Zhu Yigui was born in Zibo, Shandong Province, in 1939. This city has an ancient pottery tradition -- reputed to be 8,500 years old -- that entitles it to another name as a “capital of ceramics.” Zhu Yigui began his illustrious career at the age of fourteen, in a ceramics factory, learning the finely tuned skills of an ancient traditional craft that he has referred as “playing with mud.” While this statement expresses a love of his craft it should not be taken as a lack of seriousness for his subject.

As a ceramicist from a venerable tradition, Zhu Yigui attaches enormous importance to the practice of traditional technique. He explains:

“Making pottery can be lonely work, that demands care and patience. Some young people, new to this profession, can be anxious to obtain immediate results and over-emphasize new ideas at the expense of traditional skill and technique. An example of this would be presenting unglazed green ware as a finished product.”

In his small Zibo studio, located on a busy street in the Boshan District of the city, Zhu Yigui took time to explain some of his techniques and pottery styles, his work prominently displayed on shelves around the room.

“I gave the name ‘Water Drop’ to this piece -- a bottle made in 1982 in honour of an old friend -- as an expression of a Chinese saying: A favor of a drop of water deserves repayment in a flowing spring.

“With vase making, for example, the use of traditional technique is vital to correctly imitate the anatomy of the perfect piece; in fact, I think, that is being ignored by young potters and ceramicists. To make fine pottery, the principles of symmetry and perfectionism must never be violated.”

Black Pottery Culture

One of the principle ways that archaeologists have been able to date civilization -- throughout the course of pre-history -- has been by the discovery and classification of pottery. As a central characteristic of pre-historic tomb or burial sites, pottery bowls or pottery shards -- those broken and scattered in large numbers -- have been able to identify a site as belonging, for example, to a Mesolithic culture in Europe (10,000–8,000 BC) or a Neolithic culture in China (10,000–2,000 BC). In China, the period of the Neolithic -- or New Stone Age -- was characterized by two periods, Yangshao (6,000–5,000 BC) and Longshan (5,000-4,000 BC).

The Longshan period or culture was to produce an inimitable pottery technique called, “Black Pottery.” This culture and technique, first discovered in 1928 in Chengziya, Shandong Province, is amongst the earliest examples of pottery made on a wheel. In Weifang, a characteristic Longshan culture “Black Pottery” cup was found with its characteristic high handles, striped decoration and burnished surface. Shandong Province -- stretching from the middle to lower reaches of the Yellow River -- is a prominent Neolithic cultivation area. What is so significant about the Weifang cup is that with a roughcast -- or pre-enameled surface -- measuring 0.5 to 1mm in thickness, and fired at 1,000 degrees Celsius, it also is an eggshell earthenware, so called because of its extreme thinness and fine durability. The black colour is the result of being fired in a smoky atmosphere and a carbonization of the surface of the vessel. The burnishing or finish is produced by work with a stone or smooth tool.

Until this exquisite and very rare pottery caught the attention of Zhu Yigui, and his research partner, the distinguished epigraphist, Shi Ke, in 1992, it was not known how the wafer thin effect of Longshan “Black Pottery” was achieved.

In the course of their research, it was discovered that pottery shards of the Longshan culture had a higher iron content then that of loess silt deposits. The two men then attempted to reconstruct the Neolithic pottery raw martial out of quarry stone that was high in iron, that was pulverized and then mixed with the loess silt deposit. They knew that attempting to identify the exact ingredients of a many thousand-year-old kaolin recipe was not going to be easy.

The trial and error involved in finding the correct proportion of black stone powder and loess deposit resulted in many failed attempts in the kiln. However, further analysis and time produced the correct combination and the Longshan culture was revived through their painstaking research.

Flambe

Zhu Yigui has been eager to move between and work and research the techniques of different historical epochs. One such period that has caught the imagination of many visitors and enthusiasts of his work has been the spontaneous creative glazing process called, flambe. Originating in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), and coming from the renowned Jun Kiln, flambe is a process where a glaze forms a special composition on a surface in temperatures between 1,250 and 1,270 degrees Celsius. It occurs due to the spontaneous and unexpected mixing of pigments. Zhy Yigue adapted this traditional technique with pointillism -- a system of placing dots of colour adjacent to each other so as to create a realistic effect -- and free-hand brushwork using traditional Chinese coloured ink. The effect was to create an innovative concept in ceramic painting that has been highly praised and celebrated. Viewing an example of this distinctive work in a porcelain vase, the vibrant colourful glaze seems to flow down the body of the piece to reveal, in contrast, the raw state of the roughcast base. Zhu Yigui talked about the process:

“The firing of the piece is totally unpredictable. Sometimes, fortuitously, it will make things better and sometimes, it will make them worse. It is always an exciting moment to open the kiln chamber and see what has happened. For example, using a fixed number of pigments for baking 100 bottles will produce 100 distinctively different ornamental designs that will be made far from my control or expectation. I gave a term to this “automatic” process, and called it, “fire drawing.” This process involves two things for the potter. First, making up a glaze. Second, holding out for the duration and degree of the heating process and making sure that the firing is done exactly as you want it. For example, it might take 10 or 15 hours to get the exact temperature you need to create the effect. A great deal of care must be taken with the speed of the baking process on which the decorative effects largely depend.

Lifen Coal Glaze

Another effect and original work of Zhu Yigui has been the result of trying to combine the disparate elements of porcelain and pottery. Because it is difficult to paint with Chinese clay on earthenware -- the two support a different density and dilatancy (or increased volume) -- Zhu Yigue worked to try and prevent the loss of glaze or cracking during and after the baking process.

Zhu Yigui discovered that the formula for lifen -- or specialized porcelain clay -- could cling to the surface of the earthenware in the right conditions. He created a tool -- based on a ballpoint pen -- to allow the pigment clay to adhere to the surface of the unbaked object. This worked by filling a tiny rubber ball full of liquid lifen and using it as a paint tool. The effect was very satisfactory.

Zhu Yigui has produced a series of painted-pottery hanging plates with a lifen coal glaze that have different styles and subjects. In fact, the artist has researched and transformed the history of great art across the range and subjects of his ceramics. He works with oil, watercolour, and Gouache, in styles of art deco, Chinese painting and relief. The origin of some of his greatest work to date: “Flying Apsaras”, “Dragon,” “Bamboo Partridges” and “Vase,” find their creative source in the multimedia form that he brings to his craft. He has also transferred the nudes of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to his pottery, creating modern ceramic art with gaudy eastern hues.

Ceramic Frescos

Inspired by a visit to Japan in 1984, Zhu Yigui has recently been working on a successful technique for large scale ceramic murals. On that visit to Japan, the artist noticed the state of disrepair and distress of the Jing Dezhen fresco at the Ueno railway station. It was to be a discovery.

“Cracking is caused by differing shrinkage and water absorption rates in the roughcast and the glaze. Therefore, the fresco in Ueno proves that the over-glaze that was produced in Jingdezhen cannot be applied to large scale murals.”

Applying the same trial and error procedure to this process, that has secured many great solutions in the past, Zhu Yigui has been working to produce a new glaze that can be applied successfully for the preservation of the ceramic mural. Finally, he has produced a very high-temperature glaze that is successful.

“It can be used to duplicate all kinds of bright colours. The larger the fresco, the better the effect of the glaze. With this glaze I am now able to paint outdoor ceramics in the northwest of China where the weather is predictably tough on the work.”

True to many great people of vision and expertise, the artist remains tightlipped about his discovery.

“I have made the recipe publicly known but the treatment and technological process have to be kept secret for the moment.”

The True Value of Great Art

There is always an apocryphal story about the true value and exchange of the works of great artists. The work of Zhu Yigui is no exception. During the 1980s, a Japanese investor bought several 100 pottery pieces made by the artist for US$75 each. And as you might expect, it was discovered sometime later, by the prominent artist and calligrapher, Fan Zeng, that these pieces were sold on to the United States at US$1,000 each. The artist’s ambivalence is reflected in a calligraphic scroll that hangs in his studio and reads: Indifference to fame and fortune characterizes a high aim in life. But he adds:

“A pottery maker cannot earn as much as a pottery seller. (It) is doomed to be a thankless task and I never intended to make money from it. At the start, ceramics was only a way of subsidizing my living but now it is an inseparable part of my life. Without it, I cannot imagine what my personal life would have been like. Money is no big deal. As a matter of fact, to me, a batch of beautifully baked earthenware, fresh out of the kiln, is the best payment for all my hard work.”

While the artist is earnest in his beliefs, it is true that the value of a work is many fold. And so, every year he takes on 100 students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, and others, to teach of the experience of the true value of art, in its discoveries and processes.

(china.org.cn by staff reporter Shao Da, October 4, 2002)