Who is drawing porcelain for Lili Li?

In recent years, "painters painted porcelain" has gradually become a trend. Many front-line painters and even local unknown painters can hardly avoid "vulgarity." Of course, the market is also very forceful. This kind of "painter porcelain" not only has the goods go faster, but also has a tenfold increase in price within a few years.

Why do contemporary artists scramble to "touch porcelain"? Among these, is the painter's “collective unconsciousness” generating curiosity and impulsiveness toward this new creative media, or is it driven by interests? The "touching porcelain" of a large number of painters will bring more "cultural details" to the development of porcelain art, or will it become a mesmerizing extravaganza?

The "painter porcelain" wins a clear lack of "art" and "tech"

In the history of Chinese art development, once the literati participate in the development of an ancient art style, this art will be qualitatively improved. For example, the influence of Ming dynasty literati on furniture design, Chen Mansheng left in the purple sand "Mangsheng 18 style", as well as Wang Xi, Wen Peng personally make printing to make the carving art shine. So will the collective “touching porcelain” of contemporary painters bring a fresh air to the development of porcelain art?

Xiong Gangru, a master of Chinese arts and crafts in Jingdezhen, said with certainty: “In the present days, the aesthetics of the ceramic arts and even the entire era are chasing shallow decorations and vulgar works. The painters have been heavily involved in painting porcelain. I think this is a good phenomenon. Whether in terms of creative ideas, creative themes, performance content or even painting techniques, the painters' ideas are more open."

At the same time, he also admitted that "painter porcelain" also has obvious shortcomings: "For painters who are accustomed to painting on paper, the transition from plane to three-dimensional is a new challenge; and painting is art, but painting is still Contains technical ingredients, many artists have neglected this point.” For example, many painters now like to paint blue-and-white flowers, but the drawing of blue-and-white flowers has a very important technique called “water diversion”, which is a technique that most painted porcelain artists are not able to grasp. The “blue water” of the blue and white flower is a variety of shades of light and shade that the blue-and-white flower materials are separated from. The single color material is therefore rich in shades of change, producing the same effect as ink. The drawing technique of blue water “water diversion” is completely different from that of ink painting. Porcelain is three-dimensional, and the body is crispy, so the pen must be kept at a high speed, so that the eye is clear, the heart is fine, and the hand is accurate. Fine detailing is not allowed. The painting pauses slightly, that is, the gesture is stagnated and fired. After that, there will be heavy "water waves." The speed of "water distribution" must be very fast, otherwise too much water will damage the green body ... In short, the blue water "water distribution" is a profound knowledge that must be mastered by long-term practice and skilled skills. Obviously, it is not holding the "fun". The mentality of the artists involved in the field of painting can be easily grasped. “In fact, many painters dismiss the issue of painting the 'technique' of porcelain, or because of objective reasons there is no way to submerge and study for a long time, so the blue-and-white flowers they paint are not so perfect,” Xiong Gangru said.

Zuo Zhengyao, a professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, said that his practice in the two fields of ink painting and ceramics has developed in parallel for more than 30 years, and that he has had the "quickness" of switching between the two. In his opinion, porcelain and ink are two different languages ​​and cannot be confused. “A lot of painters moved their ink paintings directly to porcelain. They did not treat porcelain as an independent, individualistic life entity, and they could not fundamentally induce the beauty of porcelain,” he said.

Low cost and good sales

However, Zuo Zhengxuan reminded that there are actually many irrational elements in the wave of “painters painting porcelain”.

“In the past few years, the porcelain market is relatively hot. As long as the porcelain market is well-baked and the glaze colors are good, porcelain can be sold. Therefore, some institutions have spotted this business opportunity. While some front-line painters’ works are now expensive, many people cannot buy it. From then on, these institutions invited painters to paint porcelain, painted well, burned a few, left a few for the organization, and sent the rest to the painter himself. For the painter, this was an area he had never stepped in before. Curiosity, and good or bad painting are not stressful, it is worth trying. So, many organizations got a lot of 'painter porcelain' at low prices, even without paying the cost.”

The young generation of ceramic artist Ande Yu has seen many second-line painters from across the country in Jingdezhen. “They came to Jingdezhen to paint porcelain for the benefit of all. Jingdezhen ceramics are cheap to produce and they are profitable once they are handed out... After their works are completed, they will be sent back to the venue where the exhibition will be held. This is said to be done by local artists. The effect is very good, once the Chinese are now living well, and the decoration of the home is also very particular; secondly, the works of ceramic masters are too expensive, and the works of some ordinary arts and crafts artists are often not of high standard. People like their works. Once they have a deeper background in Chinese painting; second, they are very famous in the local area, so they still have a good market.” He said.

Wang Runyu told reporters that although the contemporary “painter porcelain” has not been in the market for a long time, the price has risen by about 10 times. The reporter also found that Chinese Guardian, Beijing Bohai, Beijing Rongbaozhai and other companies have tried auctions of contemporary masterpieces and porcelain paintings, and the turnover rate is high.

However, Wang Runyun believes that the current market price is still insufficient to truly reflect the value of "painter porcelain." "'The Porcelain of Painters' has both the blood lineage of famous Chinese painters and the value of the porcelain itself. For the painter, painting on porcelain is a transfer of materials and has a breakthrough in art; the paintings of the same artist may be There will be tens of thousands of copies, but porcelain painting cannot be painted so much, which in turn makes it scarce. In the past, we all said that the “paper millennium millennium”, but now the rice paper produced by industrialization will not be more than three hundred years, it will rot. However, porcelain paintings can be preserved forever.From these perspectives, porcelain paintings should be more collectible than paper paintings.So I think that the porcelain work of the same artist should be at least dozens of that of his works on paper. Times is right," said Wang Runyu.

Many people who paint porcelain will really draw less people

Ge Qiantao, the artistic director of China's first ceramic living art fair, once told reporters that Chinese ceramics touch the world by two things: one is the instrument type and the other is the glaze color. And Song porcelain is worthy of the aesthetic culmination of the history of Chinese porcelain. In ceramics with perfect shapes and glaze colors, everything is depicted as superfluous. “Now it is popular to draw on porcelain, master craftsmen, and painters. This is related to the low aesthetic ability of people in contemporary society. Nowadays, many rich people’s collections are very 'Qing Dynasty' and full of infatuation with eagles and tedious decorations. This may be more related to the historical relics of the Qing Dynasty that we see in contemporary people.Sometimes I would think that if China can still see the architecture of Tang and Song Dynasty, perhaps our aesthetic will be another height. Why you can be calm and elegant, because the architectural style and way of life of the Song dynasty were better preserved in them, so its aesthetic is also in line with the Song Dynasty,” he said.

However, Zuo Zhengtong believes that this statement is biased: “There is an excitement in the Song Dynasty's respect for the monochromatic glaze that dominates, but I don’t think it is the most extreme state of porcelain, not to mention the only state that should exist. The methods presented at each historical stage are closely related to the background of the era at that time and are a phenomenon of natural growth. It is not appropriate for us to accuse it of being wrong at any point in the growth history."

While some contemporary artists choose to paint porcelain, they do have the imprint of the times and have the thoughts and anxieties about how to make Chinese contemporary art go to the world. Although Ming Ming, the director of the Department of Ceramic Art Design at the Fine Arts Institute of Tsinghua University, was born in the ceramic art department of the Central Art Academy, he never gave up his dream of painting for a long time. After immersing himself in the ceramic world for many years, he finally realized that Chinese contemporary art would have an impact in the future if it wanted to move toward the world. Pottery is an important way. “Whether it is a sculpture or an oil painting, contemporary art forms that are currently receiving extensive attention are based on the Western aesthetic system. However, ceramics are not the same. Its cultural matrix is ​​in China and its aesthetic system is unique. For artists, there is a huge creative space in this uniqueness."

Zuo Zhengxuan also holds an approximate view: “The cultural exchanges of so many dynasties in history have already opened up the world’s understanding and understanding of Chinese porcelain. Today, an ink painter takes his works to foreign exhibitions, Ink and wash may have to be interpreted for half an hour. Foreigners still hear cloud cover; but with regard to porcelain, we don’t need to explain it too much, foreigners can read it and even understand it better than you. This language is universal and public. Why can't contemporary artists take advantage of it and upgrade it?"

“The trend of painting porcelain is not wrong in itself. What is wrong is that although there are many people who paint porcelain in our time, it is too rare for people who really value ceramic language, know how to paint porcelain, have artistic consciousness and taste. This is where the problem lies." Zuo Zhengjun finally sighed.