Chapter 1614: A piece of Jun porcelain is made, and seventy-two hands are passed
Since the Song Dynasty, Jun porcelain has been a national treasure handed down from generation to generation in ancient palaces. Jun porcelain from Song Dynasty is still an important treasure of the Palace Museum.
The firing of Jun porcelain had a period of glory in the Song Dynasty.
After the Northern Song Dynasty moved southward, wars continued in the Central Plains, and some highly skilled craftsmen also moved southward.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Jun kiln system gradually declined, and by the Ming Dynasty, Jun porcelain craftsmanship was almost lost.
Until 2004 AD, wood-fired Jun porcelain successfully restored the firing process of Jun porcelain in the Song Dynasty.
Since then, the wood-fired technology has become popular, and Jun porcelain has shown a variety of firing methods including wood-fired, coal-fired, and liquefied gas (natural gas) fired.
Nowadays, there are top-notch kilns on the Nanhe side that have successfully re-fired Jun porcelain from the Northern Song Dynasty. These works have been repeatedly selected as national gifts and presented to foreign dignitaries.
At this time, there were only dozens of Jun kiln workshops in Yuzhou.
At the beginning, the scale was small and the market price of the works was low.
After 20 years of development, especially in 2003, the creation of auspicious bottles, Qiankun bottles, Huaxia bottles, etc., and in the name of national gifts, they have become internationally important places.
This is the first time in the history of Junci that it has been presented in large quantities as a national gift.
And all of this actually has a strong support behind it.
It can be said that behind the resurgence is a cultural renaissance.
If the traditional culture of Chinese civilization is not supported by a prosperous era, everything will be in vain.
"People have no soul and cannot stand in the world; porcelain has no soul and cannot produce treasures."
For any kiln that wants to create high-quality Jun kiln porcelain, countless defective products must be destroyed every year.
No matter how much is produced, most of them are definitely substandard and need to be smashed and buried deep.
In this process, it is a major project to systematically study, excavate, organize and restore the art of the official kilns of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The reason why Junguan kiln in the Song Dynasty was highly respected was because of its excellence in craftsmanship.
On the basis of folk kilns, the wisdom of countless skilled craftsmen has been concentrated, bringing the porcelain making technology to a new height.
If you want to successfully re-fire, you need to use the ancient traditional wood-fired porcelain process to be replicated.
Entering the kiln with one color, coming out of the kiln with many colors, this is definitely not just talk.
Yuzhou Jun porcelain is like the most beautiful fairy tale in autumn, bringing people into a colorful, gorgeous and graceful world.
But if you want to get perfect Jun Kiln porcelain, you really need to rely on luck.
"Born in the soil, grown in the shape, life and death depends on the firing."
This is a true portrayal of paper-burning Jun kiln porcelain. This does not depend on skill, but entirely on luck.
Of course, the reason why Jun porcelain is so valuable is not only the complex firing process, but also the extremely high requirements for craftsmen.
Jun porcelain craftsmanship is known as "a piece of Jun porcelain is made, and it is passed through seventy-two hands".
Chen Wenzhe can master the seventy-two processes, but the final transformation of the kiln can only depend on God's will.
This is also the reason why so many of the furnaces are smashed after they come out of the kiln.
The firing process is complicated and strict, which is why there are so few Jun porcelain treasures.
Today, there are several ways of firing Jun porcelain, and the earliest firing process is definitely wood firing.
Jun porcelain wood burning originated from Jun porcelain in the Song Dynasty. It is a skill with a long historical and cultural background and carries the imprint of the nation.
If you want to use wood burning technology, you must first pay attention to the flame.
Due to the characteristics of firewood, the flame is soft and long, soft yet strong, so the firing speed is slow.
Next, pay attention to the glaze color. The glaze colors penetrate each other and have a natural transition, which is the best way to reflect the natural charm of the magical kiln.
The glaze color is warm, soft, rich and colorful, which makes the "moist" characteristics of Jun porcelain more prominent.
The whole is elegant and handsome, presenting a picture that is made by nature and accidentally achieved by skillful hands.
The third aspect that needs attention is definitely color painting and Jun painting.
It is very rare to open pieces of wood-fired Jun porcelain, and most of them appear in the form of Jun paintings.
There are fewer bubbles on the surface and a strong three-dimensional effect, making Jun paintings vivid, natural, fresh and elegant.
And all of this requires perfect craftsmanship. The firing process of Jun porcelain can be adjusted intuitively.
For example, watching the length of the flames, but to achieve this requires high craftsmanship.
Therefore, this kind of firing method that requires a lot of experience has an extremely low yield.
With the development of the times, Jun porcelain wood burning is becoming less and less popular. Only a few kilns that adhere to the traditional firing art can still see the shadow of Jun porcelain wood burning.
Of course, high-end porcelain has always been produced in firewood kilns.
Therefore, Chen Wenzhe naturally chose this most difficult method to refire Jun porcelain.
Since there are "seventy-two processes" in the firing of Jun porcelain and "nine out of ten kilns will fail", we must thoroughly study the complexity and tediousness of the firing process.
The modern Jun porcelain firing process generally requires eight steps: processing, modeling, mold making, molding, biscuit firing, glazing, glaze firing, and selection.
Processing, that is, selecting materials, processing materials, and finely grinding materials.
The first step is to select the materials. The collection and transportation of the materials can all be done in Yuzhou, the hometown of Junci.
The rich local raw material reserves have laid a solid foundation for the selection of Jun porcelain materials.
Because the elements required for raw materials are different during the firing process of Jun porcelain, it is necessary to select a wide variety of raw materials required, so that it is convenient to go back and conduct multiple experiments and comparisons to determine what is needed.
Then there is material processing, first of all natural processing.
After the selected materials are transported back, they are stored for a long time.
It is exposed to wind, rain, sun and rain to achieve weathering and oxidation effects. It becomes soft and lubricated, making it easier to use later and achieving better results.
Then there is artificial processing, where the above raw materials are classified and added to different machines for crushing and grinding until they are granular or powdery.
Stack them separately and take precautions against wind, rain, and dust.
The third step is to finely grind the material, which has been introduced in general before.
In fact, there is no technical difficulty, of course, this is for modern people.
In modern times, there are various machines to help. In material processing, the processed materials can be loaded into machines of different sizes according to the embryo materials and glaze materials, and then polished and crushed into mud.
After completing this step, the next step is to design the shape.
That is, designing the shape based on the ideas conceived in advance.
Just like drawing a sketch, Jun porcelain will make a mold before firing. The mold is usually made of mud or plaster.
First make a shape, then use this mold to make a mold, then make an embryo and use it to copy the same embryo.
The shapes can generally be divided into two categories. One is the utensils, including bottles, plates, bowls, bowls, stoves, flower pots, etc.
The other category is sculpture, which generally refers to figures, animal shapes and other shapes. This category is more complex.
In the modeling process of Jun porcelain firing, the production of an embryo is not simply composed of a mold.
Instead, it requires several or even dozens of molds to be combined, and the molding is quite complex and cumbersome.