Currently on view:

 The Five Famous Imperial Wares of the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 CE).

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The Five Great Wares of the Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE)[1] was born out of the chaos of an unsettled period known as the Five Dynasties (907-959 CE) that came into being after the disintegration of the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE).  The Tang Dynasty had been one of the most expansionary periods in Chinese history.  The opening and perfecting of trade routes to the West during this period had exposed the Chinese to considerable foreign influence, introducing them to new ideas and technologies.  In the end, the Tang Dynasty collapsed due to internal corruption and Imperial excess.  With the establishment of the Song Dynasty, unity was re-established followed by three centuries of relative peace.  Despite the persistent threat of invasion from the Khitan (Liao), Jurchen (Jin) and Mongols to the north, the Song Dynasty was an age of richness and splendor brought about by shrewd diplomacy, international trade, active domestic commerce, and an open society that created a wealthy, educated, middle-class.  The latter was encouraged by a system of official advancement, which depended on scholastic achievement and academic knowledge of the arts, humanities, and sciences rather than birth or political patronage.  As a result, the fine arts flourished.  The Song Dynasty is famous not only for its philosophy, literature, calligraphy, and landscape scroll paintings, but also for its fine ceramics.  For the first time, ceramic wares were regarded more for the simple beauty of their form and the perfection of their glazes than for their utilitarian purposes.

THE FIVE FAMOUS IMPERIAL WARES OF THE SONG DYNASTY

Early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) scholars identified the Five Famous ?Official? Wares of the Song Dynasty as: Ding (Dingyao), Jun (Junyao), Ru (Ruyao), Guan (Guanyao), and Ge (Geyao).  Technically speaking, with, perhaps, the exception of Ding ware, ?official? imperial wares are only those wares made at officially established kilns for the exclusive use of the imperial household.  However, almost a thousand years later it is difficult to ascertain the provenance for many of these pieces with any certainty.  Since both the Northern (960-1127) and Southern Song (1127-1279) were repeatedly under attack, with their capitals being overrun from time to time by raiders from the north, many ceramic artisans fled or were captured, often taking their skills and technology with them.  The result was that many of these wares were made in more than just one place, and while there are many known differences that might identify from which kiln a piece may have been made, such as the make-up of its body-clay, many identifying characteristics are still being debated or are yet to be recognized.  While the pieces exhibited in this collection are believed to be true examples of the five famous ?official? imperial wares, they are also likely to stimulate debate.  Hopefully, they will be no less enjoyed.

Ding Ware

Most Song ceramic wares were carryovers from the Tang Dynasty, influenced by vessels made of more expensive materials such as jade, lacquer and silver.  Traditionally they have been named for the location or prefecture of the kilns where they were made.  Among the earliest ?official? imperial wares was Ding ware, a thin, semi-translucent ceramic made from refined, almost white, clay covered overall with an ivory-white glaze[2].  The precursors of Ding ware are thought to have been made from as early as the eighth century.  By the Song Dynasty, a number of kilns in Quyang County, Hebei Province were making this ware.  Ding ware received its name because, at the time, Quyang County was within the Dingzhou Prefecture.  Their shapes included bowls, dishes, jars, ewers, and a considerable number of other vessel types including large-scale bronze-forms.  The earliest examples were usually undecorated, later they were frequently incised with stylistic floral motifs with combed details and sometimes with drawings of fish and other animals.  Still somewhat later, bowls and dishes were commonly press-molded on a shaped lump of fired clay that had been carved with floral and other designs, thus giving the vessel its form and impressing the designs on their interiors.

Ding wares were remarkable in that, at least from the 12^th century on, they were fired upside down.  This allowed several pieces to be fired at once, stacked inside ceramic containers, known as saggars, to protect them from the ash filled, smoky atmosphere of the kiln.  This method of firing was considered efficient in that it increased production, but it required their rims to be wiped free of glaze before firing to prevent them from adhering to the saggar.  This left their rims unglazed and rough, particularly to the touch of one?s lip.  Consequently, their rims were commonly mounted with a metal band of copper, silver or gold to remedy this.  Desired by the court, Ding wares were produced in large quantities by imperial order and also given as tribute.  They were fired at relatively high temperatures in oxidizing atmospheric kilns and are highly resonant when lightly struck.

One other characteristic by which they are well known are the so called ?tear tracks? that form as a result of excess glaze running down the exterior walls of these vessels.  They are one of the first porcelaneous wares known.  In the thirteenth century, Marco Polo brought back an example of Ding ware from China and it is the reason why white porcelain is known as ?china? in the West.  Ding ware is still highly regarded today and is eagerly sought after by collectors.

Jun Ware

Jun ware (Junyao) is famous for the beautiful color of its unctuous, semi-opaque, opalescent, rose-purple and cerulean blue glazes as well as its simple graceful shapes that are as pleasing to the hand as to the eye[3].  It, too, is named for one of the places of its early manufacture, once known as Junzhou, in Henan Province, Northern China, now called Yuxian.  It is, perhaps, interesting to note that there is actually no blue pigment in the glaze and that the perceived color is due to the many small bubbles within the glaze that scatter the spectrum of light in a manner similar to the phenomenon that causes the sky to appear blue on a clear day.

Like most glazes, the Jun glaze was probably discovered by accident sometime during the early part of the Tang Dynasty.  At that time Henan Province was famous for the manufacture of brown and black glazed wares.  It was probably during the firing of one of these wares that an ash, containing small amounts of phosphorous and iron oxide, inadvertently landed on the glaze causing a bluish-white phosphorescent looking discoloration.  With some experimentation, it was soon realized that by mixing a wash with a similar content and then brushing it on to the brown or black glaze one could achieve a mottled effect that was quite attractive.  Sometime later, this glazing technique was perfected by adding small amounts of copper oxide and using a reduced atmospheric kiln to produce vessels entirely covered with a purple-blue glaze.  At the time, the use of copper oxide in the glaze to produce the rose or purple-blue color was revolutionary.  Up until the Song Dynasty, almost all red colored glazes were created with an iron oxide.  The first ?official? pieces of this remarkable ware were not produced until the early part of the Northern Song Dynasty.  Yet, the exact chronology of Jun development remains uncertain and the dating of individual pieces can be controversial.

Characteristically, these high-fired pieces, of moderate luster, are relatively thickly potted, without incised, carved or molded decoration, and they give off a rather dull tone when lightly struck.  Often their glaze surface is pitted or pin-holed from air bubbles that burst during firing.  These surfaces are said to exhibit effects known as ?orange-peel?, ?palm?s eye? or the smaller ?needle?s eye?.  On occasion, thin meandering lines can be seen in the glaze; these are known as ?worm tracks?, and are the result of separations in the glaze that occurred during drying and were later filled by the melting glaze during firing.  Their bases were first dipped in or painted with a thin wash of a deep coffee color, often referred to as ?sesame sauce? color, and then the pieces were fired in the biscuit before the glaze was added.  Some, but not all, pieces have spur-marks indicating that they were fired on small stilt-like supports to prevent them from adhering to the saggar during firing; those with such marks probably date from the earlier part of the period.  As all of these pieces have a fine-grained, dusty looking grayish-beige body-clay, their rims tend to show mushroom-brown where the glaze has thinned after its application.  It is generally believed that most pieces which are decorated with splashes of crimson are of a date after the Northern Song and belong to the Jin (1115-1234) or Yuan dynasties (1279-1368).  Another area of considerable controversy has to do with an important and distinct group of molded Jun wares consisting of ?numbered? flowerpots and their saucers, both of which often are decorated with rose-purple glazes[4].  Many Chinese experts believe these were special items made for the Emperor Huizong (r. 1101-1125), the last of the Northern Song Emperors.  On the other hand, many western scholars have pointed out that the barbed and lobed shapes of some of these pieces did not exist before the Yuan Dynasty, and that these pieces are therefore of a later date than Northern Song.

Ru Ware

Ru ware (Ruyao), Guan or ?official? ware (Guanyao), and Ge ware (Geyao) are the rarest of the ?official? imperial wares.  In many ways they are related, with overlapping characteristics making them the hardest to identify with confidence.  While a good deal is known about them, they are surrounded by considerable controversy and debate, even among experts.  Part of the reason for this is the fact that only very few documented examples of these wares currently exist, and most of them are in museums.  Perhaps only a few hundred living individuals have ever handled all three of these wares and even fewer have ever held more than one example of each.  Furthermore, the exact location and number of kilns that manufactured them continues to remain a mystery.  The ongoing confusion is therefore quite understandable.

One exception to this is the fairly recent discovery in 1986 of a Ru kiln in Qingliangsi village, Daying Town, Baofeng County, Henan province, which was once part of the Ruzhou prefecture.  It is said that the Emperor Huizong was actually more interested in the arts than he was in public affairs.  He was in fact a highly regarded calligrapher, painter and poet, and as a true connoisseur of the arts he established the first Imperial Academy of Painting where he himself taught the guiding principles of Imperial calligraphy and painting.  He is also credited with establishing ?official? kilns for the production of fine ceramic wares for Imperial use.  It is thought that the Ru kiln at Qingliangsi was one of these kilns.  It is also generally thought that Ru wares were produced only during the Northern Song period, although some evidence exists that they may have been produced for a time by the Southern Song Court.  Their shapes were usually of simple, delicate, classical forms and small in size consisting of mostly dishes, bowls, brush washers, vases and a few archaistic bronze-forms.  They were relatively thinly potted, and covered, over all, with beautiful blue glazes that varied from sky-blue to robin?s-egg-blue.  They were typically left plain, without decoration.  Almost always the glaze exhibits a thin, sometimes almost imperceptible, crackle.  Crackle or crazing is caused by the contraction of the glaze and the body-clay as they cool, each substance having its own elasticity and its own rate of cooling.  At times this crackle or crazing extends vertically into the glaze providing a somewhat three-dimensional appearance, which is referred to by Chinese scholars as ?cicada wing? or ?fish scale? crackle, and it is commonly found on Ru wares.  It is believed that this crackle was caused by design as it adds significantly to the beauty of a piece.  It is somewhat different from a broader patterned, more pronounced, wider and deeper type of crackle sometimes found on Longquan celadon wares referred to as ?ice? crackle glaze, which is also quite attractive.  Ru wares have a light, grayish-white body paste, referred to as ?ash-gray?, and they were reduction fired at medium high temperatures.  When lightly struck they produce a medium tone rather than a high tone or dead sound.  They were almost always fired on tiny spurs that left imprints the shape and size of small ?sesame seeds? in the glaze on their bases, often exposing the relatively light colored body-clay.  The foot rings on bowls were usually splayed outward.  Numbering no more than 70 acknowledged pieces, Ru wares are perhaps the rarest of all ?official? Song wares.

Guan Ware

Although the character for Guan meaning ?official? was incised on the bottom of a number of different wares, the Guan ware (Guanyao) that has by tradition been included in the ?five famous imperial wares? is a type of celadon ware made during the Southern Song Dynasty.[5]  When the Northern Song were defeated by the Jin they fled south, moving their capital from Kaifeng in the north to Hangzhou, then called Linan, south of the Yangzi River.  Gaozong (r. 1127-1162), who was the ninth son of Emperor Huizong, was responsible for re-establishing the Song Dynasty at Hangzhou, and he also revived the cultural and intellectual glory of his father including the Academy of Painting.  He is also known to have established a kiln within the palace?s precinct itself (the Xiuneisi kiln), and another on the outskirts of the capital, known as the ?Suburban Altar? to Heaven (the Jiaotanxia kiln).  Both were established for the specific purpose of replicating the ?official? ceramic wares originally produced in the north.

The relative success of this endeavor resulted in Guan ware, the shapes of which generally followed those of Ru, although they included more numerous vessel types.  While similar to Ru wares in that they are thinly potted and reduction fired, they differ in one important respect; their body paste is naturally very dark, and they were fired at fairly low temperatures.  As a result, they give off a rather dead sound when lightly struck.  They are covered with thick lustrous glazes generally of bluish-gray-green hues that usually contained more obvious crackle patterns than that found on Ru ware.  Later connoisseurs have described these wares as having a ?purple mouth and iron foot? due to the dark body-clay showing through where the glaze drained from the lip-rim, and because the foot rings remained unglazed.  However, many of these pieces were fired on spurs and did not have foot rings, and not all pieces exhibit the ?purple mouth? effect which is often the result of a piece having been over-fired.

One area of contention among experts is that some believe that all wares of this type that exhibit obvious patterns of dark crackle automatically identify them as Ge wares.  In addition, there are those who lump both Guan and Ge together believing that they are, in reality, only variations of the same ware.  Nevertheless, in my opinion, while they are very similar, Guan ware is in fact different from Ge ware.  I believe Guan wares may have either a barely visible crackle or a more obvious dark crackle, but the crackle is usually uniform in the type of crackle and more widely spaced on Guan wares than on Ge wares.  In an effort to capitalize on the high esteem of Guan ware a number of other kilns attempted to copy them.  Among these, the best known are the Longquan kilns in Zhejiang Province.  Fortunately, most Longquan Guan are fairly readily identifiable due to the use of a lighter colored body-clay.  Evidence exists, however, that some Longquan kilns made Guan-type wares with dark clay, which would cause them to be more difficult to identify.  Even less is known about copies made by other kilns.  Unfortunately, the precise locations of some of the ?official? Guan kiln sites have yet to be located for certain or properly excavated, and as a result, the exact chronology of Guan development remains unknown, making the identification of these wares one of the most difficult among the famous ?official? wares.  It is even possible that some examples spurned as fakes might yet turn out to be legitimate.

Ge Ware

Ge wares (Geyao) are similarly fired and made of a comparable dark body-paste to Guan wares, and they give off a similar dull sound when lightly struck.  It is, however, the crackle effect of Ge ware that gives it its main distinguishing feature.  Unlike Guan, the crackle on Ge ware is usually more closely spaced, and it consists of what might be described as a double crackle, one of which is decidedly darker and more pronounced than the other.  This effect has been described by Chinese connoisseurs as being ?golden thread and iron wire?.  Each piece was coated with several layers of glaze of differing thicknesses and, perhaps, with slightly different chemical compositions.  They were then fired and re-fired after each application.  Again, the crackle was purposely caused by the various layers of glaze and the body-clay contracting by different amounts as they cooled at dissimilar rates, causing wider and thinner separations in the various glazes.  Once complete, the piece was usually covered overall with a coat of clear glaze.  The dark crackle itself, however, is somewhat controversial in that, while some believe it was naturally caused in true Ge and Guan by the dark body-clay being visible through the wider crevices or due to the stain of the iron oxide in the body-clay seeping into the separations, it is also known to have been artificially enhanced by the use of charcoal or another dark staining material being rubbed into the fissures.  This is especially the case with copies of these wares made during later periods.

Otherwise, Ge wares and Guan wares are very comparable; they were both made in a similar variety of forms and sizes, usually ranging from two to ten inches in size, and, at times, they were both fired with and without the use of foot rings and spurs.  Again, due to the lack of conclusive evidence of the place or places of Ge ware manufacture, there are those who believe that it may not have been a Song ware at all, and that Ge wares may have been made only later during the Yuan or early Ming dynasties.  To be sure, Guan and Ge wares are the most controversial of the five famous Song wares.

?Official? and unofficial imitations of both were made contemporaneously during the Song Dynasty as well as later during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911).  Many of the later examples are often easily identifiable, due to reign marks under the glaze or by the use of lighter colored body pastes, enhanced crackle, or their often heavier potting.   One common characteristic which may be used for identifying Guan and Ge is the presence of unconnected or ?flying? crackle, an attribute common to both.

Because all five of these wares have been continuously admired for almost eight hundred years, and because they are extremely rare, they represent the holy-grail for collectors of Chinese porcelain.  Their identification will, however, continue to be controversial until more is known from the exact locations and scientific excavations of their kiln sites.  Until then, the mysteries surrounding these pieces are apt to continue to provide both pleasure and frustration.  It is said that if you ask three experts for their judgment of any one piece you are apt to get five different opinions.

Bibliography

BOOKS AND CATALOGUES

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Wang Qing-zheng, Fan Dong-qing, Zhou Li-li, The Discovery of Ru Kiln - A Famous Song-ware Kiln of China, Woods Publishing Co., Hong Kong, 1991, Translation by Lillian Chin, and Xu Jie.

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