Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1589: Blank Transition Period

This trip to Qingshen was very fruitful. I received a Yongle blue and white lotus platter, discovered a huge ancient kiln site tentatively named Baipo Kiln or Tangu Kiln, and harvested a lot of remnants of these kilns. Porcelain, and the small jar that Zhou Zhi holds in his hand now and can't put it down.

This small jar was given to him by blind man Li Er. Its shape is the melon-shaped water bowl that was very common in the Tang, Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasties.

The water bowl is about the size of a fist, has a mouth without a rim, and a round belly with four curved melon ribs. The glaze is white, slightly milky yellow, relatively flat, and there are tiny openings if you look closely.

The most special thing is that there are two kinds of color spots on the glaze, one is green and the other is purple-red like burning clouds. The color spots are divided into four pieces, showing a natural halo state on the glaze. Because the carcass is relatively rough and the color spots are applied very thinly, the color glaze accumulates more in the rough holes of the carcass and less in smoother and flat places, and then it accumulates under the thin white glaze. It appears, forming a distribution of shades like clouds in the sky, accompanied by some green and purple lines and spots, which is very beautiful.

In particular, there is a patch of color that is separated by a concave melon ridge. One side is green glaze, and the other side is red glaze. The two flow into the melon ridge and converge, forming a blue-purple dripping pattern at the bottom, which is then covered with white glaze. Cover, the effect is like Tang Sancai with a layer of emulsified leather shell, or faded Jun Kiln glaze, the color effect is very charming.

"What on earth is this thing?" Although Zhang Cheng is lame, the lameness is in his left leg. He is not unable to drive. He is driving now. Seeing Zhou Zhi non-stop playing with the can, he couldn't help but ask curiously.

He couldn't understand this jar just like Blind Li Er: "Blind Li Er is an expert, and even he can't understand this thing. Isn't it some made-up fake?"

"If it was a made-up fake, it would have been impossible for him to keep it for decades with his eyesight." Zhou Zhi turned over the bottom of the small jar: "The color of the fire has faded, and the pulp has become covered with iron. It has been decades." It’s caused by playing around inside.”

"Then he is still willing to give it to you?" Zhang Cheng asked.

"Because he hoped that I could solve the mystery." Zhou Zhi said, "And I basically solved it."

"Really?" Zhang Cheng said in surprise: "Do you know the origin of this thing?"

"This is an important porcelain in the transitional period." Zhou Zhi said: "The shape of the vessel is correct and the glaze is smooth. It is obvious that the sagger firing process was used to avoid contamination of the body by smoke and dust."

"From the perspective of the shape of the instrument and the pedicure, the knife technique is sharp and the lines are tough. The quality of the body has changed from the thick and heavy during the Han and Tang Dynasties to the light and delicate during the Song and Ming Dynasties. However, it is still relatively rough and belongs to the early stage of transformation."

"So this thing is from the late Tang Dynasty?"

"It's almost like, either the late Tang Dynasty or the Five Dynasties." Zhou Zhi said.

"That's...Changsha kiln?"

"No, Changsha kiln doesn't use make-up soil." Zhou Zhi said: "The texture of this jar is relatively rough, so in order to make it beautiful, after the carcass is finished, a layer of make-up soil is added as a decoration to cover up the base. "

"The most important thing is the shape of its bottom foot, which is a pancake-shaped circle foot. The end of the foot is beveled with a carving knife. It is different from the traditional circle foot and the jade foot. During the Five Dynasties, only one kiln entrance had such a foot. feature."

"Is there any?" Zhang Cheng's knowledge of porcelain is limited to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. As for the Tang and Song Dynasties, it is too far back. Except for the secret color porcelain of the Tang Dynasty and the five major kilns of the Song Dynasty, the rest of the research is basically blank.

"Yes, this kind of foot is a typical feature of our Qiong Kiln in Sichuan!"

"It's no wonder that others don't know about it. Especially in the research on Qiong Kiln, it seems that Dean Jiang and a few professors from the History Department of your Shu University are better." Zhang Cheng said enviously: "And they know everything. Using ready-made unearthed things for research, and really picking out the things at a glance in the cultural toy market is not their strong point. In this regard...it seems that you are the only one who can do it?" "Hehehehe..." Zhou Zhi is not honest either. Polite: "Just average, third in the country."

"Have you not played with a lot of things from Qiong Kiln?" Zhang Cheng asked, "Why is this thing so special?"

"Previous research on Qiongzhou kiln was all about celadon white porcelain and black porcelain." Zhou Zhi put two fingers into the jar, held the jar apart and stuck the two fingers apart, then turned left and right to admire: "This thing Son, it’s really special.”

"Oh? What's so special about it?"

"If it was really made by the Qiong Kiln of the Fifth Dynasty, then it would have created at least two firsts in the country!"

"Emma, ​​do you want me to scold you? Say it quickly!"

"First, have you seen its red color? This is copper red glaze. If this jar is really from the fifth generation, then the history of red glaze firing in our country has been advanced by one or two hundred years!"

"Second, this jar was painted with red and green glaze on the pottery body first, and then the white glaze was applied, so..."

At this point, Zhang Cheng already understood and felt his heartbeat speeding up: "Underglaze color! This is still a white base underglaze color based on makeup soil!"

Underglaze color, also known as "kiln color", is a glaze color decoration of porcelain. The production method is to use colorants to draw various patterns on the shaped and dried blank, then cover it with white transparent glaze or other light-colored top glaze, and fire it at once.

After firing, the pattern of the porcelain will be covered with a transparent glaze film, so that the surface of the porcelain will become smooth, soft, crystal clear, smooth and not convex.

The emergence of underglaze colored porcelain can actually be traced back to the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. In the Nanjing Museum, there is a celadon underglaze colored feather human pattern dish-mouth pot unearthed in 1983. The porcelain body is white and slightly gray, and the upper abdomen is covered with plastic. , the whole body is painted with brown-colored outline patterns, and a green-yellow glaze is applied on the outside.

However, this technique of decorating porcelain with simple stippling of dark pigments cannot be considered a deliberate decorative creation. At present, the industry generally uses iron oxide and copper oxide as color materials in the Changsha Kiln of the late Tang Dynasty to draw patterns on the blank, inscribe poems, and then apply celadon glaze and fire the porcelain at a high temperature of about 1,250 degrees as the glaze. The founding period of Xiacai porcelain.

However, the above-mentioned porcelain can only be regarded as the "original" form of underglaze color. The base color is yellow or cyan, the glaze color is also yellow or cyan, and the glaze is still yellow or cyan, but the depth is different. Although the craftsmanship It is already available, but the effect is not seen at all.

Later, porcelain entered the true color porcelain stage. The standard ones were Tang Sancai and Song Sancai, but at this time it became overglaze color, and makeup clay was still not used.

Later, in the Huangbao Yaozhou kiln in Shaanxi and the Yue kiln in Cixi, Zhejiang, where the article written by Zhou Zhi came from, real practice of drawing thick lines or patterns on pottery embryos covered with white cosmetic clay finally began to appear. Underglaze blue and white porcelain, which has an almost transparent protective glaze in the formal sense, has a profound influence on Chinese porcelain. It first appeared in the Song Dynasty.

But if you carefully pursue the above-mentioned development process, you can find a problem that has troubled the industry for a long time - that is, in the hundreds of years between the original underglaze color porcelain and the mature underglaze color porcelain, there was a lack of support. representative of the transitional period of its development trajectory.

It seems that underglaze colored porcelain suddenly entered the mature state of Song Dynasty from the primitive state of Three Kingdoms and Tang Dynasty, and the transitional period in the middle was blank!