To sum up, peony patterns, or porcelain, have the best production effects in four historical periods, namely the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.
If Chen Wenzhe wants to imitate, he must mainly imitate works from these four periods.
The representative work of the Song Dynasty is the Ding kiln white-glazed peony pattern porcelain.
In the Yuan Dynasty, there were blue and white and underglaze red, and the best was blue and white underglaze red.
Previously, Chen Wenzhe made the peony-patterned vessels from the Ding kiln of the Northern Song Dynasty, and now it is the turn of the blue and white vessels from the Yuan Dynasty.
Of course, it is also appropriate to make some porcelain with red glaze and peony pattern.
However, it is not easy to draw peonies well, especially when making antique porcelain.
Chen Wenzhe made Ding kiln porcelain before, because he had just made a batch and naturally understood the style of the Song Dynasty.
Now to make Yuan blue and white porcelain and Yuan underglaze red peony pattern porcelain, we need to have a certain understanding of the development of peony pattern in the Yuan Dynasty.
By the Yuan Dynasty, peony patterns were not only found on porcelain, but were also prominent in other aspects.
It is very important to understand this.
Because the patterns on porcelain cannot be separated from the social environment of the time.
You must know that plant themes in Yuan Dynasty textiles accounted for a very important part in the decorative patterns.
This was mainly influenced by the flourishing of flower-and-bird paintings in the Song Dynasty, which laid the foundation for the development of flower and plant themes in textile decoration in the Yuan Dynasty.
The decorative patterns in textiles in the Song Dynasty began to form some fixed combination patterns that represented certain meanings.
The Yuan Dynasty continued to develop this fixed combination of plant patterns, and there is an inevitable connection with the popular plant patterns in the Song Dynasty.
The peony pattern plays an important role in the textile patterns of the Yuan Dynasty, especially the entwined peony pattern, which is a common theme that connects different patterns.
Peonies symbolize wealth and are deeply loved by the people. According to literature statistics, there were a total of 194 varieties of peonies planted in the Yuan Dynasty.
The flower types and colors are quite rich, and the flower types can be divided into single-petal (single-leaf), multiple-petal (multi-leaf), and double-petal (thousand-leaf).
And among the varieties, there are the most double valves and the least single valves.
For example, the pleated pattern mentioned earlier is made up of layers of peonies stacked on top of each other.
With this kind of craftsmanship, it would be too troublesome if every piece was painted purely by hand.
Therefore, printing technology will become popular.
The term "grand peony" is not only used by us now, it was also the same in ancient times.
Regardless of whether it was a prosperous age or not, the rulers at that time would think that they had brought about a prosperous age.
Therefore, it has become inevitable to produce a large number of peony pattern vessels.
In fact, it goes without saying whether the Yuan Dynasty was prosperous or not.
Maybe the rule at home is short and we don't care much about it, but overseas, it's not like this.
The whip of God spurs the world, an unprecedented super empire in history, ruling the polar bears for more than 400 years!
These histories have left an indelible impression in North Asia, West Asia, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Therefore, people think that they have brought about a super prosperous age, and a prosperous age will naturally have the scene of a prosperous age.
At this time, the large Yuan blue and white flowers appeared, and naturally, the peony pattern also began to bloom infinitely.
Reflected in the Yuan Dynasty textiles, there are peony flower head shapes from different angles, and most of them show double peonies.
On the corrugated frame, peonies blooming at different angles come and go, forming a peony pattern with entwining branches.
Other flowers and auspicious combinations are interspersed to form decorative patterns with different auspicious meanings, which also indicate people's infinite yearning for a better life at that time.
It is not easy to draw peonies well, especially peonies from the Yuan Dynasty. After all, there are so many categories.
Of course, if you just imitate some peony-patterned vessels, you don’t actually need to pay attention to these.
However, as long as you meet someone who knows the art, you will be able to recognize at a glance which period of peonies you are painting.
This is just like painting a dragon. Dragons in different historical periods are also different.
On the peony, the expression is not as obvious as the dragon pattern, phoenix pattern, gluttonous pattern and other patterns, but for the real connoisseurs, it is still as conspicuous as a bright light.
Chen Wenzhe is making high-quality imitations of museum collections, so he naturally has to pay attention to all kinds of details.
Therefore, he needs to thoroughly study the peony patterns in various historical periods.
For example, the important maturity period of the peony pattern was in the Tang Dynasty. Zhou Fang, a famous painter in the late Tang Dynasty, painted "Ladies with Hairpins". The pattern of the ladies' clothing in the picture is large peonies.
In the fabrics of the Kaiyuan period, the flower theme was mainly Baoxianghua, which combined the characteristics of various flowers into one.
Baoxianghua has the styling elements of peonies, camellias, pomegranates and other flowers.
In the late Tang Dynasty, the characteristics of peonies became more and more obvious.
At this time, the flower pattern developed from the patterned Baoxiang flower to the more realistic peony flower.
By the Song Dynasty, literati began to write monographs on peony.
In the Song Dynasty, the popularity of peonies became more popular, and the development of realistic flower-and-bird paintings in the Song Dynasty further promoted the popularity of peony patterns.
The peony pattern has also become one of the most common plant patterns in the decoration of handicrafts in the Song Dynasty.
Peony patterns in textiles, according to "History of the Song Dynasty", Xiangzhou's tribute textiles include "hidden flower peony yarn".
Natural-style peonies on branches were often used for framing in the first year of Yuanyou in the Song Dynasty.
"Zhu Geng Lu" written by Zongyi of the Yuan Dynasty records that among the famous colors of calligraphy and painting in the Song Dynasty, there are patterns such as "Peony Fangsheng" and "Inverted Immortal Peony".
The Southern Song Dynasty Zhu Keroudisi peonies now in the Shen Municipal Museum are in the style of meticulous pastel painting.
Peony patterns are not only decorated in fabrics, but are also commonly seen in porcelain, lacquerware, gold and silverware, and architectural decorations in the Song Dynasty.
On the basis of the Song Dynasty's representation of peonies, there were still successors to the study of peonies in the Yuan Dynasty, and the number of designs increased.
For example, Wang Yuan painted "Peony Scroll", and Yuan Fei wrote "Shu Brocade Pu". It is recorded that in the Northern Song Dynasty, Sichuan Province's Jiansi Jinyuan produced a "Green Ruyi Peony Brocade" and used Ding to exchange war horses with ethnic minorities.
It is precisely because peony is regarded as a symbol of wealth that it is loved by the people.
Compared with the Song Dynasty, the image of peony patterns in the Yuan Dynasty is actually a bit special.
For example, the peony pattern and the cloud dragon pattern are combined with each other, and the large peony jar with the cloud dragon pattern is one of the representatives.
Therefore, the peony pattern in the Yuan Dynasty could not only be used as a decorative theme, but also often used the form of twining flowers or broken branches to form a continuous background with dragons, phoenixes, deers and other auspicious birds and animals.
The peony flower heads are both patterned and have realistic flip details.
The visual angle changes from top view, half side view, front side view, etc.
Among the textiles of the Yuan Dynasty, there were not many peonies that were shaped from a bird's eye view.
The flower head is a double-petaled image, and the petals are naturally turned over, mainly appearing in the image of peonies wrapped around branches.
There is also the half-side shape of the flower head, which has a different visual effect.
Among the semi-profile shapes in Yuan Dynasty works, the peony flower head has completely symmetrical left and right sides, and the petals also have the image of growing naturally.