When President Xi Jinping took on a state visit to France in March 2019, one of the national gifts presented to French President Emmanuel Macron was a famille rose globular shaped vase from Jingdezhen, Jiangxi. The four sides of the vase are painted with the Great Wall, the Arc de Triomphe, panda and Gallic rooster, four distinctive cultural symbols of China and France, highlighting the long-standing friendship between the two countries. Zhou Guosheng, a young artist from Jingdezhen, one of the painters of the national gift, painted panda and Gallic rooster.
Jingdezhen porcelain is often used as national gift for the long history, exquisite skills and elegance. Since the Song Dynasty, Jingdezhen porcelain has traveled all over the world along the Silk Road, witnessing the friendly exchanges between China and foreign countries. The proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative has pushed this to a new height. As the courtesy of making friends, Jingdezhen porcelain, combined with traditional and modern characteristics, is one of the most distinctive cultural symbols of China's exchanges with the world today, Zhou Guosheng said in a recent interview with Jiangxi Daily International Communication Center in Jingdezhen.
Zhou Guosheng, specialized in porcelain paintings of animals, plants, landscapes, figures and other themes, is a senior arts and crafts artist in Jiangxi Province and an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage skills. As the Chinese Dream and Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping, he realized that the traditional porcelain paintings themed on flowers and birds have to be innovated in classical techniques and forms and reflect the spirit of the times. Only in this way can they show an improving modern China to the world, and express the good wish of peaceful coexistence and common development between China and other countries in the world.
Therefore, the Dream series of porcelain paintings, based with blue glaze and themed on white magnolia, have become Zhou Guosheng's representative work in recent years and attracted much attention. The thriving white magnolia flowers are full of vigor and vitality, which form a bright and pleasing contrast with the large area of blue glaze, symbolizing the major trends of peace and development in the world today. Flowers are connected by crisscrossing branches, representing the strengthening of unity and close cooperation among countries around the world, and building a harmonious world of common prosperity.
Over the past decade, the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative has fully realized from concept to action, from vision to reality, leading the construction of a new model of global interconnection and opening up a new path of common prosperity and development. The spirit contained in Zhou Guosheng's Dream series of porcelain paintings coincides with this. He said that he has weighty tasks to complete as a new generation of artists in Jingdezhen. He will continue to improve the Dream series of porcelain paintings, interpret the spirit of times by porcelain such as the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Chinese Dream, spread the beauty of China and integrate Chinese Dream to the world.
