After the prosperous period of Kang Yong in Qing Dynasty, Jingdezhen, as the center of porcelain production in China, began to decline, and the level of porcelain-making technology in imperial kilns showed a gradual decline. Up to now, people always take "three generations of Qing Dynasty" as their mantra, which is biased, but not unreasonable. During the Xianfeng period of Daoguang, a group of porcelain painters with profound cultural attainments broke through the shackles of tradition and were determined to innovate. Drawing lessons from the landscape freehand brushwork style represented by Huang in Yuan Dynasty, they set a precedent in history and transplanted poems, books and seals to porcelain. They boldly outlined the outline with ink and wash, rubbed it a little, rendered it with light ochre and water green, grass green, light blue and light purple, and wrote at the same time. The porcelain pictures they painted are elegant, soft and dull. Because this technique is called "light crimson" in Chinese painting terminology, the porcelain drawn by this technique is called light crimson porcelain.
Pale crimson is of epoch-making significance in porcelain painting. First of all, it uses the Chinese painting style of combining poetry, calligraphy and printing on a large scale, and integrates the artist's understanding of calligraphy and literature, which makes the porcelain painting look brand-new, enriches the cultural connotation and improves the artistic taste, and becomes the pioneer of Jingdezhen's modern colored porcelain style. Secondly, it broke the complicated routine of porcelain painting in the past, and changed from imitating the works of Song Academy to imitating the elegance of Yuan people. Compared with the elaborate decoration of the imperial kiln, it is more elegant and vivid. In addition, compared with the royal vessels made in the palace and filled by craftsmen according to samples, the picture is dull and lacks personality. The artists of light crimson color are all done by one person, from designing drafts, drawing and rendering, calligraphy inscriptions to printing, the pictures are full of aura and personality.
From the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, a large number of painters painted light crimson, only from the data records and
Colored porcelain tableware
Judging from the handed down works of some collectors, there are as many as fifty or sixty famous works, among which Zhang Xiong, Jin Pinqing and Wang are among the best. The Antique Guide written by Jo Yeo-jeong, a great collector in the Qing Dynasty, is full of praise for Cheng Men's works: "Whoever wins the cup must see it." During the Republic of China, among the Eight Friends of Zhushan who were outstanding in Jingdezhen porcelain industry, Wang Qi, Wang Dafan, Wang Yeting and others also painted pale crimson porcelain in their early years. Unfortunately, because light crimson porcelain is fired at low temperature (650-700℃), the color of the material is easy to fade and fall off, so it is difficult to preserve the works. In the middle and late period of the Republic of China, it was gradually replaced by high-temperature colored materials, so the rise and death of light crimson porcelain took only 70 or 80 years. Nevertheless, it is the most innovative and representative product of Jingdezhen porcelain at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, and it is well-deserved in the history of China ceramics.