The decline of Yue Di kilns year by year is an irreversible fact.
In 690, after the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, Ru Kiln, the only official kiln in the Northern Song Dynasty, came to the fore, thus ending the history of secret color porcelain as "imperial porcelain" from the middle and late Tang Dynasty to the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the first and fourth years of Shaoxing, the Mingtang sacrificial vessels fired for the royal family of the Southern Song Dynasty became the last glory of Yue kiln.
The glory of Yue Kiln has disappeared, but the kiln workers will not disappear.
Also, no technology comes out of thin air, such as the Baoshao technology of the Northern Song Dynasty.
This technology must have a development process.
Obviously, Baoshao in Song Dynasty probably developed from secret color porcelain.
Or, it may have inherited part of the secret color porcelain technology.
This is also a helpless choice, because the secret technology of secret color porcelain is too strong.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Qian Dynasty of Wuyue State ordered that Yue kilns could only bake utensils dedicated to the royal family.
The products at that time were strictly controlled by the government and were hardly popular among the people, and the glaze formula and firing process were not spread to the outside world.
During this period, Yue kiln celadon was called secret color porcelain.
These secret-color porcelains entered the Qian's palace, and after the death of members of the Qian royal family, some of the secret-color porcelains were buried underground.
Since the Song Dynasty, with the decline of Yue Kiln, secret color porcelain finally withdrew from the stage of history.
The history of secret color porcelain has also become a secret and beautiful memory.
Since then, it seems that the secret color porcelain has lost its trace.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the palace was filled with rare treasures, including everything except a piece of secret-colored porcelain.
Emperor Qianlong once wrote a poem and lamented: "Li Tang Yue's utensils are incomparable in the world, and Zhao and Song's official kilns can see the stars."
He regretted that he was the emperor and was rich all over the world, but he did not have the opportunity to see the beauty of secret-colored porcelain.
In fact, there are two sides to the same story. Maybe the secret color porcelain has been passed down without your knowledge?
The appearance of secret color porcelain is like ice and jade, with a greenish tint, mainly celadon glaze!
Do these characteristics sound familiar?
What are the characteristics of Ru kiln? It is as green as the sky, its face is like jade, it has cicada wing patterns and few morning stars?
Legend has it that your porcelain has a simple and elegant shape, uses precious agate as glaze, and has a unique color. It is praised as "agate as glaze has been passed down from ancient times".
Its characteristics are also very obvious. It changes with the light. Looking at its glaze color, it is as wonderful as "the sky is clear and the clouds are clear after the rain", or "thousands of peaks are green and the waves are green".
Furthermore, the soil is fine and moist, the body is like Dong body, the glaze is thick and the sound is like a chime, bright but not dazzling.
In fact, if you don't talk about anything else, just look at the two descriptive poems "After the rain, the sky is clear and the clouds are clear" and "Thousands of peaks are green and the waves are green", you can see how similar it is to the image of secret color porcelain
!
In the history of Chinese ceramics, learning, imitation, acceptance, competition and mutual learning between kilns have never stopped.
Before Ru kiln celadon, Yue kiln had experienced a long history of celadon production and achieved brilliant achievements in the Tang and Song Dynasties.
The Yue kiln secret color porcelain with extremely high quality and artistic standards was very popular during the Tang and Song Dynasties. Celadon kilns at home and abroad rushed to imitate it, and Ru kiln celadon was no exception.
Various signs indicate that there is an inseparable connection between Ru kiln celadon and Yue kiln secret color porcelain.
However, none of this can be proven, because the Ru kiln was produced in the north, while the Yue kiln was in the south.
In fact, Chen Wenzhe does not need to prove these, because many people have explored it.
Ru kiln celadon and Yue kiln secret color porcelain pursue the same aesthetic style.
The light azure color of Ru porcelain brings sensory enjoyment, which is easily reminiscent of words such as "bright moon", "green water", "grass" and "spring water" in Song poetry.
How similar is this to the glaze color effect "like the bright moon and spring water" and "like thin ice and green clouds" pursued by Yue kiln's secret color porcelain?
Of course, Chen Wenzhe is not interested in these inheritance histories. What he is interested in is inheritance.
He now has the inheritance of Yue kiln celadon and Yue kiln secret color porcelain, and Ru kiln also got part of it. It is not the best, but it is there.
However, he did not study.
This part of the inheritance comes from the last exhibition held by the Dahai City Collectors Association, which included a piece of Ru kiln celadon.
I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but I found it again after searching for relevant information.
In other words, except for the firewood kiln technology, which he did not inherit, the entire celadon inheritance system has been collected from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
In fact, looking back now, some of the ancient technologies are really good.
However, after thorough research, that's all.
For example, the secret color porcelain of Yue kiln mainly raises the temperature, and finally completes the final transformation in the sagger.
Such a thing is not difficult to accomplish with modern technology.
However, in ancient times, people could only know how it was and secretly cook it without knowing why.
The final color of porcelain depends on the clay, glaze color and temperature.
At different temperatures, the components in the enamel will undergo different chemical reactions and show different colors.
Therefore, if you want to fire secret-color porcelain, the selection of porcelain clay, glaze color composition, and temperature must be strictly controlled.
How to control it is the exclusive secret of Yue Kiln, and it is reasonable that it is not known to outsiders.
After all, no one's technology can be conjured out of thin air. Self-interest is everyone's instinctive choice.
However, now this technology has really been created out of thin air.
Chen Wenzhe got such a technology and secret recipe for nothing without giving anything!
At this time, he already knew very well that the secret color porcelain must be fired in individual pieces, that is, a sagger was used to load the porcelain, and each sagger could only hold one piece of porcelain.
After that, it must be fully covered with glaze and fired on a supporting pad. This can effectively eliminate defects caused by open flames and overlapping firing, and improve the quality of the porcelain.
To this extent, the "secret" of secret color porcelain lies not only in the top secret of its production method, but also in its high cost.
In fact, why bother with so much trouble to get green color?
Plum green is a very good emerald color. Unfortunately, it was only invented in the Southern Song Dynasty. Not to mention the Tang Dynasty, even the Northern Song Dynasty could not produce it.
He shook his head and took his hands off the sagger.
Although he was optimistic about this sagger before, he still underestimated it.
They have selected excellent materials from the beginning, and are also very careful in the final production.
This is a cylindrical sagger with a lid and the whole body is covered with green glaze.
If you look closely, you can also see that there is a glaze seal between the lid and the jar body.
And now, it's obvious that they are all sintered together.
After turning around, Chen Wenzhe could see fine dark carvings on the outside of the sagger, most of which were dragon and phoenix patterns.
Having such a pattern represents its identity.
It is very likely that it appeared at that time just to burn tributes from official kilns!
Looking at the bottom, it must be a little exposed.
From here, you can see its essence.
Its clay is definitely more delicate and purer than ordinary porcelain, and its density is also very high.
The glaze color is very bright and rich. Although it cannot achieve the effect of ice and jade, it can be regarded as top-grade celadon.
Of course, this can only be regarded as the top celadon of the Tang Dynasty.