IN 1919, Idemitsu Sazo (1885-1981) acquired his first ceramic object in China. It fuelled his interest in Chinese ceramics and he began collecting them in the broader historical perspective of kansho toki, ‘ceramics for visual pleasure’, a movement gathering pace in Japan at the turn of the 20th century. Kansho toki was independent of the prevailing tea ceremony tradition that had confined collecting – until the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912) – to chato, ‘tea ceramics’ held by a small, select and often wealthy, circle. Following the collapse of Qing China (1644-1911), ceramics other than tea wares were beginning to infiltrate Taisho Japan (1912-1926), among them classical Chinese guanyao, ‘official ware’ from the Imperial Collection. The trend gained momentum with the departure of the Emperor Puyi from the Forbidden City in 1924. Around the same time, the first Chinese archaeological excavations were taking place and ceramics never seen before were being unearthed. In 1920, a large-scale excavation in Julu, Hebei uncovered substantial quantities of Cizhou wares buried since the Song (960-1279). Consignments of these and other wares, such as sancai, reaching the Japanese market in the 1920s ignited a collecting fervour as the stigma associated with burial goods dissipated. They also appealed to the instincts of those collecting kansho toki. Japanese scholars of Chinese art at the time were aware that these events inaugurated an unprecedented opportunity to build collections. They also knew that what would follow was a critical period – never to be repeated – in which to do so.
As Mr Idemitsu enlarged his collection through the interwar years into the post-war era, the possibility of establishing a museum was broached. In the 1950s, the eminent ceramic scholar, Koyama Fujio was appointed adviser. He suggested the collection’s content needed to be more comprehensive and might go beyond kansho toki to include guanyao. The gap was duly filled, starting with Qing pieces, before the Idemitsu Museum of Arts formally opened in Tokyo in 1966. Koyama’s successor, Mikami Tsugio was prominent in ceramic circles, and had conceived the notion of a ‘Ceramic Silk Road’. The addition of comparative ceramics, he said, would demonstrate the influence of eastern ceramics via the Silk Road, on the work of western kilns.
Today, the Idemitsu holds 114 of the most representative guanyao specimens; one Southern Song (1127-1279), three Yuan (1279-1368), 80 Ming (1368-1644) and 30 Qing. According to Kanazawa Yoh, Curator of Chinese Ceramics at the Idemitsu: ‘The majority of guanyao extant are found in the Palace Museums of Beijing and Taipei since the Imperial Collection is the one and only home for guanyao. The Palace Museums apart, our Song-dynasty white porcelain from Jingdezhen is of exceptional quality compared to collections elsewhere. They form the basis of our special exhibition, White Ceramics of the East, devoted to white-firing Chinese ceramics from the Tang (618-906) to the Ming, showing their impact on the development of white wares in Korea and Japan’.
White ceramics are not usually recognised as having a long and almost uninterrupted, history. For thousands of years, objects made of pure white clay and ceramic stone were coated with colourless, transparent glaze and fired, enabling the body to appear white. The earliest white-firing ceramics, traceable to the Shang (circa 18th-11th centuries BC), were discovered alongside bronzes in the old capital of Yinxu near Anyang before World War II. Their production declined but resurfaced several thousand years later in the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589) when the search for white-looking ceramics intensified, a process that continued into the Tang. ‘Notwithstanding those of the Shang, we have representative examples of all periods and types showing how Chinese white ceramics evolved,’ adds Dr Kanazawa. ‘They offer an insightful overview including Ding, yingqing, ‘shadow blue’ Jingdezhen ware, Cizhou- and Zhangzhou-type wares, and reflect the work of official and commercial kilns.’
In north China, improvements made in white earthenware and white-bodied stoneware in the 5th and 6th centuries, had led to more compact bodies. They were lined with white clay slip beneath the glaze to heighten whiteness. The earliest object on show, a Northern and Southern Dynasties pilgrim bottle, is characteristic of white wares of this period; it has a ‘foreign’ palmette leaf motif telling us China was open to influences from Central Asia and beyond. During the cosmopolitan Tang empire, ceramic shapes and forms went on to reflect the dispersal and exchange in China of goods and craftsmen from the Persian world via the Silk Road. Advanced Tang technology enabled white wares to imitate foreign metalwork, particularly silverware and to a certain extent, glassware. Mastery of the spin-wheel technique is witnessed on a 7th-century white ware covered jar with a perfectly round body. ‘It is one of the whitest of Tang porcelains, but until now no clear evidence links it to any known kiln. Its original lid is preserved but being fired at a rather low temperature, has left a thickish wall,’ says Dr Kanazawa. Most of these white wares were valued as grave goods, buried with the dead to service the afterlife.
Around the mid-Tang, the ‘early northern porcelains’ appeared in north China. In Hebei, white ceramic stone coated with transparent glaze was fired at temperatures of over 1300º C in a reduction atmosphere. The resulting pure white colour and porcellanous quality was a singular achievement. The whitest bodies were seen on xingyao, ‘Xing wares’ identified with Xingzhou. They were of superior quality. Products included a white Xing ewer, an outstanding copy of silverware with a thin, elongated handle, narrow neck and bulbous body. Utilitarian Xing pedestal and ring-handled cups, bowls and shallow dishes were in great demand. They supplied the court and were exported as far as the Persian world. Xing ware production was short-lived however and declined around the 10th century.
Nearby, a competitor, the Dingzhou kilns – identified by Koyama in 1941 by studying ceramic shards – made ivory coloured dingyao, ‘Ding wares’. They survived the Xing and were ranked in the course of the Song, alongside the Ru, Jun, Guan and Ge, as the ‘five classic wares’ of the time. Of the five, dingyao alone had a decorative scheme. The Song was a special period in Chinese history when the creative spirit was influenced by informed archaistic taste. The official kiln produced great numbers of celadon, imitating jade, which were favoured by the court. Sometime in the 12th century, Ding ware, until then hand-finished by incising and carving, began to be decorated by using clay moulds. Moulding allowed standardisation of ceramic forms and patterns, and led to more efficient production. Ding ware was thus designated guanyao, ‘official ware’ and selected for the court and Buddhist monasteries until dynasty’s end.
Chinese porcelain production was dominated by the north until the early 10th century, when remote workshops in southeast China began making what would become the earliest ‘true porcelains’. Kilns in Changnan, Fuliang county, Jiangxi exploited local resources of kaolin, ‘pure white porcelain stone’ by mixing it with baidunzi (petuntse), ‘small white bricks’, to create strong ceramic bodies. The result was porcelain capable of being worked very thin. Its pure white body had a glassy quality, was translucent with a slightly bluish hue, and was called yingqing, ‘shadow blue’. Thin-walled bowls, vases, jars and dishes with defined forms encouraged the kilns to send them as tribute wares to the court. In 1004, Changnan was conferred the name, Jingdezhen after the emperor Jingde.
The yingqing glaze produced special surface effects. It is manifested on a Northern Song yingqing bowl, the most prominent of eight Jingdezhen guanyao, ‘official ware’ on show. The lotus decoration on its deeply carved surface, enhanced by the glaze, appears almost sculpted, with a three-dimensional quality. The incised meandering scroll patterns on a pair of tuluping vases are also offset by its faintly bluish glaze colour. The whitest yingqing object in the Idemitsu collection is a lion-headed ewer. ‘The overall shape of its body with ‘cutting-edge’ sharpness, was much admired during the Song,’ says Dr Kanazawa. ‘Although the spout’s tip is a later restoration, the ewer is a rare combination of what a white body and transparent glaze, with the least iron content, might achieve under the best firing conditions.’ Such expertise was not limited to Jingdezhen. Even the provincial Guangdong kiln managed to create an 11th-century vase with an exceptionally well-carved phoenix-shaped head. It tells us craftsmanship of a high order prevailed throughout the Song empire, wherever the kilns were.
The commercial potential of porcelain evident already in the Tang, was also recognised by the conquering Mongols. They introduced large overseas markets from the late 13th century onwards, enlarging the boundaries of the Chinese ceramic trade from the Persian world west to the Islamic lands. The scale demanded by the trade shifted white ware production from north to south China. Jingdezhen became the site of the Yuan official kiln. ‘When this was established is still open to question,’ says Dr Kanazawa. ‘It might be dated to 1278, when the Fuliang ciju, ‘Fuliang Porcelain Bureau’ was set up to control ceramic production; or 1283, when the Jiangzuoyuan, ‘Principal Manufacturing Centre’ began regulating the firing of official wares for the court.’
Yingqing was a precursor to qingbai, ‘clear white’ porcelain, which transformed the nature of ceramic production. Privately owned kilns gave way to an organised industrial complex engaged in mass production and export. Qingbai variants included luanbai, an opaque, matt glaze with an ‘egg white’ consistency. Shufu, a viscous glaze named after ideograms for ‘privy council’ inscribed on the bases of ceremonial wares, was first mentioned in the Gegu yaolun, ‘Essential Criteria of Antiquities’ (1388) by Cao Zhao as a Mongol court commission.
Chinese porcelain was also exported – alongside the better-known celadons – to Korea. Archaeological evidence of the extent of Yuan maritime trade has been provided by the Sinan Cargo dated to 1323, belonging to a ship that sank en route from Ningbo, China to Hakata, present-day Fukuoka, in Kyushu. It was found off Sinan county in Korea, carrying 6,000 high quality ceramic objects including large numbers of white Shufu porcelain, celadon and utilitarian jars of black and brown glaze. Chinese white wares were known in Korea at least by the Yuan, and the Koreans were probably the first to copy them successfully. ‘Their taste for white ceramics emerged sometime during the transition from the Koryo (935-1392) to the Choson (1392-1910) period when punch’ong ware with a greyish clay body was produced,’ says Dr Kanazawa. ‘Punch’ong – technically a continuation of the Koryo celadon tradition – was adapted by changing the colour of the clay body from green to greyish white. When white slip was applied on these objects, uneven powdery surfaces called kohiki appeared. Tea bowls with this effect were very popular with Japanese tea masters.’
White porcelain went on to dominate Choson ceramic production. Some 139 kilns were noted by The Veritable Records of King Sejong (r.1418-1450) as making porcelain. The Choson state was modelled after Confucian ethics, and Korean royalty was partial to plain, undecorated white wares whose purity and austerity suited court and temple ritual practices. The court’s porcelain kilns in Kwangju, northeast of Seoul, also serviced the scholar-class and the yangban elite who prized its products such as white brush holders and pilgrim flasks. A 17th- century Choson ritual bowl with flanges is a copy of the Chinese bronze fu, a square-shaped food container with a similarly-shaped lid. Its corner projections imitating the original bronze decorations are intact, but the principal taotie, ‘animal mask’ has worn off.
Chinese white wares were introduced to Japan along with the tea culture. By the 13th century, Seto in present-day Aichi prefecture, central Honshu – one of ‘six mediaeval kilns’ identified by Koyama – was leading ceramic production. During Muromachi (1337-1573) times, neighbouring Mino, Gifu prefecture made rudimentary copies of black Chinese Jian tenmoku tea bowls as well as a unique early white ware called shiro tenmoku, ‘white tenmoku’ which allowed the colour of tea to be seen. It encouraged Japanese potters to make imitation white wares because green ware and white ware – celadon and white porcelain bowls – were best for tea drinking, according to No-Ami and So-Ami, art critics of the Ashikaga shogunate (1392-1490). They had catalogued the Kundaikan sochoki, ‘Manual for displaying Chinese Artistic Decoration’ (1467) for the shogunal collection and placed great value on ceramics and painting.
Meanwhile, Jingdezhen was going from strength to strength. Barely a year into his rule, first Ming emperor Hongwu (r.1368-1398) established the Yuqichang, ‘Imperial Porcelain Factory’ on the site in 1369. Experiments thereafter continued to ensure the porcelain body was refined and thinned out. Innovative forms were introduced. Among them, a sengmao hu, ‘monk’s cap’ ewer of the Yongle era (r.1403-1424), named after the monk’s cap profile forming the upper portion of the lid. Exquisite anhua, ‘secret decoration’ of lotus scrolls incised on its body while wet, might only be seen when held up to strong light.
In Japan, the search for porcelain-making resources continued unabated. The ‘pottery wars’ of the 1590s brought Korean potters to Kyushu. Kaolin was subsequently discovered. It went on to change the face of Japanese ceramics when creamy white porcelain surfaced at the easternmost end of the ‘Ceramic Silk Road’.
BY YVONNE TAN
Until 21 October, White Ceramics of the East is at the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, 1-1, Marunouchi 3-Chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0005, www.idemitsu.co.jp/museum