The Origin of Chinese Ceramics

Pottery has become a synonym of Chinese civilization in a sense. However, when the Chinese potters are awakened from the words "traditional", "practical", "daily use" and so on to re-examine the world, they find that they are lagging behind. Indeed, modern ceramics is not only as a kind of arts and crafts closely related to people's daily lives and exist, not just "practical", "beautiful", "economic", The concept of "generosity" can not be covered. It has been widely involved in the modern art movement with its unique artistic language, and has become a sharp weapon for artists to express their own concepts and carry out cultural criticism.

The Chinese began to pay attention to modern ceramics, and formed a scale of public opinion in the 1990s. Of course, strictly speaking, the origin of the development of modern ceramics in China is related to the earliest practitioners in the former Central Academy of Arts and Crafts (the predecessor of Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts) and Jingdezhen Ceramics Academy in the late 70s and early 80s. 20 years ago, the older generation of ceramicists, such as Zhu Dainian, Yang Yongshan, etc., made useful attempts in the direction of modern ceramics, and produced a large number of young and middle-aged ceramicists, such as Lü Pinchang, Luo Xiaoping, Bai Ming, etc., with styles and genres of pottery. There are also a large number of young and middle-aged potters such as Lu Pinchang, Luo Xiaoping, Bai Ming, etc., with many styles and genres and increasingly diverse techniques. Most of them are college teachers, or have received higher education in the traditional ceramic art, therefore, China's ceramics in the beginning of the college has an inexorable love affair.

However, the purely collegiate development, both in terms of conception and dissemination are extremely limited, and also narrow in terms of academic level. In the 90's, the first is the 1991 "Beijing International Ceramics Symposium", followed by the 1995 "Jingdezhen International Ceramics Symposium", in May 1998 in Yixing organized by Luo Xiaoping and other people planning a larger scale, academic discussions more In May 1998, the "98 China Yixing International Ceramics Symposium" was held in Yixing by Luo Xiaoping with a larger scale and more in-depth academic discussions, and in the fall of the same year, the "First Biennial Exhibition of Works by Young Chinese Ceramic Artists" was held at the China Academy of Art, curated by Liu Zheng and others, and also met the audience. "Beyond Clay--Chinese Contemporary Ceramic Artists Academic Invitation Exhibition" is also quite high level. These several academic seminars of great significance of the exhibition, heralded the rise of Chinese ceramics, its scale and scope and influence is expanding to the whole society.

However, modern ceramics as a novelty there are still many problems, these problems in a greater sense, to a greater extent, composed of the current situation of Chinese ceramics, more worthy of our discussion. Boiled down to the following questions, in order to readers to play.

One, "traditional" and "modern" gap

"Traditional" and "modern The relationship between "tradition" and "modernity" in today's various art fields are an endless topic of contention, ceramics is not inconvenient. However, in many discussions about pottery from "traditional" to "modern", a very important issue has been neglected, that is, the function of pottery. It is not only related to the function and value of ceramic artwork, but also for the role of ceramics in the whole cultural system and the role of ceramics and the social positioning of the potter are very relevant. Only when the question of "what is modern ceramics for?" is corrected, rather than just the question of "what is modern ceramics for? such a question, not just "what does modern ceramics look like?" I think ceramics can really go from "traditional" to "modern".

Traditional Chinese pottery is attached to the pottery, "practical and try to beautiful" in a fairly long period of time to limit the development of contemporary Chinese pottery. In this concept, pottery can only belong to the arts and crafts, its function is only practical and ornamental. In this case, the talent of the potter is more limited by the "making", and can only be explored in the pursuit of design and formal beauty of the field, the potter is also closer to the craftsmen, and can not be integrated into the trend of modern art.

The role of modern ceramics is that it expands the artistic attributes of the original ceramics, so that the potter is not subject to the limitations of "making ware", and can be employed in the field of aesthetics and value critique. He can not only continue to make a difference in the original design field, but also give full play to his nature as an artist, to carry out valuable cultural criticism against the reality, and thus get involved in sculpture, installations and other fields of art. It enriches itself and complements other art disciplines, thus enriching the hall of visual arts.

Therefore, the traditional ceramic art, no matter how the development of "ware" constraints. The development of modern ceramics, in the understanding of the first to do should be the transfer of functional theory, so as to get rid of the "ware" and fixed shape of the dependence, and really towards a broader world.

This gap can be dissolved through the concept of change, and its existence is the driving force of the continuous development of contemporary ceramics.

Second, the dissemination and acceptance of the limitations

Many genres of modern art, after the reform and opening up, especially in the mid to late 80s, like a storm into China. Although the Chinese people did not know how to appreciate it at that time, some of them even had aversion to it, however, they recognized the rationality of its existence objectively and approached them more and more from the conceptual point of view. Modern ceramics did not catch up with the trend, and from the point of view of dissemination seems to have missed the golden time. From the current situation, many industry insiders also pointed out that modern ceramics only in a few porcelain areas and cities in the foundation of the better, such as jingdezhen, guangzhou, shanghai, etc., however, on the surface of the mass foundation is quite weak, did not cultivate a wide range of ceramics to appreciate the group, which is not conducive to the development of modern ceramics. We also note that due to the current Chinese daily-use ceramics and fine art ceramics industry is not prosperous, so even in the original has a deep tradition of many ceramic areas, the masses of its interest in ceramics is also weakening, this situation is very worrying.

On the other hand, the media, newspapers and magazines on the introduction of modern ceramics is sporadic, the shape of the scale, not to mention the specialized ceramics publications. Now bear the task of dissemination is some pottery studio, but their role has not been attached importance, insightful people pointed out that the overall development of a country's ceramic art is the premise of the mobilization of the power of the people, only the water can be boat high.

From the receiver's point of view, Chinese people certainly do not lack of feelings for ceramics, however, it is true that they can not talk about the feelings of modern ceramics, because most of the people's views on ceramics are stuck in the traditional concept. Coupled with the poor dissemination, the appreciation of the taste of the natural hard to mobilize.

However, we have to see, modern ceramics in the spirit of modern art movement is connected, people can accept modern art can accept modern ceramics, it is only a matter of time.

Three, theory and practice of the disconnect

Theory and practice of the disconnect has become a very prominent problem in modern pottery. Pottery artist Xia Dewu said: "A group of people from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts invited a certain art critic from the Central Academy of Fine Arts to comment on modern ceramics, and he could take modern art concepts and modern philosophy to comment on modern ceramics. But I think this is far from enough." He pointed out that the reason why it is difficult to form modern ceramic art critics is that modern ceramics in China is not developed, and he thinks that theorists are very much needed. I have found a book called "modern pottery" in the library of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, in fact, the pottery in the book is only a modern "living person" doing pottery. Visible, modern ceramics in theory is quite scarce, can find the introduction of modern ceramics book is also quite small, and more irregular.

It seems that the modern pottery practice and theory of the disconnect in a considerable period of time, will become a headache. Theoretical talents need to be cultivated urgently, for which many potters proposed to practice while doing some theoretical research, which can be said to be helpless.

In addition, modern ceramics in the creation of the system, sales system, creative concepts and other aspects of varying degrees of problems, well from the words of contemporary ceramic artists we can appreciate a "long way to go, I will be up and down and seek" of the Chinese intellectuals unique ambition.

The modern Chinese ceramics although the road is long, with the development of the economy, it is bound to have a brilliant tomorrow!