Chapter 21 Section 7 Cizhou Kiln

The central kiln is located in Guantai Town, Cixian County, Handan City, Hebei Province. There are Yezi Village, Dongaikou, Xiaikou, Pengcheng Town and other kiln sites near the town, which also produce fine works of fine texture.Cizhou kiln porcelain is the most representative folk porcelain kiln in northern my country. There are many workshops producing such wares, including Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Gansu and other provinces.Jizhou kiln in Jiangxi, Cizao kiln in Quanzhou, Fujian, Xicun kiln, Haikang kiln in Guangdong, Guangyuan kiln in Sichuan, etc. all learned its craft and produced the white glaze black flower variety of this kiln style.Many techniques of Liao porcelain in Northeast China are derived from Cizhou kiln.

As for when Cizhou Kiln began to produce porcelain, the current archaeological data have not yet been fully released.Guantai Town in Hebei Province was produced around the early Northern Song Dynasty or a little earlier, Hebi Ji Kiln in Henan Province was produced in the late Tang Dynasty, and Dangyangyu Kiln was produced in the late Tang Dynasty.Cizhou kiln-style works are generally produced in Shanxi, and the beginning time was mainly in the Northern Song Dynasty.The period of the most prosperous production and the highest level of craftsmanship of Cizhou kiln was the Northern Song and Jin Dynasties.Although the production volume in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties was large, the level of craftsmanship generally declined.Cizhou kiln has not stopped production from the beginning to today, which lasted for more than 10 centuries, which is rare in the history of Chinese porcelain.

The most obvious feature of Cizhou kiln porcelain is that the carcass is relatively rough and thick.The proportion of fine work is very small, most of the raw materials are not processed finely, and the pores between the particles are relatively large.Taking white porcelain products as an example, the whiteness is not high, and the carcass is white and grayish, light yellow or taupe, durable.The raw material contains relatively high aluminum oxide (AlO) and titanium oxide (TiO), which belongs to northern crucible.Some are made from one raw material, and some are made from several kinds of crucibles.

There are two kinds of glazes for Cizhou kiln porcelain, transparent glaze and opaque glaze.Transparent glazes mainly include white glaze, gray blue glaze, yellow glaze and brown glaze.Opaque glazes include black glaze, sauce glaze, flower glaze, green glaze and three-color glaze.The latter two are leaded low-temperature glazes applied to the treads of pottery.There are quite a large number of lead glazed pottery, including living utensils and building components.The utensils produced by the entire kiln system include bottles, urns, jars, pots, basins, altars, bowls, plates, plates, cups, cups, makeup boxes, bottles, dowry, mirror boxes, pillows, lamps, wax stands, incense burners, inkstones, water bowl etc.In order to meet the needs of folk life, Cizhou Kiln produces many pillows, including square, rectangular, ingot-shaped, silver collar-shaped, lotus leaf-shaped and so on.The stamps of "Zhangjiazao", "Ancient Xiang Zhangjiazao" and "Shenjiazao" are printed on the bottom, and the toys include various dolls and animal images.

The decoration of Cizhou kiln is suitable for the needs of coarse porcelain and fine workmanship. Generally, makeup soil is applied, and transparent glaze is applied, and various techniques are used to make exquisite decorations. Tree rings, cloud patterns, feather patterns, pheasant wings, etc.The most prominent feature of flower drawing is that it inherits the artistic technique of gold and silver wares since the Tang Dynasty. It carves thematic patterns on the center of the utensils, such as peony, tiger, lion, and human figures; around them, small circles are poked out, like pearls. , which makes the main pattern more vivid and prominent, which is called pearl ground pattern.Many other patterns are made by drawing flowers.Carving process, when the carcass is not yet dry, use sharp knives to carve peonies, lotus flowers, sunflowers, twine flowers and various animal images.There are relatively few printing techniques, but there are more in Shanxi.Picking process, after the pattern is drawn, the ground around the pattern is removed with the method of picking, so that the white or pitch-black pattern is higher than the ground, and the removed part exposes the rough carcass, forming black and white, off-white, brown and white, etc. Contrasting shades.In addition, there are decals and molded decorations.For painting decoration, painting color materials are made of iron-manganese nodules, mottled stone, hematite and other raw materials, which are ground into powder and mixed into color materials, applying the techniques of Chinese ink painting.There are various themes, widely photographed in daily life, rich in content and high in artistic level.It has reached a new level in terms of pattern design, color application, vessel shape, color painting, and combination of poetry and prose. White-glazed black flowers are the most common, and there are also white-glazed sauce flowers and green-glazed black flowers.There are patterns, landscapes, flowers and birds, figures, opera juggling, poetry, etc.; iron embroidery appears on black glaze in Hebei, Shanxi, and Gansu.