Canton Trading Commerce, Kwon-glazed plate with the design of Six Deer, 1910.
Diameter: 25.9cm
This artwork by Giao Jianseng 高劍僧 [1] was a combination of the Lingnan school painting (animals as a usual subject), Lingnan porcelain drawing skills and Sun Yat-sen’s revolutions. Towards the end of the Qing, Kang Youwei (康有為) advocated the use of materials to save our country and revitalize the Chinese porcelain making industry. The Canton Trading Commerce, holding the same belief, exported their wares to foreign countries as a mean to collect financial resources to support their revolution.
Founded by Gao Jianfu, Chen Shuren and other Guangzhou united league members, at daytime the kiln sites at Canton Trading Commerce (廣東博物商會) disguised as a porcelain making industry, but at nights the united league would experiment with bomb-making as to cover the illegal and underground activities[2].
In this artifact, the Canton Trading Commerce injected Chinese literati brushstrokes, employed non-landscape content and used stronger colors to paint. As it was quite different from the conventional Cantonese enamel, some people criticized that in a strict sense it had no connection to the Guangcai technique or metallic color, but were just porcelains made in Guangzhou area. Yet Lau Chiyuen 劉致遠 (one of the Lingnan school disciples) opposed in a newspaper that “not only very rich color defines Guangcai. If only people know about the story of revolution, it’s easier for them to remember the Guangcai industry[3].”
[1] 廣東省博物館,《廣東省博物館藏陶瓷選》。北京:文物出版社,1992年9月。
[2] 曾應楓、龔伯洪主編,《廣東民間藝術大掃描》。哈爾賓:黑龍江人民出版社,2004年6月,頁156。
[3] 信息日報 (2011年10月8日)。「廣彩大師:晝畫瓷器 夜制炸藥」。<http://informationtimes.dayoo.com/html/2011-10/08/content_1494479.htm>