37 Ching-Ling Wang

A Coat of Colour: Monochrome Glazes on

Ceramic glaze is a vitreous substance that fuses to the body through firing. The glaze has practical and aesthetic functions, namely, to make a vessel waterproof as well to colour and decorate it. One could almost say that ceramics are ‘clothed’ in glaze.

Primitive was fired at high temperatures after the application of ash-glaze, which is made from wood or plant ash and contains potash and lime. This type of early green-glazed was only produced in southeast China but was widely distributed. The kilns in northern , active since the Han dynasty, produced their finest wares in the 9th and 10th centuries: delicate objects with exquisite jade-like glazes termed ‘secret colour’ (mise). The celadon glaze used in Longquan produced a broad range of blue-green to pastel green tones.

Parallel to the southern celadon, the kilns in Northern China also manufactured exquisite celadon types. Jun-ware, mainly made in Yu county in province, was coated with a thick and opaque bright sky-blue glaze that resulted from the use of and copper pigments and

Wisseling in het Pavil j oen the careful regulation of the kiln temperature. During firing the spots of copper oxidized in the glaze to produce crimson and purple splashes. The Yaozhou kilns in province produced a variety of ceramics, but they were best known for their green-glazed stoneware normally covered with olive-green glaze. Carving and incising the surface caused variances in the thickness of the glaze, resulting in different tones.

Northern China is also famous for white stoneware. The fame of Tang- dynasty (618-907) snow-like Xin-ware is comparable to the jade-like Yue-ware from the south. -ware has a body of fine, dense, white clay, often translucent, which takes on an orange tint when light shines through it. The transparent glaze can take on a range of shades of white, from ‘ivory white’ to ‘powder white’ or ‘earth white’. Cizhou-ware tends to be somewhat rough and was made for daily use rather than for decoration. The grey stoneware bodies of Cizhou wares were first covered with a white slip to create a lighter and smoother surface over which a transparent glaze was then applied.

The southern kilns of Dehua in Fujian province have long been famous for their excellent porcelain, the so-called blanc de Chine. This porcelain is characterised by a rich, glossy transparent glaze, pooling in recesses and without crackle. The colour of blanc de Chine wares can vary from an ivory or creamy-white to a slightly bluish- or greyish-white. The porcelain

capital not only produced white porcelainDownloaded but alsofrom Brill.com09/26/2021 the 08:04:47PM via free access Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:04:47PM via free access 39

Fig. 1 (left) Brush pot, porcelain, covered with a monochrome turquoise, blue glaze, h. 13 cm, China, ca. 1700-ca. 1724, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv.no. AK-MAK-571. Long- term loan from the Asian Art Society in the Netherlands

Fig. 2 Ruyi sceptre, porcelain, covered with a monochrome yellow enamel, China, ca. 1875-ca. 1899, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv.no. AK-MAK-589. Long- term loan from the Asian Art Society in the Netherlands

Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:04:47PM via free access 40 exquisite Qingbai-ware. The white stoneware or porcelain is covered with a transparent glaze with a vivid blue-green tinge.

Copper was used to make red monochrome glaze. True red contains only a very small amount of copper. A lustrous dark red glaze of the tone known in China as ‘sacrificial red’ (jihong) was first produced in Jingdezhen in the 15th century and was used throughout the . In contrast to the true red, the ‘peach-bloom’ glaze contains up to four times as much copper. It was produced by applying a layer of clear glaze beneath a layer of copper pigment, which was then covered with additional coats of transparent glaze.

Turquoise is derived from copper and potash. After the porcelain body was fired in the kiln at a high temperature, the turquoise was applied and the piece was fired again at a lower temperature (fig. 1). ‘Powder blue’ was achieved by blowing cobalt pigment through a tube with one of its ends covered with gauze: the pigment particles ‘sprayed’ onto the surface of the unfired piece in an uneven pattern. ‘Mirror-black’ glaze is jet-black with a lustrous tone. It is dissimilar from the deep brown-black of the earlier wares derived from iron. It can only have resulted from a combination of cobalt and manganese.

The range of enamel colours available for was expanded through the introduction of new pigments from Europe in the 18th century, and by experiments at the Imperial glass workshops in Beijing and the porcelain workshops in Jingdezhen. The opaque, vibrant lemon tone is produced by mixing lead-antimony enamel with a considerable quantity of zinc (fig. 2). ‘Apple green’ is yet another colour derived from copper, using lead as the medium. It was not applied as a monochrome in Jingdezhen prior to the mid-16th century. In the early stages, the greens retained the dark texture and tended to run unevenly, but by the 18th century they had become fresh, even-textured and apple-coloured. This colour was made opaque by adding tin oxide.

• From 25 October 2017 to 27 May 2018, a special display dedicated to the Chinese monochromatic–glazed ceramics will be exhibited at the Asian Pavilion in the Rijksmuseum to showcase the colourful realm of Chinese ceramics.

• Ching-Ling Wang is curator of Chinese art at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

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