Revitilizating and Innovating Fahua techniques for contemporary ceramic in China

Abstract

Since the middle of the 20th century, an epoch-making change that the phenomenon of “ceramic arts and crafts” has changed to the phenomenon of “ceramic art” has taken place in the field of Chinese ceramics. As one of the traditional Chinese ceramic techniques, the Fahua enameling method is still in the stage of arts and crafts. However, many other ceramic techniques, such as blue-and-white, are flourishingly changing from the initial “arts and crafts” phenomenon to various “artistic creations” and trying to develop the theoretical construction of its system for research from the perspective of “knowledge and subject”. The Fahua enameling method, as a connecting link between the preceding and the following, plays an important historical role in the development of Chinese ceramics. However, the Fahua enameling method is still in the stage of arts and crafts lacking knowledge and subject consciousness as well as a strong theoretical basis for discussion. A series of factors, such as the lagging basic theory, the single description of experience and so on, restrict the development of the Fahua enameling method. What’s more, its technique is very difficult and its painting technique is special. All these factors make the Fahua enameling method stuck in the field of traditional arts and crafts and gradually disappear. It is an urgent mission to inherit and innovate in the Fahua enameling method which deserves to be studied and revived.

Based on the experimental method, this paper analyzed the glaze colors, discussed and did in-depth research on the typical traditional style of the Fahua enameling method, and then gradually broke the tradition on the basis of the original traditional design and applied it to the new design and development. This paper also discussed the method, research tool and research process of innovating in the design prototype. Therefore, the researcher made detailed experiments and dissections from the aspects of the glaze colors, shapes, sintering methods and so on, broke the whole and reassembled it, and finally obtained the innovative form of the Fahua enameling method. Make innovations on the basis of tradition and keep the foundation of tradition in mind while making innovations. The future development of the Fahua enameling method requires the construction or involvement of scholars. The Fahua enameling method needs to be researched consciously as a branch of knowledge and a subject. In the future, it needs to be constructed as a highly systematic subject system to promote the unconscious research of it to the knowledge framework system with conscious theoretical research rather than a single historical statement and technique description, so as to break the current deadlock in the study of the Fahua enameling method and guide more people to be willing to study the Fahua enameling method.

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