The historical witness of "South China Sea No. 1"
At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, the merchant ship "South China Sea No. 1"carried more than 60,000 pieces of fine porcelain and iron and other goods from the port of Jintong (now the port of Quanzhou) to the Maritime Silk Road, destined for Southeast Asia and even European ports. Unfortunately, it sank in the middle of the journey, leaving behind the beautiful blue and white porcelain, silently signaling the prosperity and development of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Dehua, a thousand years between the kiln flames swaying porcelain city
On "South China Sea No. 1", there are 60,000 to 80,000 pieces of porcelain ordered by foreigners, nearly 20% from the nearest port of debut of the Dehua kiln in Fujian Province. However, the "South China Sea No. 1" is only a medium-sized merchant ship in the millions of ships on the Maritime Silk Road, Dehua porcelain at the time has been known for its exquisite quality of the world.
Clay into treasure, is one of the early Chinese innovation; but high demands are on time, place, and people. Dehua, is such a unique porcelain production resort, high-quality clay plus the Song and Yuan dynasties, the largest trading port of Prickly Harbor, as if God not only opened a door for it, but also built floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
The porcelain clay of Dehua is a "treasure" like the gold mine. Not only rich in production, and high silicon oxide content, few impurities, potassium oxide content within the porcelain clay up to 6%, fired glass phase is more, even if taken directly, fired porcelain is also extraordinarily pure, good transmittance. But at that time the ingenious Dehua craftsmen are not limited to this. They will dig out the subsoil texture of the fine clay, build into a large pile of mud, let it wind and sun and rain, will never go to turn it. The resulting three or four decades, and then used for firing, after such treatment, the clay becomes more refined, fired porcelain is pure color, white and moving.
Craftsmanship of Dehua ceramics
As the "South China Sea No. 1" in the water of cultural relics show, the biggest characteristic of Dehua porcelain is white. This white is not a general lime white, and is by no means a fluorescent sickly white, but warm as creamy white. Dehua glaze of this white, beyond the height of the color can be achieved, there is "lard white", "ivory white". The French even gave it a moniker - China White (Blanc de Chine). And from the Tang Dynasty, Dehua bottles and candlesticks and other porcelain began to use the method of glaze dipping, hand-held embryo body immersed in glaze paste, excess glaze with the mouth of the blowing or brush in time to brush dry. Song Dynasty and created the pouring glaze method, used for large pieces of pottery glaze, the need for two skilled craftsmen to cooperate, a person in charge of the cylinder, a person splash glaze, cover the inside and outside and then pour out the excess slurry. It is such a handmade method, Dehua craftsmen with excellent skills, made with the machine glaze can be comparable to the moving porcelain, marvelous.
With good clay, excellent molding clay technology, Dehua ceramics industry is also in urgent need of technological transformation. Before the Song Dynasty, the porcelain kiln shape is small, low firing rate, if not to change the kiln to improve efficiency, never reach the later export of the world's supply required. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Dehua a called Lin Bing arch kiln master realized the problem, determined to change the kiln, after many failures finally succeeded in arching out of the body size, high firing rate of large kilns - chicken kiln.
In the 1970s, Dehua County unearthed the "Qu Dou Gong" ancient porcelain kiln, 57 meters long, like a giant dragon winding in the ridge of Dehua, this kiln is known as the "Dragon Kiln", and the chicken kiln, the predecessor of the Dragon Kiln. The emergence of the kiln made the local production of porcelain soared, so Lin Bing master was named kiln god - kiln workers, served in the village of Baomei Zulong Palace. Every year on the 16th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar, a grand festival of the kiln god is held here. The dragon kiln of the Song Dynasty was not only highly productive at that time, but even now it can be opened after remodeling. In Dehua County, there is a dragon kiln called "Yueji", which is still in use today, and each kiln can produce 20,000 teapots. Historical records say that in order to cope with this huge production of ceramics, there were about 60,000 porcelain craftsmen in the Dehua area during the Song Dynasty, and if auxiliary personnel are included, there were nearly 100,000 people engaged in the production of export porcelain in the entire Dehua area at the peak. Into the ancient city of Dehua at that time, as walking into a city-level porcelain factory, the fire of the ancient kiln stars fall on the mountains, smoke makes this place into a blue and white porcelain wonderland.
Until now, the economy of Dehua is still supported by the porcelain production industry. But even with the help of modern tools, the production efficiency is not as good as that of the ancients. In the Song Dynasty, a craftsman can probably produce about 200 large plate per day, to nearly 300 porcelain decorative engraving, such efficiency even now the machine can not be surpassed. If the Guinness Book of Records, I'm afraid that the highest efficiency record of porcelain firing will be maintained by the Song Dynasty Dehua craftsmen.
"Through" the Song Dynasty "customized" porcelain
In a variety of Scandinavian style home design, and even ins people posing for pictures, there are always some white ceramic boxes. The lid is a variety of Western-style small sculptures. Now our daily life, seldom use this kind of small box called "powder box" of the fascination of the box, but more than 800 years ago in the Song Dynasty, Fujian Dehua kiln production of blue and white ceramic powder box but foreigners did not hesitate to "direct mail" order of the explosion of customized single product.
There are tens of thousands of pieces of porcelain on "South China Sea No. 1", which is the most out of the water is these styles of diverse and exquisite celadon and white porcelain powder box. Each powder box in addition to the style and modern different, whether the production process and high degree of completion, and modern ceramic powder box, as if the finished product is now "through" to the ancient times.
These Song Dynasty Dehua blue and white porcelain powder box tire dense and hard, pure and warm glaze, glaze crystal bright, simple and clear decoration. Take a salvaged powder box and put it on the countertop after a little restoration, no one would guess that this is the Southern Song Dynasty craftsmen would be able to create a masterpiece. Similarly, whether it is a jug, white glaze engraved flowers on a large plate or printed small jar, petal plate, the shape is extremely regular, the glaze is evenly fired, the pattern is clearly visible, warm and white. These porcelains allowed foreigners to live an exquisite life. In the absence of "made in China" before the fine porcelain, foreigners eating life with "exquisite" completely unrelated. According to the Song "all Fan Zhi" records: Southeast Asia, Liu Mei country "diet to sunflower leaves for the bowl, not Shi dagger tendons, scooped and eaten"; Bo Mud country "no utensils, to bamboo weaving with many leaves for the device, food is discarded.
Chinese porcelain is not only a commercial product, but it also holds an important role in the world's material culture. Dehua ceramics into Europe, but also set off a wave of imitation of Dehua porcelain boom. 18th century, Britain's Chelsea and "Bow" porcelain factory a large number of imitation of Dehua porcelain, France's St. Croix de Guerre and Chantilly porcelain factory, the Danish Royal Porcelain Factory Copenhagen factory to learn Dehua kiln process firing white porcelain ware. Triggered the imitation boom. This shows that the world influence of Chinese Dehua ceramics is so great that it changes people's lives.
At Oriental Aesthetics, we deeply understand the cultural and artistic value of Dehua porcelain. We are committed to introducing this deeply oriental traditional craft to the world, so that more people can appreciate the superb craftsmanship of the Song Dynasty and the profound impact that Dehua porcelain has had on global culture. Through the promotion of these traditional arts, we hope to foster communication and understanding between different cultures and perpetuate the heirloom beauty of oriental art.
