Painted Ceramics 瓷藝丹青

This catalogue is published to coincide with the UMAG exhibition Painted Ceramics: Contemporary Treasures by Jingdezhen’s National Masters from the Lamda Foundation. Often celebrated as the most Chinese of all art forms, the tradition of porcelain making and decoration in China is well-known and exhaustively studied. Lesser known in this millennia-long history are the artworks by twentieth-century national masters who have continued their country’s ceramic practice and achieved treasures representative of their heritage.

Today, Jingdezhen has grown from an artists’ town into an important modern industrial base in Jiangxi Province. Its ceramic industry is flourishing and it has become varied in its scope, producing daily-use porcelain household wares, construction and electronic ceramics, as well as—in comparatively small quantities—ceramic art. This exhibition introduces Jingdezhen as a manufacturing site for artefacts and it focuses on individual talents and the fame of a few master craftsmen, as well as their history and the uninterrupted production of unique high-quality porcelain objects of inherent beauty. The mastery and endurance of individual painters has left us an array of vessel shapes, compositions and iconographic subject matter that is, at times, both historic and contemporary.

The most famous types of porcelain decoration from Jingdezhen are famille-rose, linglong, blue-white and colour-glazed porcelains. All of these—in particular famille-rose, linglong and blue-white creations—continue to be mastered and, at times, re-interpreted by the national masters of our era. Displayed for the first time in public, these forty-four artworks by thirty-eight ceramicists represent the strength and ability of Jingdezhen’s artistic community through changing times.

此為配合香港大學美術博物館舉辦之《瓷藝丹青：琳達基金珍藏景德鎮 當代工藝大師之陶瓷瑰寶》展覽而出版的圖錄。作為中國所有藝術形式中的翹楚，瓷器製作及裝飾的傳統源遠流長、內蘊豐富、世界聞名、競相追捧。但是，在其延續千年的歷史中，卻很少有人關注於二十世紀國家大師巨匠的作品，他們無疑延續了中國的陶瓷實踐傳統並取得了具有代表意義的新成就。

當今時代的景德鎮，已由一個藝術家之城，發展為一個江西省的重要現代工業基地，其陶瓷工業蓬勃發展，製作範圍廣泛，包括日常家用瓷製品、建築與電子陶瓷，以及相對量少的陶瓷藝術品。 是次展覽將景德鎮展示為一個手工藝品製造基地，並且專注於個人藝術才華、一些大師巨匠的聲譽，及其對獨一無二高質素瓷器的持續追求與歷史過往。這些個人畫家的精藝與堅韌，為我們提供了一大批器物造型、藝術作品，以及融合歷史與現代的圖像題材。

景德鎮中最著名的瓷器裝飾類別為粉彩、玲瓏、青花與色釉瓷，尤其前三種更是持續受到當今時代中大師們的精研製作與重新詮釋。 是次展覽首次展出三十八位瓷藝家及其四十四件藝術品，皆代表了景德鎮藝術家團體在風雲變幻的時代中噴湧而出的藝術活力與能力。