Dehua Porcelain Museum
Dehua County, one of the three major porcelain capitals in ancient China, belongs to Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, located in the central part of Fujian Province, northwest of Quanzhou City, and has a history of more than 3,700 years of ceramic production.
Master of Dehua porcelain craftsmanship
The fire in the Dehua kiln is booming
Fujian Dehua Yueji kiln
The world's porcelain is said to be moralized
Dehua County, together with Jingdezhen in Jiangxi and Liling in Hunan, is known as the three modern porcelain capitals of China and is one of the birthplaces of Chinese ceramic culture. Walking into Dehua, sure enough, along the way, you can see the signboard of a certain porcelain factory or a certain ceramic research institute, and it seems that ceramics here have been a pillar industry since ancient times. When I came to Dehua Caifeng, my first destination was the Dehua Ceramics Museum. The location of this museum is relatively remote, but the collection is very rich, and it is eye-opening to see the fine works or specimens of Dehua ceramics from various periods from the Tang Dynasty to the modern era. Although he loves ancient porcelain, the real Dehua porcelain (mainly Song and Yuan white porcelain) is rarely seen. The so-called "insider looks at the doorway, layman looks at the bustle" is like this. The collection of porcelain and kiln utensils is diverse, because there are too many types to introduce them all, and photographs are not allowed in the museum. In short, the collection covers the entire history of the development of the ceramic industry in Dehua area, the printed pottery of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the celadon bowls and pots of the Tang Dynasty, all kinds of white porcelain bowls, plates, bottles, cans, powder boxes, military holdings, etc. in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Ming Dynasty is a famous white porcelain sculpture and various incense burners and other small objects, the Qing Dynasty is mostly Dehua blue and white porcelain, after the Republic of China to the present there are many famous works and Dehua porcelain products.
Among these collections, my favorite is the white porcelain sculptures of the Ming Dynasty and the incense burner lamps, etc., which are really better to see than to see. The Ming Dynasty was the peak period of Dehua white porcelain, white porcelain is not only pure and flawless, brilliant, but also very moist white, like beautiful jade, with ivory white, lard white and other names, that kind of noble elegance can not be described in words. I was fortunate to see the famous porcelain sculpture works of He Chaozong and other masters, which I had only read in books before, but now that I am close at hand, I do have another feeling. In addition, the white porcelain powder box of the Yuan Dynasty, the lightweight shape and exquisite printing, are indeed very interesting.
After visiting the museum, we headed to our next destination, the site of the Qudou Palace Kiln. The kiln site is located on the campus of Dehua County No. 6 Middle School, and after explaining the intentions, the school's doorman welcomed us very warmly to visit. In front of the gate of the kiln site, the door was locked, and it seemed that it was too late to close the door. Through the iron fence of the window, I saw a cleaned dragon kiln about 20 meters long inside, which is often seen in books. Basically, there are some broken and scattered kiln tools such as bowls, and the porcelain pieces seem to have been cleaned up. I would like to visit the kiln site, but I can only take pictures, which is a pity. A closer search of the nearby roadside and the exposed soil behind the house revealed a small number of remaining porcelain pieces.
Qudougong kiln is a famous kiln in the Yuan Dynasty for the production of export porcelain, and its products are sold to Japan, Nanyang, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf through Quanzhou Port, which is a well-known export product of the Yuan Dynasty. In the excavation of Song and Yuan shipwrecks on the seabed, a large number of Dehua porcelain can often be found, which was an important variety of export porcelain at that time. The porcelain pieces collected from the utensils include bowls, plates, washers, boxes, stoves, bottles, etc. Among them, there are more dishes and boxes, and the glaze color of the dishes is pure white, and there are also white with blue and gray; the glaze color is bright and moist. The bottom foot is shallow, does not apply glaze, and the edges are smooth and regular; the mouth of the utensils is mostly mang-mouthed, the scratched glaze is on the inside, almost invisible from the outside, and the full glaze is less, and there may be some differences in age.
The tire quality of Dehua porcelain is hard and very pure and delicate, which can be seen from the bottom foot of the exposed tire; the tire is pure white, without a trace of impurity, which can be seen to be carefully washed, and the Song kiln product tire near Xiamen is not only coarse but also often mixed with sand grains, which is not seen in the Dehua kiln. In addition, the spin embryo marks on the bottom of the Dehua kiln dish washing and other utensils are very inconspicuous, which should be the result of the delicate material and the process. In the powder box and some cupwashed outer walls are decorated with a variety of ornaments composed of protruding lines, especially the powder box; many of the ornaments have some exotic styles, when it is to meet the needs of export sales, such as Persia and Arabia; the ornaments on the porcelain are not carved by hand but printed with molds, which not only ensures the unity and standardization of the ornaments, but also improves the production efficiency for mass production.
Dehua porcelain kiln craftsman
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Stunning world-class ceramic masterpiece - The Flying Woman
White chrysanthemum - white porcelain handicrafts
Dehua white porcelain armor world
Dehua kiln is named after the kiln site located in Dehua County, Fujian Province. The production of Dehua porcelain began in the Neolithic Age, flourished in the Tang and Song Dynasties, flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with unique skills and has not been passed down to this day. The Maritime Silk Road opened in the Song and Yuan Dynasties carried not only silk, but also the famous Italian traveler Marco Polo, who called "bowls and porcelain made in Diyun Prefecture (Dehua)", which was "both numerous and beautiful".
Dehua porcelain industry continues for thousands of years, and the local unique porcelain clay resources are inseparable, Dehua porcelain clay ore reserves are abundant, iron, titanium and other impurities low content, good quality, high whiteness after firing. The products of the early Song Dynasty were mainly blue and white porcelain, which gradually developed into white glazed porcelain with the continuous improvement of technology. The white glazed porcelain porcelain of the Ming Dynasty is like fat like jade, creating a unique "ivory white", which is regarded as a representative of Chinese white porcelain. Dehua white porcelain has the characteristics of white texture, delicate as jade, smooth glaze and sound like a chime, so it is called "Chinese white".
A 400-year-old ancient dragon kiln in Cai jing village, Sanban Town, Dehua County, is still in use. The dragon kiln is about sixty meters long and occupies the entire hillside. Dragon kiln is a form of kiln in China, the kiln is a long strip, built according to the hillside, from the bottom up, like a dragon like a snake, so the name of the dragon kiln. Dragon kiln was once the main way of making pottery in Dehua, and there were hundreds of dragon kilns in the county before, because of the need to burn firewood, it was not environmentally friendly, and a large number of dragon kilns were sealed or "electrified".
Dehua Longyao was founded in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, consisting of three parts: kiln head, kiln room and kiln tail, with a fire chamber at the head of the kiln, and a kiln chamber divided into several items (sections). Several kiln doors are placed on both sides of the staircase passage to install the product passage. There are firewood throwing holes (fire holes) at the kiln walls on both sides of each section, arranged symmetrically. The tail of the kiln is equipped with a fire retaining wall, the bottom of the wall is filled with smoke holes, and there is a fireworks alley behind the wall, commonly known as a chimney. The more than 200 dragon kilns that have survived in history have gradually disappeared, and the Yueji kiln has been preserved as the only dragon kiln still in use, which is called the "living fossil" of the Dehua millennium wood-fired kiln by the ceramic community. The wood-fired dragon kiln is facing a dilemma due to many reasons such as complex process, laborious and time-consuming, high construction cost and low output, and this ancient process is now on the verge of being lost.
A group of dedicated young people came here to organize the Yueji Kiln International Contemporary Ceramics Center Work Camp, continuing the unceasing ceramic history of the Yueji Kiln. Yueji kiln attracts ceramic artists from all over the world to create ceramic artworks and exchange ceramic culture. Their arrival breathed new life into the ancient art of ceramics.
In the county's ceramic city, the highest artistic level representing the current Dehua ceramics is displayed. Dehua folk sculpture artists combine sculpture with porcelain art and are good at making white porcelain Guanyin. The white porcelain Guanyin ritual is vivid and is recognized as a world-wide white porcelain treasure. Dehua white porcelain does not seek the gorgeous color, but pursues the beauty of simplicity, purity and elegance. If the white porcelain of the Jingdezhen kiln is known for its blue and white glaze, dehua white porcelain is mainly milky white, the glaze layer is moist, the light color is like jade, showing the characteristics of ice and jade, containing intriguing charm, compared to having the same magic.
Dehua porcelain is one of the most famous export porcelain in China, so the collection abroad is also particularly rich, such as the works of He Chaozong, the Ming Dynasty grandmaster who was known as the first porcelain master at that time and the "common treasure of the world", and there are more than 200 pieces in the collection of major museums in the West. Most of the porcelain from the ancient ship "Nanhai No. 1" of the Song Dynasty was produced in Dehua kilns, which had unique shapes and exquisite craftsmanship, and most of them were intact.
Dehua large-scale porcelain carving "Crossing the Sea Guanyin" is 6.4 meters high, hollow, composed of 137 parts, with more than 8 tons of porcelain clay, located in the center of Dehua City Porcelain Culture Square, is the largest open-air porcelain sculpture Guanyin produced in China so far.
Through comparison, we find that although Dehua porcelain is not as good as Jingdezhen porcelain, it enjoys an international reputation. When you carefully appreciate the works of these two major porcelain capitals, you will find that they really have their own characteristics and advantages. The same is the production of female ceramic ornaments, whether in terms of color, human object state or charm, Dehua porcelain is obviously more eye-catching. Fair and delicate skin, beautiful posture, layered texture, soft colors, natural state, even clothes are like a knitwear on a lady's body. The kaolin used in Dehua porcelain should be controlled below 1200 degrees Celsius when firing, and the result of such firing is that the finished product of Dehua porcelain is whiter, more delicate, and warmer as jade.
At the Yueji kiln, I saw the firing process of Dehua porcelain. The whole process is divided into three processes: porcelain clay processing, sculpture molding, and firing. The masters told me that in order to produce high-quality porcelain, it is necessary to use Dehua's high-quality white porcelain clay as the basis for fine processing, otherwise all the processes behind it may be doing useless work.
(Text/Liu Anmu)
Ruins of dehua ancient kilns