Recently, a set of data shocked the old artist:
In Jiangxi Province, where the presence is not high, a prefecture-level city can attract about 30,000 foreigners to learn their craft here every year
One-sixth are foreigners who have traveled thousands of miles across the sea
。
△ “Jingdrift” phenomenon
Looking back at the subject, the doubts were instantly solved, and it turned out to be famous
Jingdezhen
And these outsiders who come here in the name of Mu Ceramics have long had a resounding general name. It is called
“Jingyu”
Some of them have the dream of studying crafts, and some have the small goal of earning 70,000 yuan a month.
The wandering people are not only connected with super-first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but also this ancient southern city is also charming in the eyes of craftsmen who advocate craftsmanship.
△ Admiring “Jingpiu”
Especially in the hearts of many “ocean scenery drifters”, Jingdezhen is even more covered with holy light. Landing is rooted, and the Canadian artist Lei Fili, who has stayed in Jingdezhen for 22 years, is a typical example of many.
Having fully integrated into this small city full of kilns and calling himself a native of Jingdezhen, he once made a wonderful speech:
“It’s only when I pass the glass window that I realize I’m a foreigner.”
In fact, as early as the Yuan Dynasty, Jingdezhen already had a “foreign scenery drift”, Persian potters came here from far away, bringing cobalt that can dye blue flowers
“Su Ma is out of the blue”.
△ The interpretation of “National Treasure”
During the Ming Dynasty, Japanese ceramist Daisuke Gora returned from training in Jingdezhen, creating a precedent for the production of Japanese blue and white porcelain;
The Qing Dynasty, taking advantage of the east wind of the Age of Exploration, the French missionaries who infiltrated Jingdezhen used the secret recipe stolen here to lay the foundation for French soft porcelain
English bone china
The basis of…
△British bone china
Dialogue with the world
The time is much earlier than expected.
Why is Jingdezhen, which is not rich and has top-notch scenery, able to attract foreigners continuously?
It all starts with ceramics.
01
One city porcelain and half city kiln
One last summer
flood
, once rushed Jingdezhen on the hot search.
The upstream Changjiang River released floodwater, and the menacing water rushed to the streets, houses and countless studios that rely on love to generate electricity in Jingdezhen.
Such a bad encounter happens almost every summer in this famous city. But the people living here have nothing to do, because Changjiang not only brings floods, but also the source of life that constantly injects vitality into Jingdezhen.
△ Bad encounters are staged every year
It is not difficult to spread out the map and find that the genes of the porcelain capital in Jingdezhen have long been written by the sky.
At the junction of Jiangxi and Anhui, there are clusters of peaks. Huangshan, Lushan, Jiuhuashan, Wuyishan, etc
The six mountains form an encirclement here
, and Jingdezhen is embedded in it.
The mountain roads are rugged and hilly. The inconvenient land transportation almost tied the city to a dead end, but fortunately it encountered water.
Originated in Anhui
Changjiang
, came here with the porcelain clay of Wuyuan and Keemun, and the pine firewood of the kiln. After that, take the fired ceramic utensils and go down the river into Poyang Lake. Accessible in all directions
Poyang lake
, is the starting point of Jingdezhen ceramics to the whole country and even the world.
△The open and endless Poyang Lake
Jingdezhen, which enjoys the best location, is destined to be a talented player. Under the low-key hills of the surrounding area, there are more than 40 kinds of porcelain materials such as kaolin, which are the envy of other places.
Rich in mineral deposits
, so that the ancestors of this place as early as 2,000 years ago, associated with ceramics.
Historical records
“Xinpingzhi pottery, began in the Han Dynasty”
。 Jingdezhen, which is called Xinping in history, only had the name “Jingde” in the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the Tang Dynasty, “green with white, white in white, calm and elegant, lustrous as jade” was burned here
Blue and white porcelain
, because the porcelain tire is thin and shiny, Jingdezhen porcelain was in the limelight for a while and “paid tribute to the imperial court”.
△ Tang Qingbai porcelain, the skill was lost and has now been re-burned
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the blue and white porcelain, which gradually improved its craftsmanship, became more and more white as jade, clear as a mirror, thin as silk paper to the touch, and the sound of tapping was like a rock, which was quite loved by Song Zhenzong.
The wayward emperor gave his own year name
“Jingde”
, given
This mountain city in northern Ganbei that is good at “curing pottery”.
△ Autumn colors in the mountain village of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi. /Visual China
The dull mud blank needs to go through quarrying mud, ash refining with glaze, and making blanks with tools
A total of 72 processes
, in order to become a smooth and shiny porcelain, that is, the “total strength of one blank” in “Tiangong Kaiwu”, through the hand of seventy-two, square gram into a vessel”.
And kaolin resistant to high temperature, after high temperature calcination of 1300 degrees Celsius, impurities decompose, porcelain thus obtain high density and delicate feel, which is why in other places, the fired mud blank is only worthy of being called ceramics, and the production of Jingdezhen can be called
“White jade fine porcelain”
△White jade fine porcelain
In the Yuan Dynasty, because of the Mongol rulers’ preference for white porcelain, Jingdezhen established the Floating Liang Porcelain Bureau exclusively for the government. The gaze from the royal family made the craftsmen lose the freedom to lie down and eat the old book, so it was gradually unlocked
Yuan blue flower, glaze red
and other new varieties.
The Ming Dynasty liked to mention the identity of the official kiln
Jingdezhen ushered in the first wave of inner rolls of the ceramic handicraft industry, and colorful glazed porcelain such as sacrificial red, doucai, malachite green, alum red and gold tracing emerged one after another.
△ The stability of “National Treasure” – Anding
In the Qing Dynasty, Jingdezhen produced a number of works that can be called ghostly: full and brilliant enamel, three-dimensional Yongzheng pastels and blue-and-white delicate flowers with transparent flowers, etc., so that Jingdezhen sits in the C position of “the country of Chinese porcelain, and the peak of the porcelain industry is this capital”.
meanwhile
“Walking in the Nine Cities”
The Jingdezhen ceramics also embarked
“Giving to the outside world”
of the flower road. Jingdezhen’s porcelain boarded cargo ships to various continents, breaking the national boundaries of aesthetics, and even gave birth to “porcelain is called.”
China
, taken from the old name of Jingdezhen
Changnam
“.
02
A meeting point of the ancient and the modern
Because of porcelain, Jingdezhen, famous abroad, was once called “the world’s earliest industrial city” by professors at Cambridge University.
There have always been many honors belonging to Jingdezhen, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was on a par with Foshan, Hankou and Zhuxian Town
Four famous towns
； In 1982, Jingdezhen became one of the first historical and cultural cities announced by the State Council.
△1962 Jingdezhen Cosmos Porcelain Factory/Wikimedia
Such a city with a reputation since ancient times is full of expectations. But when you first arrive, the first side of Jingdezhen may be disappointing: dilapidated streets, low shantytowns, where there is a little bit of the world’s porcelain capital.
Jingdezhen, 2021
Still stop at fourth-tier cities
。 In Jiangxi, any county town is larger than Jingdezhen, which is a prefecture-level city; Coupled with the population siphon effect of provincial capitals from Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Hefei in Anhui and Nanchang in Jiangxi, today’s Jingdezhen is indeed no longer the prosperous picture of “pottery houses leaning on the shore and boats coming day by day”.
Peel back the withering appearance, and you will find the city’s thickness, splendor and vividness, still
It is folded in the pattern of porcelain.
△Jingdezhen, where new blood is constantly injected
On the noisy and prosperous Zhushan Middle Road, you can see a white-walled Dewa hanging there
“Imperial Kiln Factory”
The gate tower of the gold-lettered plaque, which is the site of an official kiln from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In the past, there were many government offices, factories and warehouses distributed here from north to south. According to legend, of the hundreds of pieces of porcelain fired every year, only four were able to pay tribute to the royal family, and the rest had to be broken as inferior products and buried in the underground of the imperial kiln factory.
△ Royal Kiln Factory, the site of the official kiln of the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Although the kiln fire has been extinguished and the bricks and tiles are still in ruins in the reconstructed Dragon Ball Pavilion, you can still glimpse the style and splendor of that time in the display with traces of restoration.
△ The kiln/wikimedia that has been extinguished
Adjacent to the Dragon Ball Pavilion, it is one of the top ten museum buildings in the world in 2020
Imperial Kiln Museum
。 The red brick hall goes deep underground, and through the arches you walk through it, as if walking through a kiln that covers the sky; Turning the perspective and standing in the Dragon Ball Pavilion overlooking the bottom, the museum has become eight giant clay vases embedded in the soil.
△Imperial Kiln Museum
In Jingdezhen, ceramics became a universal password to awaken creativity.
Yu Ermei, a ceramic craftsman who is nearly 90 years old, decided to build a porcelain palace in Xinping Village, where porcelain originated in Jingdezhen, after touring the porcelain houses in Tianjin. According to the system of Fujian Tulou, she broke more than 60,000 pieces of porcelain collected in her lifetime, spent her savings to save money, and built a Xinping Porcelain Palace that integrates the four famous porcelains of Jingdezhen.
Blue and white ceramic panels, ceramic panels painted with four famous works, and ceramic statues in the shape of gods are all gathered in this three-story porcelain building.
The scenery of Jingdezhen is like firing a piece of porcelain, reserved only for those who are patient enough.
△Porcelain making is an art that tests patience extremely much
In the ancient town of Yaoli, which is like ink painting, the ancient Jiangxi tea-picking tune echoes; The Tang dynasty lianxian engraved on the lintels and eaves pillars of Fuliang Ancient County are still clearly written.
At the same time, hidden in the Sanbao Village between the mountains and forests, artists of all colors gather here because of ceramics; Tao Xichuan, with its chimneys, factory buildings, studios and cafes, is a literary and artistic bourgeois painting style similar to Beijing’s 798; Just in November this year, in the floating liang tea garden of “Pipa Xing”, “the floating beam of the previous moon went to buy tea”, in the green of the mountains, many art installations of different shapes also grew overnight.
Just as there is no wall between the antique Dragon Ball Pavilion and the minimalist Imperial Kiln Museum, in Jingdezhen, yesterday and today have never been bordered, and while adhering to tradition, the city is also actively embracing the new imprint of the times.
△Jiangxi Jingdezhen craftsmanship is famous all over the world/Tuworm creativity
03
There is also food in the land of beauty
You may not believe it, but Jingdezhen, which has been on the head of “China on the tip of the tongue” with a stew of bean ginseng, is actually also one
The capital of gastronomy
△ Jiujiang bean ginseng fish in “China on the Tip of the Tongue 3”
There are not only personalized tableware that artisans have creatively burned, but also rich flavors that inject soul into the beauty ware. Ordinary porcelain clay is not only used to make utensils, but also to make dishes.
In the early days, kilns would use the residual temperature of fired porcelain to cook food, the most classic one
Porcelain clay simmered chicken
After marinating and filling with minced pork, green onions and ginger, the boy chicken will be coated with lotus leaves, wrapped with a layer of porcelain clay mixed with Shaoxing old wine, and then buried in the kiln residue that has not dissipated the residual heat.
The preparation method is similar to that of flower chicken, but because of the use of exquisite porcelain clay, the crispy chicken seems to be more elegant.
△Porcelain mud simmered chicken
In Jiangxi, where rice noodles and chili peppers are consumed amazingly, Jingdezhen’s market food is also a hot taste.
Kiln burning is a physical work, in order to make up for the energy consumed and sweating lost salt, Jingdezhen’s fast snacks are mostly heavy taste high carb water in the world.
Therefore, here it is produced
The coarsest rice noodles in Jiangxi
After ripening in water, adding chili, sauce and orange peel, the good day of Jingdezhen people will be opened by a cold powder with smooth teeth and strong taste.
△ Porcelain is the king of powder
Glutinous rice, which is a heat bomb, was also given a sweet and salty opening method by Jingdezhen. When you meet fritters, it becomes a sweet taste stained with sesame sugar
Churros wrapped in mochi
； Reunited with chili peppers, after several steaming and drying, it turns into a fiery red chili dumpling that can make people cry just by looking at it.
△ Churros wrapped in mochi
Because of the prosperous history of ceramics and the geographical advantage of occupying the border of three provinces, Jingdezhen is also a city of immigrants who accepts a variety of customs. Qiandao Lake immigrants lived in seclusion to become tea farmers, and the people of Jiujiang Duchang went here for ceramics. Their arrival also enriched the local food culture.
Duchang people brought the best CP of cold powder –
Dumplings
, also brought the most exciting Poyang Lake bighead carp deliciousness
Jiujiang bean ginseng.
△ Dumplings
Like the city’s style since ancient times, Jingdezhen can accommodate both the spicy and dry fragrance of Jiangxi and the smell of Anhui.
When it comes to inclusion and diversity, you can always trust Jingdezhen
Reference article
[1]. Research on “Ocean Drift” in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties Xu Yinna
[2].Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, in addition to porcelain is to eat! Authentic style
[3].Jingdezhen’s good reputation and bad reputation are all because of ceramics. New Weekly
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Jingdezhen