Porcelain artist now collects China’s china to protect history

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Porcelain artist now collects China’s china to protect history

(Shanghai Daily) 09:24, August 09, 2013

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Rarely is a porcelain artist also a collector, however, Xiong Jinglan combines the skills and sensibilities of both.

Her mission today is preservation of the best porcelain over the past century and educating the public about the nation’s legacy of porcelain artistry and craftsmanship. Thus, she collects, and she has an artist’s eye for spotting the best pieces as well as maintains a professional and social network among porcelain artists.

“Some people ask if I will make porcelain again, and I tell them that for the moment it is more important and interesting for me to work as a Chinese porcelain keeper than a creator,” Xiong in her 40s tells Shanghai Daily at an exhibition of nearly 300 works collected over a decade. They date back to the Republic of China period (1912-1949).

“China has a profound history of porcelain, but if all the best porcelain works are all sold to overseas collectors, what will we have left for our successors?”

The exhibition featuring various styles and different masters is underway at Jingtong Art Center.

“The passion for porcelain is deeply rooted in my blood since I was born in Jingdezhen, considered a cradle of Chinese porcelain,” she says.

Jingdezhen porcelain from Jiangxi Province was famous for being “as thin as paper, as white as jade, as bright as a mirror and sounding as clear as a bell.”

Xiong received professional training at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Institute and the National Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She studied with porcelain masters Zhang Songmao and Wang Xiliang.

“But I was disappointed by the lack of public knowledge of porcelain,” she says. “Here, everyone knows about Jingdezhen, but almost no one can explain why this work is better than that one or why a particular master is famous.”

Although Xiong received top honors at some national porcelain competitions, she decided it was essential for her to collect high-quality porcelain.

“I have good relationships with the porcelain masters in Jingdezhen, and I often visited their homes. I saw that many Japanese and European collectors purchased the best porcelain that cannot be recreated. I thought it was my duty to ensure they remained in China."

Creative artists

Highlights of the exhibition include the early works created by Zhushanbayou during the Republic of China period. Zhushanbayou, literally “Zhushan area eight friends,” is the name of a group of 18 porcelain artists famous for their creativity and painting interesting art onto porcelain.

“Zhushanbayou didn’t treat porcelain as craftsmanship but rather as a medium of art. That’s their significance in the history of China’s china,” Xiong says. It’s rare to find works by Zhushanbayou today.

The one Zhushanbayou work on exhibit had never previously been shown to the public.

A pair of intricately decorated porcelain bottles, 50cm high, is another example of rare porcelain dating from the early 1950s and 60s. They feature subtle and delicate lines and patterns.

“These porcelain bottles could never be produced today,” she says. “They were the results of the country’s ambition to export high-quality porcelain from Jingdezhen to earn foreign currency.” Considerable financial and material resources were devoted to Jinngdezhen.

“Just look at these countless small lines on the bottle, which were painted by teenage apprentices. Many of them lost their eyesight when they grew up,” Xiong says. The colors are translucent and pure, since the clay used at the time was of a different composition from that normally used.

She points out another porcelain series of plates titled “The Red Dream Mansion” created by Zhou Baolin in the early 1980s.

“Some visitors say these works look very ‘rustic,’ but that was the characteristic of Chinese porcelain at the time,” she says. “The artists focus on the realistic detail that perfectly demonstrates their superb technique. The more complicated the details, the more apparent the ability of the artist. The wrinkles and patterns on garments are depicted as realistically as possible.”

Realistic details

“I bet few artists today would spend the same time and effort on such detailed work,” she claims.

Xiong points to another ceramic plate depicting an ancient literati created by Li Jin in the 1980s.

“Li should be remembered because of his emphasis on freedom and spontaneity in his creations on porcelain, which was not accepted by the mainstream at the time,” she says.

Apart from representative porcelain works in the past, Xiong also selects contemporary porcelain for the exhibition.

“If porcelain pieces all remain the same over time, then the art is dead,” she says.

Whether Liu Zheng’s “Owl” series or Bai Ming and Bai Lei’s impressionistic landscapes, all the works represent the peak of contemporary porcelain art.