart and sincere attitude. The clay type directly reflects the skill of the craftsman, and the mud that is gently pressed down should be strong and not overforced. When stacking larger pieces, or representing certain stacked figures, you need to stand or pile in motion. This is not only a clay interpretation, but also an expression of ideas.
Nowadays, while constantly improving their artistic attainments, Juntao artists are also carefully cultivating young inheritors, continuously injecting vitality and vitality into the development of Yixing Juntao. "On the road of art, we must continue to innovate and take the road of individuality. As a potter, we must strive to inherit skills, carry forward the spirit of craftsmen, and use culture to empower high-quality development. Li Shoucai said.
(Jiangnan Times reporter Zhang Jiaojiao)