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Ding Ware (c.1000-1400)
The most famous and refined of Song Dynasty
white stoneware, made in the Ding kilns of Hepei Province, south-west
of Beijing. Ding ware was characterized by impressed and incised floral
designs on high-fired, grey-coloured clay, overlaid with ivory-white slips
and transparent glazes. Some vessels were decorated with hand carved patterns
as well as intricate pressed motifs.
Qingbai Ware (c.960-1350)
Qingbai (meaning blue-white), also referred
to as 'yingqing' (shadow blue), was a type of early porcelain made from
a fine white paste overlaid with a thin, shiny bluish-white glaze. Produced
at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, Qingbai porcelain led to the
later introduction of the blue-and-white idiom, in Jingdezhen.
The bluish tint was created by the reducing effect of the fuel (pinewood)
used to fire the clay. Although relatively highly priced, Qingbai ware
was much sought after by the middle class throughout China.
Black-Glazed Pottery
(c.960-1250)
Accounting for as much as 20 percent of
all Song Dynasty pottery, black-glazed ware (sometimes browny-black-glazed)
comprised a range of functional items popular among the lower middle classes.
Production centres included Fujian province, whose kilns produced opulent
black ware using iron rich glazes from which they derived their famous
'hare's-fur,' 'partridge-feather,' and 'oil-spot' varieties, and workshops
in Jiangxi, which employed stencil, leaf, and other complex designs in
their glazes to make their stoneware tea bowls. Black-glazed stoneware
became exceptionally popular with all classes as Fujianese tea drinking
spread throughout Chinese society.
Northern Celadon
Pottery (c.960-1450)
Northern celadon ware denotes a highly
popular form of high-fired stoneware made in kilns and workshops in Shanxi
province. It comprised a type of thin grey-coloured ware decorated with
impressed or hand carved designs (featuring flowers, waves, fish, dragons,
clouds) and overlaid with a translucent olive-green glaze, which was created
from a mixture of iron and titanium oxide.
Longquan Celadon
(c.960-1279)
Reputedly the most sophisticated porcelaineous
celadon of the Song Dynasty, Longquan greenware was made in the Southern
province of Zhejiang. Initially featuring a blue-green glaze on a fine,
hard-wearing porcelain body, potters later developed a series of lime-alkali
and jade-coloured glazes which were revered and imitated by later ceramicists
during the Qing dynasty during the 18th century.
Jun Ware Pottery (c.1050-1450)
Characterized by their rich, opalescent
glazes in a range of colours such as lavender blue, light green, and blue
with purple splashes, this dark bodied stoneware was produced in Honan
province. The finest examples of Jun ware feature light grey vessels decorated
with light blue glazes. In later varieties potters added splashes of darker
colour (eg. crimson or purple) by mixing copper-rich materials to the
glaze.
Tz'u-chou Pottery
(960-1600)
Tz'u-chou ceramic ware encompasses a type
of sturdy functional stoneware made in Honan, Shanxi, and Shandong provinces
in Northern China during the Song and Ming dynasties (960-1644). It's
signature feature is a creamy white slip which brightens the buff-grey
tone of the clay body, typically decorated with black-and-white floral
designs. The white slip led ceramicists to experiment with a wide variety
of decorative techniques, including: incising, cut-glaze technique, black
slip sgraffiato designs over the white slip, green lead-underglaze,
and an early form of enamel overglaze.
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