In the Han Dynasty, concepts such as ink painting and landscape painting had not yet appeared. Even the paintings that have been passed down are mostly of the type such as bricks and stone reliefs, and the colors are mostly black.
Even the colors on the lacquer boxes are mainly red and black, and other colors are replaced by shells or gold powder.
Because there was no paper and other carriers were difficult to color, there was not much demand for pigments and no one would study pigments.
Celadon is actually very beautiful in itself. As long as you make relief patterns on the blank, it will look particularly fresh and clean after being fired.
But the aesthetic taste these days is really not about the fresh and clean style, so Liu Tan had to add some patterns on it.
He found it and it was fired quite well before, so he kept it to play with a wine cup. He tried the red one first, and he didn't know if it was his illusion, but he always felt that the light red color didn't look very good on it.
Adding black to create a plum blossom pattern is nice, but plum blossoms are good for small plates and cups, but larger tableware will look a bit empty if decorated with plum blossoms.
Liu Tan's own artistic level is... just so-so, no different from having nothing. After thinking for a long time, the most reliable one is landscape painting.
This was a tough time for Liu Tan. In the past, when he did other things, he always had helpers, and a single order could always save him a lot of trouble.
Even if you need to do it yourself, someone will prepare the raw materials.
However, this time it was very troublesome. He had to do the landscape painting himself. What was even more frustrating was that he really knew nothing about it and only remembered a graphic.
In the end, Liu Tan had no choice but to go ahead with it. The only thing he had to be thankful for was that landscape paintings on ceramics did not require very good artistic skills, or in other words, in this era when landscape paintings had not even appeared, as long as he could paint them, he would be considered a pioneer.
He doesn't even need to go too advanced, and perspective is not necessary at all, as long as he can draw the shape.
Moreover, the most important colors in landscape painting are black, green, and cyan. He remembered that most of the original Chinese paintings used mineral pigments, so red cinnabar, black charcoal, cyan can be made from lapis lazuli, which is probably called indigo nowadays, and green can be made from malachite. This made him feel relieved.
However, if he wanted to paint red plum blossoms on a small piece as he originally intended, it would be best to paint a snow scene. A snow scene... requires white, and kaolin clay seems to be a good choice for white.
Liu Tan simply asked someone to grind all these materials into powder and bring them over.
After it was done, Liu Tan suddenly realized that no wonder it took so much money to create art in ancient times, most of these things were worth a lot of money.
Let’s put cinnabar and charcoal aside for now. These two are relatively easy to obtain and not very expensive. As for kaolin, it’s also okay.
The remaining malachite is only produced in the south, and there are very few production areas. It is also a very rare gem.
Not to mention lapis lazuli, this gem was brought over via the Silk Road and is not something that ordinary people can use.
Liu Tan dared to say that it was only from his family. Other families, even Liu Fuling, who was also a prince, might not be able to produce it.
After all, apart from Liu Che's last time, Liu Tan also had a mother who was a queen.
To use such precious gems to grind into powder for painting, to be honest, looking at the expressions of Miao Rui and Bigo, you can tell that they also feel it is a waste of money.
Liu Tan picked up the brush and tried it first, drawing a mountain. To be honest, it was a bit horrible according to his aesthetic taste, but after thinking about it, he continued to draw.
Anyway, I'll draw a finished product first. If I can't stand it, I'll stop. If it's okay, then... add it!
Liu Tan only drew three so-called mountains, one large, one medium and one small, and then painted a layer of faint light blue on the surface. After thinking about it, he added a waterfall in white, and then added white on the top of the mountain to represent snow.
After Liu Tan finished painting, he was convinced that he probably had no artistic talent. He threw the brush away and said irritably, "Throw it away."
No matter what you do, you shouldn't do something you are not good at!
Miao Rui and Bigao exchanged a glance, and Miao Rui cautiously said, "Why isn't Your Highness happy? This landscape is so beautiful, why are you throwing it away?"
Miao Rui and Big Gao watched Liu Tan paint with their own eyes. They thought his highness was simply amazing. With just a few casual strokes, he painted mountains, water and snow. The legendary creation of the world by immortals was no more than this.
Liu Tan was stunned for a moment after hearing this. He asked seriously, "Do you really think this looks good?"
The two guardians on the left and right nodded frantically, and were even reluctant to take their eyes off the white paper.
Liu Tan asked again: "You didn't lie to me?"
Bi Gao said with a smile: "Your Highness, you are joking. How dare we lie to you?"
Liu Tan touched his chin. Miao Rui and Bigo would not lie to him about such a thing, so... from his point of view, this painting should not be very good, but from the point of view of Miao Rui and Bigo, it should be pretty good?
Liu Tan asked, "Then tell me, if I turn this painting into a set of porcelain, will it look good?"
Neither of them had probably thought that this was possible, and they were even confused for a moment. Could you draw on porcelain...?
They originally thought that celadon was already beautiful.
But Miao Rui quickly reacted and said, "Your Highness, why not give it a try first?"
Liu Tan thought about it and decided to have someone make a wine cup first. Due to the special shape of the wine cup, the painting was painted on the surface. After it was fired, the color was a little different from what he had imagined, probably because of the high temperature, but the effect did look good, especially the red plum blossoms that defied the frost and snow. The style was between realism and freehand brushwork... Never mind, he didn't want to flatter himself, he just wanted to go for realism but didn't have the ability.
But even so, the effect is surprisingly good.
Liu Tan was very confident and immediately asked someone to bring the blank to him so that he could paint it himself.
It’s not possible not to paint it myself. It’s okay to ask craftsmen to make rubbings of words or something like that, but they have never been exposed to landscape painting, so how can they paint it?
Then... Liu Tan scrapped several porcelain plates in a row.
There is no way. Painting on paper and on a porcelain plate are two different concepts, and a porcelain plate is not a flat surface. In order to make it look good, Liu Tan even plans to draw patterns on the surface and side of the plate, which will test his skills even more.
Several of them were damaged, and the rest were accidentally crushed by him while painting.
When Liu Tan's patience was gradually running out, he finally rushed out two similar sets and then had someone paint gold on the edges of the tableware.
Fortunately, he doesn't need to do this kind of thing.
Maybe it was because he poured so much effort into these two sets of tableware, but on the day when they were about to be baked, Liu Tan got up early to watch them come out of the oven with his own eyes.
As a result, when he first arrived there, the craftsmen were cleaning up the leftovers from the previous batch.
Because everyone lacks experience, the scrap rate of porcelain blanks is very high nowadays.
When those defective products were pushed out, Liu Tan glanced at them casually and saw that several wine cups and bowls were intact, but there were fine cracks on them. Unfortunately, they could only be regarded as defective products.
Wait, wait…those tiny cracks? Holy crap!
Liu Tan immediately jumped up: "Stop!"
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