Chen Wenzeng
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
He is a national representative bearer of Ding Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a Master of Arts and Crafts of China, an expert receiving the special government allowance of the State Council and a National Model Worker. He has devoted forty years to the study and revival of the Ding kiln, bringing back to the world the wares of a famous historical kiln that had been lost for a thousand years. He is skilled in the design of Ding porcelain forms and in their decorative art; combining the Ding kiln's incised and carved floral art with the art of Chinese calligraphy, he invented three Ding-kiln carving knives: the single-line knife, the double-line knife and the grouped-line knife. His works use the Ding kiln's fine white clay, and the decoration on the vessel bodies employs the Ding kiln's traditional carved floral idiom; the knife work is limpid and steady, the flowering branches sway, and the method of the mind is visible within the carving. The vessels are formed by the traditional wheel-throwing technique, in which release and restraint seem to hold a rhythm, and the turning of the lathe brings forth liveliness on the surface. His work Si Hai Cheng Xiang (Auspicious Signs Across the Four Seas) has been permanently collected by the Great Hall of the People as a national-treasure-grade piece. He has published several monographs, including Dingyao Yanjiu (Studies of the Ding Kiln).
Honors & Recognition
Male, Han ethnicity, born in March 1954, died in June 2016, a native of Quyang County, Hebei Province. In 2006 he received the Special Achievement Award for the Revival and Development of China's Famous Ceramic Kilns from the China Ceramic Industrial Association.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。