The name of "doucai" appeared very late, and it was not until the middle of Qing Dynasty that there was only one copy of notes on doucai. This book generalizes the Ming Dynasty color porcelain into three varieties: fighting color, multicolor and filling color, which is worth learning from. According to the notes of Nanyao, the combination of underglaze blue and white and overglaze color is obviously based on the decoration method of porcelain, which has a great influence on later generations. In many ceramic books, there are articles about fighting color, generally speaking, it is the combination of underglaze blue and white and overglaze color to form a beautiful picture. This can only be a general statement. Because there are many products of the combination of underglaze blue and white and overglaze color, such as blue and white and gold color, blue and white and red color, blue and white and green color, blue and white and five colors, which one is the fighting color? It should be said that these are a series of products, among which Chenghua fighting color is more valuable. There are two main painting methods of Chenghua doucai
First of all, blue and white are used to draw the outline of decorative patterns on the porcelain body, cover them with transparent glaze, and then light blue and white porcelain is fired. Then, the blue and white double hook lines on the glaze surface are filled with the required colors, ranging from one to more, and then baked in the furnace. This is to learn from the technique of "Cloisonne" technology. Most of the patterns on the surface of this kind of porcelain are continuous patterns of two sides, or they are composed of different patterns of stretching and changing. This painting method is in line with the statement of "filling color" in the notes of Southern kiln. The vast majority of Chenghua doucai porcelain was drawn in this way, so filling color should be one of the main color application methods in Chenghua doucai. For example, Chenghua doucai bottle with twig pattern, Chenghua doucai lotus covered jar and Chenghua doucai grape pattern cup are all rare fighting colors drawn by filling color technique.
The second method is to use blue and white to draw the whole or main body of the decorative outline on the porcelain body, and at the same time add the local decoration of blue and white rendering, cover with transparent glaze, and then burn the blue and white porcelain with high temperature, and then apply various colors on the surface of the porcelain according to the needs of the decoration design, and then bake the porcelain by fire. After the ornamentation of the utensils in this painting method is unfolded, it looks like a picture with exquisite drawing and pleasant colors. For example, Chenghua flower and butterfly cup, Chenghua figure cup, Chenghua cockpit cup, etc.
Master Zhang Huizi's hand-painted exquisite art porcelain plate butterfly love
Blue and white red color, blue and white red green color, blue and white gold color, blue and white five colors and other blue and white color adding tools, the blue and white patterns are different from the fighting color painting method, they do not use blue and white hook patterns to decorate the outline, but use blue and white for flat coating or rendering. For example, the blue and white Red Sea Dragon bowl in Xuande of the Ming Dynasty and the blue and white red and green gourd bottle in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty did not use blue and white to draw the outline of the patterns. Instead, they were painted by the method of blue and white flat painting and painting. They were obviously different from the filling and drawing techniques of Chenghua fighting colors. Therefore, these two blue and white color adding vessels should not be called fighting colors. Throughout the history of ceramic development, there have been blue and white gold color, blue and white red color and blue and white five colors in the Yongle and Xuande periods of Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Chenghua doucai should be a new decoration method gradually developed on the basis of blue and white color adding technology, which is also the objective historical law of ceramic decoration technology from simple to complex.
In a word, doucai should be a combination of light blue and white painting and overglaze painting. The underglaze blue and white and the overglaze color compete for each other, which makes the fighting color an excellent product in porcelain. In the Qing Dynasty, the fighting color porcelain had a great development, and the drawing skills of porcelain painting had a new improvement. However, each piece of fighting color porcelain in Qing Dynasty still had the outline of blue and white painting patterns. Therefore, this blue and white decorative contour line has become the key to judge the fighting color.
Wucai is another kind of painted porcelain which is different from fighting color. It can be divided into two categories, namely, the "five colors on glaze" and "the five colors of blue and white". All the colorful patterns on the glaze were painted on the white glazed porcelain which had been fired at 700-800 ℃. It is usually depicted in five colors: red, yellow, green, purple and blue. However, according to the design and color requirements of each piece of ware, it is not necessary to have all kinds of colors. Some only use red, green and yellow, but also use more than five colors. As long as the colors are properly matched, they are equally exquisite. For example, in Jiajing of Ming Dynasty, there are only three kinds of colors for the whole body decoration, mainly red and green color, and yellow color for decoration, which is full of characteristics of the times. Some of the multicolored porcelains of the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty used seven kinds of painting patterns, such as red, green, yellow, blue, ochre, black and gold. From this, we can see that five colors have colorful and beautiful meanings. The word "Five" here is not a numeral but refers to many kinds of things. There are obvious differences between overglaze multicolored ware and doucai ware. There are no blue and white outline lines and blue and white decorative patterns.
The naming of blue and white colors should be a new research achievement since 1980s. In the past, the decoration of multicolored porcelain, whether blue and white or not, was known as "multicolored". However, we have never seen a multicolored ware in Xuande period of Ming Dynasty. However, there are records about firing in Ming and Qing Dynasty documents. As mentioned above, "there are five colors in white ground blue and white room" Xuanpinggui and Xuanyao are rich in colors. Therefore, whether Xuande made multicolored porcelain or not is a long-standing academic problem. The discovery of the Ming Xuande colorful Yuanyang Lianchi Longwen bowl in Sakya temple, Xigaze, Tibet in 1985 is of great significance, which proves the reliability of Ming Dynasty literature. During the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, colorful porcelain was indeed made, including "blue and white multicolored". In 1988, a porcelain plate with the same motif and decoration method as Sakya Temple bowl was unearthed at the site of Jingdezhen imperial kiln factory. This is another example of the emergence of blue and white colors. Since then, modern ceramics have been unearthed