Zhou Guozhen in My Eyes

  Modern sculpture originates from the western world. It is even later when sculpture was shown in porcelain with the eastern movement of the New Cultural Movement. During the 1980s, when the wind of western ceramics blew to China, in the south China town of Jingdezhen, Zhou Guozhen had already held up the flag of eastern modern ceramics with his mature works. Therefore, it is never exaggerated to say that Zhou Guozhen is “A flag of modern China ceramic development”; “A pioneer of modern Chinese ceramic creation”; “A master of modern Chinese ceramics” and “An International modern ceramic artist”. Zhou Guozhen has proved the truthfulness of these titles with his works and creative thoughts. 
　　What Zhou Guozhen is to modern ceramics is just like what Kant is to classicism, what Picasso is to modern drawing art. Similarly, to write the history of modern and contemporary Chinese ceramic art, it is inevitable to discuss the art practices and creative thoughts of Zhou Guozhen. The developing process of the 1960s works of him is a historic book of modern Chinese ceramic sculpture. From 1954 when he first came to Jingdezhen, shouting out when facing the outdated traditional sculpture pattern to the current situation in which his students are all around China, modern ceramics has bloomed in the capital of porcelain, Zhou Gouzhen has pushed forward the development and flourishing of modern Chinese ceramic art and has become a most representative symbol of this field.
　　When people comment on or define the achievements of an artist, what they need to refer to first is the contribution of the artist in the artistic field. That is what he has initiated, set up or influenced. With this rule in mind and the memory of Zhou Guozhen, I would like to talk about Zhou Guozhen’s contribution to modern ceramics and his pioneering spirit. 
　　In the field of contemporary ceramic sculpture, Zhou Guozhen is an explorer, a pioneer and a forerunner.
　　As we all know, Jingdezhen has a long history of ceramic culture. The ceramic culture here is broad and profound. However, due to the very extensiveness and profundity of its ceramic culture, most people’s knowledge of ceramics stays at the level of craftsmanship. Porcelain, along with jade ware and wood sculpture is regarded as handicraft. Particularly, before the year 1949 when China was founded, few people placed it in the category of art. Despite the many efforts of some predecessors, porcelain still was regarded as handicraft. What is handicraft? What is artwork? That’s a much disputed argument. According to my understanding, if we assimilate handicraft as a story, then artwork is literature, philosophy because artwork has thoughts and soul. In 1954, Zhou Guozhen gave up the opportunity of teaching in Beijing and came to Jingdezhen. At that time, he saw that Jingdezhen’s ceramic industry still uses the traditional subject matter like “Portrait of Four Beauties” “Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism”. Most ceramic craftsmen at that time were engaged in the duplication of handicrafts. This made this graduate from China Central Academy of Fine Arts realize that it was a good opportunity to show his talent and undertake great responsibilities as well. 
　　In whatever field, to be a pioneer needs not only courage but also thought.
　　Zhou Guozhen enjoys excellent education experience (One of the first group of artists cultivated by China Central Academy of Fine Arts). He has been taught by outstanding masters. (Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi, Zhou Qingding, Zheng Ke) . During the 60 years of artistic creation, while absorbing the traditional techniques, he has been innovating a lot. Due to the innovation, he has been regarded by the traditional Jingdezhen craftsman as being rebellious and weird and thus criticized by many people. Decades later, looking back, people find that his artistic achievements have become outstanding, directly influencing the art direction of modern ceramics. Numerous people has absorbed a lot from him and then formed their own style. In this sense, Zhou Guozhen has become the founder and great master of contemporary ceramic art. Today, to talk about the achievements of Zhou Guozen, one can never neglect his innovation and persistence at earlier years which helped keep the pure eastern characteristics of modern ceramic art. In history, the entry of any foreign thought will experience the process of being known, introduced, learnt, understood and localized. It is the last phase that is a most significant marker of the settling down of a new thought.
　　When the wind of western ceramics entered China due to the Open Policy, Zhou Guozhen had been engaged in this field for almost 30 years. During this period, the seeds of ceramic art that he had planted have already grown up. Some of his works which have used some modern ceramic techniques and have typical eastern thought and theme have already been published. Therefore, in the history of modern art history, western ceramics’ entry into China didn’t show “disagreeing with the local culture” or “a long time adaptation” with the local culture as other artistic techniques. The fact is that all this benefits from the effort of Zhou Guozhen.
　　The earlier works of Zhou Guozhen have jumped out of the category of handicraft. These works have their own thoughts, content, ceramic vocabulary, the time background and valuable eastern charm. For example, the work “A Nice Aunty” which was published in 1958 is about the image of an old lady looking after children in the people’s Commune Movement. Another example is the work “Hope in Sight” in 1960 which shows the natural disasters. In addition, there were a lot of works which were based upon local traditions and full of “Yellow Culture” symbols. Having imprinted eastern label on modern ceramics, Zhou Guozhen began to express his artistic thought from higher level and deeper theme. The later works of him feature being natural, combining the thought about human and nature, fate and life and reach the artistic realm of “being refined, nature made and outstanding.”. This is a typical summary of art and is a return and rebuilt which root in life creation.
During the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Guozhen was entitled “Reactionary Academic Authority” due to all sorts of reasons. Nevertheless, he didn’t give up the exploration of ceramic craftsmanship and art. In 1971, the Research Institute where he worked was restored and Zhou came back. Then he produced a series of high temperature colored glaze porcelain plates with the name “Jade Rabbit”, “The Crab” and “Asian Carp”. If we say the Yuan Dynasty invented Blue and White porcelain, the Ming Dynasty invented the Five Colored porcelain, the Qing Dynasty invented Famille-rose decoration and Ancient Color, the Republic of China used the New Colors, then Zhou Guozhen is the first one to apply high temperature colored glaze to ceramic drawing, which is a breakthrough of that age and a new technique. Nowadays, high temperature colored glaze ceramic drawing has become an important discipline ___ “High Temperature Glaze”.
　　What is valuable is that although he is now 84 years old, Zhou Guozhen still explores in the field of ceramic art and has initiated ceramic finger drawing. Since the nerves of the fingertips are linked with the heart, with fingers, artist can express his emotions directly in the drawing. Zhou’s technique is extremely smooth and agrees with the aesthetic taste of the Chinese painting. As a result, he has promoted a folk art into a national art.
　　Picasso and Zhou Guozhen, one is in the west, the other is in the east. There is not much relation between them except the overlapping of their creation time. However, people would still like to link the two masters together and call Zhou Guozhen as “Eastern Picasso, world Zhou Guozhen”. Such relation is a comparison of contribution and spirit in the art field. Picasso is the founder of modern western art and a key representative of western modern drawing. Zhou Gouzhen is, by contrast, a pioneer of eastern ceramic art and has opened up a new field of art. What is interesting is that Picasso’s artistic style has experienced several big changes and development, and the same has happened in Zhou Guozhen’s art life ___ six innovations. Due to those perfections and thoughts, Zhou’s art comes to be perfect.
Looking back on the 60 years art practice of Zhou Guozhen, we find that his creative process has clearly shown his pursuit of breakthrough and higher goals. Zhou Guozhen claims that “no making without breaking in art; dare to break dare to make.” He has broken the only subject matter of Buddhism in Jingdezhen at earlier time and plunged into the thick of life and made character ceramic sculpture with simple and unadorned techniques. Then he transferred to use high temperature colored glaze so as to enrich the expressive power of ceramic sculpture and enhance the expressive language and means of ceramic sculpture. After that, Zhou Guozhen gave up high temperature colored glaze and transferred to other new materials and decoration of ceramic sculpture. As to the ceramic material and sculpture technique, Zhou Guozhen seeks a comprehensive use of all kinds of material. With the idea of returning to original simplicity, Zhou Guozhen initiates the method of clay strip forming to make animal sculpture. Clay molding is another method of animal ceramics. It is a one-way process which means there can never be hesitation in the process of creation and everything should be done from beginning to the end without stopping.
　　All the representation of art is the reappearance of the thought and soul of artist. However, to reach such state, artist should use his eyes, hands and mind particularly during the creative process. The creative process of Zhou Guozhen is really a process of great attention. All his happiness, sadness, passion and life experiences are manifested with the rubbing, spinning and squeezing of the clay. All the strange and absurd rules then become reasonable. He has been rebelling and seeking new way of art constantly.
　　This is the artist that I have known ____ Zhou Guozhen, a respectable ceramic artist. He has not only contributed many masterpieces which combine academic value, artistic beauty, aesthetic taste and time spirit, but has established the epic-like artistic process of a real artist. His creative theory and spirit are highly praised in contemporary ceramics and have influenced a lot of successors generation after generation.

                            Jiang Liping, at Yuzhuan studio, Jingdezhen
Mid-autumn, 2014

Note: The author of this article, Jiang Liping is a master of Chinese Ceramic Design Art. He is one of my earliest students and has been learning from me for nearly 40 years. He has studied in Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and Qinghua University successively.  ——Zhou Guozhen