Page 129 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

produce beautiful and flawless wares. Technological
mastery gave free rein to creativity and allowed the
potters to concentrate on detail and subtle
variation. The most important ceramic wares ot the
Song all developed from the three basic types of
stoneware made in the Tang: those with green,
clear, and black glazes.
Song shapes are almost invariably simple, functional,
and well proportioned. Song vessels tend to be
monochrome-glazed in subtle, rarely seen shades
rather than bright primary colors. Often they are
wholly undecorated, or have surfaces modestly
enlivened by the faint tonal gradations created by
incised or carved designs, or by the random
patterns formed by a crackle, the decorative crazing
of the glaze that can occur during the cooling
process after firing.
The most admired features of Song ceramics look
as if they had come about naturally, without all the
effort and precision work that they in fact require.
Only an intimate familiarity with the properties of
all raw materials and a thorough understanding of
their reactions during the firing cycle enabled
potters to manipulate them as they wished.
The appeal of perfected simplicity achieved
through exquisite craftsmanship is very subtle
indeed. Ceramic masterpieces of the Song were not
made for ostentatious display, but for handling by
connoisseurs in an intimate, private setting. It was
in the literati circles of the Song that ceramics were
first appreciated as works of art, that they were
deemed worth collecting, whether antique or new,
and worth handing down trom one generation to
the next.
Although the preference for artifacts made of clay
over precious metals or stones probably emanated
from the literati circles of the Song, where
understatement was a celebrated virtue, the
Ofimperial court manifested a similar taste. course,
not all the vast and varied Song wares were
officially appreciated, but some were made
Noexclusively for the court. comparable
production of goods worked from gold or silver, or
from jade or other stones exists for this period.
Through their absolute mastery of the technical
process and their acute sense of aesthetic principles
the potters, none of whom is known by name, were
able to manipulate their medium so sensitively and
intelligently that they turned one of the most basic
— —raw materials earth into one of the most
precious commodities.
By tar the rarest and most desirable Chinese
ceramics of all times were and are the green-glazed
stonewares from the Ru kilns in Baofene county.
CERAMICS IN CHINA: MAKING TREASURES FROM EARTH
Henan Province (cat. 132), close to the capital at
Kaifeng. They were made for the court for only
some twenty years in the last two decades of the
eleventh and first years of the twelfth century. Only
some sixty examples have survived today, but
collectors have lamented their rarity for centuries.
RuMost wares are accessories for the scholar's
desk, such as brush washers (low bowls for cleaning
the writing or painting brush). They are extremely
simple, evenly and thinly potted, and almost
Ruinvariably undecorated. wares are fully glazed
(including foot and base), having been placed in the
kiln on supports that left only minute so-called
sesame-seed marks on the glaze. The ware is
celebrated above all for its tactile glaze in varying
evocative shades of bluish and grayish green, usually
with a crackle. The comparison with well-polished,
well-colored, slightly veined jade is inevitable.
When the northern capital was captured by the Jin
invaders and the Song fled south in 1127, they set
up kilns at their new capital in present-day
Hangzhou to make an "official" (guan) ware
(cat. 133) modeled on Ru. Using the different raw
materials of the south, the potters came up with a
ware that appeals for the same reasons but looks
different, having a thicker, clearer glaze and a more
pronounced crackle. Guan and Ru wares represent
—the epitome of Chinese ceramics the
transformation of earth as a medium into a
substance deemed more beautiful and more
precious than the most valuable materials.
Since these two wares could not easily be obtained
except by the imperial palace, their beauty was
emulated by other kilns. "Celadon," as green-glazed
stonewares are usually called in the West, was in fact
in seemingly limitless supply. IS The Yaozhou kilns in
Shaanxi Province in the north were stylistically less
immediately dependent on Ru; their wares bear
swiftly incised, carved, or combed designs (cat. 130).
But the Longquan kilns in Zhejiang Province in
the south clearly aimed at imitating Guan (cat. 134).
Some Longquan celadons do this so successfully
that they were, and sometimes still are. mistaken for
Guan ware."'
Among the white wares are two remarkable types
of similar quality and style: both have .1 finely
potted white body; clear, translucent glaze: and
accomplished, swiftly carved designs. Ding ware
(cat. 131 and its predecessors, cats. [28, [29), from
Hebei Province in the north, has a characteristic
ivory-tinged glaze and was used at the court. But
the so-called qingbai ("bluish white'") ware, whu li
has a blue-tinged clear glaze (cat. 135) and came
from fingdezhen injiangxi Province in the south,
was never highly appreciated, h was the Jingdezhen
kilns, however, that were lo establish a virtual
monopoly on Chinese ceramics with their
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