Yixing Ware
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Yixing ware is a type of unglazed, red and brown stoneware that has been manufactured in the Yixing district, in China's Kiangsu Province, since the late Ming Dynasty. Throughout its history as the pottery center of China, Yixing has always been important as a producer of utilitarian stoneware. The Yixing kilns were best known for the production of tea ware and various items for the desks of scholars. The invention of the teapot is credited to the Yixing potters, and Yixing ware introduced teapots into Europe. But, Yixing also possesses an artistic tradition that is unique in the history of Chinese ceramics. Since the late Ming era, works by individual potters have frequently been signed, and this traditional emphasis on individual artistic excellence and innovation continues to the present. The forms employed by the potters ranged from exquisitely simple designs to inventive uses of imitative natural forms--as with a ceramic branch designed to serve as a pen holder or a teapot made of ceramic bamboo. Design of Yixing ware relied on the shapes of the pieces rather than pictorial representations and colorful glazes. Surface decoration on the plainer pieces was largely limited to incised designs or calligraphy, but the forms of the imitative natural objects could become quite elaborate. The history of the design and manufacture of Yixing ware demonstrates the unique qualities that have made it an important international influence, as well as being highly prized by col
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the tea is poured out."
The clay does not possess any miraculous qualities. But it is extremely malleable and, "in contrast to the thrown porcelain forms made at Jingdezhen [Ching-te-chen]," Yixing teapots were handmade. The methods of teapot construction (and for the construction of various small items) has been subject to innovation for centuries. The original method, practiced by Kung Ch'un and Shih Ta-pin, the most influential of the Ming potters, was to model the entire object, including teapot spouts and handles, from a single lump of clay. In works that are purported to be imitations of Kung Ch'un, the marks of the potters' fingers are clearly present in objects where rough textures were desirable, such as a teapot that imitates a gnarled knot of a tree. By the late sixteenth century, in the Wan-li period, Yixing potters had developed a second construction method. This involved modeling the pots from a single piece of clay, and then trimming away the excess during drying, as the leather-hard item was placed on the potter's wheel. During the eighteenth century, Yixing potters also began using sectional molds for casting teapots. The parts were put together, and wet brushes were employed to smooth out the evidence
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Ming Qing, Yixing Chinese, Kung Ch'un, China Te-hua, Ou Tzu-ming, Design Yixing, Ming Yuan, Sung Dynasty, Yixing Notkin, Feng Tsai-hsia, yixing ware, yixing potters, hong kong, kung ch'un, late ming, kong museum art, arts asia, nineteenth century, sixteenth century, yixing ceramics, ceramic art, hong kong museum, house gallery china, late nineteenth century, gallery china institute,
Approximate Word count = 3816
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
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