Clear copper hollow pattern shed stone warm stone
For the ancient northerners, the most troublesome thing in winter was to write, because once the room temperature fell below the freezing point, the Yantai would form a thin layer of ice, and if you lick the ink with a pen, the pen and ink would freeze and stick together, and the words would not be written.
Tao Nuanyan
At that time, due to the lack of heating facilities, when the Tang Dynasty border poet Cen Shan drafted a battle text in the military tent of Mobei, the ink in the Yantai froze: "Horse hair with snow sweat steam, five flowers and even money swirl into ice, and the grass in the curtain is condensed."
Li Bai also encountered this embarrassment, and sighed helplessly: "Frozen pen new poems are lazy to write, and the cold furnace is warm when the wine is warm."
In fact, in the Tang Dynasty, there were already warm stones, probably because the two poets did not have the conditions to use this "artifact" at that time, so they issued such an exclamation.
Yuan Floral pattern jade warm stone
Warm stones, mostly found in the north, are to avoid the freezing of ink in winter, hollow out the lower part of the stone into a warm room, put in charcoal or inject hot water, heat the stone pool, and prevent the ink on the stone surface from freezing.
Warm stones can be made of a variety of bricks, including gold, silver, copper, iron, stone, ceramics, purple sand, etc.; fine products are special to the royal family, mostly displayed in museums; others, generally in the north of the yamen, ancestral temples, or craftsmen use more.
Ming copper warm stone
Ming tea foam glaze warm wine warm stone
The earliest record of Warm Yan is the "Warm Yan Ming" of the Tang Dynasty Zhang Shu in the "Zhang Yan GongJi": "The pen blade is frozen, the ink pool is knotted at night, the incense charcoal is submerged, and the cold causes heat." ”
After the Song Dynasty, the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties all inherited, and gradually developed into a combination of practical and decorative study and elegant yakuza.
Bright blue and white tangled branches floral pattern animal head warm stone
Warm Yan is divided into two categories
1. Water injection type (plumbing type)
Most of the warm stones are water-injected, and a cavity is chiseled out under the ink hall, and the temperature of the brick surface is increased by injecting hot water. There are pottery, porcelain, purple sand stone.
Water injection type (plumbing type)
Second, the charcoal type (fire warm type)
Make a cavity under the stone surface, introduce charcoal grilling or place oil lamp to heat. Often with shed stone, pine stone stone, rarely use end stone, more metal base, used to burn charcoal to heat, but also common metal, ceramic and porcelain stone.
Charcoal burning type (fire heating type)
Ming Round pen holder mountain iron warm stone
The shape of warm bricks is mostly square, rectangular, hexagonal, eight-square, round, drum-shaped and so on. Due to the complex manufacturing process of warm stones and the high cost, it belongs to the luxury goods in the study room, and it is generally difficult for cold people to use them.
Qing Songhuashi Four Spirit Beast Literature Room Warm Stone
Qing YiYi Ding Warm Yan
Clear mud warm stone
In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, purple sand warm stone appeared, providing an opportunity for low-income literati to use warm stone, coupled with the strong plasticity, good air permeability and high temperature resistance of purple sand mud, it can produce a variety of purple sand warm stones, which is very popular among literati and inkers.
Purple sand warm stone
Warm Yan, as a literary supplies of the times, provided convenience for the ancient literati to work tirelessly in the cold of Shujiu to create poetry and calligraphy paintings.
At present, most of the warm stones handed down are from the Ming and Qing dynasties, which are very practical and artistic, and have high collection value.
Source: Introduction to Calligraphy