Chapter 1591: Twelve flower gods fall into the world, half elegant and half immortal
When the Song Dynasty moved south, a large number of kiln workers followed them to the south.
In this way, the technology of the northern kilns was also spread to the south. Jun kiln bean green glaze is probably the originator of pink green glaze in the Southern Song Dynasty.
The pea green Jun glaze often cracks due to high temperatures during the firing process.
Especially when the temperature of the furnace is not stable enough, there are many defective products, so this eight-way dragon head cup from the Song Dynasty is particularly precious.
Nowadays, the celadon-glazed dragon head cup is probably more famous for the moment when it became a national gift porcelain.
To make such cups, you need to make a set.
There were many pictographic vessels like dragon head cups in ancient times, such as bird-shaped cups.
The bird-shaped cup is one of the cup styles, also known as "pigeon-shaped cup" or "pigeon-shaped cup". It was popular in the Three Kingdoms and Two Jin Dynasties.
In 1974, a vessel was unearthed from a tomb of the Western Jin Dynasty in Shangyu, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. It has a semicircular cup belly with a bird's head, wings and feet attached to the front, and an upturned tail attached to the back as a handle.
The bird has a round head and a sharp beak like a dove, its wings are spread out, and its feet are tightened on its abdomen, giving it a vivid shape.
Bird-shaped cups are mostly made of celadon, and their shapes are very accurate, graceful and elegant.
The bird-shaped cups that have been passed down to the present are generally of a relatively old age, such as the Yue kiln bird-shaped cups from the Five Dynasties period.
This bird-style cup from the Five Dynasties imitates the style of Han Dynasty bronzes. It has an open mouth that is slightly narrowed, the curved walls gradually taper, and the high-circled feet are turned outward.
On one side of the cup is a round bird with spread wings and about to fly, with the bird's head higher than the mouth of the bowl.
The other side is attached to the bird's tail, the end of the tail is slightly higher, and the middle part of the tail is connected to the abdomen to form a handle.
The bird's body, wings and tail are all decorated with stripes.
The cup is full of glaze inside and outside, is cyan in color, and has tiny flakes.
The entire vessel is in the shape of a bird, exquisite and elegant in style.
The shape of this cup is novel and unique, and the birds decorated are lifelike. It is both a practical vessel and a work of art for viewing. Its unique aesthetic conception is thought-provoking.
The National Palace Museum in Shendu and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provincial Museum also have similar collections of cultural relics.
Yue kiln is one of the earliest porcelain kilns in my country with a history of firing porcelain. Yue kiln began in the Eastern Han Dynasty and ended in the Tang Dynasty. It was in its heyday during the Five Dynasties.
It mainly fired celadon and developed a unique style, becoming a famous celadon kiln in the south.
The fired objects have rich shapes, dignified and beautiful patterns, delicate texture, green glaze with a slight yellow tint, and the glaze is moist and thick, like ice and jade.
Therefore, Lu Meng, a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, once praised: "The wind and dew of the Nine Autumn Period bloom over the kilns and capture the green color of thousands of peaks."
During the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, porcelain craftsmen devoted more energy to developing new glaze colors, improving glaze color quality and deliberately depicting surface decorations, while the design of the vessel shape was not as good as that of the previous generation.
However, it seems that the craftsmen of Yue kiln were the first to make celadon, and they like to work hard on the shape of the utensils.
They produced a large number of animal-shaped utensils, among which bird-shaped porcelain cups were particularly popular.
Chen Wenzhe was the first to learn and master the celadon firing technique.
It's natural to make some celadon works.
He only works casually now, so he doesn't do too much of any of them.
When I thought of it, I made a few pieces. Anyway, no matter how complicated the shape of the cup is, it is not that complicated.
After making the bird-shaped cup, Chen Wenzhe made several plum blossom cups.
Plum blossom cup is a cup shaped like a plum blossom.
Plum blossom cups have appeared as early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, and they were mostly made of Tang tricolor, celadon and white glaze.
Among the plum blossom cups of the Ming Dynasty, the most exquisite ones were from the Dehua kiln.
They were produced in Jingzhen kilns of various dynasties in the Qing Dynasty.
For this classic green glaze porcelain, as long as you have the materials from the county, it is really simple to make.
The ones that are more troublesome, or in other words complicated, and require careful thinking, also belong to cup sets.
The cup set is a type of utensil that appeared during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
For example, the Qianlong famille rose cup set from the Qing Dynasty is relatively simple in shape. This kind of cup has a slender mouth, narrow belly, and shallow feet.
The utensils are inverted in the shape of a horseshoe, and come in sets of ten.
The rims of the utensils are decorated with gold color, the inner walls of the utensils are decorated with turquoise green glaze, and the outer walls of the utensils are decorated with different pastel colors, which are combined in sequence to form a whole.
This type of cup set was mostly seen in the Yongzheng to Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty.
There are either round or square cup sets, which were most popular especially in the late Qing Dynasty. The quality and craftsmanship of the cup sets in the Daoguang Dynasty were the best.
The most famous one among the cups must be the Twelve Flower God Cup.
Chinese people’s love for flowers has existed since ancient times.
April is a month of bright purples and reds. The ancients selected the most beautiful flowers of each month from all kinds of stunning colors and worshiped them as the flower gods of the month.
There is a saying from ancient times: Twelve flower gods descended into the world, half of them were elegant and half of them were immortals.
The creative inspiration for the masterpiece "Blue and White Twelve Flower God's Cup" from the Kangxi imperial kiln also came from this.
Kangxi's flower god cup has a slender mouth, deep belly, shallow ring foot, ingenious shape, beautiful shape, and crystal clear.
It uses the number of months as a set, and the twelve cups are respectively painted with narcissus, magnolia, peach blossom, peony, pomegranate, mulberry, orchid, osmanthus, chrysanthemum, hibiscus, rose and plum blossom.
There are paintings on one side of the abdominal wall and poems on the other side, all of which are from Tang poetry.
A cup of flowers, a flower of a poem, a poem of a painting.
This is also the first time that painting, poetry, calligraphy and seal seals were combined in the official kiln porcelain of the Qing Dynasty. It is a well-known masterpiece among the official kiln porcelain of the Kangxi Dynasty.
Naturally, skilled craftsmen from all dynasties and generations would not let go of such a good IP as the Twelve Flower God Cup.
Therefore, in addition to the "blue and white" version, there are many styles of the Twelve Flower God Cup.
The Blue and White Twelve-Flower God Cup is different from the blue and white five-color version. The Blue and White Twelve-Flower God Cup is a pure blue and white version, and the flowers and poems are all underglaze blue and white.
The cup body is as thin as paper, and the glaze is as smooth as jade.
Yue Ling's flowers are exquisitely depicted, each with its own artistic conception, and the poems are written neatly and vigorously.
The pastel twelve-flower god cup has a rounded mouth, a deep belly, a flat bottom and a circle foot.
This pastel Twelve-Flower God Cup is shaped like a horseshoe, and it is also called the "Twelve-Flower God Horseshoe Cup".
The pink color is soft and elegant, and the abdomen is painted with flowers of the four seasons, with various shapes and complement each other.
The inner wall is inscribed with poems in ink and color, and the moon order is clearly visible at a glance.
Others include the Twelve Flower Goddess Beauty Cup, and the "Twelve Beauties" is now in the Palace Museum, the capital of China.
In the form of a single painting of a single person, it depicts the life scenes of 12 women drinking tea, meditating, and admiring butterflies, showing the pure female life of that era.
The Twelve Beauty Cups move the pictures of beauties to the porcelain surface and make them appear on the porcelain surface.
Even in modern times, contemporary kilns have made some outstanding Twelve-Flower God Cups.
For example, Yerindang's pastel twelve-flower cup, which belongs to Yerindang's early works.
This set of flower god cups has a thin carcass, rich enamel, and extremely high painting craftsmanship.
The rendering and transition of pastel craftsmanship make the flowers on the cup body more three-dimensional and lifelike.
There is also a blue and white twelve-flower cup made by Kudan-yaki. The color is pure and elegant, the flowers are painted in extremely detailed ways, and the ink is divided into five colors. The ink is thick and light, and it is a masterpiece!
Then there is the pastel twelve-flower god six-square cup from Yuyin Kiln, which is also a rare masterpiece.
There are very few kilns in the contemporary era that make Flower God Cups, and even fewer kilns make six-square cups right from the start.
Each side of the six-square cup is painted with flowers, trees and vegetation of different shapes. The careful design and excellent production subvert the traditional form, which is very rare.