Enjoyment of Art – Kunstgenuss
Chinese art is among the most outstanding art traditions in the world. It has been collected and reproduced for centuries in the western countries. People have been interested in Chinese art for a very long time, but few have tried to unterstand the true contents of it. Chinese works of art have been appreciated and collected, but the intentions of the Chinese artists are very difficult to translate into our language.
It is a kind of symbolic language that has developed specially in China. To understand it you would have to learn all about Chinese life. For centuries very hard conditions have determined the every day life of people from a day labourer or farmer to a senior official. Art thus became a way to express the great importance of harmony and peace during those hard times.
It would be presumptious to discuss the subtle Chinese art feeling with just a few sentences, and I also lack the background knowledge for this. Nevertheless I would like to try a small attempt at getting a feeling for this kind of art. How strong the wish for harmony must have inspired the Chinese artists becomes apparent in the opulent decoration of even trivial objects of daily use like planters or bonsai pots. Houses, bridges and boats are embedded in lush spring nature scenes. Integrated in this eternal “Tao” is the human being with its inner and outer contentment.
This small pot might be mistaken for a porcelain pot at first sight, but it really is a stoneware pot. The size of the pot is: height 15 cm, width 22 cm, depth 22 cm (6 x 8.5 x 8.5 in). It was probably made in IXING (red IXING clay). Since only few pots were glazed and painted in IXING, this is surely a rarity.
In the bonsai tradition the Chinese way has lead to an independent Japanese way. The western world nearly exclusively uses the Japanese examples. It is difficult for us to understand Chinese art. It is interesting that no great Japanese or western style has developed in the art of bonsai pots. Nearly all pot shapes are of Chinese origin.
Photographs: Bernd Braun
Pot from the collection of Paul Lesniewicz
Translation: Heike van Gunst
About the Author
PERMANENT ATTEMPTS,
PERMANENT FAILURE.
NEVER MIND, TRY IT AGAIN.
BETTER FAIL.
This dictum by Samuel Beckett pervades my work to a great extent. It explains very
clearly how my creative work has developed.
At the beginning I made bonsai pots just for the joy of it and now it has been more
than 30 years since I got involved with the handcrafting and spiritual depth of pottery.
I was born in 1943, am married since 1965 and have two sons and four
granddaughters. After school and some “wild years” during which I tried several
professions I served an apprenticeship for offset printing. After 25 years of
professional experience I realized that the creativity, spontaneity and the art of colour
handling in the world of printing has come to an end because of the new technologies
and machinery.
In January 1993 I risked to back out of my secure position to a job that I hoped would give more quality to my and my family’s life. As my pottery hobby ran parallel to my professional life I can build on a longtime experience in pottery and try today to fathom the last depths of this handcraft.
Bonsai pots are the book of my pottery work, consisting of clay,
written with earth and fire.
Each single pot is a page of this book, which was so much fun for me to write.
These pots provide an insight into my work.
My other hobbies have also become a profession. These are the construction of Japanese gardens and being a fitness coach with special qualification for spinal health, Pilates, Flexibar, Step-Aerobic, Stretching and Maxxf.
http://www.peter-krebs.de/
http://www.bonsaipots.net/
http://www.bonsaischalen.info/
Very good article. I agree, most people have scrolls, pots from China, but the meaning after the paintings on it, don’t we know very good. We can guess what they mean, but the exactly meaning why it’s painted in that way, we don’t know.