Chapter 30 Section 4 Development and Decline of Porcelain Craftsmanship in Qing Dynasty

The corruption of the Ming Dynasty led to the general outbreak of social crisis. After the impact of Li Zicheng and other peasant uprisings, the Ming Dynasty regime was already on the verge of collapse, and was finally destroyed by the Manchu forces.Although the Ming and Qing Dynasties were the aging period of China's feudal society, after the Qing Dynasty unified the country, the social order was relatively stable for a period of time.In the early days of the founding of the country, several emperors worked hard and made great achievements. The administrative management was strict and efficient.The exploitation of the people in the early Qing Dynasty was less than that in the Ming Dynasty, and the social economy still developed.For a long period of time, especially during the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, it maintained a strong image.

On the basis of summarizing the achievements of predecessors, Chinese porcelain making technology has reached the highest level in history.Jingdezhen still represented the level of porcelain making in the Qing Dynasty.Jingdezhen has thousands of kiln households and more than 100,000 craftsmen, making it a veritable porcelain capital. The founding emperors of the Qing Dynasty all loved porcelain and often personally asked about the production of Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Factory.The samples of the famous porcelain works collected by the palace were taken out for reference, and artists such as the royal painters in the palace also participated in the design of the patterns.Officials were sent to Jingdezhen to supervise the production of official kilns.In order to be responsible to the emperor, some officials personally went to the front line to study technology tirelessly and summarize the experience, skills and process procedures of craftsmen.Especially such an outstanding person as Tang Ying, who has served as the supervisor of the kiln for a long time. His works "Tao Xinyu", "Tao Ye Illustration", "Tao Cheng Chronicle" and so on, summarize the ceramic technology for thousands of years and the development of today's ceramics. Art has great value.This is a product of the times, and it is also the result of his own good research.

The Qing Dynasty abolished the drafting system of the Ming Dynasty, and implemented "officials and civilians burning".In the second year of Shunzhi (AD 1645), the craftsman registration was abolished.In the 19th year of Kangxi (AD 1680), after the restoration of the Imperial Ware Factory, more than 300 craftsmen and other service personnel in the Imperial Ware Factory "worked for food".Craftsmen have more freedom, increased initiative and enthusiasm.The so-called "government and civilian burning" means that the production tasks of the official imperial kiln are handed over to the private kiln to complete.This has generally improved the production process of fine porcelain in folk kilns.During the reign of Qianlong, a situation of "official and private competition for the market" emerged.The result of mutual influence and competition between official kilns and private kilns has promoted the development of the entire porcelain industry.In the Qing Dynasty, Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry was on an unprecedented scale, and the porcelain-making area stretched for more than 10 miles in Jingdezhen; in this area surrounded by mountains and rivers, there were more than 300 folk workshops.According to the book "Jingdezhen Taolu", there are hundreds of thousands of professional workers such as "official kiln households", "ge kiln households" and "Longquan households".There are even more people engaged in other industries related to the porcelain industry.People's lives are closely linked with the ceramic industry, so there is a saying among workers that "waiting for fire is like waiting for sunshine and rain, and looking at pottery is like looking at millet rice", Jingdezhen has truly become a well-deserved name for porcelain.Compared with the Ming Dynasty, the ceramic production in the Qing Dynasty had obvious changes in terms of scale, division of labor, and employment relations, and the achievements of the porcelain industry far exceeded the Ming Dynasty.

Jingdezhen Qing Dynasty porcelain mainly refers to the three dynasties made in Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong.After Qianlong, it gradually went downhill, and the level of art declined day by day.The porcelains of the three dynasties of the Qing Dynasty can be summed up in the following points: delicate texture, lustrous glaze, brilliant colors, and exquisite carving.The important varieties are as follows: The blue and white porcelain of the Qing Dynasty had a high grade of materials, and there was a set of refining and processing methods. When painting, the layers of the picture are clear, and the color presented by cobalt blue is green and bright, giving people a fresh and lively feeling. The theme is wider than that of the Ming Dynasty, and the picture is more grand. .Complete landscape paintings, figure paintings, flower-and-bird paintings, and some stories and scenes in classical novels such as "Annals of the Kingdoms" and so on, which are popular with the people, appeared.The blue and white paintings of Yongzheng and Qianlong do not have as many layers as the blue and white paintings of Kangxi, but the paintings are more rigorous and closer to the techniques of Chinese ink painting, leaving behind many excellent works.

The level was the highest in the Kangxi period.There are many shapes and styles, and the specifications and varieties far exceed those of the Ming Dynasty.The diameter of the large porcelain plate is 55.4 centimeters, while the small one is only a few centimeters.No matter how big or small, they are all painted very finely and meticulously.On the screen, pay attention to the grandeur of the scene.The use of color is also more and more complicated than that in the Ming Dynasty.In addition to using red, green, ocher, purple, etc. as the main colors of painting, gold color, blue color (cobalt blue), and black color are added.The picture is fresh, the color is gorgeous, and the composition is exquisite.During the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the overglaze blue color was invented to replace the underglaze blue and white in the five colors of the Ming Dynasty.The types of utensils include jars, bottles, pen holders, plates, bowls, offering utensils, sacrificial utensils, etc.The patterns include splendor patterns, banana leaves, flowers, birds, insects, fish, butterflies, character stories, etc.Various contents are matched with each other, such as the matching of peony and phoenix to draw "Dan Feng Chaoyang", or the matching of dragon and phoenix to form "dragon and phoenix presenting prosperity", and the matching of small birds and phoenix to form "a hundred birds facing the phoenix", implying the majesty of the emperor and the people's hearts direction.It further reflects the good intentions of Ming and Qing porcelains that "painting must be intentional, and meaning must be auspicious".There are more content to use it to express the social scene of the peaceful and prosperous age.Porcelain is a three-dimensional utensil. Painting on it is more difficult than painting on paper. However, the artists have exerted a high degree of wisdom and skills, reasonable layout, and extraordinary colors. They can create large character story paintings on porcelain. It has become a full-length novel or a magnificent picture volume of a historical story, such as Zhou Chuzhan Jiao, Huangfu Duan Xiangma, Yue Jiajun's fight against gold and so on.Some reflect the labor scene of rural life in the early Qing Dynasty.As far as painting art is concerned, it has also reached a very high level.

Founded in the Kangxi period, it reached a very high level in the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods.Pastel is a kind of glaze color, which has introduced Western technology in technology. First, the "arsenic" element is mixed into the leaded glass, and the glass white is invented.Glass white is made of natural mineral "white letter stone", lead frit, potassium nitrate, etc. Its function is to "powder" various colors, so that red colors become pink and green colors become Light green and blue color become light blue. At the same time, by changing the amount of glass white added, one color can be changed into a series of shades of different shades, which greatly increases the variety of tones of glaze colors, far exceeding colorful.Because of its soft and elegant color, three-dimensional picture and lower firing temperature, it is also called soft color, especially flowers, birds, insects and butterflies, which are lifelike in shape.Pastels were still popular after Qianlong.

Also known as porcelain body painting enamel, it is processed and refined by using imported enamel color materials from the West, painted on white porcelain and fired with an oxidizing flame.By the time of Yongzheng, in addition to importing from the West in the name of tribute, China could also refine it.It is made by adding soda ash, borax and various metal oxides and fluorides with quartz, feldspar and other raw materials, and is made by melting, cooling and grinding.In addition to traditional Chinese decorative content, enamel colored porcelain in the Qing Dynasty was also influenced by European and American classical painting art, often showing some healthy, lively and lively content during the rising period of capitalism.The court attached great importance to this kind of art porcelain, and the control was very strict.It is made in two stages.The Jingdezhen Imperial Ware Factory controlled by the palace first burns the pure white and delicate white porcelain, selects one out of a hundred, and selects the best products, and transports them to the Imperial Palace Manufacturing Office, and then the imperial painters or hired European painters paint on them.It can be said that enamel colored porcelain is the product of the combination of fine white porcelain in the Qing Dynasty, superb famille rose art and Western painting art.The content of enamel colored porcelain includes flowers and birds, figures, poems and so on.The most common flowers are rose, Tianzhu, wintersweet, orchid and so on.The characters include child prodigies, fairies and so on.Angels, beauties, holy babies, etc. are often seen in the works of the Qianlong period.Enamel colored porcelain is extremely exquisite and is a splendid flower in the history of Chinese arts and crafts.

Its level of craftsmanship surpassed that of the Ming Dynasty.Doucai works have been popularized on porcelain for general life, and the decorative content is more abundant than that of the Ming Dynasty.When painting, the painting method of rendering and rendering is adopted, and the content includes group flowers, folded branch flowers, curling leaf flowers and so on.Pay attention to symmetry, rigorous layout, rich and colorful content. During the Qianlong period, many new techniques for making porcelain were invented.Because craftsmen have mastered various special skills, they can accurately use the flame, control the heat, and skillfully control the performance of the tire glaze.Skillfully use porcelain raw materials to make imitation bamboo ware, wood ware, bronze ware, stone ware, ivory carving ware, etc. The images of all kinds of ware are all lifelike, truly reaching the realm of uncanny workmanship.In addition, there are Linglong porcelain with hollow holes and glaze filled successfully, and large-scale carved revolving bottles and revolving neck bottles, with unique ingenuity and unprecedented skills.

There are also many creations of colored glaze porcelain, such as "official glaze", "sky blue", "pink green", "red glaze", "kiln change", "cowpea red", "crab shell green", "eel yellow", "eggplant skin". "Purple", "turquoise green", "tea powder", etc., have added many new varieties to the design of porcelain. After Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, the ruling group has decayed, social productivity has been destroyed unprecedentedly, and various handicrafts rich in national traditions have also declined under the shackles of the corrupt social system.The same is true for ceramic handicrafts and skills. Only Jingdezhen can maintain a certain production, but the content is vulgar and the artistic level has dropped significantly.The other kilns were even more devastated.

During the half century from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, under the aggression of capitalist powers, my country gradually became a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society.Under the exploitation of feudal bureaucrats and the crowding out of Western ceramics, China's ceramic handicraft industry was severely damaged.Ceramic craftsmanship with a long tradition has lost its former glory. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the state adopted a supportive policy, and the separated workers gradually returned to ceramic production positions to give full play to their talents and skills. Achievement.