The porcelain to be introduced to you today comes from the famous antique Yongle blue and white hand cup. Although the hand-pressed cup was not created by Yongle, its modeling pattern is one of the most respected and recognized varieties by the public, and it is known as "stable happiness".
The first feeling of people who have used the imitation Yongle hand cup is the heavy warmth, and the delay of heat conduction is just right because of its thick porcelain tire. The fullness in the hand is also perfect, and some people rise to the perspective of ergonomics to analyze and praise.
So what is the magical existence of this Yongle blue and white hand cup? Here I will analyze its mystery one by one:
First of all, from its model, we can know that it was made in Yongle during the heyday of the Ming Dynasty. Judy, the Yongle emperor, is well known. He launched the Jingnan Campaign, expelled his nephew, Emperor Jianwen, seized power and usurped the throne. He was 42 years old when he proclaimed himself emperor and reigned for 22 years (42 -64 years old).
He ordered Jie Jin, a great scholar, to edit the Yongle Grand Ceremony, and sent Zheng He to the western seas to explore Mongolia and Nanping Annan, so that the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty spread far and wide, moved the capital to Beijing and set up an East Factory. ...
Among the many preferences of Emperor Yongle, ceramics naturally have a place, so the appearance of Yongle blue-and-white hand-pressed cups became a matter of course. In the Ming dynasty, people liked to drink fried green bud tea. At that time, among all tea sets, only blue-and-white porcelain pressed hand cups matched green tea best.
After knowing the age of firing, we will enter the explanation of patterns and glazes. Before that, in order to give you an overall impression, I quoted one of the descriptions of the blue and white hand cups on the website of the Palace Museum below:
Blue and white hand cup (flower heart), Ming Yongle, 4.9 cm high, 9.2 cm in diameter and 3.9 cm in foot diameter.
The cup is like a small bowl, with a slightly curled mouth and a full and round bottom. Blue and white patterns are painted inside and outside. There is a sunflower in the center of the cup, and the flower center has the blue and white seal style of "Yongle Year System". Plum blossoms are painted on the exterior wall and lotus patterns are painted on the abdomen.
Hand-pressed cup is a new type of porcelain cup created by Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Factory in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty. This cup is beautifully made, simple and honest in shape, and deep in blue and white tones.
The hand-pressed cup is characterized by a thick carcass, a center of gravity at the lower part of the cup and a slightly outward edge. When holding a cup, the positive pressure is combined with the jaws of the hand, giving people a feeling of heavy hand pressure, so it is called "hand pressing the cup".
Yongle blue-and-white hand cup in Ming dynasty is an object in Ming dynasty porcelain that can be mutually confirmed with literature records, and it has important research value.
Gu Yingtai, an Amin writer, specifically mentioned this kind of cup in his book A Brief Introduction to Natural History: "If I make a hand cup in Yongle and bend over with my mouth open, the sand will slide to the end. There is a double lion ball in the middle, and the six-character or four-character seal script in the ball is as thin as rice grain, which is the top grade; Yuanyang heart second; Playboy is second. The blue and white outside the cup is dark green, with exquisite style, which can be handed down for a long time and the price is very high. "
In the collection of the Palace Museum, there are Yongle blue-and-white hand-pressed cups in the year of double lion hydrangea and the year of flower heart. Another cup with a pattern of Yuanyang lying on the lotus was copied during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. According to the information currently available, only the Palace Museum has four such high-quality Yongle hand-pressed cups.
Let's analyze them one by one, and then look at the rest.
In the 33rd episode of Kyle's World, there is such a description: "... at this time, your ankle suddenly seems to be caught by something, desperately dragging you to the bottom of the sea. You suddenly feel tidal matter coming from all directions. The ears, eyes, nose and mouth are separated from each other by the suma, merchants, horns, signs and feathers in the palace. With the warmth of the skin emitted by the fragrant flowers and plants, the substances mixed with the oolong tea woven with cloisonne enamel are full of ... these things with different attributes are fused into one under the distortion of time and space, which blocks you all.
What Li Qing, Ma Su is talking about here is the raw material for drawing blue-and-white porcelain ornamentation-cobalt oxide (cobalt clay mineral), which is the underglaze color of Yongle blue-and-white pressed cup that we want to know today.
The underglaze color patterns of blue and white porcelain are decorated with cobalt oxide, which can be roughly divided into domestic blue and white porcelain with high manganese content and low iron content and imported blue and white porcelain with low manganese content and high iron content.
Domestic blue and white materials mainly include: Pearl, Zhejiang, Shi Ziqing, Ping Dengqing (Bitangqing) and so on.
Domestic material resources are abundant, mainly distributed in Ganzhou, Shanggao, Leping and Shangrao in Jiangxi, and there are rich cobalt-containing minerals in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Yunnan, Fujian and Guangxi.
The imported materials are mainly Ma Su Liqing (also known as vegetarian materials) and recycled materials from ancient Persia (the origin of which is now Xinjiang).
Everyone is familiar with blue and white porcelain. Although Jay Chou's blue and white porcelain was born out of Ru kiln, it did raise the popularity of blue and white porcelain by dozens of percentage points.
Blue and white porcelain, also known as "white blue and white", originated in the Tang and Song Dynasties and flourished in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. People often compare blue and white porcelain to Tsing Yi on the stage, which is elegant, beautiful and euphemistic, much like China's ink painting. Blue-and-white porcelain appeared in the Tang Dynasty, but it was only a fragmentary piece and did not form a scale. It was not until the late Song Dynasty that it developed by leaps and bounds because of its rich raw materials.
After history entered the Yuan Dynasty, the world-famous Yuan Blue and White was produced.
The so-called Yuan blue-and-white porcelain is the blue-and-white porcelain fired in the Yuan Dynasty. The appearance of this kind of porcelain set off a porcelain revolution in the Yuan Dynasty, breaking the history that porcelain can only be monochrome. There are more than enough blue and white flowers, and the charm of Yuan Blue and White flowers has swept through ancient and modern China and foreign countries, and the world regards it as the "national porcelain" of China.
On July 12, 2005, at the auction of "China Ceramics, Craft Boutiques and Export Crafts" held at Christie's in London, Yuan Qinghua's Guiguzi went down the mountain, and after adding commission, it was sold for15688,000, equivalent to about 230 million yuan, which set a record for the auction of China artworks in the world at that time.
This jar is divided into two parts: the neck is decorated with water ripples; Epaulettes: decorated with waist peony; Abdomen: the theme decoration of "Guiguzi going down the mountain"; The lower half: Chen Bao painted deformed lotus petals on the fourth floor.
Ma Su Li Qing is the most beautiful pigment in Yuan blue and white. Ma Su Liqing is a unique mineral cobalt material, which is produced in ancient Persia. (First of all, it was produced in Samara, Iraq today; Second, it is produced in the mountainous area of Gehamaisha village, 400 kilometers south of Tehran, Iran. Unfortunately, this material is so rare and precious that it disappeared from the Yuan Dynasty to Zhengnian to Xuande in the Ming Dynasty.
Such rare pigments were naturally regarded as treasures by producers and dignitaries at that time, and were specially used to describe blue and white porcelain of different sizes in official kilns.
Due to the different conditions of producers at that time, there was a problem of more or less pigment content. That is, some utensils are used more, but they are thicker; Some utensils are lighter when used less; Or the domestic materials mixed with Li Qing materials are thick or light, which is also the reason why the colors of Yuan blue and white porcelain are varied and almost the same.
? Blue and white hair is rich in color, elegant and blue-gray.
showy
Brilliant is made of imported suma green material, and Yuan blue and white in the official kiln are all made of imported suma green material, but suma green material has one characteristic, that is, high iron and low manganese, blue and white are a little purple, and green is slightly green.
quietly elegant
Elegance is the result of the mixed use of imported materials and domestic materials.
Green lime
Some blue and white flowers have black spots, and the color is dark after firing. It is the representative of cyan and gray.
The main component of "Ma Su Liqing" used in Yuan Dynasty is cobalt oxide, which contains a small amount of iron oxide. Under the action of high temperature, the iron oxide in "Subeiqing" will gather together in silicate liquid to form dark crystal spots. Microscopically, most of them are irregular sauce brown spots, which sink under the glaze.
Most modern imitations simply add iron oxide powder in the production of domestic blue and white flowers. Under the action of high temperature, these iron oxides will quickly float to the glaze to form crystals. Microscopically, most of them are slag spots.
According to statistics, there are currently no more than 300 Yuan blue-and-white porcelain wares in the world, among which 23 Yuan blue-and-white porcelain wares are kept in Gao 'an Museum of Jiangxi Province, accounting for almost110 of the world's Yuan blue-and-white porcelain wares, ranking first in the country.
However, the place with the largest collection of Yuan blue and white flowers in the world is not Gao 'an Museum, but Topkapa Palace in Turkey, where 39 Yuan blue and white flowers are collected, among which there are many heavy objects and peerless orphans in the world.
Unfortunately, the Yuan blue and white porcelain of Topkapa Palace is not exhibited to the public, and only distinguished guests can be allowed to visit these rare treasures. For example, Mr. Ma Weidou was invited to observe these blue and white flowers at close range on 20 10. Later, Mr Ma Weidou published a book and shared what he saw and heard.
The second place of Yuan blue-and-white porcelain is the National Museum of Iran, which has 32 pieces of Yuan blue-and-white porcelain.
Square pots of Tibetan Yuan, Qinghuafeng and Ruishou in the National Museum of Iran
These rare and famous treasures were transported to all parts of the world through the Silk Road. Of course, many utensils were set on fire by the Islamic royal nobles in the Yuan Dynasty, and the hereditary inheritance of these royal families was relatively orderly, so we were fortunate to see this exquisite treasure more than 800 years ago.
Blue and white is an underglaze color, and its firing temperature is generally around 1200℃ to 1250℃ to achieve its due effect. Therefore, the colorant of underglaze color needs to have enough fire resistance to adapt to high temperature calcination. Modern industrial underglaze colored wares often need high temperature of 1400℃.
The so-called "look at its color from a distance, look at its flowers from a close distance", and the role of color in practical art is very critical. Praising blue and white porcelain is first of all the beauty of color. But interestingly, white and cyan are not the most attractive colors in China culture, and they were even once hated.
Look at white first. Although white also symbolizes purity and cleanliness, the folk white in the Central Plains is associated with funerals and is the color of mourning. White also means humbleness, the common people are also called "white clothes", and the scholars who have not entered the official career are called "Ding Bai" and "people in white clothes".
Look at cyan again. "Green" symbolizes spring and vitality in China culture and is an auspicious color; But as a clothing color, "green" also means poverty and inferiority, such as "blue shirt", "tsing yi" and "blue robe".
Therefore, decorating objects with blue and white to form the aesthetic style of blue and white is not the result of the natural growth of China culture, but the crystallization of cultural blending. There is no doubt that the rise of blue and white porcelain is closely related to grassland culture. This is another reason why blue and white flowers in the Yuan Dynasty were so popular.
The earliest use of cobalt can be traced back to around 2000 BC, when it was known to be used as a blue colorant in West Asia. However, in the archaeological excavations in China, a few glass beads and glassware in the Warring States Period (475-22 BC/KLOC-0 BC/) have traces of cobalt blue melting to achieve the coloring effect, and it is estimated that they are most likely from West Asia, unlike those made in China.
Apart from the glass process, blue glazed ceramics never appeared in China before the Tang Dynasty. However, the smoothness and prosperity of the Silk Road in the Tang Dynasty led to the introduction of cobalt into China, and it was used as one of the glazes for ceramic firing. Together with other copper-green glazes and iron-brown glazes with high lead content at that time, they were used as low-temperature pottery. 950- 1 165℃), the decorative glaze is more colorful, and the glaze is covered with small pieces, thus creating world-famous three-color pottery.
People in Song Dynasty admired minimalism aesthetics, and the glazed surface of Song porcelain was moist and pure, pursuing simplicity and elegance in silence. However, this makes the development of cobalt blue materials in ceramics stagnate.
Of course, this does not represent the height of the Song Dynasty in the history of porcelain. The five famous kilns we often talk about now are all kilns established in the Song Dynasty, and Chai Kiln is also a famous kiln in the Song Dynasty.
Until the Yuan Dynasty, the blue-and-white blue-and-white coincided with the Mongolian totem belief of Canglang Bailu-pale as blue sky, white representing purity and kindness, and blue-and-white flourished from then on, creating the first peak in the history of ceramics.
The cobalt used in the Yuan Dynasty came from Persia and was called Ma Su Li Qing or Su Boni Qing in ancient times. High iron content and rich divergence. After firing, there are rust-like black-brown spots in the glaze, which are concave in the tire, rich in color and vivid in visual effect.
In addition, Ma Su was introduced to China by Zheng He's fleet from Qingyi in Yongle (1403- 1425) and Xuande (1426- 1435). At that time, under the strict supervision of the imperial kiln factory, Yong and Xuan blue flowers were darker in color, such as sapphire blue.
Blue-and-white porcelain, which was vigorously promoted by the Mengyuan regime, was not lost because of the change of dynasties. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, blue and white porcelain not only did not disappear, but became more and more colorful.
Blue-and-white porcelain in Yuan Dynasty was mainly used by the rulers of northern grassland nationalities and overseas trade. Since the Ming Dynasty, people's love for the beauty of blue and white porcelain has become a universal pursuit. After the Ming dynasty, Jingdezhen folk kiln produced a large number of daily blue and white porcelain, and the pursuers of these blue and white porcelain were the people of the Central Plains.
Compared with imported cobalt materials, domestic cobalt materials have attracted much attention because of several sea bans imposed by Hongwu (1368- 1369). However, this cobalt material has high manganese content, light color and uneven hair color.
During Chenghua (1465- 1487) and Zhengde (1506- 152 1), Ping Dengqing or Bi Tangqing from Leping, Jiangxi Province were the main sources of blue and white glaze. Because Ping Dengqing is more refined, with less impurities, the burnt green color is evenly mixed, elegant, and the color is stable, which has the feeling of clouds covering the fog.
In addition to Leping, Jiangxi also produces a cobalt material called Shi Ziqing. Its hair color is black, which is mostly used for firing blue and white in folk kilns. However, during Jiajing and Wanli years, it was difficult to use Huiqing from Central Asia, Xinjiang, Yunnan and other places alone, and it needed to be mixed with domestic Shi Ziqing, and its mixing ratio was also stipulated. At the same time, it is divided into shangqing and zhongqing. If the proportion of rejuvenation is higher than that of Shi Ziqing, its blue and white fur is purple and gorgeous; On the contrary, it is slightly grayish blue.
After the Ming Dynasty, blue and white reached its peak again in the Kangxi period (1662- 1722). At that time, "Zhejiang materials" produced in Shaoxing, Jinhua, Quzhou and other places in Zhejiang were mainly selected, and the patterns were drawn by dividing water, so the finished products were bright, blue, distinct and three-dimensional.
We need to pay more attention to the subtle changes of blue and white hair color in different dynasties. After careful observation and comparison, we can enhance our understanding of the styles of different dynasties and appreciate the connotation of aesthetic taste.
In the 27th episode of Kyle's World, there is such a description: "... your statement is correct to some extent. For example, Heraclitus famously said, "One cannot step into the same river twice. "The key to this philosophical problem lies in how you define' the same river'." Rebecca carefully inverted the cup in front of her on the low table, picked up Kyle's same hand to press the cup, and butted the mouths of the two cups up.
"You see it's like Minkowski's four-dimensional time cone. These two hand cups represent the past and the future respectively ... "Liu Jia did the same to the other hand cup. There are two sets of cups with their bottoms stacked together on the table. "This pair represents the conscious world and the material world respectively." Lu Jia deliberately paused to see that Kyle was absorbed and didn't mean to ask questions ... "
The blue and white hand cup is one of the most important props in Kyle's world.
Ok, let's continue to look at the other two Yongle blue and white hand cups in the Palace Museum to complete the closed loop of this analysis.
Blue and white hand cup (lion ball heart), Ming Yongle, 5.2 cm high, 9.3 cm in diameter and 3.9 cm in foot diameter.
The cup is curled, full of bottom and full of feet. Blue and white decoration inside and outside. The cup heart is decorated with a double lion ball pattern, and the blue and white seal script "Yongle Year System" is arranged in the ball. The outer wall is painted with plum patterns along the lower edge, the abdomen is painted with lotus flowers, and the outer wall is painted with grass patterns, with 9 blue and white strings spaced apart.
This cup is exquisitely made and has a simple and honest shape. The arrangement of decorative patterns is clear, the layout of decorative patterns in the cup is simple, and the decorative patterns on the outer wall are composed of two continuous branches wrapped with flowers by soft lines. Blue and white have a dark green. This work has high artistic value and research value, and it can be called a unique and precious cultural relic in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty.
The style of Yongle Handcup is clear and distinguishable. The arrangement on the screen is ingenious, and the combination of brushwork and pattern is not only for brushwork, but also decorated with porcelain, which can not only tell the age of the objects, but also make people happy. The lion rolling hydrangea is a folk dance to show good luck. With the theme of "Yongle Year System" written in the ball, draw it in the heart of the cup. This ingenious arrangement fully embodies the elegant artistic accomplishment of Jingdezhen ceramic craftsmen.
Qing Hualien pattern hand cup, Ming Yongle, 5.4 cm high, 9. 1 cm in diameter and 3.9 cm in foot diameter. Old collection of Qing palace.
This small bowl with a deep belly and a skimmed mouth is called "hand-pressed cup" because it is of moderate size, the carcass at the mouth is thin, and the fetal bone gradually thickens along the smooth edge. In the hand, the slightly outward edge of the mouth coincides with the relaxed tiger's mouth, and the center of gravity of the cup moves down, so it is called hand pressing the cup.
When it comes to Yongle blue-and-white porcelain in the Ming Dynasty, the most commendable thing is the green Hualien pattern hand cup. It is the only blue-and-white porcelain handed down and unearthed in Yongle Imperial Kiln so far, which can be mutually verified with the literature records of Ming Dynasty.
Well, I can only update the peripheral analysis in a hurry recently, but it also creates a breathing space for new friends. After all, the previous analysis has hundreds of thousands of words. hahaha. This should be enough for you to watch for a while. See you later. Goodbye.