Vase with unglazed medallions,here using moulds and a resist technique,14th century.Group of 13th-century vessels
Longquan celadon (龙泉青瓷,lung-tsh'wahn[citation needed]) is a type of green-glazed Chinese ceramic,known in the West as celadon or greenware,produced from about 950 to 1550. The kilns were mostly in Lishui prefecture in southwestern Zhejiang Province in the south of China,and the north of Fujian Province. Overall a total of some 500 kilns have been discovered,[2] making the Longquan celadon production area one of the largest historical ceramic producing areas in China. "Longquan-type" is increasingly preferred as a term,in recognition of this diversity,or simply "southern celadon",[3] as there was also a large number of kilns in north China producing Yaozhou ware or other Northern Celadon wares. These are similar in many respects,but with significant differences to Longquan-type celadon,and their production rose and declined somewhat earlier.[4]
Celadon production had a long history at Longquan and related sites,but it was not until the Northern Song (960–1127) period that large-scale production began,and the move of the capital to Hangzhou,close to Longquan,after the start of the Southern Song (1127–1279),was probably important in the great expansion of both quality and production there. Both continued at high levels in the Yuan (1271–1368) and the early part of the Ming (1368–1644) periods. Longquan celadons were an important part of China's export economy for over five hundred years,and were widely imitated in other countries,especially Korea and Japan. Their demise came after they were overtaken in their markets by blue and white porcelain from Jingdezhen.
In traditional Western terms,most celadons are strictly counted as stoneware,since the fired clay body is usually neither white nor translucent.[5] In the traditional Chinese classification,which divides pottery into low-fired earthenware and high-fired porcelain,they count as porcelain. Compromise terms such as "porcellanous stoneware" may be used to describe the pieces,[6] and some Western writers consider the wares should be "regarded as porcelains".[7]
The Longquan celadons were among the finest of a range of celadon wares produced in China,and led stylistic and technical developments. The celadons were produced in a range of shades of colour,centred on olive-green,but extending to greenish blues (regarded as desirable,but less common) and browns. All these colours come from the glaze;the body beneath is sometimes left partly unglazed as part of the decoration,when it fires to a terracotta brown. The wares are hardly ever painted;decoration comes from the vessel shape and carved or incised designs in the body. Shapes were originally mostly simple,allowing the glaze colour to create the main effect of a piece,but in later periods raised decoration was common.
Technical aspects and decoration
The body of Longquan celadon,as seen in fragments under glaze,varies from "a heavy,compact grey stoneware to an almost white porcellaneous material",but where fired at the surface this turns to a typical terracotta reddish brown,seen at the unglazed foot of many pieces,and when relief decoration is left unglazed (see below and illustration). This distinguishes Longquan from Northern Celadons. However,this may not be the case in pieces made from the most whitish,porcellanous,material,where the fired body may also "be translucent if thin enough".[8] In Western sources,individual pieces are normally classified as stoneware,but some may be called porcelain;[9] material translated from the Chinese is likely to describe all as "porcelain".[10]
The body was normally thrown on the potter's wheel,with large vases often thrown in sections and luted together. Templates were used,and sometimes moulds,including two-part moulds,and moulds including decoration. Unglazed biscuit relief sections were achieved either by sprigging the reliefs over a glazed area before firing,where the surface would be flat in the kiln,or by adding a resist of wax or grease before glazing,when the sides of a vase were decorated.[11]
The glaze colours vary across a wide spectrum of greyish to blueish greens,with some yellowish browns as well.[12] The colour comes from iron oxide fired in a reducing atmosphere,and the colour varies with the temperature and the strength and timing of the reduction. Longquan celadon was fired in long dragon kilns,brick tunnels rising up a slope,with a series of chambers,and the best results came from the pots in the uppermost stages,which heated up more slowly and evenly. Saggars were always used,and the longer kilns,with up to twelve chambers,might have been able to fire as many as 25,000 pieces at a time. The firing temperature was probably between 1,180°C and 1,280°C,with the range over 1,250°C giving the best green or blue colours.[13] In some cases at least there appear to have been layers of glaze and also multiple firings to achieve a deeper glaze effect.[14]
The glaze is made opaque by the presence of plant ash and tiny bubbles of gas,which give a lustrous effect. With the whiter body clays pieces may be translucent.[15] The pronounced reddish colour of unglazed areas comes from the end of the firing,as the heated clay comes in contact with fresh air let into the kiln,and the iron present turns into ferrous oxide.[16] Many pieces have crazing or crackle in the glaze,but much less than in the closely related Guan ware. A technique sometimes found before about 1400 was to add spots or splashes of a mixture rich in iron oxide with an appearance of randomness;these fired a dark brown.[17]
Both Chinese and Japanese tradition have developed a range of terms to describe the glaze colours and qualities;some of the Japanese ones have the advantage of being anchored to specific pieces in Japan. The term kinuta (砧青瓷) meaning "mallet",probably after a particular mallet vase,represents the most admired blue-green colour from the Song period,and is often used in English,while tenryūji has a "a faint yellowish-green tone",and is from the Yuan and Ming. The shickikan type is from the middle Ming,after the glaze became more transparent.[18] As with other celadons,for the Chinese the similarity of the colour to jade,always the most prestigious material in Chinese art,was an important factor in their appeal,and something the potters attempted to increase.[19]
Most shapes are simple but very elegant. The size and decoration of larger fine pieces increases from the Yuan onwards,with some very large vases and lidded wine jars being made by the 14th century. The "mallet" vase was a special favourite at Longquan,often with handles formed as animals or dragons.[20] Funerary vases,made in pairs,also often feature charmingly stylized animals,usually tigers and dragons,curled around the shoulders of the vessel. These were used in southern Chinese burial custom to store provisions for the afterlife.[21] Another distinct Longquan style was a dish with two or more fishes in low relief swimming in the centre,either in biscuit or glazed;these sometimes have holes drilled for metal handles,as mentioned in a late 14th-century source.[22]
In general,Longquan decoration tends to project from the body,and the effects that Northern Celadon gets from glaze pooling over shallow carving into the body are less common. Earlier pieces are content with subtle glaze effects,often accentuated by the glaze thinning over small ridges or ribs,[23] while later pieces have more elaborate floral scrolls or animals in relief.[24] Religious figurines and shrines were rare before the Yuan,and never a large part of production;as in Qingbai,these sometimes mix biscuit,for the flesh or figure,with a glazed background.[25]
Vase with iron spot decoration,Yuan
"Mallet" vase with stylized animal handles,Southern Song,12th century
Pair of funerary lidded vases with animals;left,tiger chasing a dog,right,dragon chasing a pearl,Southern Song
dish with sprigged fish in biscuit,and effects from glaze collecting in the incised decoration,Yuan,14th century
Dish with a dragon in the center
Markets and later collecting
"Blueish green" celadon with applied peony scroll design,Southern Song dynasty,13th century AD
Unlike Northern Celadon,Longquan ware does not seem to have been used by the imperial court under the Song,[26] although Longquan kilns were used to make the "official" Guan ware,apparently when the Guan kilns could not cope with orders.[27] An important market seems to have been the literati or scholar-gentleman class. As well as wares for ordinary use,they were used on altars and sometimes in burials. Many shapes,especially in the early period,were based on ancient ritual bronze shapes,which were considered appropriate to religious functions,though these lacked the complex surface decoration of the bronze originals. These were also exported in great numbers and,at least in South-East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea,these associations could also be appreciated by local literati,and indeed clergy,as many of the best survivals are in temples.[28]
Japan was a large-scale and enthusiastic importer,and the beach at Kamakura,the capital during the height of Longquan production,had some 50,000 Longquan sherds,thought to have been broken pieces dumped at the end of the voyage from China. Japan soon began to imitate Longquan wares,and has continued to do so,both in mass-produced and studio pottery versions.[29]
There were also large quantities exported west to the Islamic world,and one of the most important collections today is the 1,300 pieces surviving from the collection of the Ottoman Emperors,most now in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.[30] Their worth was increased by a belief in the Middle East and Europe that the pieces would break or change colour if poison was placed on them.[31] Fragments have also been found along the East African coast,as far south as Kenya and Tanzania.[32]
A very few pieces reached Europe by trade or diplomatic gifts from Islamic countries,and were sometimes given elaborate metalwork mounts,turning them into goblets.[33] Only three surviving Chinese ceramic pieces can be documented as reaching Europe before 1500. Of these,the earliest is the Fonthill Vase (now Dublin),which is qingbai porcelain,but the other two are Longquan celadon.[34] In 1487 Lorenzo de' Medici was presented with a Longquan dish by Qaitbay,the MamlukSultan of Egypt. The Katzenelnbogen bowl was bought by an aristocratic German pilgrim in the Holy Land in 1433/34,who on his return had it given a cover and mounts in gilded silver (now Kassel).[35] The Longquan Warham Bowl,traditionally given to New College,Oxford by William Warham,Archbishop of Canterbury by 1532 (now loaned to the Ashmolean Museum),is perhaps a little later,from around 1500,and was given elaborate mounts in gold once in England.[36]
History
Southern Song Dynasty,13th Century,NantoyōsōCollection,Japan,with crackle.Foliate Dish with Bovine (Xiniu) Gazing at a Crescent Moon,Yuan dynasty,late 13th century. Art Institute of Chicago
In the Northern Song period the Dayao (大窯) kiln site near Longquan city alone produced wares at twenty-three separate kilns;with Jincun nearby,these appear to have been the largest kiln complexes,and produced the best wares.[37] The era of greatest ceramic production was not until the Southern Song (1127–1279),then continuing in the Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) periods.
A key event in the rise of Longquan celadon was the flight of the remaining Northern Song court to the south,after they lost control of the north in the disastrous Jin-Song wars of the 1120s. A new Southern Song court was based in Hangzhou,close to Longquan.[38] The Northern Celadon kilns declined as Longquan greatly expanded production.[39] Longquan wares were not from one of the Five Great Kilns later grouped by Chinese connoisseurs,and are rarely mentioned in early writing on the subject,although in the Qing dynasty careful imitations were made.
A story repeated in many sources from the Yuan onwards,with uncertain significance,tells of two brothers called Zhang,both Longquan potters,perhaps in the Southern Song,though this is unclear. The elder brother developed a very special type of ware;rightly or wrongly the later sources say this was distinguished by crackled glaze,and Ge ware (meaning "elder brother ware") is supposed to be this type. The younger brother also developed a fine style of pottery,which is often taken to be the best quality early Longquan ware.[40]
The Southern Song period saw the finest quality,and a great range of colours,as well as a great expansion of production. A count in 1988 by a Chinese archaeologist of the starts of new kilns gave 39 from the Northern Song,61 from the Southern Song,and over 70 from the Yuan. The percentage figures for those still producing in the 20th century were 23%,<10% and <5%,indicating a bubble of over-production,which only the strongest kilns survived.[41]
Quality declined during the 14th century,although initially production and exports continued to grow. By the middle of the century Jingdezhen ware was being made as blue and white porcelain,and this spectacular new ware gradually replaced Longquan celadon in many of its markets. Floods and war seem to have brought some kilns to an abrupt end;some excavated kilns lie deep under soil deposited in flooding. However,even the stoutly potted celadons of the Ming period have had their imitators at Jingdezhen and in Japan. A sunken trade vessel was found in Sinan County off the Korean coast in 1976,whose cargo included over 9,600 pieces of celadon from the Yuan period,though not of the highest quality. These were probably bound for Japan;there was a single religious statuette.[42] Sunk in 1323,[43] the finds made it clear that Song types had continued to be produced later than was thought.[44]
Longquan celadon enjoyed a final period of high achievement under the early Ming dynasty,when it was an official kiln operated by and for the court. The floral decorative designs were very similar to those in contemporary Jingdezhen blue and white and also court lacquerwork,suggesting that pattern books were supplied from the centre by court artists. Shapes included large flat dishes that were very difficult to fire. By around the mid-15th century the court ceased its orders,and the decline of the kilns resumed.[45] By the late Ming few kilns survived,and they mostly produced utilitarian wares such as tiles and water pots,as the area continues to do.[46]
From the twentieth century native and foreign enthusiasts and scholars have visited the kiln sites and excavated there. Among modern Chinese scholars,the main kiln sites were first systematically investigated by Chen Wanli in 1928 and 1934,after the sites had been excavated by speculators and art-dealers since 1916.[47]
↑ Krahl and Harrison-Hall, 13; Gompertz, 158 has "over 200 kiln sites" showing the pace of Chinese archaeology in recent decades, and perhaps counting groups rather than individual kilns; Medley, 147, on their locations
↑ Gompertz, 22 quoted; Medley, 146 describes them as "stoneware and porcellanous ware".
↑ Vainker, 108 (quoted); Clunas, 284-285 refers to celadons as porcelain, but not consistently.
↑ Medley, 147; Grove: "The body of Longquan celadon is a light grey stoneware, sometimes reaching the quality of a pure white porcelain".
↑ Compare the text and captions at Clunas 284-285, fig. 250 is called "stoneware", fig. 251 (the Katzenelnbogen bowl) "porcelain". Both are Longquan celadon of 1400-50.
↑ For example Fang, Lili, Chinese Ceramics, 45-47, 2011, Cambridge University Press, ISBN052118648X, 9780521186483, google books
↑ Gompertz, 156; The British Museum says of the pair illustrated below: "These funerary urns are decorated with two ‘animals of the four directions’, called 'siling 四靈' in Chinese. The White Tiger of the West is pursuing a dog and the Green Dragon of the East is chasing a flaming pearl. The birds on the covers may allude to the Red Bird of the South; but the symbol of the north, a tortoise with a snake, is not present. In China, artists decorated coffins and tombs with these creatures from the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) onwards. These jars stored provisions for the afterlife such as grain and are part of local southern burial practice."
↑ Vainker, 110-111, though see Valenstein, 99, and Clunas, 97, 100, 229, where court patronage is said to have ended with the reign of the Xuande Emperor (d. 1435); Krahl and Harrison-Hall, 44 say (of the Southern Song) "The Longquan kilns were non-official kilns whose workers nevertheless made ceramics for the imperial household ...", repeated by the British Museum
Stoneware is a broad term for pottery fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. End applications include tableware, decorative ware such as vases.
Celadon is a term for pottery denoting both wares glazed in the jade green celadon color, also known as greenware or "green ware", and a type of transparent glaze, often with small cracks, that was first used on greenware, but later used on other porcelains. Celadon originated in China, though the term is purely European, and notable kilns such as the Longquan kiln in Zhejiang province are renowned for their celadon glazes. Celadon production later spread to other parts of East Asia, such as Japan and Korea, as well as Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand. Eventually, European potteries produced some pieces, but it was never a major element there. Finer pieces are in porcelain, but both the color and the glaze can be produced in stoneware and earthenware. Most of the earlier Longquan celadon is on the border of stoneware and porcelain, meeting the Chinese but not the European definitions of porcelain.
"Blue and white pottery" covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration was commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stencilling or by transfer-printing, though other methods of application have also been used. The cobalt pigment is one of the very few that can withstand the highest firing temperatures that are required, in particular for porcelain, which partly accounts for its long-lasting popularity. Historically, many other colours required overglaze decoration and then a second firing at a lower temperature to fix that.
Ding ware, Ting ware or Dingyao are Chinese ceramics, mostly porcelain, that were produced in the prefecture of Dingzhou in Hebei in northern China. The main kilns were at Jiancicun or Jianci in Quyang County. They were produced between the Tang and Yuan dynasties of imperial China, though their finest period was in the 11th century, under the Northern Song. The kilns "were in almost constant operation from the early eighth until the mid-fourteenth century."
Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court and for export.
Sprigging or sprigged decoration is a technique for decorating pottery with low relief shapes made separately from the main body and applied to it before firing. Usually thin press moulded shapes are applied to greenware or bisque. The resulting pottery is termed sprigged ware, and the added piece is a "sprig". The technique may also be described by terms such as "applied relief decoration", especially in non-European pottery.
Jun ware is a type of Chinese pottery, one of the Five Great Kilns of Song dynasty ceramics. Despite its fame, much about Jun ware remains unclear, and the subject of arguments among experts. Several different types of pottery are covered by the term, produced over several centuries and in several places, during the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), and lasting into the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
Shiwan ware is Chinese pottery from kilns located in the Shiwanzhen Subdistrict of the provincial city of Foshan, near Guangzhou, Guangdong. It forms part of a larger group of wares from the coastal region known collectively as "Canton stonewares". The hilly, wooded, area provided slopes for dragon kilns to run up, and fuel for them, and was near major ports.
Jingdezhen porcelain is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province in southern China. Jingdezhen may have produced pottery as early as the sixth century CE, though it is named after the reign name of Emperor Zhenzong, in whose reign it became a major kiln site, around 1004. By the 14th century it had become the largest centre of production of Chinese porcelain, which it has remained, increasing its dominance in subsequent centuries. From the Ming period onwards, official kilns in Jingdezhen were controlled by the emperor, making imperial porcelain in large quantity for the court and the emperor to give as gifts.
Qingbai ware is a type of Chinese porcelain produced under the Song dynasty and Yuan dynasty, defined by the ceramic glaze used. Qingbai ware is white with a blue-greenish tint, and is also referred to as Yingqing. It was made in Jiangxi province in south-eastern China, in several locations including Jingdezhen, and is arguably the first type of porcelain to be produced on a very large scale. However, it was not at the time a prestigious ware, and was mostly used for burial wares and exports, or a middle-rank Chinese market. The quality is very variable, reflecting these different markets; the best pieces can be very thin-walled.
Chinese influences on Islamic pottery cover a period starting from at least the 8th century CE to the 19th century. The influence of Chinese ceramics on Islamic pottery has to be viewed in the broader context of the considerable importance of Chinese culture on Islamic arts in general.
Cizhou ware or Tz'u-chou ware is a wide range of Chinese ceramics from between the late Tang dynasty and the early Ming dynasty, but especially associated with the Northern Song to Yuan period in the 11–14th century. It has been increasingly realized that a very large number of sites in northern China produced these wares, and their decoration is very variable, but most characteristically uses black and white, in a variety of techniques. For this reason Cizhou-type is often preferred as a general term. All are stoneware in Western terms, and "high-fired" or porcelain in Chinese terms. They were less high-status than other types such as celadons and Jun ware, and are regarded as "popular", though many are finely and carefully decorated.
Guan ware or Kuan ware is one of the Five Famous Kilns of Song dynasty China, making high-status stonewares, whose surface decoration relied heavily on crackled glaze, randomly crazed by a network of crack lines in the glaze.
Jizhou ware or Chi-chou ware is Chinese pottery from Jiangxi province in southern China; the Jizhou kilns made a number of different types of wares over the five centuries of production. The best known wares are simple shapes in stoneware, with a strong emphasis on subtle effects in the dark glazes, comparable to Jian ware, but often combined with other decorative effects. In the Song dynasty they achieved a high prestige, especially among Buddhist monks and in relation to tea-drinking. The wares often use leaves or paper cutouts to create resist patterns in the glaze, by leaving parts of the body untouched.
The Five Great Kilns, also known as Five Famous Kilns, is a generic term for ceramic kilns or wares which produced Chinese ceramics during the Song dynasty (960–1279) that were later held in particularly high esteem. The group were only so called by much later writers, and of the five, only two seem to have produced wares directly ordered by the Imperial court, though all can be of very high quality. All were imitated later, often with considerable success.
Ru ware, Ju ware, or "Ru official ware" is a famous and extremely rare type of Chinese pottery from the Song dynasty, produced for the imperial court for a brief period around 1100. Fewer than 100 complete pieces survive, though there are later imitations which do not entirely match the originals. Most have a distinctive pale "duck-egg" blue glaze, "like the blue of the sky in a clearing amongst the clouds after rain" according to a medieval connoisseur, and are otherwise undecorated, though their colours vary and reach into a celadon green. The shapes include dishes, probably used as brush-washers, cups, wine bottles, small vases, and censers and incense-burners. They can be considered as a particular form of celadon wares.
Yaozhou ware is a type of celadon or greenware in Chinese pottery, which was at its height during the Northern Song dynasty. It is the largest and typically the best of the wares in the group of Northern Celadon wares. It is especially famous for the rich effects achieved by decoration in shallow carving under a green celadon glaze which sinks into the depressions of the carving giving contrasts of light and dark shades.
Ge ware or Ko ware is a type of celadon or greenware in Chinese pottery. It was one of the Five Great Kilns of the Song dynasty recognised by later Chinese writers, but has remained rather mysterious to modern scholars, with much debate as to which surviving pieces, if any, actually are Ge ware, whether they actually come from the Song, and where they were made. In recognition of this, many sources call all actual pieces Ge-type ware.
A dragon kiln or "climbing kiln", is a traditional Chinese form of kiln, used for Chinese ceramics, especially in southern China. It is long and thin, and relies on having a fairly steep slope, typically between 10° and 16°, up which the kiln runs. The kiln could achieve the very high temperatures, sometimes as high as 1400 °C, necessary for high-fired wares including stoneware and porcelain, which long challenged European potters, and some examples were very large, up to 60 metres long, allowing up to 25,000 pieces to be fired at a time. By the early 12th century CE they might be over 135 metres long, allowing still larger quantities to be fired; more than 100,000 have been claimed.
Doucai is a technique in painting Chinese porcelain, where parts of the design, and some outlines of the rest, are painted in underglaze blue, and the piece is then glazed and fired. The rest of the design is then added in overglaze enamels of different colours and the piece fired again at a lower temperature of about 850°C to 900°C.
"Grove": Oxford Art Online, "China, §VIII, 3: Ceramics: Historical development", various authors
Krahl, Regina and Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection, 2009, British Museum, ISBN0714124540, 9780714124544
Massing, Jean Michel, in Levinson, Jay A. (ed), Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, 1991, Yale UP/National Gallery of Art, ISBN0300051670, google books
Medley, Margaret, The Chinese Potter: A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics, 3rd edition, 1989, Phaidon, ISBN071482593X
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
