YUFENG DESIGN, A New Return of Chinese Porcelain Art to Europe

Porcelain has been beloved in Europe for long. At the time when Johann Friedrich Böttger, the alchemist hired by Augustus II the Strong, finally discovered the recipe with a mixture of quartz, feldspar and kaolin from Meissen in 1709, hard-paste porcelain was exclusively made in China and was almost more precious than gold in Europe. 

Fired at high temperatures of over 1300 Celsius, kaolin clay can produce very hard white porcelain, called “white gold” by the Europeans. The manufacturing process has been known to the Chinese for more than 1,500 years, presumably since the Han Dynasty around the year 206. For centuries, European royal houses spent enormous sums on these treasures from the Far East.

The history of Chinese ceramics can be traced back to the Neolithic Age. After thousands of years of technological innovation, a wide variety of ceramic crafts have been developed, including Tang Sancai, white porcelain, celadon, blue and white porcelain, and five-color porcelain.

Chinese porcelain was not only used in large quantities in the ancient court and among the normal households, but also exported to many regions include other Asian countries, the Islamic cultural circle, and the European countries. The ancient shipwrecks of the Southern Song Dynasty found in the southeast coast proved that porcelain items were already one of the main trade items at that time, as symbolic in significance as the famous silk. 

The European history of white porcelain after the discovery by Böttger, however, has been glorious. Famous brands like Meissen, Augarten, Wedgwood, Genori and Herend, to name just a few, have created huge market values based on European aesthetics. The Chinese porcelain, on the other hand, is seemingly taking a back seat. 

But the porcelain tradition in China, especially in Jingdezhen, the center of Chinese porcelain, is being continued and reshaped by innovative artists like Yu Feng. Graduated from the Porcelain University in Jingdezhen 40 years ago, he came to Austria and worked for Augarten before setting up his own studio in Vienna thirty years ago. An experienced painter and calligraph rich in both Chinese ink painting and Western oil painting, Yu Feng is finding his new passion in designing his art on porcelain. Intellectual figures, famous historical personalities, traditional Chinese landscaping with birds, fish and flora, abstract motifs with mysterious images are all within his creative realm. Represented through teapots, teacups, plates, bowls and brush holders, his porcelain art is enjoyable to the eyes, philosophical to the soul and, truly precious to possess. 

A small collection of his new works here offers a glimpse into his porcelain world. A visit to his studio is by all means worthwhile: LANTING ART SALON, Mohsgasse 26/5-6, 1030 Vienna.