Kakiemon has never seen a real elephant, but why is his porcelain elephant world-famous?

In Japan, there is a national treasure handed down from ancient times, a porcelain statue, which has been handed down for more than ten generations and is a famous product handed down from ancient times. But in fact, its producer kakiemon has never seen a real elephant. The real reason why his porcelain statues are world-famous is that they are well-made and rely on superb porcelain-making skills. In modern society, people may have become accustomed to elephants. Maybe everyone can understand the innocence of elephants in mobile phones, computers, books and zoos.

Because of the development of modern society, we have a certain understanding of elephants, but for the ancients, elephants were very rare animals. At that time, Japan was just an island country. Although it has a good geographical location and rich seafood, animals such as elephants, lions and pandas are not suitable for growing and breeding here. So people there have never seen elephants, but in the exhibition of Japanese porcelain master kakiemon, there were elephants that Japanese nationals had never seen at that time, which were made of porcelain.

Later, when people were pursuing history, it was discovered that 1408, Koreans paid tribute to Tokyo, Japan, including an elephant. This shows that some people in this country have seen elephants, but because this kind of elephant is a tribute, only a few royal nobles can see elephants. Moreover, through the appearance of porcelain statues, we can know that the producers have never seen elephants, because the porcelain statues they make look like images, but there are many differences when they look closely.

From this, we can guess that their father and son have never seen a real elephant, but they only heard it from hearsay and listened to other people's descriptions before they made a porcelain elephant. There are many details on the porcelain statue. They have never seen an elephant before. The elephant's eyes and head are actually seriously inconsistent with the elephant. Then why is the porcelain statue so inconsistent with the elephant's appearance, but it is still a fine work of art? The reason is that the porcelain burning skills of the producers and their unique style are not as important as the elephant's porcelain statue. In fact, art is not equal to reality, and the value of a work of art is not determined by its shape.