Song dynasty was the peak era of the pottery because of the fashionable consumption to the whole society. The producing kilns were all over the world, especially for the pottery for daily, garden construction and arts use. The style and sample appeared like the bamboo after the raining, therefore, the pottery got the recognition "Eight hundred in Tang and three hundred in Song" afterworld. And the glaze colors was far richer than before, it was also mainly created the colorful glaze, flower glaze and kiln-to-glaze except for the traditional yellow glaze, black glaze, blue and white glaze.

Furthermore, the decorative sample was more and more fancy and various, the technique including cutting, nicking, pressing, painting, embossing and even using the leaves and paper-cut for decoration. Pottery was one of the most important producing in Song and most of the export merchandises were pottery. With the expanding of foreign trade, gradually pottery developed from the backland to coastal area such as Zhejiang, Fujian, Canton and Guangxi.



Ming colored-glaze kylin


With the appearance of colored-glaze tile back, Shiwan pottery began to have a new face since not only it was more and more paid attention by people, also it needn't to collect in the back room.


Now we are talking about Shiwan pottery. The convenient traffic and the richer china clay were the two factions caused the rapid improvement at Shiwan area. Since the inland official kilns were tending to shallow, the water transportation moved to Foshan and Shiwan, which were connected by Feng River and Dongping River and led to Guangzhou, so the product could be easily transported to Guangzhou to export. Meanwhile, it was also extremely convenient to get the china clay from Taiwan. The above two points added the pottery foundation, Shiwan became the important base during the south of Five Ridges very soon.



Qing plum blossom vase with unexpected change 29.5cm in height

To control the temperature of the kiln is difficult because of the large space in the kiln and the unexpected change. The flame is always burning just like the fire dragon turning over continuously. Actually, the unexpected change is a common phenomenon.


In Song, The daily pottery produced in Shiwan had inculcated the art form on the style and decoration, which every one of them had the plump shape, smooth lines, changeable techniques and far richer varieties of style than Tang, involved wares, curios, animals and figures. The pottery sample of musical instrument with five strings made by Shiwan is housed in Taiwan Forbidden City, which is actually the fine piece in antiques to put on the desk.

Shiwan pottery took the high regard to the decorative arts especially the flower pattern. The patterns had a wide subject, rich visualization and close technique, which all made the pottery ran a high art level. From the unearthed relic of Shiwan and Qishi, the plant painting in Song had the impression technique, i.e. when painting the orchid, bamboo leaves, we used the seldom and enjoyable brushwork. In addition, the entwined flowers was extremely beautiful, which the flowers and grasses grew freely, every action of the branch showed what hearty life the nature was.

Shiwan was located at the coign of southern area, and daily-use pottery was the main merchandise. Though the pottery technique had aleady reached a certain level, the north famous kilns were far better than Shiwan, and not a remarkable position at all in Song pottery. During the course of South Song and Yuan, Foshan was the center of emigration from central plains. They brought the northern pottery technique to Shiwan and mixed with Shiwan's original technique, which rapidly improved Shiwan's producing level and art standard. Therefore, the products of all the famous kilns were copied by Shiwan like truth. The style and the beautiful glaze even the decoration of "eight pottery" were fully absolved, and soon it had became the famous and characteristic kiln of copying in southern area.


Ming plum blossom vase with the protruding and twisting branches
30.4cm in height, 7.2cm caliber and 14.5cm diameter of the downside

Absorbing the decoration means of Cizhou, Shiwan pottery used the carving and pressing on the unfired pottery, which greatly improved the taste of those commodity.

As a folk kiln, Shiwan insisted on facing to common people. Therefore, practice was the rule to their pottery art, and was mixed with cute and beautiful, the obvious character of "special beauty" appeared. Also, Shiwan pottery art had a close relationship to the building. To decorate ancestral temples and other building, some design arts such as flowerpot, fishing jar, flower-base, flower window ran rapidly. Later the tile sculpture also appeared. To meet the religion activity, plenty of icons and door-gods were made in Shiwan. Actually, the latter Shiwan pottery art with viewing and enjoying came out from the practical art, and you can still find the practical mark.