Chapter 1,193 After thousands of years of wind and frost, the simplicity remains as pure as ever
Of course, large-diameter Ding kiln porcelain bowls are very rare even in the production process of Ding kiln.
Let’s talk about the previous large eight-sided bowl from Ding kiln in the Northern Song Dynasty. Its diameter was only 22.2 cm.
The craftsmanship is unparalleled. The fetus is delicate in texture, with an eight-petal pattern. The shape of the vessel is plump and dignified, with curved walls and a deep belly. The mouth is wide and inwardly inclined, and the lower belly is tapered obliquely.
The edges and corners are subtle, and the body of the vessel rises and falls along the edges.
The inside of the bowl is engraved with blooming peonies, and the knife technique is neat and freehand. The grate cuts the veins and is elegant and subtle.
The lower leaves are arched and fluttering, as if swaying in the wind.
The lines are smooth and the few strokes are vivid and interesting.
The eight petals on the inner wall are all self-carved with the lotus pattern of broken branches. The mood is slightly different, the flowers are euphemistic, the lotus leaves are decent, simple and elegant.
The flat bottom is regular and solid, leaving no traces of accidental tire repairs, just like a crescent moon hanging in the sky.
The whole body is covered with glaze and has a single awn mouth, and the old copper buckle is inlaid.
The surface of the vessel is bright and soft, the color is tooth-white, pleasing to the eye and refined. The spots look like tear stains and the color is slightly darker. It has endured thousands of years of wind and frost, and is as simple and pure as ever.
The glaze of this bowl is soft and smooth, the color is tooth-white and pleasing to the eye. The spots look like tear stains and the color is slightly darker. It has endured thousands of years of wind and frost, and is as simple and pure as ever.
There are only a few comparable examples, and there are even fewer examples in private collections.
As early as 1949, this bowl had been owned by the famous collector Mr. and Mrs. Ivory Clark, and it has been seen in many important exhibitions.
Since it appeared at Sotheby's in London in 1971, it has not been publicly exhibited and its traces have been lost. It is particularly rare to see it again now.
Therefore, this top-notch large eight-sided bowl from Ding Kiln has such high grade and artistic value that it cannot simply be classified as a bowl.
In addition to these fine products, bowls and plates, and other porcelain produced by Ding kiln, there are also many varieties.
There are many types of bottles, including straight-neck bottles, pure bottles, plum bottles, etc.
The pillow has a white glaze children's pillow and a carved waist-shaped round pillow.
There is only one genuine piece of the former in the Palace Museum, and there are more than ten others, all of which were imitated in the Ming Dynasty.
The musical instruments include white-glazed and black-glazed flower-waisted drums. One of the former was unearthed in the early years and has been scattered abroad.
Pots are relatively rare among handed down products, and this one has been spotted by Chen Wenzhe.
He started his career by making large-scale pots. Now that he knows that pots in Ding kilns are very rare, he will definitely make a batch of them.
However, even if it is production, he will definitely make more than one kind.
He will definitely design and make several pot types of all glaze colors.
Especially the single-color glaze teapots cannot be ignored, because some famous single-color glaze rare teapots in history are really famous.
Of course, this will be made slowly later, so he is not in a hurry.
Now that we are making Ding kiln wares, we must make the classic Ding kiln wares.
However, even if you are imitating Ding kiln, you cannot start with a child's pillow with a relatively complicated shape.
At the very least, he should make a few copies of dishes and try them out.
After the firing is successful, we can then make more complex bottles, porcelain pillows, or even musical instruments, such as waist drums and conches!
In addition to the shape of the Ding kiln porcelain, the decoration is complex, and the most popular thing is the glaze.
Only when the tire glaze is done well can various craftsmanship be piled on it.
Let’s talk about the body glaze first. Ding kiln porcelain mostly has a white body, especially the products from the Song Dynasty, which are almost all white porcelain bodies, and the body quality is very hard.
This is because the raw materials contain a high amount of alumina.
Not only that, but many of the kiln furniture in Ding kiln are also made of white porcelain, using the same raw materials as those used to make porcelain.
The Ding kiln site is covered with piles of white flowers.
There are also white-bore kiln furniture, which also accounts for a considerable proportion.
The overuse of this raw material was also one of the important reasons for the subsequent decline of Ding kiln.
The glaze of Ding kiln porcelain is mostly white glaze, and there are also a small amount of black glaze, sauce glaze, brown glaze, green glaze and other varieties.
The color of the white glaze in the Song Dynasty was yellowish. As mentioned before, this is an important basis for distinguishing the white porcelain from Ding kiln in the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Then there are other glaze colors, except for white glaze, sauce glaze, brown glaze, black glaze, green glaze and other varieties, which account for a small proportion of Ding kiln porcelain. Complete handed down products are even rarer, so the collection value is high.
Ming Cao Zhao's "Ge Gu Yao Lun" states: "There are Ziding, which is purple in color. Heiding, which is as black as paint. The earth is all white, and its price is higher than that of Baiding."
It can be seen that its collection value in the Ming Dynasty was higher than that of Ding kiln white porcelain.
In fact, these so-called black fixings, purple fixings, and sauce glazes should all be similar.
For example, the so-called Ziding is actually a sauce glaze.
Lacquerware was popular in the Song Dynasty, and the sauce-colored glaze was regarded as an imitation sauce-colored lacquerware product.
The so-called black tin refers to black glaze.
As mentioned before, the Ding kiln black glaze is definitely extraordinary. Its color is uniform, the light is discernible, and it also has the texture of lacquer.
There are no documented records of the Green Ding rule, and there is no complete product handed down from generation to generation. However, the Palace Museum collected two pieces of Green Ding porcelain from the Ding kiln site, one of which has a dragon pattern on it.
The green glaze on it must be green, and the color is uniform and verdant, thus confirming that Ding Kiln once had green Ding products.
Ding kiln also has brown glaze products, which are almost golden in color.
In 1982, at the Ding kiln site, someone collected a fragment of a printed brown glaze plate, which was golden in color and quite gratifying.
Ding kiln color glaze varieties all have a common feature, they are all white.
That is, the tire material used in white porcelain is exactly the same, but the outer color glaze is different.
This is an important symbol that distinguishes Ziding, Heiding, Greending and other kiln entrances.
So Chen Wenzhe saves a lot of effort here. As long as he collects qualified natural Ding kiln mineral materials, he can make qualified white tires.
After that, depending on the glaze, all glaze colors including white porcelain and black porcelain can be fired directly.
The key is natural minerals. After all, an important reason for the decline of Ding Kiln was that all the local natural minerals in Dingzhou were exhausted.
Of course, with modern technology, it is certainly not difficult to find more natural mineral raw materials.
This cannot be compared with ancient technology. As long as we can determine what mineral materials were used by ancient people to produce Ding kiln porcelain.
Now the local natural mineral materials in Dingyao have been developed again.
Because in modern times, the country will naturally not ignore famous kilns like Ding Kiln without using them.
Therefore, since the 1980s, the state has organized special efforts to research raw materials for Ding kiln glaze.
Early research focused on collecting surface specimens or using museum Ding kiln porcelain as specimens to analyze the raw material composition of Ding kiln wares.
Sort by age through analogy.
Then through chemical or physical testing, a large amount of data is obtained.
Finally, by comparing and analyzing the raw materials left over from the Ding kiln ruins, we can get the ancient formula of the tire glaze.
The most important thing is to determine the raw mineral materials such as fetal soil, porcelain stone, kaolin, etc. that were mainly used in ancient times.
It can be said that Chen Wenzhe is now on top of countless predecessors in making Ding kiln porcelain, allowing him to save a lot of time.
The modern Ding kiln team has identified many raw materials required for the production of ancient Ding kiln wares.
For example, kaolin, glazing ash, glazing siliceous rock, etc.
As long as these materials are available, Chen Wenzhe can completely restore the craftsmanship of the ancient Ding kiln, and even make porcelain that is exactly the same as the ancient Ding kiln wares.