Page 120 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

functions was to supply the imperial court with
pottery utensils, as well as to provide burial objects
for the court to bestow on deceased officials at
their funerals. Burial objects could be made of
wood as well as pottery. Many of the pieces of
white porcelain marked with the word guan have
been unearthed from the tombs of high officials
and aristocrats. Hence Ding pieces inscribed guan
might very well have been ordered from the Ding
kilns by theYinguanshu to serve as burial objects.
Reinforcing this hypothesis, we know that during
the Tang, Five Dynasties, and Northern Song many
pieces of porcelain were marked with the name of
the agency that had ordered them.
Although the Five Dynasties lasted altogether only
fifty brief years, they have an important place in the
history of ceramics. During these years Ding ware,
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE CERAMICS
Fig. 5. Five-footed brush washer. Southern Song dynasty
(1127— 1279). Ge ware; h. 9.2 cm, diam. at mouth S.8 cm.
Shanghai Museum.
Fig. 6. Footed brush washer. Northern Song dynasty
(960— 1127). Jun ware; h. 9 cm, diam. at mouth 24.3 cm.
Shanghai Museum.
in the north, developed toward its apex in the
Northern Song. In the south, Yue ware reached its
peak. In the northwest, potters of the Yaozhou kilns
in Shaanxi, building on the successes of Yue ware,
worked toward the creation of a truer green glaze;
these Five Dynasties potters accomplished the
transition from the varied green glazes of the Tang
to the more uniform blue-green of the Northern
Song. It was also during the Five Dynasties that the