After the Tang and Song Dynasties, the appearance of a large number of inkstones had a certain impact on Cheng Ni inkstone, but as one of the writing tools at that time, the production of Cheng Ni inkstone still maintained its original advantages and was expanding. In the Yuan Dynasty, production began along Zhegou River in Shandong, Zhouguo River in Henan and Hutuo River in Hebei. It still maintains its original advantages, and the production of Cheng Ni inkstone is more elaborate, and the types of inkstones are more abundant. In the Ming Dynasty, with the extensive exploitation of inkstones, there appeared copper inkstones, porcelain inkstones, iron inkstones, lacquer sand inkstones and wooden inkstones. Cheng Ni inkstones were always at a disadvantage because of their complicated production process, and the newly built Cheng Ni inkstones were not recorded in relevant words. In the Qing Dynasty, there were almost no successful masterpieces in the production of Cheng Ni inkstone. According to the relevant data (to be further evaluated), among the more than 200 inkstones loaded by Emperor Qianlong in the Qin Dynasty's "Xiqing Yanpu", inkstones account for 5 1 square, among which the imperial inscription with the meaning of Jiangzhou characters is 1 1 square (our textual research is for reference only). For example, the inscription on the Eight Ridges of the Tang Dynasty reads: "The water is divided and the strings are lowered. Jia talks about the details, Jianwu Gengzi understands, and flying fish from the hippocampus. Help me learn five arts, I want to write a book. " In the theory of inkstone, inkstone is called: "The soil is fine and moist, as solid as jade, which is undoubtedly the old thing of Fenjiang River." He also wrote the inscription of Song Cheng's mud stone letter: "Jiangzhou mud, who is Qing, Xishi, who is shape;" Mud and stone can be expected, but stone and mud are not comparable; One, two, two, one, water goes in and ink goes out; Painting a picture is also retro, but it is impossible to make up for it. Why do you think about it yourself? " It can be seen that Emperor Qianlong loved Jiangzhou Chengni inkstone.
To sum up, the production of Chengni inkstone has been struggling to survive since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, while the production of Jiangzhou Chengni inkstone has almost been lost. The Records of Xinjiang County, revised in the 17th year of the Republic of China, recorded: "Cheng Niyan was produced in Jiangzhou, and there are records in the old records of Tongzhi and Jiangzhou in Shaanxi, so it can be seen that Cheng Niyan was indeed produced in Jiangzhou. Only today, those who have no control have long lost the law. "
In the early 1980s, Xinjiang Arts and Crafts Factory tried to restore the production technology of Cheng Niyan, but it stopped production soon because of extremely low output, high cost and poor market sales. From 1986, Lin Yongmao, director of Xinjiang Museum and associate researcher of Wenbo, and his son Lin Tao set up Jiangzhou Chengniyan Research Institute in Xinjiang County, Shanxi Province. After collecting data from many parties and careful research, Jiangzhou Chengniyan, one of the four largest inkstones, finally reappeared in the world and bloomed again. 1997, the folk ceramist Wang He and his son Wang Cheng set up an inkstone society and began to produce inkstones. Peng Yancheng, a young ceramist, founded the Jiangyuanzhai inkstone Society to research and develop Cheng Ni inkstone.
Jiangzhou Chengni inkstone is as famous as Duanyan, She Yan and Yan Tao, and is also called "the four famous inkstones in China", which occupies an important position in the history of inkstones in China. It belongs to marginal discipline and comprehensive art, and it is more difficult to make than other stone carving inkstones. It is a precious and peculiar inkstone made from Fenhe mud in Jiangzhou by special firing. Belonging to ceramics but different from ceramics, it is a kind of stoneware between ceramics and porcelain.
Jiangzhou Chengni inkstone belongs to inkstone carving, which is more complicated than inkstone carving. It is not only limited to carving, but also requires dozens of extremely complicated processes such as mud selection, clarification, sand washing and impurity removal, blank making, drying, decoration, firing, wax refining and polishing. It is a comprehensive art integrating physics, chemistry, sculpture, painting, writing, calligraphy, seal cutting and modeling design. Cheng Ni inkstone should be a comprehensive art category that belongs to pottery and is higher than pottery. It belongs to engraving inkstone and is more complicated than engraving inkstone. No matter the difficulty of firing and inkstone making, it is more complicated than ceramics and inkstone carving.
Because of the plasticity of clay, Cheng Ni inkstone has its own unique carving style: it pays attention to the shaping of image, paying attention to meticulous carving without losing simplicity and generosity; The texture is fine but fine but not greasy, compact but not dry. Due to the variety of production techniques, among the four famous inkstones in China, it is more difficult and more difficult to make than the first three, so it is even rarer. Developers are required to have a wide range of knowledge, strong skills, and more efforts: to understand physics, chemistry, soil, geology, ceramics, cultural relics and archaeology, and to be familiar with and proficient in plastic arts. In particular, painting, sculpture, calligraphy, seal cutting, design, color and other solid literary skills, profound artistic accomplishment, skilled carving skills and so on. Read a lot of books and draw nutrition from related arts: bamboo and wood tooth carving, gold and silver jade, calligraphy and painting, stele extension seal cutting and so on. "There is a pen and ink on the chest, and it has a high reputation." Otherwise, it can only be a kind of calligraphy and painting supplies, not an "art treasure", and naturally it will gradually lose its artistic collection value. Due to various reasons, it was lost in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, leaving a defect of 300 years.