Posts Tagged ‘earthen wares’

Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty (960-1279) is regarded as the classic period of Chinese ceramics, when simple, elegant wares decorated with attractive monochrome glazes were produced. The five “classic wares” – Ding, Jun, Ru, Guano, and Ge – were produced for imperial use, while other wares, notably Cizhou and some of the northern celadons, were made for a much wider market.
CELADONS
The most characteristic Song ceramics are the celadons, with their iron-derived, semi-translucent, usually greenish glaze. When the Song court was situated in northern China (960-1126), such centres of production as Yaozhou in Shaanxi Province became important for celadons; the most distinctive northern celadons are those with incised or moulded decoration of floral scrolls covered with an olive-green glaze. The later Longquan or southern celadon usually has a pale-grey body that shows the thick, opaque, bluish-green, slightly bubbly glaze to advantage. The best Longquan wares include archaic forms and items for the scholar’s desk, bowls, and vases. Jun wares made in Yu xian and Linru in Henan Province are thickly potted stonewares with a lavender-blue glaze often splashed with purple derived from copper oxide and, very rarely, green. Typical forms include chunky globular jars. Ru wares, the rarest and most coveted of all Song ceramics, are simple, elegant stonewares with a crackled blue-green glaze. Guan wares have light buff or dark stoneware bodies with a very thick, pale-greyish glaze that is usually strongly crackled and may be black, brown, or clear. The bodies show dark brown or black on the unglazed rims and feet.
OTHER WARES
Ding wares, made in Ding xian in Hebei Province, are fine porcellaneous stonewares with a warm ivory glaze, made in delicate shapes, including ewers and vases as well as small plates and bowls. Most flatware was fired upside down – the rims were left unglazed, and were bound with gold-coloured metal (now
patinated). Moulded decoration was introduced in the 11th cenrury; in this a reusable stoneware mould was impressed onto the hard clay, creating closely meshed designs; the earlier, more fluid, hand-carved ornament was also used. Qingbai (bluish white) wares from
Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province have a fine white porcelain body and a glassy blue glaze that tends to pool. These items are very delicate and elegant, and include thinly potted conical bowls and beautifully proportioned vases.
Fine black-glazed stonewares were produced during the Song period in Henan Province and at Jian in Jiangxi Province. Blackwares were sometimes decorated with red-brown floral designs. Cizhou wares, named after the kilns in Cizhou in Hebei Province, are sturdy stonewares with robust designs in black-and-white slip; often part of the black slip was scraped away to create a textured pattern (sgraffito), while on other wares the designs were sometimes painted on. Common shapes include “pillows” and meiping (an inverted-pear-shaped vase).
Marks
Song wares are generally unmarked, although a few stoneware moulds have survived with 12th- or 13th-century dates incised on the surface

• BODY most Song wares are stonewares, although Ding and Qinghai wares are porcellaneousSTYLE
• subtle and scholarly, in contrast to the flamboyance of the preceding Tang period and the subsequent Yuan period; from the 12th century there is a strong archaizing tendency, with a fashion for classic jade and bronze shapes
• DECORATION many Song wares are without ornament, relying for effect on the harmony between glaze and form; early Ding and northern celadons are decorated with restrained carved designs – some later wares have busier moulded floral and foliate decoration; Cizhou wares show the greatest variety of decorative techniques

Early Chinese Ceramics
By the Shang period (c.1600-c.1050) when stonewares were first produced in China, there was an advanced ceramic technology, with the separate high-fired and low-fired traditions of Chinese ceramics already apparent. The high-fired Yue stonewares produced from the 3rd century AD were the precursors of the great celadons of the Song period and represent a high level of technical and artistic achievement.
EARLY WARES
The earliest known Chinese ceramics are low-fired eathenwares dating from the Neolithic period. Distinct traditions emerged in the Central (c.5000-c.2500 BC) and Western (c.3300-c.1800 BC) Yangshao cultures and the Dawenkou culture (c.5800-c.1500 BC) in the north-east. The distinctive bulbous red Yangshao earthen wares were coil constructed and were sometimes decorated with impressed cord-like patterns or painted with bold black or purple geometric designs, often of spirals and loops enclosing checkered patterns. Dawenkou wares are thin, wheel-thrown pots made of red, grey, or black earthenware, which was burnished.
During the Shang period thick, white, unglazed pots were made of kaolin (china clay), while other fine clays were used to make stonewares, which were then glazed. A, ceramics technology developed, wares became
increasingly sophisticated; the potter’s wheel became more common, and new types of body - such as high-fired stoneware-were introduced. Forms at this time tended to be based On such bronze ritual forms as the ding and the hit. In the Han period a huge variety of wares was made, including models of houses, farms, ponds, and human figures in lead-glazed earthenware, which were all produced as funerary goods to accompany the deceased into the afterlife.
sophisticated desk ornaments, such as water droppers and brush rests in the shapes of frogs, lions, and other animals, as well as burial urns with applied models of buildings, animals, people, or Buddhist deities. Yue
wares also include more functional items, including straight-sided basins. From the second half of the 4th century ewers with characteristic “chicken-head” spouts were produced, and within about 100 years more elegant versions with taller proportions were being made. In general, later Yue wares are more graceful than earlier ones, the glaze becoming progressive less olivey and more jade-like and translucent owing to the use of finer raw materials.
TANG WARES
Some fine white-bodied wares, which led to the production Of true porcelain, were made during the Tang period, and included both glazed and unglazed wares. The glaze on Tang wares is particularly distinctive as it has a bright, glassy appearance. In the low-fired range the most characteristic wares of the period are the sancai (”three colour”) wares, namely earthenware vessels and models made as tomb goods, decorated
with runny lead-fluxed glazes coloured green, chestnut,
amber, cream, and, later, blue. Vessels are typically squat
and rounded, and include jars, vases, and bowls. Decoration was Moulded or painted with spotted designs based on contemporary textile patterns. Figures include tomb guardians (whose faces were often left unglazed and painted with coloured pigments after firing), camels, and horses. Because these wares have been buried for such long periods they are usually relatively undamaged; nevertheless, they can be very reasonably priced.
Principal Chinese dynasties
Shang (c.1600-c.1050 BC) Song (960-1279)
Zhou (c.1050-256 BC) Yuan (1279-1368)
Han (206 BC-AD 220) Ming (1368-1644)
Tang (618-907) Qing 1644-1911
Neolithic wares
• BODY red, grey, or black earthenwareFORMS
• funeral jars, cooking utensils, and ewers
• DECORATION cord-like patterns; bold painted designs
YUE WARES
Grey-bodied stonewares covered with a green-grey glaze were made in the Yue district in northern Zhejiang Province from the 3rd or 4th century AD until the 10th or 11th century, when they Isere superseded by the famous Longquan celadons. Yuc wares are exceptionally fine and were presented as tribute at the Tang court as well as being exported to South-East Asia and the Near East. Early Yue wares include
Yue wares
• BODY stoneware
• FORMS desk ornaments (water droppers, brush rests, etc); “chicken-head” ewers; bowls and jars
• GLAZE green-grey with an olive tinge in early wares
• DI CORATION incised decoration and applied figures
and modelling on desk ornaments and burial urns
Tang sancai wares
• BODY earthenware
• GLAZE lead-fluxed green, amber, brown, cream, blue
• DECORATION Pots re-create woven textile patterns; horses have superbly modelled tack