Chapter 466: Setting Sights on the Formula

This time, Lin Sicheng is holding a pencil.

The tip is sharpened extremely fine; with a single stroke, the line width is less than one-tenth of a millimeter, thinner than a strand of hair.

The force used is also extremely light; for a white porcelain charcoal pencil, it should be clearly black and white. But the lines on the plate are faint and indistinct, as if they were there and yet not.

But Lin Sicheng draws extremely fast; with a few rustling strokes, three figures—one large and two small—leap onto the plate.

Looking closer: it is clearly one woman and two children.

This play comes from "Silent Plays" written by Li Yu of the Qing Dynasty, also known as "Machine Room Instructions", "Double Crown Proclamation", or "Breaking the Loom Record". Canton porcelain also depicts it, so the masters can all tell that what this young man is drawing should be the original Ming and Qing legend, the third act of the four-act "Breaking the Loom Record": "Breaking the Loom and Teaching Humility".

The plot is roughly: Yi Ge refuses to study and insults his mother, San Niang breaks the loom to show her resolve, Xue Bao tearfully pleads his case... so besides San Niang and her son, there is also Yi Ge's classmate in the painting.

In traditional Chinese painting, or on porcelain, some depict two children, while others depict three or even four; there is no fixed standard. Looking at the lines on the plate now, Lin Sicheng must be drawing two children.

The strange thing is, this time, he is actually using a charcoal pencil to outline?

To put it plainly, this is the base sketch: in traditional Chinese painting it is called Outline Drawing, and in porcelain painting it is called Transparent Shaping.

Afterward, whether filling in colors or dotting and dyeing, everything is completed within this outline.

But Lin Sicheng's drawing is more detailed and extensive than the usual Transparent Shaping: besides the head and body, he has also outlined the forehead, brows, eyes, clothing, and the folds of the garments. Even the direction of the clothing folds caused by the bending of the elbows and knees is drawn clearly. It feels like it's just missing light and shadow to be a sketch.

Then why is he drawing it so meticulously this time? Surely this one isn't harder to draw than the previous "West Chamber"?

But looking at the layout and composition, it feels quite simple: just three figures—one large and two small—along with a desk and two vases.

If one were to compare, it has more than two-thirds less scenery than the "West Chamber".

While suspicious, Lin Sicheng switched to a goat-hair brush, dipped it in white glaze, and began to paint the base.

"Huh, is he going to paint authentic Canton porcelain this time?"

"Definitely not, look closely: he isn't painting it fully white, he's only painting inside the lines!"

"Then is it Five-Colored Blue and White?"

"Don't talk nonsense if you don't understand; Blue and White doesn't paint a base, it only outlines."

"With his technique, if he were painting Blue and White, he would have directly outlined with Cobalt Blue; there would be no need to use a charcoal sketch for Transparent Shaping."

That is true.

That Guan Gong Plate is sitting right there on the side, with people, horses, blades, mountains, and grass... the ornamentation is so dense and the layout so complex, yet he was able to complete it in one go without a single pause.

Compared to that, the composition of San Niang Teaches Her Son is much simpler; there was no need at all to draw a charcoal base.

Just as they were muttering, Lin Sicheng put down his brush, picked up a bamboo needle, and poked at the large figure.

The movement was extremely fast and the pokes were very dense; following a series of "tap-tap-tap" sounds, one cluster of dots after another appeared on "San Niang". "Master Wang, what is he doing?"

The old master thought for a moment: "He should be picking out the texture."

"What?"

"It's to represent the texture of the clothing in the painting: silk for patterns, linen for grains... but whether it's patterns or grains, one needs to poke dots before applying color." A group of people were astonished: isn't this the painting method for Palace Porcelain?

Civilian porcelain and export porcelain would never be processed so meticulously. At most, when filling in colors, they would add a few more strokes with a fine brush.

After finishing the adult, he poked the children; after poking a dozen or so clusters, Lin Sicheng picked up the plate and handed it to the master in charge of this booth: "Please dry it, two hundred degrees, two minutes is enough..."

The booth owner had less experience and didn't ask further, taking the plate and putting it into the oven.

But the masters nearby frowned: if painting Canton porcelain, why bake it? Wouldn't it be enough to just fill in the colors on the white base of the Transparent Shaping? Besides, Canton porcelain doesn't have this technique of poking dots on clothing, including early Palace Porcelain.

Could it be a new technique this young man invented?

While secretly pondering, Master Wang's heart stirred, and he leaned forward.

He first stared at the color palette Lin Sicheng had just used. He watched for a long while, then reached out to dip a bit of white material and rubbed it with his finger.

Not knowing what he thought of, a flash of confusion crossed the old master's eyes, and he looked at the other one nearby. Likewise, he reached out to dip a bit and rubbed it with his finger.

The first box he looked at used the materials already prepared at the booth, one hundred percent modern chemically synthesized inorganic materials. Lin Sicheng used this box for the Canton porcelain West Chamber plate he painted earlier.

Including the San Niang Teaches Her Son plate just taken to be baked, the white material used for the base was also from this box; the main component should be Apatite (calcium phosphate). The second box he looked at was the traditional material Lin Sicheng had mixed himself, where the main component of the white material is Titanium White Powder (Titanium Zinc White). Compared to the former, Titanium White certainly has higher stability, stronger covering power, higher whiteness, and higher diffuse reflectance.

Then why didn't this young man use the Titanium White Paste he mixed himself to paint the base of the "San Niang Teaches Her Son" plate, but instead used the Apatite paste which is inferior in every aspect? Was he being lazy?

Definitely not: the two material palettes were placed on the same table, it was just a matter of stretching his arm slightly.

Furthermore, since the colors haven't been applied yet, why bake it dry?

Unless, like Doucai, it needs to be glazed twice and fired twice?

In an instant, the old master raised his head, his eyes fixed tightly on Lin Sicheng, "Boss... are you using Apatite as Glass White?"

Lin Sicheng paused: "Yes, old master."

The old master was extremely stunned, then suddenly realized.

No wonder that plate didn't have a single bit of color on it, just a white base, yet he had it baked dry?

And no wonder he didn't use the better Titanium White, but instead used Apatite paste?

Because this white base isn't just to set off the colors (to enhance the adhesion of the color pigments and highlight the vibrancy of the colors), but to block light (the glaze surface's reflectivity is too strong, which would overshadow the main subject).

To put it bluntly: it forms a milky, opaque base on the bottom of the plate, mimicking the texture of Raw Xuan Paper, achieving a visual effect of "first a painting, then porcelain". That is why this young man used the Apatite paste with slightly lower whiteness, rather than the whiter Titanium White with stronger diffuse reflectance.

And counting through all traditional colored porcelain, it seems only Famille Rose would do this...

Thinking of this, with a "whoosh", light erupted in the old master's eyes: "The boss wants to paint Famille Rose?"

"Old master has a sharp eye!"

The old master grimaced as if he had a toothache: sharp eye, what sharp eye?

It was just a flash of inspiration, a sudden whim, but he hadn't expected to hit the mark by accident: only Famille Rose uses Glass White, but the main component of traditional Glass White was Arsenic, which has long been banned, so other white materials must be used as substitutes.

And the one used most often is Apatite.

But that is not the point; the point is that Famille Rose is harder to paint than Doucai.

The reason Doucai is hard to paint lies fundamentally in the difficulty of firing and the pigments: if not mixed well, they will blur and bleed, so it requires advance design and calculation of line width and channels.

Although Famille Rose doesn't have problems with pigments, its requirements for technique are higher than reaching the heavens: from beginning to end, one can only use the Dyeing Method from the boneless technique. To put it simply: Doucai is filling in color, which can be formed in one go. Famille Rose, however, requires Double-Color Glaze: using clear water to connect colors, dyeing one layer, then adding another. Doucai is flat-painting a single color, while Famille Rose requires the technique of Rendering to achieve a gradient effect.

Doucai uses the Flat Distance Method (only showing a flat effect), while Famille Rose needs to achieve a micro-Relief Carving effect through techniques like Rendering. To put it even more bluntly: Famille Rose needs to use the Dyeing Method from the most traditional Chinese painting to achieve a near-Western style of light-and-dark gradients, clear light and shadow, and a three-dimensional, realistic sense of depth.

At the same time, it requires the freehand brushwork, liveliness, clarity, and artistic charm of traditional Chinese painting... It requires the "bones" to be visible within the color, and charm to emerge beyond the glaze. In plain language: it requires you to paint it realistically, but not *too* realistically.

Isn't that making things difficult for people?

To use an analogy: to paint Guangzhou Famille Rose well, a student who has just graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts can basically become competent after two or three months of training.

To want to paint Doucai well, one must at least be a professor, but there is one prerequisite: it requires a master of glaze mixing to prepare the colored materials in advance.

If one wants to paint Famille Rose well, it might require a national second-level artist. Parentheses: provincial level.

Such a person has basically already stepped into the ranks of "famous masters," or to put it colloquially: a master of traditional Chinese painting. A single square foot costs at least ten thousand; who would run over here to paint porcelain? The key point remains: it requires sufficient study, practice, sufficient Artifact Research, and sufficient practical creation.

Looking at Lin Sicheng's face again, no matter how one looks at it, it has nothing to do with the word "sufficient."

The old master's lips twitched; he really wanted to ask: can you actually paint it?

But when the words reached his lips, he couldn't spit them out: not to mention anything else, just look at that Guangzhou Famille Rose plate in the middle—whether it is the creativity, design, layout, or the brushwork and foundation, which part isn't a cut above him, an old master who has been painting Guangzhou Famille Rose for nearly thirty years?

Regardless of whether the person can paint it or not, the craftsmanship is definitely better than his; what else is there to ask?

Then again: since the craftsmanship is real, what about those colored materials he mixed?

After turning the thought over and over in his mind, the old master suddenly cupped his hands in a salute.

The siblings were startled: his hair was already half-white, and for no reason, he suddenly bowed to someone?

Lin Sicheng couldn't help but be taken aback, and he dodged backward: "Old master, if you have something to say, feel free to speak plainly!"

"Boss, could I leave a phone number?" The old master's face was piled with smiles as he pointed to the two plates on the table, "If possible, after these two plates of yours are fired, could you let me take a look?"

Look at the plates?

It felt like there was nothing to see: he was a Guangzhou Famille Rose master, but these two pieces basically didn't use Guangzhou Famille Rose techniques.

And at his age, wanting to learn Doucai or Famille Rose, it was probably too late.

After a brief thought, seeing his eyes darting to the table from time to time—glancing at the Glaze Material jars, then at the colored material plates—Lin Sicheng suddenly realized: this old master, could he be coveting the formula?

In an instant, Lin Sicheng couldn't help but laugh: he's quite good at keeping his composure?

Craftsmanship is one thing; no matter how well a teacher teaches or how diligently one studies, without talent, it's all in vain.

The formula is different: you can use it as soon as you get it.

Fearing that he wouldn't agree, he took a roundabout way: using the excuse of looking at the plates to first establish a connection. At the same time, he could also verify whether this formula actually works. But to be honest, the old master was overthinking it: although this formula is a simplified version, it is a simplified version used to repair the Chicken Cup.

Besides that, after restoring the craftsmanship of Shadow Blue Porcelain and Thin-body Porcelain with Director Lu of the Forbidden City, it can be used directly to imitate Palace Porcelain such as Ming Blue and White Five-Colored, Blue and White Glaze Red, and Chenghua Doucai.

Not to mention how many patents could be applied for or how much they are worth, just the top-tier journal Thesis could easily number in the dozens.

In a flash of thought, Lin Sicheng shook his head: "I'm sorry, old gentleman, I am just here in Guangzhou for travel; I have to leave before the plates are fired." The old master froze for a moment and let out an "Ah."

No need to guess, this is definitely an excuse: how can there be a reason to only give half a gift?