Ding kiln comes from Dingzhou, and if you want to produce raw materials for Ding kiln wares, you can definitely buy them at the modern Ding kiln factory on the shore of Dingzhou.
Therefore, Chen Wenzhe is not afraid of finding suitable mineral materials.
Now that the glaze is fine, all that’s left is the craftsmanship.
One of the biggest problems of Ding kiln works is decoration. The porcelain produced by it can be decorated with printing, engraving, painting, carving, gold color, etc.
Although Chen Wenzhe has never used the printing process, it has been circulated to this day and has even become more popular.
Ding kiln printing decoration appeared in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty. It was very mature as soon as it appeared and seemed to have no development stage.
This artistic phenomenon is not unique to Ding kiln printing.
In the history of Chinese ceramics, there are other examples, such as the sudden mature appearance of blue and white in the Yuan Dynasty, etc., all of which are related to their specific environment.
Why was printing technology suddenly used on a large scale in the Song Dynasty, especially on Ding Kiln porcelain?
The main reason is that there are too many patterns in Ding kiln. If mass production is carried out, it will be too slow to rely on manual hand-painting and engraving piece by piece. Therefore, the rise of printing technology has emerged.
Of course, the printing technology, engraving technology, and even deflowering technology of Ding kiln did not appear suddenly.
In ancient Dingzhou, the art of stone carving was developed, and the art of tapestry was also very famous.
The technical basis of stone carving and the mature patterns of tapestry made Ding kiln printing with clear layers, clear lines and neat layout. It became the leading product among Ding kiln porcelain and had a great influence on the northern and southern porcelain kilns.
Ding kiln printing has many themes, mainly flowers, birds, animals, and swimming fish.
Figure lines are relatively rare and can only be seen in a small amount of baby play lines.
Most of the flowers are peonies and lotus, followed by chrysanthemums.
The birds are mainly peacocks, phoenixes, egrets, mandarin ducks, geese, and ducks, and they are often combined with flowers to form neat patterns.
For example, egrets and mandarin ducks are often combined with lotus flowers, and peacocks are often combined with peonies.
Most animals have dragon patterns, while lion patterns are less common.
Most of the swimming fish are pairs of Pisces, and human figures are very rare.
A plate with a lion dance pattern has been unearthed in Quyang, but has never been seen elsewhere.
The patterns of babies playing include babies playing with peonies, babies playing with lotus, babies playing with three fruits, babies playing with lotus ponds chasing ducks, etc.
The pattern of babies playing in the Song Dynasty was more popular, and all kilns had the pattern of playing with babies, while the pattern of babies playing with three fruits was unique to the Ding kiln.
The three fruits are peach, pomegranate and loquat.
The three fruits and the three babies are arranged at intervals, and the vessel is decorated with branches. The three babies have different postures and pull the branches with their hands.
The three babies are riding, sitting, and standing on branches respectively. They are naked and barefoot. The innocent and naughty posture of the babies is quite charming.
Such top-notch Ding kiln porcelain has a natural and lifelike appearance, and it can be seen that it is master-level craftsmanship. After all, it has given Sanying its charm.
This is not simple, so truly top-quality Ding kiln porcelain is very precious.
And these are just some common patterns. Among Ding kiln products, printing, engraving, and painting all have a large number of dragon patterns.
There are many dragon-patterned wares, but it does not mean that they are of low value, because such porcelain must be related to tribute porcelain for the imperial palace.
Among the kilns in the Song Dynasty, the one with the most dragon patterns was undoubtedly the Ding kiln.
Dragon patterns appear on the shapes of plates, bowls, bottles, etc.
Most of its compositions are in an arc-shaped coiling posture. The dragon pattern on the bottle shows the dragon's body bending, its claws dancing wildly, and flying in the sky, giving the impression of soaring into the clouds and riding the mist.
Let’s talk about deflowering. Compared with printing, the deflowering process is a little more difficult.
Therefore, the output of carved products in Ding Kiln porcelain is not large, and the main varieties are pillows and bottles.
Fragments of carved flower pillows were collected at the kiln site, and they were decorated with geometric rhombus patterns.
The vase has been handed down from generation to generation, and there seems to be only one of it. It was dispersed abroad in the early years.
This is the reason why Chen Wenzhe directly chose the child pillow as the representative work of Ding kiln to imitate.
Even among Ding kiln wares, it is a rare and precious treasure.
Of course, as long as you know how to make Ding kiln children's pillows, there shouldn't be much difficulty in making other Ding kiln porcelain.
Decoration is one of the traditional decoration techniques of ceramics. After the pattern is carved, the parts other than the pattern are removed.
This technique can be divided into two types: leaving the flowers on the ground and leaving the flowers on the ground.
Cizhou kilns, which appeared in the late Five Dynasties and reached the early Northern Song Dynasty, have quite strong northern cultural characteristics.
To leave the pattern on the ground, apply a layer of cosmetic clay on the body, then draw out the pattern, then remove the space outside the pattern, and finally cover it with transparent glaze before firing.
The pattern is raised and has a bas-relief effect, which is represented by Cizhou kiln products of the Song Dynasty.
The latter is to carve out exposed patterns on the glazed body, such as the carved products of Jizhou kiln and Cizhou series.
After carving the pattern, remove the parts other than the pattern.
Popular among the major kiln systems in the north during the Song Dynasty, the black-glazed china porcelain of the Yu kiln of Xiuwu (now part of Nanhe) is the most representative.
The brown ground is used to set off the white patterns that are most distinctive.
In the Yanbei area (now part of Xishan), flower-cut decoration was popular during the Jin and Yuan Dynasties.
It is mainly made of black glaze, and simple patterns are carved on bottles, jars, jars and other utensils, which is unique.
The flower-cut pattern appeared in the late Five Dynasties and reached the Cizhou kiln in the early Northern Song Dynasty. It has strong northern cultural characteristics.
Carved flowers appeared in Cizhou kiln from the late Five Dynasties to the early Northern Song Dynasty, and have strong northern cultural characteristics.
The reason why engraving is popular in the northern region is because the porcelain body in the north is thicker and is more suitable for the engraving process than the thin porcelain body in the south.
The original patterned porcelain may have been imitated from gold and silverware.
The highly concave and convex patterns on gold and silverware inspired porcelain craftsmen to some extent.
At the same time, relief works in wood carvings, stone carvings, and brick carvings also had a lot of influence on carved porcelain.
These reliefs can often be seen in folk architecture.
The deflowering technique on porcelain undoubtedly draws a lot of nutrients from it.
The flower-picking decoration can be divided into three types: clay-picking, tire-picking, and glaze-picking, with different styles.
The raw materials used in Cizhou kiln are mainly coal, kaolinite mudstone in the formation, mainly Daqing soil, and the quality of the raw materials is not high.
The porcelain bodies fired in this way are mostly gray, gray-brown or brown, which cannot be compared with Xing kiln and Ding kiln.
Therefore, from the beginning, the clever Cizhou kiln craftsmen used makeup clay to carefully dress up the porcelain.
The white glaze flower-shaped jar from the Jin Dynasty has two layers of decoration on the jar body. The upper layer is a continuous curly grass pattern, and the lower layer is a rhombus-shaped deformed petal. The overall decoration is both patterned and full of rhythm.
This kind of porcelain jar has a raised edge inside the mouth rim, which can just support the lid.
Straight-cylinder jars began in the late Northern Song Dynasty and became popular in the Jin Dynasty. They have been unearthed in Guantai Kiln in Beihe and Dangyangyu Kiln in Nanhe.
During the Jin and Yuan dynasties, Nanhe and Qilu also produced many white-glazed porcelains.
The carving process is also often used on porcelain pillows. The production method is to first use a tool to cut out a clay slab of a certain thickness, and then close the clay slabs.
The joint parts of the mud boards are bonded with mud strips dipped in mud.
After drying for a certain period of time, trim the base, apply makeup soil, and then remove the flowers.
Poke a small hole in the back (or front or side) of the pillow, and poke two holes individually.
This is to prevent the hot air in the pillow from expanding and damaging the green body during firing in the kiln.
Finally, a transparent glaze is applied and fired in the kiln.