"Lao Yu, please help me greet the guests. Mr. Zhuang, you are an expert. Let's go inside and talk..."
Hearing Yu Zhengjun nod in approval of his words, Xu Guoqing grabbed Zhuang Rui, completely ignoring the paint on his hands. This move left five more finger prints on Zhuang Rui's snow-white shirt.
"This...Mr. Zhuang, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I just wanted to ask you for advice. Are there any flaws in my works that you can spot?"
No matter how uneducated Xu Guoqing was, he knew that his actions were somewhat inappropriate. He let go of his hand immediately, but still had an eager look on his face. His bright eyes stared at Zhuang Rui through the lenses.
Zhuang Rui looked at the marks on his sleeves and couldn't help but smile bitterly. He also saw that there was nothing wrong with Xu Guoqing's mind, but he just focused all his attention on studying ancient ceramic craftsmanship.
So to outsiders, this person seems a bit weird.
However, people who have made outstanding achievements in certain fields have some weird tempers of one kind or another. Picasso, for example, cannot live without women. Even in his nineties, there are still many beauties around him.
And more scientists also have many strange habits that are unknown to outsiders. However, when they become famous, these quirks and shortcomings have turned into advantages.
"Call my name Zhuang Rui..." Zhuang Rui said with a smile.
"Ah? I thought your name was Mr. Zhuang. Come on, let's go inside and talk..."
Xu Guoqing scratched his head in embarrassment, which added another color to his head. However, in Zhuang Rui's eyes, this forty-year-old man seemed very simple.
Zhuang Rui was also a little curious about what Xu Guoqing's studio looked like, so he followed him and walked in from one side.
Peng Fei felt that Xu Guoqing had some mental problems and was afraid that he would hurt Zhuang Rui, so he followed him in. Li Dali was specially accompanying Zhuang Rui this time, so there was no reason to wait outside. At that moment, everyone walked into Xu Guoqing's room.
Guoqing's laboratory.
"My dear, this... is your studio?"
As soon as Zhuang Rui walked into that side, he was startled. This room was four to five hundred square meters in size, but the thing in the middle made Zhuang Rui dumbfounded.
The big chimney that Zhuang Rui saw from the outside was inside the house. It was quite shocking to see a brick chimney with a diameter of almost ten meters in a house.
The place next to it is filled with shelves of different heights. On each shelf, there are almost hundreds of pieces of porcelain that have been prepared but have not yet been colored and fired.
Not to mention, in the corner of the room, there are crushers, Raymond mills, and extremely professional jet mills. These are very professional crushing tools that can grind mines and some sun-dried hard soil into very fine powder.
fine powder.
Zhuang Rui knew that to truly imitate top-quality porcelain, it would take a lot of effort. Not only would the kiln have to be built using ancient methods, but the original porcelain clay of the porcelain must also be used.
Even the glaze pigments used for coloring require grinding some colored ore powder yourself and then heating it at high temperature to prepare it yourself. Chemical raw materials on the market must not be used.
Even if these processes are completed, waste products will often appear during firing. The value of modern imitations fired in this way is no cheaper than some old antiques, or even more.
Zhuang Rui could tell that Xu Guoqing completed all the embryonic making, painting, glazing and firing processes of all the objects here. This alone required him to master several subjects. If Xu Guoqing didn't have that kind of fanaticism,
Attitude, I really can't do it well.
"Zhuang Rui, you haven't said yet how you saw the flaws in my works..."
To be honest, Xu Guoqing is extremely confident in the three-color ceramic figurines he imitated, because he strictly followed ancient secret recipes in terms of both the clay and the firing process.
When Xu Guoqing thought about it, unless he was doing a carbon 14 test, Xu Guoqing didn't believe that those items could be detected as fake using the naked eye or other instruments?
"Haha, let me call you Xugong..."
The other person was older than him, so it was inappropriate to call him by his name, so Zhuang Rui thought of a title.
"You can call it whatever you want, please tell me quickly..." Xu Guoqing had no interest at all in what Zhuang Rui called him. He now wanted to know what the shortcomings and areas for improvement in the Tang Sancai he made were.
.
Zhuang Rui smiled and shook his head and said: "Xugong, let me ask, from which dynasty did official kilns begin?"
"It dates back to the Song Dynasty. Although there were kiln sites exclusively for royal use in the Han and Tang dynasties, the supervision was not that strong and there was no distinction between them and the private sector...
It was only from the Song Dynasty that royal ceramic utensils were distinguished from folk ones, but Zhuang Rui, what does this have to do with my Tang Sancai?"
Xu Guoqing fired Tang Sancai a few years ago. He felt that the craftsmanship of Tang Sancai had been completely deciphered by him, and there was no challenge. Therefore, he has been studying the Cizhou kiln of the Song Dynasty in recent years, so he was not interested in Zhuang Rui's question.
You can answer it casually.
"Yes, it is indeed the official kiln set up in the Song Dynasty. The ceramics from the Han and Tang Dynasties, except for the Tang Sancai which are considered fine products, there are not many good ones handed down from generation to generation. This also proves that the older the things, the better. Otherwise, this
The mountains full of stones have the longest history, so why are they the least valuable?"
Zhuang Rui's words not only confused Xu Guoqing, but also Li Dali and Yu Zhengjun. They didn't know what Zhuang Rui said had to do with Xu Guoqing's problem.
"Perfect, Xugong, the only flaw in your three-color pottery figurines is their perfection!" Before Xu Guoqing could ask, Zhuang Rui gave the answer himself.
Xu Guoqing still didn't understand, and murmured to himself: "Perfect? Is there anything wrong with perfection? It means that the imitation should be exactly the same as the original..."
"Of course there is nothing wrong with perfection, but it depends on the era. If it is official kiln porcelain after the Song Dynasty, then we must pursue perfection. There can be no mistakes in the thickness of the texture of a petal and the distance between two petals.
But for tri-color porcelain, you are too perfect..."
Porcelain from the official kilns after the Han and Tang dynasties had to be smashed into pieces as long as it had any flaws. It could not be used in the palace, nor could it be passed down to the people. This is the main reason why the fine porcelain handed down from dynasty to dynasty since the Song Dynasty is extremely rare and precious.
Zhuang Rui's words made Xu Guoqing's eyes gradually brighten. Ever since he put on his crotchless pants, he started playing with the porcelain pieces that his father dug out from the Cizhou kiln ruins. His research on porcelain can be said to be extremely profound.
However, he was too far behind in analyzing human nature. Now after hearing what Zhuang Rui said, Xu Guoqing slowly understood.
"Zhuang Rui, you are saying that when the three-color porcelain was fired in the Tang Dynasty, because there was no unified supervision, many defective three-color pottery figurines were preserved. However, these porcelains of mine are perfect, so they are used by you.
You saw the flaw, right?"
Xu Guoqing is also a very smart person. After hearing Zhuang Rui's prompt, he understood the connection after a little thought. It turned out that the perfection he pursued had become a flaw in the eyes of others.
"Yes, that's it. Mr. Li, when you gave these three colors to others for appraisal, weren't there many people who said they were not sure?" Zhuang Rui nodded and turned his face to Li Dali.
"Yes, several experts also said that these objects are too perfect..."
What Mr. Li said is true. Several experts couldn't find anything wrong, but they always felt something was wrong. In the end, they didn't issue an appraisal certificate. They just said they couldn't tell.
"I understand, this means that when the moon is full, it will be waning, and when the water is full, it will overflow..."
Xu Guoqing was a little disappointed, but then he showed an excited look on his face, and said to Zhuang Rui: "This Han and Tang porcelain does not pursue perfection, but what I am studying now is Cizhou Kiln, Zhuang Rui, come and see if it is
Can you find a flaw?"
"What? Are you starting to bake Cizhou kiln now?"
Zhuang Rui was stunned for a moment when he heard this. He thought that this guy stopped playing Sancai and started playing Cizhou Kiln of the Song Dynasty. You know, although Cizhou Kiln is a folk kiln, it is the largest folk kiln system in northern China in ancient times.
Not only in the Song Dynasty, but also in the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it continued to be fired. It has a long history of firing and has strong vitality. The largest number of fine porcelain has been handed down.
And in the Southern Song Dynasty, a small part of Cizhou Kiln was dedicated to firing official kilns for the Southern Song Dynasty court. Therefore, the price of Cizhou Kiln porcelain currently on the market is no lower than the market price of other Song Dynasty official kiln porcelain.
"Yes, it's a pity that I have prepared the embryos and everything, but I don't have the money to bake them..."
Xu Guoqing's originally excited face suddenly collapsed. You must know that the firing process of antique porcelain is the most important step. The firing time may take up to half a month, and all the charcoal consumed is
It's a huge expense.
Unlike the ceramic plates we use now, where the embryo is thrown into the furnace and fired directly with coal, the whole thing is fired automatically by computer.
Although Xu Guoqing's modern antique kiln can also use a computer to control the temperature, this guy is now at the end of his rope. Not to mention buying charcoal, he can hardly even use electricity.
"Open the door, open the door quickly..."
Just when Zhuang Rui wanted to take a look at the porcelain embryos made by Xu Guoqing, there was a faint sound of calling from the door, and the wolf dog also started barking.
"Mr. Zhuang, you guys chat, I'll go out and take a look..."
In Xu Guoqing's place, Yu Zhengjun can be regarded as half the master. He knows that Xu Guoqing will have a headache about funds and will never take the initiative to open the door.
