Greenware stationary: Creating the right ink for calligraphy and painting
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You're listening to Ancient Relics and Their Stories, a special series of A Thousand Whys. Calligraphy and painting have long been two of the four basic criteria for Chinese scholars, along with music and chess. To join the ranks and rank high with excellent handwriting and pictures, they need quality ink brushes, solid ink, paper, and inkstones.

Grinding solid ink sticks to get liquid ink from an ink-containing stone is a key step in preparation. During this process, it is essential to make sure water is added bit by bit so that the liquid ink is precisely the right texture and richness you want. You also need a special tool, something we're featuring in today's Ancient Relics and Their Stories. What's more, it must look good and feel pleasant.

The trick to all this is a water dropper called 青瓷燕笛 produced in Longquan, a renowned ancient porcelain-making hub in East China's Zhejiang Province, famous for producing celadon or Chinese greenware. Ring any bells? The finest of all materials, produced by talented masters, working in a top kiln in super high temperature, utilising world-class techniques,

Best of all, it can make a huge difference in calligraphy and painting with a slow steady flow of tiny tiny water drops. Am I making any sense? Okay, let me explain these one by one.

Over a thousand years ago, Chinese greenware or qingci with its unique jake-like glaze played a pioneering role in the early waves of artistic and cultural fusion. Greenware differs in style and hue depending on its origin, with Longquan Celadon as the most sought after. The boat-shaped Celadon water dropper we're presenting today has a history of more than 800 years.

It is renowned for its jade-like colour, glossy smoothness and elegant simplicity. In Chinese culture, jade has long been associated with nobility, virtue and wisdom, often considered a symbol of purity and moral integrity.

The simple design of Longquan Cetadon was favoured especially during the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties between the mid-10th and 17th centuries, embodying the refined tastes and virtues cherished by scholars, officials and royalty, and has gained international recognition since the early 12th century. Why is it so captivating? Just look at this exquisite Longquan Cetadon water dropper from about 800 years ago.

Celadon, known as Qing Ci, indicates a Chinese porcelain with the colour of Qing or Cyan, referring to black, blue and plum green, a symbol of energy and life in the philosophy of Taoism, capturing the essence of nature, from the colour of the sky to the depth of the sea.

Due to the Taoist influence during the Song Dynasty, it became the most cherished colour, reflecting the ideal of harmony between man and the universe. The Longchuan Celadon also gained worldwide recognition in these eras, becoming one of the most prominent drivers of Chinese culture. During the Song Dynasty,

Key ports were established along China's southeastern coast, facilitating significant growth in exports with Longquan Celadon as the foremost commodity reaching most of Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa. Later it was brought to Europe in the 16th century.

So how prevalent was Celadon worldwide? Its name Celadon in English perhaps gives a clue that it was French nobility who first came to admire this greenware. It got its name due to the similarity of the colour with the green ribbons of the costume robe worn by the Shepherd Celadon, a heroic character from the influential drama Last Tree.

While maintaining its style and quality, tailor-made Longquan Celadon was crafted to meet the diverse tastes and preferences of overseas customers who use it for decoration, or as plays at banquets, or as gifts at diplomatic events. Longquan Celadon was valued as highly as gold. Some countries started to produce their own Celadon, modeled after Longquan.

Longquan Celadon continues to hold significance in modern society, not only for traditional purposes but also through the discovery of new applications. Thanks to the bell-like sound it makes when you tap it and its smooth glaze, it is now used to make musical instruments. This piece, entitled "The Charm of Celadon" or "Qing Jun" in Chinese,

It is played with the Chinese drum, flute, a two-string fiddle and chime bells, all made with Longquan Celadon. The music delivers a sense of elegance and tranquil vibrations. Moreover, Longquan Celadon was incorporated into architecture for the first time in 2020

In total, 70,000 pieces of Celadon panels were used to create a striking jade-like wall at the south gate of the Hangzhou Archives of Publications and Culture in Zhejiang Province. This impressive wall not only showcases the continued vitality of Longquan Celadon, but also serves as a cultural bridge offering the world a unique window into the richness of Chinese heritage.

Back to the boat-shaped water dropper we are featuring today. A water dropper serves as both a water container and pouring vessel. Unlike in Western-style painting, Chinese calligraphy and ink and wash painting use only one colour, black, on white paper.

So the various degrees of texture and richness of the ink are a must in making words and pictures vigorous, lively and vivid depending on the hard or soft strokes made on paper. You move your fingers and arm at different speeds adjusting the form of each and every dot, line or curve to create appropriate effects and styles. That's only the physical side of an artistic creation.

Then the spiritual side, the quality, colour, design, style of your stationery, the environment and atmosphere will set you into the right mood. Deciding if the painting will act as an angel or a beast and if the calligraphy looks solemn or playful. Sounds superstitious? Not at all. You have to believe in it and you must go through the motions even if you do think it's a fuss.

Let's say when painting a galloping horse, the subtle curving lines around its legs and hooves will indicate the movements of the horse at different levels and speeds, or the haste the rider makes, as they hope to get somewhere as swiftly as possible. Then, voila, an impression of a flying horse. Another example, painting a religious figure such as Kuan Yin Bodhisattva

who many people especially women pray for help to eliminate diseases and disasters or for blessing a couple to have a baby you have to be serious about all this. That's why legend has it that Ming Dynasty painter Tang Ying would finish a draft first and put it aside until a bright sunny day. Then he'd take a shower, burn incense, close his eyes and walk to a higher place with the help of assistants, face the rising sun

then suddenly opened his eyes, looking straight at the sun's rays until he could no longer see anything. Then he turned back, eyes closed, again guided by the assistants, walked to the draft picture, holding his painting brush already soaked with ink, and finally popped it twice on the paper. In that way, he created two dazzling eyeballs that would take away your breath.

There is a Chinese proverb Hua Long Dian Jing bringing the painted dragon to life by adding eyes to it as the final touch. Right ink, superb picture. Another example recalls that Tang Dynasty calligrapher Yan Zheng Qing was saddened when his nephew was killed by rebel soldiers in the civil war. When writing a memorial article out of utmost fury and depression he stepped out of normal procedures just writing on and on

Until his brush was extremely dry and thirsty for more ink, the calligraphy was totally out of protocol, with words sometimes written in wrong or chaotic texture, some in wrong positions, several corrections, but people can tell how many times he refilled his brush. What propelled him to continue writing even when short of ink? Those unusual moves help others read the state of his mind,

Standard practice went by the wayside as he gave way to a totally free flow of emotions, writing up here and down there, now displaying sudden outbursts, then muffled to a long pause in search of the right wording. But that handwritten article, which could have been considered out of order,

was widely considered the second best masterpiece in Xing Shu style or cursive script calligrapher ever created in history. The hand of a magician you could say. And in fact, many artists did believe in the existence of magical powers. It wasn't just about the tools, the environment and the atmosphere, how everything had to be fine. But most importantly, it came down to his own mood and belief in golden touches.

Anything short of inspirations, for example, should anything go wrong with the texture of the ink, then the whole calligraphy or painting will become something inferior. So appropriate water dropping is crucial. Traditional Chinese ink comes in solid form. So to produce liquid ink, the scholar grinds an ink stick with water on the hard surface of an ink stone. Thus,

The water dropper was created, known as a "yèndì" in Chinese, which added water in small drops to an inkstone, determining the right richness and consistent texture of ink. Think about it for a few moments. For each stroke, line, or circle, how black is black enough? Or too black? Or insufficiently black?

In Chinese calligraphy and ink and wash painting, the texture and richness of the ink help to create a dynamic range of thicknesses and variations in each brush move, bringing landscapes to life and reflecting the artist's inner thinking on paper. The Longquan Celadon Yan Di or water dropper we're presenting today offers easy control over the amount of water added.

It features two openings, a smaller one at the back and a larger one at the front. To regulate the water flow, simply cover the smaller opening with your thumb while pouring water from the larger one, allowing a suitable amount of water to be dispensed. The dropper is small enough to fit in one hand, yet it features a detailed traditional fishing boat with a cabin on the deck and two rails on both sides of the vessel.

Two passengers are talking inside of the cabin, while outside, a boatman dressed in a straw rain jacket is climbing onto the gable roof of the cabin, trying to reach his bamboo hat. His raincoat is vividly blown towards the rear of the boat, enhancing the effect that the boat is in motion.

You can already appreciate the object's superb quality physically and its emphatic elegance spiritually. Now it's time that you put yourself into the right mood to create a masterpiece, be it writing or painting. How will all this help you?

It all depends on your own beliefs and state of mind. Concentration and composure are the key to success. What's more, you've got to be self-inspired as geniuses are all crazy. Okay, imagine the scene in your study. It's absolutely silent. You're grinding an ink stick on the inkstone or container. All you hear is drip drop.

drip drop on your desk. As your old-style clock chants tick-tock, then it's time to work. But how? Well, if anyone asks you what comes next when the snow melts, please don't say water. Say spring. Then you are in the right mood. How's it going? Perhaps you feel you need a real long-term cellodon water dropper or at least see it in person.

then why not visit the Zhejiang Provincial Museum to explore its exquisiteness in real life. Here I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the museum and Director of Porcelain Department Jiang Yu for their generous support. The star in our next episode will be a tricolour glazed ceramic wine vessel from the Tang Dynasty. We will explore how such artefacts are evidence of cultural exchanges between China and Central and West Asia.

how they became a symbol of China's wine culture and how they influenced the development of ancient Chinese poetry at its peak moment of glory. Please join us next time and a cup of wine will fit the occasion perfectly. Bye for now.