In 1994, a number of terracotta figurines of the Tang Sancai Northern Wei Dynasty appeared in the Panjiayuan antique market in Beijing, which were considered genuine after expert appraisal and belonged to the national "first-class cultural relics".
The cultural relics department launched an emergency measure to "rush to buy terracotta figurines and protect national treasures", and even the Chinese History Museum and the Palace Museum spent millions of yuan to participate in the acquisition.
However, after several acquisitions by the cultural relics department, there are more and more terracotta figurines in the antique market, which arouses suspicion, and experts are dumbfounded after repeated identification.
Some experts believe that the core firing technology of Tang Sancai has been lost in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, which is equivalent to being lost for more than 1,000 years, and even if it can be imitated later, it cannot be so realistic.
What kind of master can deceive the eyes of experts and make such fake Tang San painted pottery figurines?
In the 20s of the last century, the Qing government built the Longhai Railway, and found a group of tombs in the Tang Dynasty in the Luoyang section, and unearthed a lot of Tang Sancai, which attracted the attention of antique dealers.
However, many of the genuine items were damaged when they were first unearthed, and the antique dealer could not sell them for a good price, so he went to Nanshan Stone Village in Luoyang to ask craftsmen to restore them.
Nanshan Stone Village is located on the mountain ridge, this is a very special small mountain village, many craftsmen in the village make a living by firing glazed tiles, after getting these cultural relics remnants, they tried to finish researching, in the process of restoration for many years, accumulated some experience, and finally picked up the Tang Sancai firing technology.
Due to the complexity of the Tang Sancai production process, the craftsmen did not make the technology public, but passed it on in a single way from the family, and it was passed on to men but not women.
During the Japan War of Aggression against China, the Tang Sancai production industry was impacted, and many craftsmen returned home to farm and left the industry for a time.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the local government of Luoyang learned that some old craftsmen in Nanshan Stone Village would make Tang Sancai, so they established the Arts and Crafts Society, and the first batch recruited 13 craftsmen with the surname Gao to specialize in the production of Tang Sancai handicrafts.
These handicrafts are handmade, can not be mass-produced, so not sold to the outside world, specially used to give VIPs, many Tang Sancai was also sent to Beijing, as a national gift to dozens of heads of state.
In 1966, during the special period, the Arts and Crafts Society was dissolved, many workers went home to farm, some went to work in the ceramic factory, and some were transferred to the printing factory.
In 1980, many craftsmen in Nanshishan Village took making Tang Sancai as a side job to earn some extra money.
Every household in the village has opened a small workshop, but these products are made by modern technology, just ordinary handicrafts, and the price has plummeted in the vicious competition, and many enterprises are facing closure.
In order to find a way out, a very small number of craftsmen seek Tang Sancai antique technology, and the antique master Gao Shuiwang is one of the representatives.
The Gao family in Nanshishan Village has made Tang Sancai for several generations, and Gao Shuiwang has been exposed to it since he was a child, and he also likes this craft.
When Gao Shuiwang was in elementary school, he often went to the houses of village craftsmen to play after school and watch them make Tang Sancai.
Tang Sancai's glaze is bright, the variety is also dazzling, there are all kinds of small animals, there are different forms of characters, and there are many practical utensils, Gao Shuiwang saw those handicrafts, and had a strong interest.
Tang Sancai is a handicraft that arose during the Tang Dynasty, with the aesthetic style of "fat is beautiful", whether it is an animal or a person, it is chubby, the overall plump and round, and it looks naïve.
Gao Shuiwang's father died when he was 17 years old, and in order to support his family, he formally studied and made Tang Sancai.
By chance, Gao Shuiwang went to visit the museum and saw a few genuine Tang Sancai products, he looked at them carefully, and his heart was very shocked.
After a long time of contact with Tang Sancai, it was the first time he had seen the real thing, whether it was sculpture or glaze, the real thing was very different from the handicrafts produced in the small workshop.
Tang Sancai's genuine form is vivid, lifelike, and very charming, while ordinary handicrafts are coarse and indiscriminate, completely not at the same grade, indicating that according to the production situation at that time, the core technology was not fully mastered, and the process still needs to be improved.
After returning from the museum, Gao Shuiwang was like a demon, and he vowed to make more exquisite products.
So Gao Shuiwang carried a woven bag every day, rode a bicycle to the foot of Longmen Mountain to dig kaolin, and then went home to conduct experiments.
Gao Shuiwang built a kiln at home, he mixed kaolin with water to make mud, used a fine brush to color the mud, and then used tongs to fire in the kiln.
At that time, there were not many tools available, so in order to accurately measure the glaze color ratio, Gao Shuiwang specially bought a small scale for weighing medicine in a Chinese medicine pharmacy to use.
In the process of Tang Sancai production, it is necessary to fire twice, the first time the clay is shaped and then fired at the beginning, and the second time is fired again after the glaze is applied to show beautiful colors.
In order to study Tang Sancai, Gao Shuiwang worked hard to find the fragments of Tang Sancai's remnants in Beikuang Mountain, Nanshan Stone Village, and observed and compared them at close range.
In the following 7 years, Gao Shuiwang tried various methods, failed countless times, and comprehensively improved from the aspects of mud tires, glaze color, blending formula, etc., and finally mastered the core technology of Tang Sancai's production, and the handicrafts made were no different from the real ones.
But because the Tang Sancai handicrafts made by Gao Shuiwang were too realistic, he almost got into prison.
In 1987, Gao Shuiwang made a figurine horse more than 40 centimeters high, and after a friend came to visit, he saw that the horse liked it very much, so he took it.
This friend said hello to Gao Shuiwang's mother: "Auntie, I took this horse away first, and you can tell him when Shuiwang comes back."
But his mother didn't tell Gao Shuiwang about it, in the handicraft workshop, there were too many kinds of crafts, and one less was not a big deal, and Gao Shuiwang didn't notice it.
Two or three days later, at around 2 o'clock in the morning, Gao Shuiwang heard a knock on the door and found three people standing outside the door.
After the three people entered the house, they showed their documents, they were the case-handling officers of the local public security bureau, and Gao Shuiwang was immediately startled.
The plainclothes police officer asked: "Are you Gao Shuiwang, do you know what illegal things you have done?" ”
Gao Shuiwang replied suspiciously: "No." ”
The police asked solemnly: "Is it reselling cultural relics?" ”
Gao Shuiwang hurriedly vetoed and said: "I never resell cultural relics. ”
The case-handling officer said that there was a recent case of reselling cultural relics related to him, and asked Gao Shuiwang to return to the Public Security Bureau to explain clearly.
It turned out that the friend sold the figurine horse as genuine, and the buyer spent 60,000 yuan, and the friend confessed that the figurine horse was a high imitation, which was made by Gao Shuiwang in Nanshishan Village.
Gao Shuiwang was implicated and locked up for four days and four nights, and later wrote a profound inspection, explaining that it was improper sales and was released.
In 1990, Gao Shuiwang registered a trademark, set up a cultural relics reproduction company, began the mass production of Tang Sancai handicrafts, the next year a large coastal customer ordered a large number of gray pottery figurines in the Northern Wei Dynasty high imitations, flowing to Beijing Panjiayuan antique market, the product is in short supply, attracting the attention of the Department of Cultural Relics.
Many experts believe that these gray pottery figurines are genuine, very rare, belong to the national "first-class cultural relics", in order not to let the cultural flow fall outside, the Cultural Relics Bureau quickly made a purchase, the Chinese History Museum and the Palace Museum also allocated special funds for "rescue acquisition", spending millions of yuan.
But the strange thing is that after several acquisitions by the Cultural Relics Bureau, the number of terracotta figurines on the market has only increased, which has aroused suspicion, and there is controversy among experts for repeated identification, because the number cannot be so large.
The Public Security Bureau and the Cultural Relics Bureau coordinated the investigation, and found Gao Shuiwang's workshop in Nanshishan Village, and the investigators came to the door and temporarily detained the products in Gao Shuiwang's factory.
This incident caused a huge sensation in the antique market, and Gao Shuiwang's fame in the industry is getting bigger and bigger.
In 2009, there are more than 40 workers in the antique company of high water, and the products produced are divided into three grades: low imitations, gifts and high imitations, with tens of thousands of low imitations produced every year, and thousands of gifts produced, the company's main profit point lies in high imitations.
The overall production of Tang Sancai is divided into new technology and antique technology, the products of the new process can be fired with an electric furnace and grouting with a machine, but the high imitation Tang Sancai must be fired with a firewood kiln, using the manual printing method.
Gao imitation Tang Sancai also has to join the aging program, to bury the handicraft into the mound of kaolin, for several months or years, and then take it out and coat it with hydrochloric acid and anhydrous methanol to create the effect of deglazing and peeling, creating a sense of vicissitudes of the times.
Blue and black tones of Tang Sancai need to use cobalt oxide with glaze, there was no cobalt oxide during the Tang Dynasty, and it had to be imported from Persia, so whether it is a high imitation or a genuine product, the blue-black tone of Tang Sancai is the most precious.
Although only a few hundred pieces are produced every year, the profits are very high, and the price of each piece is as high as tens of thousands of yuan, such as a painted figurine of a noble lady about 87 centimeters high is priced at 78,000 yuan, and the price of a 1.3-meter-high painted figurine of the king is 98,000 yuan.
Tangshan Cai's high imitation buyers from all over the country, coastal cities and Hong Kong and Taiwan buyers more, many Zhejiang, Shanghai and Hong Kong and Taiwan business people are very fond of Tang Sancai, buy for gifts, due to the small production of these high-end handicrafts, the degree of refinement is difficult to see in the market, high-end gifts on the grade.
Among the many buyers, there are also collectors from Japan and South Korea, who spend a high price to buy them as treasures, and when Gao Shuiwang makes high imitation Tang Sancai, he will strictly control the quantity, so these imitations are also very rare.
After decades of research and exploration, Gao Shuiwang's skills in reproducing Tang Sancai were perfect, and in order to carry forward this technology, he accepted dozens of personal disciples to teach the technique.
Gao Shuiwang also has a wish, the lost overseas Tang Sancai handicrafts are reproduced, every time he goes abroad to hold an art exhibition, he sees a lot of lost Tang Sancai genuine cultural relics, every time he will use the camera to take pictures of these cultural relics.
Gao Shuiwang's ultra-high technology has been recognized by the world, and has also been named by the Ministry of Culture as the representative inheritor of Tang Sancai firing skills of intangible cultural heritage, and many of his works have been collected by the China Arts and Crafts Museum, the National Center for the Performing Arts and other units.
Tang Sancai has a history of more than 1,300 years, is a treasure of Chinese art, Gao Shuiwang devoted himself to the study of Tang Sancai for decades, became a well-deserved art master, opened up a new world of Tang Sancai art, and also made great contributions to the inheritance and development of Chinese porcelain culture.
"Luoyang Daily": Gao Shuiwang: skillful hands "resurrection" Tang Sancai 2014-5-26