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Jizhou ware or Chi-chou ware () is
Chinese pottery
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construc ...
from
Jiangxi
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
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
Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refracto ...
, with a strong emphasis on subtle effects in the dark
glazes, comparable to
Jian ware
Jian ware or Chien ware () is a type of Chinese pottery originally made in Jianyang, Fujian province. It, and local imitations of it, are known in Japan as ''Tenmoku'' (). The ware are simple shapes in stoneware, with a strong emphasis on subtl ...
, but often combined with other decorative effects. In the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
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
A resist, used in many areas of manufacturing and art, is something that is added to parts of an object to create a pattern by protecting these parts from being affected by a subsequent stage in the process. Often the resist is then removed.
For ...
patterns in the glaze, by leaving parts of the body untouched.
In the
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
Jizhou also produced
Qingbai
Qingbai ware (青白 qīngbái „green-white“, formerly "Ch'ing-pai" etc.) 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, an ...
ware, as well as brown and white
slip-painted wares that borrowed their technique from
Cizhou ware, popular wares produced at many sites in north China, and may have been significant in influencing the start of
blue and white pottery
"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 is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by s ...
in
Jingdezhen ware
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 Zhenzon ...
, from relatively nearby.
Production seems to have begun in the late
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
or under the
Five Dynasties
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen conc ...
, and continued until the
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
. Production seems to have ended suddenly in the 14th century, for reasons that are not yet clear. In a ranking of Chinese wares from 1388, in the ''Essential Criteria of Antiquities'', Jizhou ware is listed in ninth place, above
Longquan celadon
Longquan celadon (龍泉青瓷) 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 ...
, which was falling from fashion by then.
Characteristics
Jizhou ware was known for a "
tortoiseshell
Tortoiseshell or tortoise shell is a material produced from the shells of the larger species of tortoise and turtle, mainly the hawksbill sea turtle, which is a critically endangered species according to the IUCN Red List largely because of its ...
glaze" (玳瑁釉 dàimàoyòu), alone or in combination with other types of decoration. The leaf and paper cut-outs were left in place, and burnt away in the kiln during firing. Paper cut-outs featured "auspicious characters" or simple floral patterns, often spread around the sides of the bowl. The leaves were more often placed in the centre of the bowl, and often only the skeleton of the leaf is seen. The technique seems to have been to soak a real leaf in the glaze mixture, then place it on the vessel, where the leaf itself burnt away in firing. Another, rather rare, resist glaze effect is called "leopard-spot". "Deer-spot" decoration, with rows of light brown spots with a white centre, was painted into place.
The bodies of the wares seem to have been made entirely from the local low-grade ''
petunse
Petuntse (from 白墩子 in pinyin: ), also spelled petunse and ''bai dunzi'', ''baidunzi'', is a historic term for a wide range of micaceous or feldspathic rocks. However, all will have been subject to geological decomposition processes that resul ...
'', giving a light buff colour to the body. The painted wares are under a transparent glaze, and the designs can be elaborate and finely-executed. Common motifs include geometric patterns including basket-weave, floral patterns, especially tight "fronded spirals", and also breaking-waves. All of these, together with handles in the form of fishes with scales and fins, are found on a Yuan dynasty vase in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, which borrows both its shape and decoration from metalware.
Kiln site
It was produced in several kilns at
Yonghe Town,
Ji'an County
Ji'an County () is a County (People's Republic of China), county of west-central Jiangxi province, China. It is under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Ji'an.
Administrative divisions
In the present, Ji'an County has 1 subdistrict ...
, Jiangxi, called the ''Jizhou Kiln''. The historic site has been classified by the government as a
major national historical and cultural sites in Jiangxi
Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
.
Excavations at the site revealed large numbers of discarded fragments of
Qingbai
Qingbai ware (青白 qīngbái „green-white“, formerly "Ch'ing-pai" etc.) 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, an ...
, an early blueish-white
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
, below the layers with brown and white painted wares. Jizhou was clearly one of the secondary sites where this was produced, with Jingdezhen the main centre.
[Vainker, 124]
Notes
References
*Leidy, Denise Patry, ''How to Read Chinese Ceramics'', 2015, Metropolitan Museum of Art, , 9781588395719
google books* "Longsdorf": ''Song Dynasty Ceramics: The Ronald W. Longsdorf Collection'', 2013, J.J. Lally & Co., New York
PDF(nos. 29–37)
*Vainker, S.J., ''Chinese Pottery and Porcelain'', 1991, British Museum Press, 9780714114705
*Valenstein, S. (1998).
A handbook of Chinese ceramics' (fully available online), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
External links
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{{Chinese ceramics
Chinese pottery
Culture in Jiangxi
History of Jiangxi
Stoneware