This is a simple to the extreme color, so as soon as I moved the pen, I thought of the four words "count white as black".

The saying "white is black" is not common. But these four words are all too familiar to the painters, because the painters never regard white as "nothing", but as one of the most expressive colors.

The painter leaves a lot of blank space on the picture, and although these blank spaces are not inked, they are part of the whole picture, and the blank spaces and colored places reflect each other, and the image is more distinct. The white space is to set off, the "simplicity" is to "control the complexity", and the subtlety of "counting white as black" is here. The connotation of Tang Sancai is very rich, from the origin to the rheology, you can write a big book, but the flowers bloom thousands, we only show a branch, let us in the simple white light and shadow, first to understand the history of Tang Sancai.

Tang Sancai was born more than 1,300 years ago during the reign of Tang Gaozong, and some people say that Tang Sancai has sprouted as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In fact, to verify the source of a thing, it can be traced back a long way in time, but these researches are sometimes really cumbersome and far-fetched, and they are messed around, but they confuse the era when Tang Sancai really took shape. Therefore, since it is "Tang Sancai", it was produced in the Tang Dynasty, just remember this.

The white color in Tang Sancai does not seem to make a deep impression, and people remember green and yellow. Luoyang people only need to walk to the head of the Zhongzhou Bridge on the Qili River, and walk a few steps to Jiandong Road, and they will see a slip of shops and three-color horses. The color of the three-colored horse, green and yellow account for a large proportion, and white is less, and it seems that only a little can be seen on the horse's mouth and mane, or the back of the horse's base.

White is the most special of all colors, for the human eye, white is an unguarded free space, people's imagination can be fully developed in white, so white is the platform of the imaginer, it seems to be nothing, but there is, there is a dialectic in white.

According to the usual saying, Tang Sancai is made of white refining soil, but when I went to Tang Sancai's workshop, I saw that the soil used was all gray and white. The workers in the workshop said that this kind of soil is called kaolin, and in Henan Province, only Gongyi, Jiyuan and Yiyang in our city have it. Gongyi's Tang Sancai kiln site is in Huangye Village of Zhanjie Town, where it is not far from Nanyaowan Village, the hometown of the poet Du Fu, belongs to the hilly and shallow mountain area, the surface is a thick layer of loess, and the Huangye River, which has dried up, winds northward and leads to the Yellow River, where it contains rich kaolin.

It is said that it is soil, in fact, it is similar to stone, it is very hard to the touch, but this kind of soil has strong plasticity, good water absorption, very firm bonding, and will not crack after drying, and it is stronger after the plain tire is burned. It is this kind of soil that has been endowed with toughness and spirituality by people, and has been made into Tang Sancai, writing the entire history of Tang Sancai from scratch.

The title of Tang Sancai cannot be found in the literature of the Tang Dynasty. It is Tang Sancai's "himself", which has been hidden underground for more than 1,000 years, and has only been discovered in modern times.

The discovery of Tang Sancai was purely accidental. In 1905, in order to improve the east-west transportation conditions, the Qing government began to build the Longhai Railway, passing through Luoyang and Pishan.

Pishan lies in the south of the Yellow River and the north of Luoyang City, it is a famous burial area since the Han and Tang Dynasties, and there is a folk proverb of "living in Suzhou and Hangzhou, and dying and burying in the north" for a long time. In all dynasties, the ancient tombs overlapped, and there was "almost no place for lying cattle" here, so when the railway was built, it was inevitable to excavate a large number of ancient tombs.

In the Tang tomb, people have found a considerable number of various burial items, and Tang Sancai is also among them. At that time, the migrant workers saw these Tang Sancai unearthed from the ancient tomb, and felt that this was just a funeral item, gloomy, and felt bad luck when they kept it, so they smashed it and threw it on the construction site, but the antique dealer understood that this was a treasure, so they transported these unearthed three-color pottery to Beijing.

After these things arrived in Beijing, they immediately attracted the attention of Wang Guowei and Luo Zhenyu, and for a time Luoyang Tang Sancai became famous overseas, and foreign businessmen came to buy them with a lot of money. As a result, Tang Sancai has become a symbol of the Tang Dynasty and is listed as a treasure of Chinese art. After research, experts and scholars found that Tang Sancai was closely related to Tang culture, first of all, its appearance was related to thick burials. The Tang Dynasty was

The most glorious era in Chinese history, with strong national strength, developed economy, and the extreme luxury of the ruling class during their lifetime, also influenced the funeral customs of the time.

The ancients believed that the soul is immortal, and paying attention to etiquette and filial piety contributed to the practice of thick burials. Thick burial has become the main means of mourning for the living. The central government of the Tang Dynasty set up the "Menxia Province", and the "Zhenguan Bureau" under its jurisdiction was responsible for the Ming utensils required for the mausoleums of the emperor's relatives. The Ming Vessel is the Spiritual Instrument, which is for the "enjoyment" of a person after death. Since people at that time believed in the immortality of the soul, everyone "did death as life", and let the deceased bring the wealth they had in life to the underworld to continue to "enjoy".

These burial goods, from horses and vehicles to pots and pots, were all brought to the tomb in one go. In order to show the specifications and taste of the tombs, people have purchased Ming vessels, compared with each other, showing off, which greatly stimulated the production of Tang Sancai.

The royal family also encouraged thick burials. The Tang Dynasty clearly stipulated that officials of different ranks could receive three-color pottery of different sizes for burial after death. This gave the green light to the production of Tang Sancai, and the Sancai workshop became a priority for the development of the "enterprise", and the "growth" and expansion of Tang Sancai was expected.

Tang Sancai artifacts are all-encompassing, and can be roughly divided into utensils, figurines and animals.

There are many types of utensils, such as water vessels, wine vessels, eating utensils, stationery, and architectural models, etc., with novel styles and gorgeous colors. The characters mainly include women, civil officials, samurai, figurines, horse warriors, hu figurines, heavenly kings, etc., and they generally portray different personalities and characteristics according to the social status of the deceased during his lifetime.

Ladies tend to have fat faces, plump muscles, comb their hair in various buns, and wear colorful clothes. The civil officials are polite, the warriors are brave and handsome, the bearded figurines have high noses and deep eyes, and the king of heaven has angry eyes. Animals include birds, lions, camels, horses, cows, etc. Among them, the shaping technique of the horse is the most outstanding, some raise their hooves and gallop, some wander and stand, some lead the neck neighing, and some bow their heads, the form is vivid and realistic.

Judging from the existing archaeological data, the kilns of Tang Sancai pottery are mostly distributed in the northern region of China, mainly Gongyi in Henan, Tongchuan in Shaanxi, and Lincheng in Hebei. In addition, Sichuan Qionglai has also seen. There are many varieties of Tang Sancai, including still life utensils, three-dimensional statues, Ming utensils and living utensils, reflecting all aspects of social life in the Tang Dynasty, and can be called the handicrafts closest to life. In the Tang Dynasty, there was hardly any kind of handicraft that surpassed Tang Sancai in terms of variety.

Tang Sancai's production process is very superb, it uses kaolin as the tire material, after refining, selected fine particles, less impurities of the material. Tang Sancai unearthed in Luoyang and Gongyi, the fetal soil is white, the fetal quality is hard, and there are traces of nails at the bottom of some products; Tang Sancai unearthed in Xi'an, the fetal soil is white and red, the fetal quality is relatively soft, and some can show traces with a fingernail; The three-color pottery unearthed in Yangzhou area has several colors such as white, light red, and light yellow. The firing temperature of Tang Sancai is slightly lower than that of porcelain, at 800 °C ~ 1000 °C, of which the firing temperature of Sancai figurines is about 900 °C, and the firing temperature of Sancai ware is about 1000 °C.

In the early Tang Dynasty, the process of Tang Sancai production was relatively simple, and the varieties were less, and most of them were painted after hanging glaze. The Tang Dynasty is the heyday of Tang Sancai production, with rich varieties, exquisite production and great output. After Tang Tianbao, the output of Tang Sancai gradually decreased. After the "Anshi Rebellion", the production of Tang Sancai gradually declined.

In the early years of the Song Dynasty, Tang Sancai was already very little produced, and the Huangye kiln in Gongxian (now Gongyi) also suddenly stopped firing, but there were still small workshops on both sides of the Huangye River that continued to burn porcelain. Later, archaeological experts cleaned up 8 Tang Dynasty kilns in the northeast of the second firing area of the Huangye Tang Sancai kiln site in Gongyi, and 5 of them were quite intact.

Gongxian County is not far from Luoyang, and has been under the jurisdiction of Luoyang many times in history, and actually belongs to the Luoyang region. After the reform and opening up, Tang Sancai first resumed production in Mengjin County, Mengjin folk artists on the basis of traditional techniques, improved the raw material formula, increased the firing temperature, so that the product quality improved, the products sell well at home and abroad.

"Tang" is a universal symbol. Tang Sancai produced in the Tang Dynasty was loved by people all over the world for its simple shape and bright colors. In the Tang Dynasty, Tang Sancai had gone abroad and was closely connected with the world. The colorful camels, some bimodal, some unimodal; The bearded figurines leading camels, with high noses and deep eyes, come from the Western Regions and more distant foreign lands, respectively.

These camels and figurines conveyed important messages about commercial transactions along the Silk Roads. Buddhist art also had a great influence on Tang Sancai. The figurines of the Heavenly King in Tang Sancai are very similar to the similar statues in the Longmen Grottoes, all the Heavenly King Warriors are tall, King Kong is angry, either waving a fist or stepping on a devil with one foot. The ancients created such a terrifying image and put it in the tomb, which was originally used to ward off evil spirits in the tomb, and the clinker inadvertently reflected the influence of Buddhist art on Tang Sancai.

Tang Sancai is a testimony of the Tang Dynasty's integration with the world, which has extensively absorbed foreign cultures, and at the same time influenced world culture with a radiating attitude. All kinds of craft technologies, rare objects, and treasure patterns that were introduced into the Tang Dynasty along the Silk Road became the objects of Tang Sancai's expression and portrayal again.

Du Fu, a great poet at that time, once wrote poems such as "Qiang women are light and flint, Hu'er makes camels", "the east is full of camels" and other poems, which shows how lively the scene of merchants from the Western Regions was at that time. Tang Sancai, a work of art originating from life, most directly reflects the scene at that time. Of course, Du Fu, who has read countless people, must have admired a lot of Tang Sancai, and he must have been happy and excited when he faced these rainbow-like artworks.

But Tang Sancai also had times of decline, and the turning point was the "Anshi Rebellion". "Anshi Rebellion" is a terrible nightmare of the Tang Dynasty, so many people died in the country, but they can no longer afford to bury them, Tang Sancai manufacturing industry then declined, this glazed pottery as a colorful dream, gradually diluted into a glass of residual wine.

Nowadays, Luoyang people see Tang Sancai, most of them are imitations, and most of them are colored horses and colored camels, but as long as you walk into the Luoyang Museum, you will see the real Tang Sancai produced in the Tang Dynasty, where there are many such cultural relics. If it is a three-colored horse, it must be a slightly drooping horse's head, a serene expression, and at first it seems to be a state of complete relaxation, but if you look closely, you will find that the horse's four hooves have begun to be restless, and the fat body contains majestic strength; Although the horse's eyes are looking at the ground, it clearly has a wide field of vision, does it see the battlefield or does it see the long journey? Leaves room for imagination.

The three-colored camel is much larger than the horse, but it is not as colorful as the horse, and it seems that there are still remnants of the wind and sand on the Silk Road. On the hump, a platform is placed on the flat ground, carrying heavy goods, carrying singers and musicians, these figurines either play the Qiang flute, or play the pipa, it seems that with this "mobile song and dance troupe", the long trade journey is not lonely. Tang Sancai has gone all the way like this, swaying all the way until now.

Tang Sancai as an outstanding representative of the Tang Dynasty culture, has a very glorious history of burning, because the earliest Tang Sancai was found in large numbers around Luoyang, so it is also called Luoyang Tang Sancai. It was once thought that Tang Sancai was just a funerary object, but with archaeological discoveries, this view has been reversed, and Tang Sancai's unique glazed pottery is also common in daily necessities in the Tang Dynasty.

Today, Tang Sancai handicrafts have gradually become one of Luoyang's business cards, is a high-end tourist souvenir, and as a national gift to more than the messenger. Do you know how Tang Sancai is fired?

Tang Sancai's firing needs to go through shaping, impressions, glazing and other processes, first of all, raw materials, Tang Sancai uses high-quality kaolin, clay and feldspar powder around Luoyang, to mix these raw materials, drying, selecting, crushing, kneading evenly, and add water to mix into mud, these mud after a certain period of precipitation, and then select the best fine materials, only the best fine materials can be perfectly combined with the glaze layer.

Then there is the mold, the image of the person or animal should be made into a model with kaolin, and then the gypsum is poured to make the mold, and finally the clay is poured into the mold die-casting, because the Tang Sancai shape is very complex, it is impossible to form at one time, so each part should be made with the mold and then glued together with clay.

According to practitioners, there is also a kind of manual printing blank, which is an important standard to distinguish Tang Sancai's grade, the mold is suitable for mass production, in contrast, the manual printing blank is more exquisite, and all parts can be perfected.

Similar to Jun porcelain, Tang Sancai is also the production of the blank first plain burning, and then glaze, and then firing to complete, the quality of the glaze is also an important indicator to distinguish the grade of Tang Sancai, for the antique Tang Sancai handicrafts, the pattern and color can not be changed and added at will.

Tang Sancai is a kind of pottery that prevailed in the Tang Dynasty, with yellow, brown and green as the basic glaze colors, and later people habitually called this kind of pottery "Tang Sancai". The prosperous socio-economic and cultural colors of the Tang Dynasty were once again amplified through handicrafts, so through Tang Sancai, not only can you feel the realism and colorful shape of these handicrafts, but also can experience the grand occasion of the society at that time and feel the social atmosphere at that time. Therefore, Tang Sancai has a very prominent position in the history of arts and crafts in China.

In the process of learning history, especially when we do history multiple-choice questions in junior high and high school, we often encounter some questions that say that a certain Tang Dynasty official placed "Tang Sancai" at home, and the teacher will tell us that this option is wrong, because Tang Sancai is used as a kind of dead vessel, it is a funeral object, that is to say, it is for the dead, and it cannot be placed at home. Maybe we didn't understand very much at that time, why such exquisite handicrafts can only be used as funerary utensils, but in recent years of archaeological excavations, it was found that in some areas of Central Asia and West Asia, some of the unearthed objects have the appearance of "Tang Sancai", is it that China's funerary goods make foreigners like it so much.

China has always had a tradition of thick burials, believing that people will be reborn after death, especially the things before death will also be enjoyed after death, so in some large imperial tombs and the tombs of dignitaries and nobles will have a large number of burial goods, will be their favorite things as funeral goods after death with the tomb owner buried in the tomb, of course, this is an important reason why China's tomb robbery industry is so prosperous.

Especially in the Han Dynasty, the style of thick burials was more prevalent, and gold and silver treasures were all-encompassing, which was also an important reason why Cao Cao organized the army to rob tombs, which led to the emergence of the lieutenant and the general of the middle of the hill that we are talking about or hearing now. In the Tang Dynasty, the wind of thick burial was still prevalent, so there will still be rich burial goods in the tombs of the Tang Dynasty, and it is also after the Song Dynasty that a large number of paper items appeared, and the thick burial gradually weakened, but the burial items are still considerable.

Wang Shiping, a former researcher at the Shaanxi History Museum, said: "Although Tang Sancai has high artistic value. But because its raw materials are all clay, it was not worth much in the Tang Dynasty. In ancient times, in order to show their status or rights, some dignitaries often placed some precious porcelain or jade at home, and Tang Sancai at that time was really low in cost, which led to it definitely not becoming a place in these people's homes.

And gradually became a custom, this kind of pottery became a burial item for people. Therefore, the Tang Sancai found in the Tang Dynasty tombs found in later generations is often smashed or destroyed as an unlucky thing. That is, in the late Qing Dynasty, the British began to collect Tang Sancai, which led to the rapid growth of its status.

However, in recent archaeological discoveries, it has been discovered that Tang Sancai was not just used as a funerary object. During the Tang Dynasty, China attracted a large number of foreign merchants, which brought Chinese goods to all over the world. And Tang Sancai's finished products do attract attention, so these foreign businessmen are eyeing this item, bringing this as a special product of China to all over the world, so in the Middle East, Southeast Asia may have Tang Sancai as a place in the painting of the object, after all, the thing is rare and expensive, Tang Sancai as a funeral object in the Tang Dynasty has become a luxury in the eyes of foreigners, and the creation makes people.

Regardless of the status of Tang Sancai, it is a prominent cultural representative of the Tang Dynasty in China, whether it is tomb culture or craft culture, reflecting the dream place that the whole world yearns for in the Tang Dynasty. It's just that the vicissitudes of history have changed, and no one can stand for a long time, and the former Datang has also become a ruin and a prosperous era in memory. Take a look at the latest chapters of "Dream Claw Book House in the Great Era" and read it for free for the first time.