An Analysis of the Evolution of Ceramic Ornaments in the Cizhou Kilns

Cizhou kiln ornamentation (this article mainly refers to the decorative ornamentation drawn on porcelain with a brush) was created by the vast number of Cizhou potters in the long-term porcelain making practice. Inspired by the underglaze painting technique of the Changshan kiln in the Tang Dynasty, in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, a few Cizhou potters tried to use a brush to spot, draw, paint, and wipe on the green tire, and then hang the glaze into the kiln and fire it until the porcelain was out of the kiln. Unexpected decorative effect was exhibited. The unintentional behavior of individual craftsmen has become the deliberate work of the master craftsmen. After the Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the subject matter content was simple to complex, from simple to exquisite; the form of expression was from black and white flowers to red and green colors and then to black and white flowers, brown flowers, blue and white flowers, and multicolored. The development of ceramic art has played a pioneering role. According to the chronological order and artistic characteristics, we divided the evolution of the decoration of the Cizhou Kiln into four stages.

In the early Song Dynasty, it was the period of the decoration of the Cizhou kiln. Figures 1 and 2 show the collection of the Cizhou Kiln in the early Song Dynasty. It can be seen from the collection that the Cizhou Kiln decoration in this period consists of some simple geometric patterns, plants, and simple patterns of flowers and birds. Geometric patterns are generally combined dot patterns and line patterns; plant patterns are generally wheat ears and bamboo; flowers and birds are generally broken branches, flowers, magpies and other birds. At this point, Cizhou potters began to paint on porcelain in the same way that Chinese painters used pens on rice paper to make Chinese ceramics change from glaze decoration to color decoration, creating a new era of Chinese ceramic underglaze. Decoration method is black flowers.

In the golden period, it was a brilliant period for the decoration of the Cizhou kiln. Figures 3 and 4 show the collection of Cizhou Kilns during the Jinyuan Period. It can be seen that the decoration of the Cizhou Kiln at this stage has matured. From a simple geometric pattern and plant pattern, it will develop into a complete flower and bird animal, landscape, and figure painting. The theme of flowers is mostly peony, lotus, and bamboo; animals and animals are dominated by dragons, phoenixes, tigers, fish, cranes, ducks, and ducks; characters are mostly infant operas, acrobatics, and stories. It is worth noting that from then on, a large number of poems, songs and proverbs, and common sayings were decorated with calligraphy on the artifacts. Text decoration is not only a regular script, official script, regular script, running script, cursive script, as well as double hook body, flying white book and so on. At this point, the pattern decoration of Cizhou Kiln has already been fully equipped with the characteristics of Chinese painting and calligraphy, forming a unique art of porcelain painting. In addition to the black and white flowers, the decoration has added red and green colors.

From the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, it was the low tide period of the decoration of the Cizhou kiln. Figure 5 shows the collection of Cizhou kiln during the Ming and Qing dynasties. At this stage, the decorative ornamentation of Cizhou Kilns has tended to be simple. Although the subject matter is also composed of birds and flowers, most of the plots are simple and dominated by individual characters or animals. At this point, the Cizhou kiln decoration bid farewell to the luxurious decoration of the Jinyuan period, and entered the low tide period of the fresh and simple “Fine painting” decoration. In addition to the white and black flowers and red and green colors of the Jin and Yuan period, the decoration method has also developed the black and white color of white flowers.

The period from the late Qing Dynasty to the period of ** was the revival of the decoration of the Cizhou kiln. Figure 6 shows the collection of Cizhou Kiln during the late Qing Dynasty. The Cizhou Kiln decoration at this stage has already gone out of the low valley of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The contents of the decoration include landscape pavilions, historical stories, drama figures, birds, flowers, birds, fish and birds. In addition to reflecting the traditional scenery of "Xiangxiang landscape", the landscape ornamentation shows more of the magnificent landscape of the Taihang Mountains. The peony, lotus and chrysanthemum patterns in the flowers are the most representative traditional decorative patterns of the Cizhou kilns since the Song Dynasty. The historical drama figures are more common in the heroic stories of the Three Kingdoms during the Song and Yuan periods.