Etched glass painting of Nanyuan Restaurant
Lu Ziyuan
About the author: Doctor of History, Sun Yat-sen University.
Mainly engaged in regional and local history research.
Currently working in the Antiques Department of Guangdong Chongzheng Auction Co., Ltd., engaged in research and identification.
"Manchurian window" is a unique window sash decoration in Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta, and it is extremely common in the buildings of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
The official name of this technique is chromatic etching glass, formerly known as "glass mirror painting", and folks commonly known as "Manchurian window".
As for the origin of Manchuria, the most commonly heard explanation is that it was influenced by Manchu customs.
Even some scholars were misled by this and talked about the history of the Eight Banners Garrison in Guangzhou during the Qing Dynasty.
In fact, the "Manchurian Window" has nothing to do with the Eight Banners Garrison.
To solve the mystery of "Manchurian Window", no answer can be obtained from the name itself.
On the contrary, it is to take a long-term view and trace back the history of the use of flat glass in Chinese architecture to make people suddenly enlightened.
China's glass production can be traced back to the pre-Qin period, but until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was still mainly used to make utensils.
The flat glass used in the building is extremely rare.
In the 35th year of Kangxi, the court set up a glass factory in the Forbidden City.
According to various data records, the products of the glass factory are mainly glassware and optical glass for royal use, and no flat glass is produced.
According to Zhu Qingzheng's research, for a long time since the early Qing Dynasty, even the windows and doors in the Forbidden City are still dominated by paper.
It was not until the Old Summer Palace was built during the Kangxi period that flat glass was used.
In the Yongzheng dynasty, flat glass began to be used in the Forbidden City, but it was only installed in the center of a window, and the rest was still made of paper, called "an glass window eye".
It can be seen that the flat glass was quite precious at the time, because all these rare objects were imported by sea ships.
Before Qianlong's ascent to the pole, there was a poem called "Glass Window": "Western exotic goods are available, the glass is bright and repaired and thick." Imported glass is rare in large materials, so in the early Forbidden City only small pieces of glass were used to decorate the window eyes, called "Man'an glass is broken into pieces", that is, small pieces of glass are assembled into a whole glass window to completely replace paper paste.
In the middle of the Qianlong period, large blocks of glass gradually became common, and then developed into "full-use glass", that is, a window is inlaid with a whole large glass.
The so-called "Manchurian Window" in Guangzhou should actually be called "Manzhou Window", which means that the center of the window and the small grids beside it are all inlaid with glass.
At that time, the plate glass in the Forbidden City belonged to the tribute sent by European countries to China, and it entered the court after being purchased by the Guangdong Customs.
During the Kangxi period, the French merchant ship Amphitrite came to China and carried a large amount of glass, which was bought by Shi Lin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi.
Father Bai Jin, who came to China with the ship, even suggested building a glass factory in Guangzhou City to avoid damage from long-distance transportation and manufacture different sizes.
At the same time that flat glass became popular in the court, the craft of drawing patterns on glass as a decoration also developed, called glass painting.
The early glass paintings were painted directly with paints, with both traditional Chinese themes and Western customs.
The court painter Lang Shining has repeatedly asked to paint for the glass in the Old Summer Palace.
According to Jiang Yinghe's research, Guangzhou was an important production place for glass paintings in the 18th and 19th centuries, which were exported in large quantities to Europe.
At that time, Chinese and Western documents often mentioned the exquisite skills of Guangzhou craftsmen to draw glass paintings by back painting.
Observing the glass paintings handed down from the Qing Palace, it is also obvious that they have a wide-spreading style, indicating that their production was also made by Guangzhou craftsmen.
The dignitaries who lived in and out of Guangzhou at that time also kept pace with the fashion of the palace.
For example, the novel "Mirage Records", which was written during the Qianjia period to reflect the life of merchants in Guangzhou, describes the decoration of a large salt merchant's home, writing "there are long windows on three sides, the front is glass-inlaid, and both sides are rained and sunny. Cicada-wing gauze made it.” It can be seen that glass inlaid windows was a luxury at that time, but even if it was as rich as a salt merchant, the long windows could only be inlaid with glass on three sides.
But this also shows that glass inlaid windows and doors have been used in mansion gardens in Guangzhou very early.
As the demand for glass in the domestic and foreign markets increased, Guangzhou imported glass and exported glass paintings. At the end of the 18th century, Gillan, who visited China with the Macartney mission, saw glass manufacturing in Guangzhou.
An old image of Xuehaitang in the late Qing Dynasty circulated on the Internet, in which the Qixiu Mountain House building, with window frames, lined up and down, seems to have been embedded with glass.
This is evidenced by Chen Lanfu’s "Sleep in the Three Watches" in "The Story of the Mountain Hall Watching the Moon". It can be seen that during the Tongzhi period, Guangzhou architecture used glass as a window screen, which seemed to be a leisure time. Things.
The process of etched glass technology was also introduced to Guangzhou at this time.
According to the "Guangzhou City Records", a diplomat surnamed Huang learned the principles of glass carving in the United States during the Tongzhi period and brought it back to Guangzhou for trial production. The effect was successful and very popular. It quickly replaced the traditional stained glass and was very popular among officials and merchants. Welcome, not only is it used extensively in architecture, but also the subject matter of composition is quickly digested by the scholars' aesthetics, and a large number of traditional themes such as landscapes, flowers and birds, gold, stone and ancient history appear.
Like Ju Lian's work, it is often used as a copy of the glass painting.
The glass paintings produced by Guangzhou Yongshao Company have often been signed by painter Joey Yung.
The Republic of China was also the most beautiful era in Guangzhou's etching glass industry. During its heyday, Chengye Glass Mirror Painting Company had six or seven branches and more than 100 employees.
The glass mirror painting industry has declined after 1949, but its repercussions continue.
In 1957, when the famous architect Mo Bozhi presided over the construction of the Beiyuan Restaurant, he bought a batch of full-circle windows for decoration at a cheaper price than cedar doors and windows, many of which were outflows from the mansions of the gentry.
Today we can still admire many old etched glass in several famous garden restaurants in Guangzhou.
In the planned economy era, in order to preserve this traditional craft and meet export needs, the state has always organized personnel to develop it and cooperate with artists at that time.
Today, a set of etched glass on the screen door of the inner hall of the Guangzhou Cultural Relics Store includes Shen Zhongqiang's "Chrysanthemum Map" and Lu Zishu's "Landscape Map" carved by the Guangzhou Institute of Arts and Crafts, which are exquisite and elegant, not inferior to their predecessors.
The most spectacular etched glass in the city is the flower and bird four screens in the Lanpu Guoxiang Museum. On four single-plate glass sheets more than two meters long, sketches of flowers and birds of different themes are engraved, moving and static, and rich in details. It's breathtaking.
Nowadays, the price of full-week windows that have been demolished by private houses and flowed into the antique market is increasing. In the true sense, full-week windows with a heart and a complete set of themes are more sought after by collectors, but their favorites tend to be local.
Tracing back to the past and present of Man Zhou Chuang, I hope that more people will understand Man Zhou Chuang. It is not only a home decoration custom in Guangzhou, but also reflects the historical memory of Sino-Western exchanges in the maritime trade era in the past hundreds of years. .