In Paris, France in the late 16th century, the upper class chased a romance drama called "Shepherd Girl Astalai", in which the male protagonist Céladon (Shera Tong) wore a green cloth robe, and whenever he appeared, he caused the audience to cheer, and soon after, the green clothes worn by Céladon swept all over Paris.
Yuan Longquan kiln blue glaze clean bottle
Collection of the Palace Museum
Just at this moment, a ship came from the far east, and there was a kind of exquisite celadon on board, and people did not know how to describe such exquisite porcelain, but could only exclaim: "That porcelain is so beautiful, just like the color of Céladon's clothes." Later, this celadon on the ship was called Céladon by Europeans, and this was the original name of Longquan celadon in this western continent.
Today, "Céladon" refers not only to Longquan celadon porcelain, but in the West it is the common name for almost all cyan porcelain. Longquan, China, has become a model of celadon in the world.
Tomorrow morning Longquan blue glaze chrysanthemum plate
Caliber 25.8cm, height 6cm
Yu Jian strictly selected the best product auction 14048 yuan transaction
The firing of Longquan kiln has a long history, and the Song Dynasty, where the five famous kilns were the way, did not lose momentum, and even opened up an extremely broad overseas market, but why after the realization of global trade, Longquan kiln will gradually fall lonely in the following thousands of years, leaving the Jingdezhen kiln in the Ming and Qing dynasties? We're going to explore today.
Longquan Kiln's "Mortal Immortals"
If you want to sum up the first half of the glorious life of Longquan Kiln in one sentence, it must be "the wild road to make a fortune, survive the big brother, and successfully establish a global super gate sect." "To talk about the development of Longquan kiln, we can also roughly divide it into three stages.
Yuan Longquan kiln printing dragon pattern blue glaze plate
Stage 1: Copycat Thief Division. In this period, Longquan kiln has just risen, the market is not how to grasp, the technology is not mature, but it is not difficult to sell products well, and the next big brother Yue kiln to learn from the experience, imitate copy, or can make money. Therefore, at this time, the Longquan kiln is very similar to the Yue kiln, mainly based on light blue glaze porcelain, mostly using the "scratching" technique, and the support firing process uses gasket mud point support firing.
Five generations of Yue kiln blue glaze diamond flower mouth plate
The second stage: self-contained. After entering the Southern Song Dynasty, the Longquan kiln on the one hand produced celadon to meet the needs of the public, on the other hand began to fire the emulsion blue glaze porcelain needed by the officials, and finally the kiln sprang up, firing thick glaze products with its own unique style, and quickly occupied the celadon market.
Song Longquan kiln green glaze Qun type bottle
Collection of the National Palace in Taipei
The third stage: global trade. The Song and Yuan dynasties were the golden age of Longquan kiln exports. Archaeology has found that there was a large amount of Longquan kiln celadon on the Shipwreck of Huaguang Reef No. 1, which sank in the waters of the Xisha Islands in the early Southern Song Dynasty.
Huaguang Reef No. 1 shipwreck out of the water Longquan kiln blue glaze carved flower bowl
Huaguang Reef No. 1 shipwreck out of the water Longquan kiln blue glaze diamond mouth carved flower folding plate
In the Yuan Dynasty, which expanded China's territory to the largest and busiest dynasty of foreign trade lines, Longquan kiln changed the style of utensils according to the market, continuously innovated in production, and fired celadon that integrated traditional Chinese culture, Islamic culture, Mongolian Yuan culture, etc. In addition to traditional flowering, in addition to traditional flowering, it often uses molding, plastering, carving, exposed tire stacking and other technical means, and the shape has also shifted from the delicate and beautiful, simple and elegant of the Song Dynasty to the magnificent, complex and gorgeous.
Left: Southern Song Dynasty Longquan kiln blue glazed phoenix ear bottle, beijing palace museum collection
Right: Yuan Longquan green glaze paste "Pearl Cloud Dragon" figure Pisces Dragon Ear Bottle
In this way, when many kilns that dominated the song dynasty began to gradually become lonely, longquan kilns successfully broke through and became one of the few kiln giants that could compete with Jingdezhen kilns.
Distribution map of Longquan celadon ruins found overseas
Longquan Kiln's "Chess Meets the Opponent, And Finally Falls"
The Ming Dynasty is a key node in the history of Chinese porcelain, in this dynasty, the early kiln factories bloomed with flowers, and the later Jingdezhen became the royal kiln, beginning the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Longquan kiln, which once dominated the world, was defeated by Jingdezhen in the Ming Dynasty, but in fact, it was not unjust.
Yuan Dynasty Longquan kiln printing dragon pattern blue glaze plate
During the Southern Song Dynasty, in addition to the Longquan kiln, the kiln giant in the south is also worth mentioning the Jingdezhen kiln. Jingdezhen in the five generations period is made by white glaze porcelain, to the Song Dynasty, it innovated a kind of white in the blue, like a clear lake of blue and white glazed porcelain, people love, it quickly opened up the market, achieved great success, which and Longquan kiln and other major kilns are still quite similar, are plain and elegant style.
Jingdezhen kiln green and white glaze carved flower plum vase
By the time of the Yuan Dynasty, when most of the mainstream kilns in the Song Dynasty began to weaken or even die, the two lucky ones, the Longquan kiln and the Jingdezhen kiln, survived. Like the Longquan kiln, the Jingdezhen kiln was transformed by the impact of foreign culture at that time. However, unlike the Longquan kiln, which is tightly clasped with celadon porcelain, the Jingdezhen kiln got rid of its dependence on the blue and white glaze and began to differentiate in two levels, on the one hand, it became whiter, producing an egg white glaze that conformed to the aesthetics of the Yuan people; on the other hand, there were many new varieties, such as yuanqinghua, monochrome glaze, glaze red, etc., and even colored porcelain also began to appear.
Yuanqinghua tangled peony with lid plum vase Collection of the National Museum of Iran
Ming Hongwu Porcelain unearthed in Jingdezhen
At this time, the Longquan kiln, it only does some ornaments to meet the changes in market demand, such as flying celadon dot color, Longquan tire exposer, etc., in this trick can not play Jingdezhen, naturally also slowly lose the domestic and overseas market.
Yuanlongquan kiln point brown color jade pot spring bottle
Osaka Municipal Museum of Oriental Ceramics
However, the reason why longquan kiln can not meet the market in time like Jingdezhen to produce, may also be restricted by the tire soil, after all, compared to the high-quality porcelain clay mine in Jingdezhen, the plasticity of the tire soil of the Longquan kiln is relatively low, and it is also necessary to add purple gold soil to improve the strength in use, and it is impossible to burn a high-quality white tire that can combine everything like Jingdezhen.
Ming Longquan kiln green glaze carved flower pomegranate style zun
In fact, in terms of amplification, it is not so much the technical reasons that made the Longquan kiln finally fail in this competition, but rather that the simple and elegant aesthetics since the Song Dynasty have gradually become the aesthetic past under the influence of foreign cultures such as Mengyuan, which has been abandoned by most people.
Of course, aesthetics are diverse, especially today, whether it is Song Zhiqingya or Qingzhi Qili, it can be recognized by many collectors, and today's Longquan kiln also blooms with extraordinary brilliance in the eyes of people at the time.
Tomorrow will be opened Longquan Furnace Palace Museum Collection