1980, the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts and Jianshui Arts and Crafts Ceramics Factory made the first field visit to Jianshui ancient kiln site and ceramic fragments, and were pleasantly surprised to find a large number of fragments of celadon in the Song Dynasty, blue and white in the Yuan Dynasty, coarse pottery in the Ming Dynasty and purple pottery in the Qing Dynasty. Since then, people have deciphered the history and civilization unintentionally transmitted by the ancients from this highly spiritual ceramic language.
At the National Folk Arts and Crafts Exhibition held in Beijing in 1953, Jianshui Zitao was named "Four Famous Pottery in China" by the Ministry of Light Industry, together with Yixing Pottery in Jiangsu, Nixing Pottery in Qinzhou, Guangxi and Rongchang Pottery in Sichuan, because of its excellent ceramic products and profound cultural connotation. The mud of Jianshui purple pottery is taken from Jianshui territory. The traditional method of making mud is to pound different clay for making pottery into powder, screen out coarse sand, mix different powder raw soil according to the requirements of making pottery, put it into a tank and add water to make mud, stir and wash it. When the mud containing mortar sinks to the bottom of the tank, take out the bleached pulp from it with a spoon and pour it into another tank for washing again. After repeating this for five or six times, let it naturally solidify and dry into mud in a closed state. At this time, the mud is as greasy as grease, without any sand. Due to the delicate clay and weak plasticity in wet state, Jianshui purple pottery generally does not use grouting and injection molding methods to make containers, and it is not suitable for making large containers. It is precisely because of this feature that Jianshui Zitao can make a special process of carving, filling mud and polishing without glazing on the surface of the utensils. This is the most essential difference between Jianshui purple pottery and other sand-bearing pottery.
The green clay of Jianshui Zitao is red clay with iron oxide as the main coloring element, and the colored clay is white clay containing silicon. Some gray-green, light crimson and orange-yellow natural colored mud are wonderfully coated with purple clay. This kind of man-made innovation and exertion greatly demonstrated the artistic expression of Jianshui Zitao. "Residual paste" is the artistic performance of painting clay on ceramic blank to the extreme. The practice of residual paste is: cross-engrave the calligraphy and painting on the blank by yin and yang carving methods respectively, and fill it with colored mud alternately, no more than five or six pieces, at least two or three pieces, so that the viewer's heart moves with his thoughts and imagination. At the beginning of Jianshui Zitao production, it mainly produced pipes, tea sets, vases, pen holders, Yin He, candlesticks and other utensils, most of which were simple and elegant and unique; During the Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, a unique stewed chicken "Yanglin Pot" began to be produced, that is, a large number of steamers were produced after the founding of New China, and the purple pottery steamer, also known as "Yangrou", was a fist product, especially the ceramic steamer made by Jianshui artists in the 1930s, which was beautifully decorated with landscape paintings and poems of flowers, birds, insects, fish and grass trees.
Today, Jianshui pottery still stubbornly uses the pottery tools invented thousands of years ago, drawing blanks by hand on a simple pottery cart to complete the modeling of pottery. Drawing blank is a master control link in the whole process of pottery making, because the elegance and kitsch, boldness and meanness of the same kind of utensils are all due to the subtle differences in drawing blank.
The literati's calligraphy and painting were transferred to purple pottery, making the ancient Jianshui pottery a classic. When using Tao Wei paper, we should not only prepare the method of pen and ink, but also consider the soft and waxy characteristics of ceramic blank in different cambered surfaces and wet conditions. To receive ink, we must have a solid foundation for hanging elbows and carrying pens. The calligraphy and painting on purple pottery do not win from a gorgeous perspective, but communicate with the viewer with a pure and serene elegance, conveying a beautiful and pure tranquility.
The charm of Jianshui purple pottery also lies in the contrast and integration of ceramic strangulation marks and fine round strength formed by its carving and mud filling process. After dropping ink on the ceramic blank, the sculptor immediately carved the ink on the wet ceramic blank into the mold. The notch was smooth and angular, and there were no burrs that naturally cracked like stone carving. However, the beauty lies in the fact that after the engraving has been filled with mud, trimmed, air-dried, baked and polished several times, the lines actually show the multi-tone texture changes after thousands of years of corrosion and weathering, so there is a natural Gu Zhuo and the spirit of stone. Sculptors are mostly women workers, and most of them are not familiar with calligraphy and painting, but they are very familiar with the mud knife skills.
Steam boiler is an important item in purple pottery products. Yunnan steamed chicken, which is famous at home and abroad, is a delicious dish cooked in a purple pottery steamer. Cooking stew dishes in a steamer is not only exquisite and delicious, but also has the characteristics of acid resistance, alkali resistance and long heat preservation time. It is also an artistic handicraft, with beautiful appearance and pleasing to the eye. 65438-0979 The Central Ministry of Light Industry approved Jianshui Zitao steamer as a high-quality product. In the same year, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing specially selected Jianshui Zitao steamer as a gift to the wife of American Vice President Mundell. 1983 zitao steam boiler was rated as the best product in the same industry. Yunnan Steam Pot Chicken and Jianshui Steam Pot Chicken are recorded in China Famous Cuisine. The Great Hall of the People also lists steamed chicken as a state banquet, which is known as entertaining foreign guests. The traditional Jianshui pottery kiln is called Dragon Kiln, which is generally built vertically and horizontally from low to high along the mountain, with a fire door at the bottom and a horseshoe-shaped section below the upper ring. The sintering temperature of Jianshui purple pottery is generally above 65438 0000 degrees Celsius. Due to the different content of color elements in the ceramic body, the change of kiln gas at high temperature makes the pottery appear unexpected colors and patterns in the firing process, forming an unexpected "kiln change".
Because the clay is not as fine as sand, it can be finely polished, and the "glaze-free polishing" effect of pottery is obtained. High temperature baking makes pottery as hard as iron. A good purple pottery must go through seven or eight processes and use different abrasives to complete it. Burning skin is the first grinding process, which needs to be polished with coarse sand and gravel. It is not advisable to use too much force, and it is hopeless to strain the ceramic surface. Subsequently, fine sand is used to uniformly remove the wire drawing left by coarse sand polishing. The third step is to polish the surface of the green body with oilstone, and then polish it with pebbles found locally for many times until it is finely ground with the grindstone collected by the grinder. Finally, wipe the pottery with grease. After such a meticulous and complicated process, rough and godless pottery will present an attractive luster. "Glaze-free polishing" is the most distinctive feature of Jianshui Zitao, and a good work needs seven or eight processes. It can only be done with a polishing tool that is coarse first and then fine. The fire skin is polished with coarse sand, then the wire drawing is polished with fine sand, and finally it is polished with pebbles. After careful and complicated technology, the original dull and rough ceramic blank is polished into mirror light, and its delicate texture and luster changes will make you fondle admiringly in repeated exhibitions.