Imperial Kilns of the Song Dynasty

By staff reporter HUO JIANYING

Family trees were kept by descendants of the Song Dynasty royal family. Here are shown Emperor Huizong named Zhao Ji (left) and the wife of Emperor Zhezong (right).

In 1135, the northern part of the Song Empire was occupied by Jin armies.

Eight years earlier in 1127, Bianliang (present-day Kaifeng), capital of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) had been captured, and Emperor Huizong, named Zhao Ji, was taken prisoner and incarcerated in the small city of Wuguo (in present-day Yilan County, Heilongjiang Province) on the frozen wastes of China’s northern frontier.

After eight years of humiliation and torture, Emperor Huizong was barely alive. Clad only in a goatskin, he spent his last days huddled in a tiny cellar unable to eat as his son Zhao Heng watched on hopelessly.

In the delirium of his dying hours Emperor Huizong fancied he saw flames firing a kiln of fine porcelain – to him a satisfying and familiar sight. The emperor was well acquainted with ceramic-crafting techniques, having gone to great lengths to produce pieces that exactly suited to his aesthetic sensibilities. But as he lay dying in that harsh and inhospitable land, his greatest desire was not fine porcelain, but the warmth of the flame that fired it.

Song Emperor Huizong has always been an ambivalent figure to Chinese historians. As a ruler he was indecent and incompetent, but his artistic talents and achievements were unparalleled.

This was an emperor who delighted in writing poetry, excelled at music and drama, and whose “slender gold script” set new standards of Chinese calligraphy. He was also an expert on bronze ware, paintings, oddly shaped stones, tea rituals, and ceramics, and was himself an accomplished artist. His painting Peaches, Bamboo and Oriole sold for RMB 61.16 million (US $7.33 million) at the China Guardian 2005 Spring Auction.

Most of all, no other ruler had ever devoted so much time to ceramics. Emperor Huizong personally supervised porcelain production at the Guan, Ru and Jun kilns, three of the Song Dynasty’s five most famous, the other two the Ge and Ding kilns. The pieces produced in these kilns are those most sought after by ceramics collectors, as evidenced by the incredible US $1.54 million a Song Dynasty porcelain plate, 8 cm in diameter, fetched at auction in New York in 1992.

Ru Kilns

A Ru Kiln three-legged porcelain burner decorated with six bow-string patterns in a powder-blue glaze.

Ru porcelain was exclusively for imperial use. It was produced on a small scale within a twenty-year period, and artisans conversant in its production techniques were few. There are believed to be just 60 pieces of Ru porcelain extant. Of all ancient Chinese ceramics, those made in the Ru kilns are the most precious, mainly because they are so rare. A mere fragment of Ru kiln porcelain sells for RMB 1,000 (about US $122).

The Imperial Ru Kilns of the Northern Song Dynasty were in Ruzhou (present-day Linru County, Henan Province) -- for centuries a main producer of celadon. Archaeological findings indicate that porcelain production in Ruzhou was technologically advanced during the Tang Dynasty, but it was actually from 1086 to 1106, when Ru kilns were confined to imperial use, that Ru ceramics reached their zenith. Emperor Huizong personally oversaw the selection of craftsmen and materials involved in porcelain production. As his stress was on aesthetics rather than practicality. Ru kiln ceramics were small and exquisitely fashioned, seldom exceeding 20 centimeters in height. They were stationery or purely decorative items, such as brush washers, incense burners and vases. Emperor Huizong also had a passion for bronze ware, and was the first to produce porcelain whose shape imitated bronze.

The texture of Ru porcelain bases is fine and in an ash gray shade with a glaze that covers the entire body. When fired, each piece was placed on a rack whose nails left distinctive spur marks the size of sesame seeds on each base. The bodies of Ru porcelains are slender and symmetrical with an extremely hard, finely crackled sky blue, aquamarine or turquoise glaze.

Ru Kilns stopped production after the Jin invasion. Some artisans fled to the south, but owing to a lack of raw materials and different climatic conditions, were unable to produce porcelains of the same quality as those of Ruzhou.

Jun Kilns

Jun Kiln brush washer, Song Dynasty.

A legend is still told about the origins of China’s crackled glaze porcelains. During the reign of Emperor Huizong, the door to a Jun kiln in Yangzhai (present-day Yuzhou City, Henan Province) was about to be opened after a firing. There was suddenly a cloudburst, and by the time the rain stopped, the kiln had cooled down. When the kiln door was opened, cracking sounds could be heard from within. All artisans present were distraught at the thought of the kiln’s entire contents going to waste, but when an old craftsman took a brush washer out from a container, the color of its glaze was, as intended, green inside and purple outside. What set this batch apart was the glaze surface, which was full of cracks but smooth to the touch, and when tapped produced a pleasing ring. All in attendance were hugely relieved, and sent a selection of the pieces to the imperial court. Emperor Huizong was delighted with this new feature, and ordered more in the same style.

The Jun kiln artisans assumed that the glaze on these ceramics had cracked owing to the rain, which in Chinese mythology is commanded by the dragon king. In order to maintain this new feature, they sculpted a coiling dragon on a vase which they fired and made obeisance to. Thereafter, all porcelains fired in their kilns had a crackled glaze, rain or shine. A problem arose when word of this reached the emperor. In feudal times, the emperor’s subjects thought of him as a dragon, and making dragon images was considered blasphemy. The veteran artisan was consequently arrested and interrogated by the emperor himself. He cunningly defused the situation by explaining that as the dragon was on a vase – ping in Chinese, the same pronunciation as the character meaning “safe” – his intention had been to pray for the emperor’s eternal safety. Emperor Huizong was appeased, and ordered more of these wares, which he named “coiling dragon” vases, for imperial use. Since then, vases in this design have been handed down through the dynasties as a token of safety, peace and wealth.

Emperor Huizong was actually involved in the making of Jun wares, so the legend is not without basis.

Jun porcelains from Henan’s Yuzhou were first produced during the Tang Dynasty and their excellent quality soon caught the eye of Song Emperor Huizong. After being designated exclusively for imperial use, Jun Kiln production techniques advanced to the full extent. The most prominent characteristic of Jun porcelain is its flambé blue-green and purple-red glaze that, in the process of firing, produced unexpected changes in color and pattern. No matter how many vessels were fired in the same kiln, each piece was unique. The value of Jun ware was so high that it gave rise to the saying, “A family fortune of a million cash is unequal to possession of a single Jun porcelain fragment.”

Guan and Ding Kilns

Ding Kiln holy-water vase with carved design, Song Dynasty.

There is no record of Emperor Huizong ever having personally fired porcelain, but there are historical archives regarding the Guan (Official) kilns overseen by him.

In a broad sense, the term “Guan” differentiates official from folk kilns. Guan kilns were those administered by government officials, and the ceramics they produced were the exclusive reserve of the government. In the Song Dynasty, however, Guan kilns referred to kilns near the imperial palace managed directly by the imperial court. Upon Emperor Huizong’s capture, the national capital and the imperial Guan kilns moved south from Bianliang (present-day Kaifeng) to Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou). There is thus Northern Song and also Southern Song Guan Kiln porcelain.

The original sites of the new kilns set up in Hangzhou’s Xiuneisi and Jiaotanxia were found without difficulty, but locating the sites of the Northern Song Guan kilns was more difficult. Bianliang was on the banks of the Yellow River, which has flooded and changed course many times throughout history. The remains of Bianliang City were eventually discovered six to seven meters underground, and the kilns were so small that it took years to find them.

In his later years Emperor Huizong became a devotee of Taoism and styled himself “Taoist Emperor.” He had a preference for hazy shades of gray and shunned intricate patterns in bright colors. The elegance and simplicity he espoused was intended to signify his transcendence of worldliness and attainment of enlightenment. At his behest, Guan kiln artisans paid great attention to color and density of glaze. They are believed to have achieved the distinctive degree of glaze density on Guan ceramics by first firing them unglazed, rendering them “biscuit” ware, applying the glaze, re-firing, and repeating the process several times. Most Guan Kiln ware is monochrome, decorated with a straight ridge or bow-string motif, and natural cracks cover the glaze surface.

Guan Kiln vase with pierced handles, Song Dynasty.

A light-gray porcelain vase with a slender neck, round body and tall rounded legs decorated with bow-string patterns in the Beijing Palace Museum collection typifies pieces produced in Song Dynasty Guan Kilns.

Ding Kiln porcelain was the only one of the five famous Song Dynasty porcelains to lose its imperial designation.

The Ding Kiln in Quyang County, Dingzhou City, Hebei Province, operated for 600 years, having been established in the late Tang Dynasty (618-907) and closed down during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Ding Kiln porcelains are in many colors, most famously white, with fine texture, slender bodies and an “ivory” glaze. They are also in monochromes of purple, black and brown, with molded, carved and incised motifs of auspicious animals and plants.

During the Song Dynasty, Ding kiln porcelain was designated exclusively for imperial use. It lost this status simply because its firing technology did not comply with the emperor’s aesthetic demands. Ding kilns operated under “covered firing,” a system of multi-layer cushion rings that allowed several vessels to be put in one container and turned upside-down, thereby increasing output and saving fuel. The shortcoming of this method was that it precluded the application of glaze to the lips. To compensate, metal rims were inlaid. The emperor disdained porcelains that had been so tampered with, and ordered a halt to production. Since then, however, Ding Kiln porcelain has come back into demand for very reason of this “covered firing” technique, as well as its distinctive patterns and fine quality. It has long since been officially reinstated among the five famous porcelains of the Song Dynasty.