Page 48 - Song Ceramics Lunyushanren Collection March 2018 NYC

INSPIRATIONAL CERAMICS:

CIZHOU WARES FROM THE LINYUSHANREN COLLECTION

Rosemary Scott, Senior International Academic Consultant

The term Cizhou ware 磁州窯 refers to the products of a number of kilns
in north China. The name derives from the area of Cizhou in modern
day Cixian 磁縣 in southern Hebei province, in which some of the major
kiln sites manufacturing these wares were located. These Cizhou wares
have body material that is usually fred to stoneware temperature, and is
not white, but a variant of greyish-buff in colour. They also share the use
of slip, which was used to cover the body material – masking its colour
- and could also be used in a range of innovative decorative techniques.
The majority of Cizhou wares are covered with a thin, colourless glaze,
which enhances the decoration, although a small percentage have a
copper-green glaze or a copper-turquoise glaze. There are also two
polychrome groups – one of which derived its inspiration from Tang
sancai 三彩 wares, while the other appears to provide China’s frst use of
overglaze enamels. Generally, Cizhou wares are distinguished by bold,
simple shapes and inventive decoration, which to modern eyes often
gives them a remarkably contemporary appearance. They enjoyed great
popularity in China and Japan, and provided inspiration for potters not
only in East Asia, but at much greater distance both geographically and
temporally.
An interesting discovery was made in 1951 by the Chinese scholar Chen
Wanli 陳萬里 and published in his 1955 volume Songdai beifang minjian
ciqi 宋代北方民間瓷器, which concentrated on Cizhou wares and related
black-glazed wares from kiln sites in Cixian and Dingxian. Chen Wanli
discovered a stele at Dangyangyu 當陽峪 in Xiuwuxian 修武縣, Henan
province. The stele had come from a temple built in honour of a kiln god
德應侯 Deyinghou, whose given name was Bolin 柏林. The inscription
gave the date of the founding of the temple as AD 1100, and the date of
the erection of the stele as AD 1105. The inscription had been copied
from that on another stele, dated to AD 1084, at Yaojun 耀郡 (modern
Yaozhou 耀州), in Shaanxi province, in an area in which white wares
and black wares were made as early as the Tang dynasty. The Yaojun
stele inscription identifed Bolin, whose family name is unknown, as a
someone from the south who established the frst pottery kilns in the
area. Over time Bolin was adopted as the local kiln guardian god and
many years later, in the 熙寧 Xining reign (AD 1068-77), was offcially
granted the title Deyinghou. Bolin is also mentioned, and a similar story
is attributed to him, on a stele at Chenjiacun 陳家村, near Hebiji 鶴壁集
in Tangyinxian 湯陰縣. Although this stele dates to the Qianlong reign
it replaced a much older inscribed stele. A further inscribed stele erected
to mark the rebuilding of a temple to Boling 百靈, dated to AD 1490
was found at Mengjiajing, Taiyuan 孟家井, 太原 in Shanxi province.
The prefectural gazetteer Henan Yuxianzhi 河南禹縣志 of AD 1747 notes
that a shrine to Bolinggong 百靈公 was rebuilt in AD 1322. It has been
suggested that the difference in the characters for Bolin/Boling’s name
may be attributable to mistakes in transcription, and that there was a
spiritual connection between the Cizhou kilns as well as technological
and artistic links (see Y. Mino and K. Tsiang, Freedom of Clay and Brush
through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-
1600 A.D., Indianapolis, 1981, p. 12).
It is likely that Cizhou wares initially developed from Tang dynasty
northern white wares, with which they share a signifcant number of
shapes, as well as aspects of their technology. Cizhou wares appear to
have been produced from the mid-10th century and continued to be
manufactured throughout the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties. While
Lot 512 this may be considered the apex of Cizhou production, wares from
拍品512號 this tradition continued to be manufactured into the Ming and Qing

The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics 古韻天成 — 臨宇山人珍藏（三） 46