Multicolored porcelain can be divided into blue-and-white multicolored porcelain and pure glazed multicolored porcelain. Blue-and-white multicolored porcelain is first painted with blue and white under the glaze, covered with glaze and fired, and then painted with the rest as required, and then put into a color furnace for secondary firing. Adding color to the glaze is also one of the main decorative techniques of porcelain. It is made by drawing various decorative patterns on the glaze of porcelain with various colors, then entering the kiln for the second time and curing the colors at low temperature. Overglaze color and underglaze color usually include painted porcelain, decorative porcelain, blue-and-white plus colored porcelain, multicolored porcelain, pastel porcelain, lacquered porcelain and enamel color, among which multicolored porcelain and pastel porcelain are the most representative.
Over-glazed porcelain originated in the Northern Qi Dynasty. Mature porcelain appeared in Changsha kiln for the first time in the Tang Dynasty, and this technology was carried forward in Cizhou kiln in the Song Dynasty. The red and green colors of Cizhou Kiln in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties were the first of its kind in the Ming Dynasty. By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the production of multicolored porcelain had reached a high level. Until the Qing Dynasty, Kang Yong had three dynasties. Therefore, there are the sayings of Daming multicolored porcelain and Kangxi multicolored porcelain.
Multicolor means colorful, not necessarily five colors. Red, green and Huang San colors are indispensable, with gorgeous colors and complicated patterns. It was famous in Jiajing period and reached its peak in Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty. There are two kinds of fine products in multicolored porcelain: "Daming multicolored" and "Kangxi multicolored".
Daming multicolored porcelain was separated from blue-and-white porcelain in Jingdezhen. At the same time, it also developed fighting color porcelain, plain tricolor porcelain, red and green color porcelain and golden color porcelain. Decorative patterns, themes, painting methods, tools and materials are unprecedented. Blue-and-white porcelain has both artistic effects and fine traditions. Once fired, it will never fade, and both fine and coarse porcelain can be used. Therefore, it still occupies the mainstream position in the porcelain production in the Ming Dynasty for 300 years, forming blue and white colors.
Blue and white multicolored enjoyed a high reputation during the Ming Chenghua period. Blue-and-white multicolor wins with dense patterns in composition, while red, light green, dark green, yellow, brown, purple and underglaze blue are the main colors, especially red, which is rich in color and deliberately pursues gorgeous effects. From the popular blue-and-white multicolored craft in Jiajing period to the maturing and growing reputation in Wanli period. Due to a large number of exports abroad, "Daming Multicolored" has long been known to China porcelain fans all over the world.
The common types of Ming colored wares are bottles, statues, bowls, lamps, plates, dishes, pots, cans, bowls, jewelry boxes, cauldrons, cauldrons and so on. And all kinds of toys and stationery. Among them, the pier is a variety of sitting piers, Jingdezhen proverb is also called "beam pier", which was a stool that people sat in summer at that time; Boxes are all kinds of rouge boxes, powder boxes, inkpad boxes and pigment boxes made of porcelain. Ding Lu, originally a cooker and container in early ancient times, later developed into a ritual vessel or a display vessel, in which the incense burner was used to burn incense; Toys and stationery include Go, chess, screens, pen caps, penholders, pen containers, inkstones, inkstones, pen tubes, pen washing, etc. Patterns and decorations are mainly dragons and phoenixes, flowers and plants, and there are pictures of baby play, eight immortals and white deer. It can be seen from the popular objects at that time that ceramic products have penetrated into all aspects of people's lives and are indispensable necessities in people's lives.
The colorful decorative style of Daming was influenced not only by blue and white porcelain of the same period, but also by the Ming Dynasty, which was the peak of silk production and development in China history. Common group flower decoration, overlapping icing on the cake decoration and icing on the cake decoration have also been absorbed by craftsmen, which has also formed one of the symbolic features of colored porcelain decoration.
In addition, the Ming dynasty prints are rigorous in modeling, exquisitely arranged in lines, combined with points, lines and surfaces, and the yin and yang effects are all used in multicolored porcelain, which has the characteristics of strong lines and strong colors. Novels and operas, story biographies, history books and local chronicles, picture books of famous painters, various paintings, etc. In woodblock New Year pictures have also become the theme of multicolored porcelain. Multicolored porcelain has a whole picture in composition, stretching and far-reaching artistic conception.
In the Kangxi period, multicolored porcelain had a greater development than in the Ming Dynasty. A great breakthrough of Kangxi multicolored porcelain is to show more colors. The blue on the glaze replaced the blue and white in Wan Jia colorful porcelain, and black was invented, so blue and white are no longer used to replace blue. Multicolored ware is painted directly on white enamel instead of blue and white ware, and its blue hue is stronger than blue and white ware. At this time, black has the luster of black paint, which sets off colorful pictures and strengthens the painting effect. Combining this technology, the potter created colorful pipa and made amazing Kangxi colorful porcelain according to woodcut prints and New Year pictures, various illustrations, Xiu Xiang and painting spectrum at that time.
"Drinking Liuzhai on Porcelain" holds that "Kangxi was the polar track for hard colors and blue and white flowers in Qing Dynasty". Kangxi colorful not only official kilns work fine. Folk kilns are not inferior. "Tao Ya" said: "Kangxi's color painters are exquisite, and the figures in the palace and kiln are the best. The rest of the dragons, phoenixes and lotuses are all their own, and the rules and standards must be respected, otherwise it would be worse than the surprise of passengers and goods. Most of the paintings of Gaike Freight are monsters and old trees, and they are scattered with pens. " ("Passenger and freight" is the folk kiln ware sold) The commonly used colors in Kangxi period are red, yellow, green, blue, black and purple, all of which have the characteristics of the times. Red in color, bright and ruddy, and flashing colorful halo, which is different from bordeaux in Ming Dynasty. Yellow is beeswax with different shades of yellow. Purple, mostly grape purple, also see the color of tomato skin. Blue color, with dark green, black green, bitter green, melon green, big green, water green and other shades, is characterized by dark color, which is different from the phenomenon of flashing yellow in the blue in the Ming Dynasty. Black, deep and bright, thick and steady, is a new color tone, which is mostly used to outline and dot parts. Blue, gorgeous and eye-catching, painted more rocks, so that the steep wall shines, replacing the blue-and-white tone of the Ming Dynasty. In a word, Kangxi multicolored bucket changed the blue-and-white multicolored style of the Ming Dynasty's blue-and-white color matching into the multicolored style based on white porcelain, creating many varieties. Kangxi has five colors: white, blue and white, bean green, beige, red, blue, ink, snowflake blue, elder brother glaze and so on. There are many kinds of equipment.
During the reign of Kangxi, many large-scale products appeared in the porcelain of the people's kiln, especially the cutters, such as Zun, Qiang and fish tanks, which were larger than those of Jiajing and Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. The huge volume aroused the beauty of strength. The combination of masculine modeling and colorful decoration just reflects the rise and flashy spirit of the Kangxi Dynasty, which died the longest in the history of China feudal society.
Multicolored porcelain in Qing Dynasty not only made innovations in technical means, modeling methods and painting techniques, but also achieved unprecedented richness in subject matter. Emperor Kangxi respected Confucianism, emphasized the rule of virtue, and educated the people with ethics, which was in the same strain as China's traditional thought. The artistic function of "educating and helping others" is more obvious in porcelain in this period, such as war stories scenes such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Legend of Yue Fei, and Zhao Jun's Going out of the Village, which show the loyalty to the monarch, that is, the folk "Knife and Horse Man" often appears in the decoration of painted porcelain, with a big picture, magnificent momentum and extreme exaggeration, not only Another kind of pictures reflects the life and hobbies of literati, such as Love Goose in Xihe River, Love inkstone in Dongpo, Love Chrysanthemum in Yuanming, Love Lotus in Maoshu, Seven Sages of Bamboo Forest, Three Friends in Cold Years, Qiu Ge, and Worship the Stone in Mi Fei. Then there is the pomegranate pattern symbolizing "pomegranate opens a hundred seeds" and full of children and grandchildren; The pattern of pomegranate, bergamot and peach symbolizes fertility, happiness and longevity; There are also auspicious blessing patterns such as "May the son become a dragon", "Kirin send the son" and "Full house for children and grandchildren". The figures in the official kiln are the best, encouraging farming and mulberry and rewarding farming and weaving.
After thirty years of Kangxi (169 1), due to the opening of the imperial examination and the promotion of Chinese culture, a large number of poems began to be written on porcelain, and some inscriptions, such as "crossing the street by the champion", "taking the lead" and "inscription on Dongpo", were neat in calligraphy and rigorous in layout. This kind of writing-themed ceramics was later considered as a typical feature of ceramic decoration in Qing Dynasty.
At present, the earliest blue-and-white multicolored porcelain was produced in Xuande period, but it is rare. Tibet Sakya Temple has a collection. During Jiajing and Wanli years, colored wares became more common, with large pots and bottles appearing, and the fetal bones became thicker. Different from Chenghua colored porcelain, there are other colors such as underglaze blue, underglaze red, green, black, Kong Quelan, purple, brown, ochre and gold. Common patterns include lotus pond mandarin duck, phoenix flower, flower stone, baby play, Yunlong, Yunfeng, Yunhe, Tianma and Taoist auspicious patterns.
From Jiajing to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, folk kilns also produced a large number of colorful porcelain. They are characterized by thick fetal quality, thick glaze layer and sometimes lack of transparency. The common types of utensils are bowls, plates, bottles and cans, and the patterns are richer than those in official kilns, such as the patterns of god beast, colorful algae, lotus pond aquarium, baby play, novels and stories, flowers and trees, strange stones, landscapes of figures and so on. Wide return air and rich living atmosphere. However, the colors are not as complete as those of the official kilns, and they are mainly red, green, blue and yellow, especially red and green, and some utensils are not underglazed with blue and white. Japan copied many colored porcelains in the late Ming Dynasty, some of which were similar in design and painting style. However, the glaze color of Japanese porcelain is too fine, which is obviously different from that of late Ming Dynasty, especially that of folk kiln porcelain.
Multicolored porcelain is favored by collectors because of its freshness, brightness, richness and accuracy.