In the development process of Yixing modern art painted pottery, there is a person known as "the pioneer of painted pottery". With decades of unremitting efforts, Yixing ordinary glazed pottery, which originally belonged to the category of daily-use ceramics, has been transformed into a new category of ceramic art - "new painted pottery". He is Qiu Yulin, a national master of ceramic arts and crafts and director of the Institute of painted pottery art of Yixing pottery craft factory.
In ceramic art creation, innovation is always Qiu Yulin's pursuit. In 1977, Qiu Yulin graduated from the ceramic school with outstanding achievements and came to work in Yixing Hongwei ceramic factory. At that time, most of the products in the factory were pickle jars, salt cans, casseroles and other daily necessities. Looking at the jars and jars piled up in the factory, Qiu Yulin thought: these things were made by ceramic artists hundreds of years ago or even thousands of years ago. Can't we make things that belong to our generation on the basis of inheriting the tradition?
Since then, Qiu Yulin has been trying to decorate the jars and jars, trying to make daily-use ceramics "artistic". With the support of the leader of the factory, he and his colleagues boldly learned from the decoration technology of other art schools in China. On the basis of "painting with glaze water", he and his colleagues carried out "colored glaze and flower painting", that is, painting on products with colored glaze, making the picture vivid, lively and charming, and breaking the dull situation of jars and jars with daily functions and no artistic flavor. Then, he made a new way of "carving, covering and filling glaze" in glaze water decoration. That is, he first carved pictures on the body, and then filled the glaze water according to the needs. Using this decoration technique, he created pottery, which was called "pottery with beautiful clothes".
In 1984, Yixing Hongwei ceramic factory was renamed Yixing painted pottery craft factory. The enterprise not only created a more excellent environment for Qiu Yulin's painted pottery creation, but also appointed him as the director of the factory's design office, which gradually formed the distinctive characteristics of "flat, sharp and different" in the shape of painted pottery. "Flat shape" is not only different from the traditional round and square wares, but also has a larger decorative plane, which is in line with people's ornamental rules. Because sharp things can frighten people and lead people's vision to the sharp point, Qiu Yulin uses "sharp shape" in his "Fan Dance bottle", "Duxiu bottle", "butterfly bottle" and other works, bringing a new visual impact. In his design of variant forms, there are no traditional head, neck, abdomen and so on. Instead, these characteristics are comprehensively diluted, and balance and coordination are sought in the change of space. His modeling completely broke the tradition and became a new aesthetic trend.
It is Qiu Yulin's bold innovation that makes his many painted pottery works refreshing. In 1990, in order to highlight the effect of "dawn", he used 11 different color muds and pasted them from the bottom to the top. The colors were first dark, then red, then yellow and then white. The whole picture was like the first dawn, and then like the sun. This work won the second prize of the second national ceramic art competition. His "Fan Dance bottle" is shaped like a fan, and the decorative lines are interwoven together to create a moving scene of "Dancing" successfully. This work has won the first prize of provincial ceramic art competition. Qiu Yulin not only indulges in the creation of painted pottery, but also devotes himself to the research and creation of traditional purple pottery art. His work "purple jade vase" is a successful example. This masterpiece has also won the gold award of the National Ceramic innovation design competition, and has been permanently collected by Ziguangge of the State Council.
Over the years, due to Qiu Yulin and other artists' continuous improvement, innovation and improvement in the shape and decorative art of painted pottery products, Yixing's painted pottery has risen from the original low-grade traditional type to the medium and high-grade art type, forming a beautiful and simple, bright and novel decoration style, and both refined and popular tastes. Its "value" also increased from a few yuan a piece to thousands of yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan a piece.
