Expert Talk Ceramics | | Cao Jianwen: Stage and Characteristics of Blue-and-white Porcelain in Jingdezhen Kiln in Ming Dynasty (2)

The Porcelain of the People’s Kiln in the Late Ming Dynasty

(1) Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli

Jia Jinɡ

Since the mid-Ming Dynasty, especially after Hongzhi, with the decline of the dynasty, the production of porcelain in the Imperial Kiln factory was much worse than before, although there were orders to reduce the porcelain, but several generations of accumulated porcelain burning task is still very difficult.At this time, the imperial kiln factory can not afford a huge task, only with the help of the strength of the kiln, this objectively close the distance between the official kiln and the kiln, so that the two technical exchanges become closer, the production of the kiln blue-and-white porcelain in many aspects, Especially, the decoration is deeply influenced by the production of official kilns in the same period.

 

There are a lot of standard tools in Jiajing folk kiln, such as blue flower dragon and phoenix pattern pot unearthed from the tomb of the famous king of Yizhuang in Jiangxi Provincial Museum, the green flower and infant play pattern pot in Fengcheng Museum, and the blue and white chicken crown and flower pattern plate in Jingdezhen Ceramics Museum.The typical tools of Jiajing folk kiln in the collection are as follows: Jiajing Museum, Jiangxi Museum, Tianyuan gourd bottle with tangled branches, Garlic bottle with eight immortals of Jiajing in the collection of ceramics in Jingdezhen City, and high-foot bowl with 18 bachelor of Qinghua in the collection of Jiajing.The department has a collection of the Shanghai Museum’s” Jiajing Xin You Nian System “(1561) blue and white flower and bird patterns on the bowl.

 

The production of green flowers in the folk kilns of the Jiajing Dynasty was very large.At this time there are quite a number of porcelain blue-and-white hair blue purple, thick anomaly, this is the use of “back to the green material” produced by the effect.We know that this kind of green material has been used in the official kilns of the Imperial Kiln about since the Zhengde Period.”Jiangxi Dazhi Tao Shu” contains: “Returning to the green materials, out of the country, Dadang town of Yunnan got it, with the stone as a pseudo-treasure, its price times gold.” It is understood that this kind of green material is very expensive, originally the ordinary people are difficult to use, but in order to obtain better burning quality, The kiln is also privately purchased and embezzled.That is to say, “Fuliang County Records” contained:” Hui Qing, hit can’t, scattered no prescription, real green every inserted in the miscellaneous stone, adulterers stolen in the pocket. “In addition, at this time common blue and white hair halo scattered, resulting in fuzzy patterns of the situation, this may be” Hui Qing material “in the green material accounted for the proportion of too high.

Jiangxi Museum Ming Jia Jing blue and white cloud dragon pattern big plate

 

Generally speaking, the Qinghua of Jiajing people’s kiln was influenced by the official kiln, because the emperor especially adored Taoism, so the porcelain often had the Taoist color in shape and decoration at this time.

 

Jiajing kiln porcelain embryo is less than the delicate, thick, white flash ash, most of the bright glaze, glaze is not flat, there is a vague wave lines.The modelling aspect is more prominent, at this time the large ware obviously increases, such as the big pot, the big jar, the large plate, the gourd bottle and so on;Cucurbita-shaped, round place bottles, multi-corrugated bottles, with cover plum bottles, fruit boxes, pots at this time popular.Production technology does not pay attention to the repair of tyres, bottles, cans interface is obvious, disk bottom phenomenon, bowl with the bottom of the core bulge, commonly known as” steamed bread bottom. ”

 

Jiajing people’s kiln blue and white mainly with recycled material, showing a bright color.The decorative painting method is mostly double-hook water, single-line flat painting, the brush is weak, the figure is somewhat realistic, some are very exaggerated, the layout of the picture is cumbersome and disordered.The taoist subject matter that pursues longevity increases such as eight immortal, gossip, eight auspicious, ganoderma lucidum etc.Garden baby play pictures, the child began to grow up in the back of the head, wearing a robe.At first there were dragons and dragons.Variety of style, auspicious money has long life and wealth, Fushou Kang Ning, Wanfu Xiao Tong;The hymn style is rich and beautiful, good quality, good food, rich and noble in Changchun;Special items include “wine”, “soup”, “tea” and so on.

Lonɡ Qinɡ

Long Qing Dynasty is very short, only six years, on the Longqing folk kiln of the annals of the standard instrument is relatively few, mainly the Nanjing Museum “Longqing two years” type green flower Panzhi doll inkstone, Anhui Province Shexian Museum Longqing Ming blue and white card seat, The chinese university of hong kong museum of cultural relics collection of blue and white tangled lotus pattern halberd earbottle and so on.

 

During the Longqing period, with the vigorous development of foreign trade, the porcelain of Jingdezhen’s kiln was exported to many overseas countries, and the competition between the officials and the people who produced the porcelain promoted the improvement of the quality of the porcelain of the kiln, and some high-level porcelain craftsmen appeared.Such as” Jingdezhen Tao Lu “records:” Cui Gongyao, Jia, Longjian people, good making pottery, more imitation Xuande kiln, Chenghua kiln legacy manufacturing porcelain…… At that time, it was thought that Sheng, its instrument called ‘Cui Gong kiln porcelain’, the four sides for sale… for the crown of the kiln…… “and as active in the Longqing, Wanli Zhou Danquan, the period, It “made of fine porcelain, wonderful. Try as egg cup, thin as the curtain of chicken eggs, white lovely, a heavy half baht. And miscellaneous Xuan, Yonger kiln, a lifelike.”

 

Generally speaking, between Jiajing and Wanli, Longqing had both part of the characteristics of both, the shape of the large pieces are not many.

data map

 

Longqing People’s Kiln blue and white is mainly returned to the green material, part of the hair color pure blue pan-purple, another part of grey;The pattern decoration layout is tedious, the sparse long all has, the technique is single line flat coating;Most of the subjects are Pangzhi dolls, immediately seal Hou, dragon and phoenix, tuanlong, tuanfeng, chi dragon, lotus pond birds and the composition of the pattern of words and so on.”Longqing year”, “Longqing year created” four-character two-line regular script, auspicious money has” Wanfu Xiaotong Tong “,” Fushou Kangning “,” Yongbao Changchun “, and so on, eulogizing words have rich good tools, fine products, Changchun good tools.

 

The porcelain-making achievement of this period is represented by the folk kilns, and most of the imperial utensils needed by the court at Jiajing were made by the households of the official antique ware of the people’s kilns, that is, “the officials set the people to burn”.By the late Wanli period, the kilns had declined, and part of Jingdezhen’s kiln workshop had been transformed from a small family handicraft workshop into a hired factory handicraft workshop.At this time, the folk kilns in the decorative patterns of the past official kiln royal shackles, no longer to the dragon, phoenix, Fan Lian and other fixed patterns as the theme, and see more landscape, flowers, birds and characters stories of the subject matter, and appeared in the integration of poetry, books, paintings, printed in a new style of decoration.With the lifting of the sea ban in the first year of Longqing and the development of shipping and trade between East and West after Wanli, Jingdezhen porcelain was exported to Europe, Western Asia, Southeast Asia and Japan. It has further expanded the influence of Chinese porcelain in the world.

 

Since the early 17th century, Chinese porcelain was heavily trafficked into Europe by merchant ships in countries such as the Netherlands. According to the Dutch East Indies Company, more than 16 million Chinese ceramics, most of them blue and white, were sold through the company alone from 1602 to 1682 in 80 years.The most representative of the blue-and-white porcelain sold abroad are “Clark porcelain” and “Xiangrui porcelain”.With the increase of export porcelain, the porcelain of Jingdezhen people’s kilns flourished. From Wanli to Shunzhi and Kangxi in the early period of Qing Dynasty, the blue-and-white porcelain had formed a new style, which foreign scholars called “transition period”.

Wan Li

With the decline of Guanyuan kiln, Wanli kiln porcelain has entered a new situation of rapid development, gradually replacing Guanyuan kiln into the mainstream of Jingdezhen porcelain production, no matter in quantity or quality has reached a new peak, some of the Guanyuan kiln and the quality of civilian kiln products have been difficult to distinguish.

 

There are four-year epitaph porcelain plate of Jingdezhen Cultural Relics Store in the collection of Wanli People’s Kiln in the collection of Wanli Museum in Jiangxi Province. In the 21-year-old tomb of Wanli Museum, there are three-legged furnaces with green flowers, sea waves and two ears, baby plays and bottles, and flowers and birds in the 31-year-old tomb of Wanli. “Wanli Yutang fine ware” pattern shallow bowl of green flower group, the Palace Museum, the Palace Museum, the Palace Museum, the 44th year of Wanli Guanyin bowl, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the 48 years of Qinghua character story bowl, Jingdezhen City collection of ceramics, “Wanli De Fu made” blue flower cloud and dragon pattern bowl.

data map

 

Wanli kiln porcelain surface soil is more delicate, good degree of porcelain, white glaze in the green.The shape is thick and thin, the size all has, big such as fish tank, embroider pier, small such as cricket can, small square dish, pen, inkstone, box and so on stationery is common, all sorts of sets box, hollowed-out three-legged furnace, double ears has cover three-legged furnace to this special modelling.

 

Wanli kiln, the early use of recycled green material, good color blue and purple pan-purple, later use Zhejiang blue material, hair color is darker.Decorated most of the blue and white for the double hook line water, in addition to the popular light trace blue and white, with a very light tone, double hook pattern patterns, giving people an elegant feeling.The more prominent decoration methods on porcelain are hollowed-out and sculpture, which is not often used in the past.Carving in the more common bottles, boxes and so on, but most of the carving techniques coarse rate, no sense of fineness.Sculpture techniques are often used in characters.The decoration layout is dense and messy, the subject matter is more common such as flowers and birds, Yunlong, Shoushan Fuhai, Yunhe, Tian Ma, Ji Hu Long, fish and algae, etc. The characters’ stories include Eight Immortals, Lao Tzu’s scriptures, Dongfangshuo’s peaches stealing, Dongpo also has Chibi, Gao Shitu, baby play pictures and so on.The shoulder edge decoration multi-purpose brocade ground opens the bright flower grain.In penmanship, early approximate Jiajing, relatively fine lines, there are deep and shallow yin and yang;In the later period, there were more sketches, abstractions and freehand brushwork.

 

It is worth mentioning that the late appearance of the Ge glaze blue-and-white.Ge glaze blue and white glaze layer thick and accompanied by fine pieces of open pieces, common plum bottles, jade pot spring bottles, incense, and so on, this variety has continued to the apocalyptic period.

 

There are “Daming Wanli Year Made”, “Wanli Year Made”, there are books Xuande, Chenghua, Jiajing pseudo-trust funds, Jinyu Mantang, Dehua Changchun, Yongbao Changchun, Fugui fine ware, Yu Tang fine ware, Shenfu good ware, Shenfu good ware, Shenfu ware, Changchun good ware and other auspicious pieces, eulogizing words are still popular.

 

Jiajing began to popular blue-and-white colorful technology, to the peak of the development of the Wanli Dynasty, there are plates, bowls, washing, cans, bottles, deities, lifting beam pot, cover boxes, and so on.Wanli blue-and-white patterns full of dense patterns, red, light green, yellow, brown, purple and blue glaze blue-based, especially prominent red, the pursuit of “gorgeous” decoration effect.Most of the characters are big heads and short bodies, consistent with this period of printmaking.

 

The Cultural Relics Collection of the Chinese University of Hong Kong

After the mid-Wanli period, the trade in porcelain between China and the South China Sea, especially in Europe, entered a new stage. A great deal of porcelain from Jingdezhen’s kilns were sent to all over the world, as can be seen from the western paintings of the same period. The display of blue-and-white porcelain from China in the family has become a necessary decoration for European nobles to show off their wealth and show their connotation. These nobles are proud of collecting the blue-and-white porcelain from Jingdezhen, and later, about three decades after Wanli (1602), Dutch businessmen simply introduced the popular European utensils and patterns to China, in order to produce a more European custom of porcelain, so we can see this period of Jingdezhen production of export porcelain in the military holding pot, flower plates, carving objects and other shapes, And the emergence of a certain Western family’s national emblem, characters, symbols and sunset landscape paintings and figures, and so on, so that Jingdezhen production of “Clark porcelain”, “heraldry porcelain” is famous.Clarke porcelain was originally a Dutch term in the early 17th century for Chinese export porcelain carried on a Portuguese cargo ship called Kraak, which was captured at sea.Since most of the export porcelain is decorated with bright blue-and-white plates, pots, bowls and cups, the overseas blue-and-white porcelain produced in the history of ceramics from the mid-16th century to the 17th century is generally referred to as Clark porcelain.It can be seen from the typical apparatus such as the blue-and-white plate unearthed in the tomb of Mingyi King in the south city of Jiangxi Province that the high-grade Clarke blue-and-white materials are generally showy in color, with distinct layers, smooth lines, fine lines, rich patterns, complicated and varied in shape, firm and thin in fetal quality, and high in workmanship of late Ming porcelain.From the styling point of view, there are plates, dishes, bowls, cups, covered cups, pots, pots, military and so on, the largest number of plates, bowls.The decorative patterns are very rich, from the subject matter can be divided into rare birds and animals, character stories, landscape, miscellaneous treasures, flowers, trees, symbols and so on.Among them, rare birds and animals and miscellaneous treasures are more decorated.Decorative techniques have color painting, pattern printing, color glaze and so on, color painting, color glaze and pattern printing are often combined.Blue and white color painting popular open light decoration, decorative generally dense, but not messy, divided into theme and auxiliary decorative patterns of different levels.The auxiliary decoration is mostly eight open light miscellaneous treasure, dark eight immortals, folding flowers and so on.Mold is in plate, the abdominal wall of bowl, also for open light type.Clarke porcelain’s overseas sales not only accelerated the development of Jingdezhen kiln porcelain industry, but also led to the development of some coastal porcelain industry, this point from Zhangzhou, Fujian Province and other places have found a lot of kiln sites for foreign-made porcelain can be explained.

 

At the end of the Wanli period, the Japanese began to attach importance to the Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, which they called the “Lotus Hand”, and began to copy it at the center of Saga Prefecture. From the point of view of the imitations of the world, it started to show a little childish and indescribable, but it soon broke through in the form and the glaze. It has been similar to Jingdezhen’s products, but look carefully, it is still in the decorative composition and writing on the stiff, Japanese painting, and Jingdezhen is different from the later decades after learning to master Jingdezhen porcelain technology, then gradually form their own style, Like europe delivering “ivanli” china.

(2) Apocalypse and Chongzhen

apocalypse

From the later period of Wanli, Jingdezhen’s official kiln production fell into a state of decline, to the period of Tianqi has basically stopped production, can be identified by the world is very rare, so this period of kiln production.The decline of the official kiln in the later period of Wanli undoubtedly freed the people’s kilns from the spiritual bondage which lasted for hundreds of years. The artists of the kilns obtained great freedom of creation, and along with the development of the printing industry and printmaking in the late Ming Dynasty, It provides great convenience for the artists of Jingdezhen to draw on the patterns and patterns of other art fields.As before and after Wanli area of Jiangnan and Anhui Xin ‘an area literati painters and lithographers cooperate to print a large number of various paintings, Jingdezhen ceramic artists have a significant impact.

 

Blue and white group dragon pattern candlestick Ming-the first year of Tianqi

The collection’s chronicles include: the Palace Museum’s collection of the “Great Tomorrow, the First Year of Mengxia, the First Year of the Month” blue and white Longnu 18 Arhat clock, the tomb of the first year of Tianqi in Jiangxi Museum, the tomb of Cheng’s family in the first year of the first year of Tianqi, and the Longhua Candlestick of the First Year of the Shanghai Museum’s collection. The four-year tomb of Tianchi, Jiangxi Provincial Museum, excavated a vase with the patterns of green flowers, pine, crane and deer. The Butler family of England, which has a five-year history of five-year history, and the Butler family of England, has a “Big Tomorrow, Kai-year” style blue and white flower basket. The Palace Museum is a collection of blue-and-white paintings.

 

The weather porcelain tyre is thin, most apply thin glaze, smooth degree is stronger.There are many shaped small pieces, which can be divided into three categories: temple supplies, general household utensils for the domestic market and custom-made porcelain for export.Temple supplies occupy a large proportion, such as candlestick, vase, censer, water purification pot, etc.The bowl has jade-like bottom, the dish has folding line type, the polygon.In the past, it was thought that the green flowers of the folk kilns had the same rough style as those of the late Wanli period, but this view was biased. In fact, the green flowers of the folk kilns in the period of the apocalypse were fine and coarse, and had the phenomenon of sticky sand, falling bottom and radioactive jump-knife marks on the bottom of the rough ones, and the glaze was grey and thin. At the bottom of the device, there are small papillae similar to the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.Fine, regular repair of the fetus, repair foot more delicate and mellow, this kind of excessive to the early Qing Dynasty characteristics.

 

There are many kinds of blue-and-white colors, such as blue-and-white blue-and-white blue-and-white, which belong to the Palace Museum.There are also similar to the later period of the early Qing green eye-catching, bright and bright, rich level of a class.

The Ballet Family Hide Tomorrow’s Green Flower, Landscape and Ribbon Bowl

 

The decorative layout is simple and simple, which changes the complicated and messy situation of Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli, and when it shows the daily life of the working people and describes the subject matter of the beautiful scenery of nature, the painting style is more hasty and elegant, full of life breath, natural and vivid with the pen, simple and freehand writing, and a few sketches. Very evocative, as the common motif of a shepherd riding a cow.In addition to commonly used twining flowers, the pattern of lotus mandarin duck, lion hydrangea, bogu map, elk, white rabbit, fish, crab, heavenly palace, peach ape map, arhat, wind, baby play, shepherd riding cattle, the first and the first, the river fishing alone, Banqiao and the villa house landscape map and “happy” word, “buddha” word, such as chi bi fu.

 

The new style is more popular, dry and year-old items, especially the supply of incense furnace, clean water bowl, flower on the wine is common;There were Yongle, Xuande, Chenghua, Tianshun, Zhengde, Jiajing and so on.The auspicious money has the world peace, the long life is rich, the Wanfu small is identical, forever keeps Changchun;The eulogies include the jade hall fine article, the wealth fine article, the Changchun fine article, the sky good article, the fine article of the fine article, the heaven good article and so on;Hall money has white jade hall, bamboo stone residence and so on;The drawings include rabbits, bowels, fangsheng, silver ingots, window frames, etc.

 

During the reign of Apocalypse and Chongzhen, there were various kinds of tea sets, tableware and perfumery in Japan. These porcelain bodies were firm and fine. They were painted by figures, boats, birds, deer, etc. These patterns were typical Japanese style. These were sold in Jingdezhen. Japan is often referred to as” ancient dyeing and payment “.Some of these objects are written “Wu Xiangrui, Wu Liangdafu,” which is known in Japan as” Xiangrui “porcelain.

 

Chonɡ Zhen

The chronicles of the tomb of the Chongzhen people’s kiln in the collection mainly include: the spring vase with blue-and-white butterfly flower patterns unearthed from the tomb of Chongzhen in the first year of the year in the collection of Jiangxi Museum;The main items of the memorial items in the collection are: the Longhua Furnace in Shanghai Museum, the eight-year Qinghua epitaph of Chongzhen in Wuyuan Museum, the pen holder of the Eleventh Year of the Butler Family (Wuyin), the blue-and-white vase with high necks, Ming Chongzhen 12 years blue-and-white dragon pattern furnace and blue-and-white 18 Luo Han Tu three-legged furnace, Shanghai Museum collection Ming Chongzhen 13 years blue-and-white inscriptions Bo Gu Tu vase, green-flower inscriptions on mountains and waters bamboo stone picture bottle, Chongzhen 16 years blue-and-white inscriptions on 18 Luo Han pen, etc.The typical instruments in the collection are: Chongzhen Qinghua Portrait Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cupping Cylinders. In Shanghai Museum, there are Chongzhen Qinghua Qiantang Dream Story Pans, Qinghua Bogu Covering Cans, Qinghua Luohanzun, Qinghua Landscape People’s Pen Cylinders, Qinghua Boyi Uncle Qi Story Papers, Qinghua Ruijuan, Qinghua Landscape People’s Picture Cylinders, and so on.

Ballet family Tibetan Chongzhen blue-and-white mountain stone tree bird picture pen

 

Chongzhen porcelain-shaped variety of more monotonous, to the supply of more, the shape of plates, bowls, washing, bottles, jars, cans, pens, flower glasses, elephant-leg bottles and temple supplies candlestick, censers, water purifying pots, and so on.Fetal color gray, rough, loose, glazed white in brilliant blue, both thick and thin body, to thick for more.Glaze on the mouth began to increase.New emerging up and down dark carving, the new process of painting in the middle of the blue material, engraving is generally very shallow, not easy to see clearly.

 

Flower wine _ upper and lower mouth outside, the bottom of the mouth diameter is roughly offset, the middle waist.This form of blue and white for Chongzhen when the creation of the new shape, impact to the early Qing Dynasty.Pencil _ has straight mouth and skimmer two kinds, the wall straight tube type or a little waist, mouth to the bottom of the body thickness;The flat sand bottom is white and fine, and the outer body wall and the horn are connected to the tire is a wide-band shape, the glaze edge is scraped neatly;The mouth of an instrument is covered with a tire or a paste glaze;The decorative content is mainly about characters and stories.Water purification bowl _ also known as” sea lamp “, is a kind of pre-Buddha supplies, this is the Chongzhen-type new creator, has been extended to the Qing Dynasty Kangxi period.

 

Chongzhen blue and white is fine and coarse, coarse can be divided into two categories, one is thick body, rough repair, glaze luster, blue and white gray dark, this is the continuation of the style of Wanli, such as the Shanghai Museum of the two years of Chongzhen blue and white cloud dragon pattern furnace is such.Another kind of bottom book “C Zi Ke Ji”, “Non Wu Ke Ji” and so on dry and year-old section and some famous, good language section, this kind of porcelain tool bottom more sticky sand is severe, radioactive jump knife marks are obvious.Fine, there are a batch of flowers on the glass, pen tube, the body is fine, mixed water thick and thin layer clear, color to the green and verdant to drop the direction of development, and the Qing Dynasty Kangxi porcelain is very close, if not carefully identified, it is very easy to misjudge.In addition to temple supplies are still more dragon patterns and other traditional patterns, the common characters of the story, landscape, Luo Han map, white rabbit, pine and plum, flowers and birds, and so on.Gao Shitu has Tao Yuanming love chrysanthemum, Zhou Dunyi love lotus, bamboo forest seven sages, Tang Seng take scriptures, the West Han Romance, the Three Kingdoms story and so on.Chongzhen kiln green flowers in decorative cylinder bottles, lotus, pen and other three-dimensional objects, there is a fine composition, rigorous pattern decoration, the common features of such objects are the body white, the shape is neat, mouth or near the bottom of more than a week of shallow, delicate dark flower decoration, The whole color is bright and clear, using the technique of “dividing water” to render, adding the three-dimensional sense of the picture, often more than the story of the characters, such as the King Wen visited Xian, Zhang Qian ride Cha, Zhong Kui catch ghosts and so on.The landscape and parenthesis clouds in the figure painting are typical embellishment of the Chongzhen dynasty.

 

Ballet family Tibetan Chongzhen blue and white 18 Rohan diagram three-foot furnace

From the later period of Chongzhen to the end of Qingshun-zhi, the inscriptions on the pictures were written in official style.A lot of supplies in the body inscriptions, down to the dry account of the year.A few plates, bowls, cup bottom heart book “Daming Chongzhen year”, “Chongzhen year” model.There are “Bai Yuzhai”, “Yu Xiangzhai”, “Bo Gu Zhai” and so on.There are happy, good, Gong, Chun, Yu, Zheng, Ya, Qingya, Changchun, pieces of jade, turquoise residence and so on.The pseudo-Tuoxuande, Chenghua Year, Chongzhen the most common.

 

In Chongzhen period, the folk kiln style of blue-and-white porcelain was mainly characterized by landscape, figure, white rabbit, bird, peach fruit, plum stone, flower and bird.