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Official and Private Porcelain Kilns of Ancient China
Abstract painting on private kiln porcelain occurred much earlier than that
on paper. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, certain less inhibited freehand-style
porcelain painters ventured into an abstract style. Their unrestrained freestyle
application of brushstrokes gradually developed into a consciously abstract
style. This evolution can be attributed to three factors: 1) acceleration of the
speed of production; 2) artists giving rein to their impressions and concept of
life; and 3) progression of artistic taste.
The nature of folk porcelain required artisans to be both skillful and
speedy. Year after year they painted the same patterns on greenware until they
could execute them in whatever manner they felt inclined. This was the course of
change from meticulousness to simplicity, when the emphasis switched from form
to content, and from the concrete to the abstract. For example, in Playing
Children, originally concrete figures of children were gradually simplified to
the point where they were simply the visual rhythms between dots (heads) and
curved lines (bodies).
Many porcelain paintings are based on the life experience of painters. Unlike
court artists, these porcelain painters had very low social status, and their
style was completely different from that of court artists. For example, a folk
porcelain painter would depict a dragon in style completely removed from that of
an official porcelain painter. The latter had to be executed painstakingly and
meticulously, reflecting the supremacy and dignity of the dragon. For folk
porcelain artisans, painting a dragon was a taboo, and those who dared were
actually laying down a challenge to the supreme power of the emperor. However,
with a few simple brushstrokes, they could outline a threatening dragon baring
its fangs and brandishing its claws - an image in keeping with their artistic
concept of the dragon. Due to limitations of aesthetic convictions within feudal
society, folk paintings, including porcelain paintings, were disdained as too
crude and vulgar to have any artistic value. James McNeill Whistler encountered
this kind of prejudice. One of his paintings in this style displayed in 1878 was
priced at 200 gold coins. One art critic commented that the painting could have
taken no longer than two days as the method of its execution was merely that of
brandishing paint before viewer's face. To this, Whistler answered that although
it had been finished in two days, it nevertheless took a lifetime's cultivation.
This answer could also apply to folk porcelain paintings.
Today, people have begun to re-examine the status and role of folk porcelain
painting within the history of traditional Chinese painting and ceramics. After
hundreds of years, these works have finally been accepted, not merely for their
utility, but for their artistic value, and have become major collector's
items.
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