Study On The Creation Thought Of Cizhou Kiln

Cizhou Kiln is currently recognized in academic area as the largest kiln system in ancient northern China.After thousands of years of kiln fire,Cizhou Kiln had stood out among many kiln systems in Song and Yuan dynasties,and had become an outstanding representative of the people’s kiln.There is also an well-known saying about it: about the producing place of Cizhou Kiln,Jingde represents the best in the southern part,while Pengcheng represents the best in the north".The aesthetic code hidden in the ware could be deciphered thoroughly,and the integration relationship between the porcelain-making crafts and other art categories can be better clarified through the creation view.It is of the corresponding significance to enrich Chinese traditional craft theory and to better understand the re-development of the traditional creation view.Cizhou Kiln had owned a long history since the beginning of the Five Dynasties,developing numerous branches of the kiln system.Through the analysis of longitudinal development of the time path and the horizontal development of the spatial circle three-dimensional analysis,the social and ideological basis of Cizhou Kiln creation would be clearly sorted out.With tightly connecting the background of folk livelihood,analysis towards Cizhou Kiln creation activities indicates various factors of the formation of creation view of Cizhou Kiln,and extracts outstanding cultural information and spiritual essence of the traditional creation view.The reason that Cizhou Kiln could become the outstanding representation of folk kiln existed not only the material conditions,but also it was the consequence of the integration of social ideology and individual thoughts.In Song and Yuan Dynasties,the increasingly developed social productivity and the social system brought so much vigor that the class of scholars continued to grow.As a result,the class of scholars became the main force in the marketplace art during the spillover and downward movement.The two different social classes,scholars and craftsmen,tended to merge,and showed a refined aesthetic consciousness in the creation process of Cizhou Kiln.External multi-ethnic cultural integration has made Cizhou Kiln feature with inclusive mind,and under the gradual influence of multinational culture,the creation thought with folk colors revealed the characteristics of coexistence between elegance and vulgarities and the integration of culture and artifacts.Detailed analysis has been made to condense the folklore creation view including the essence of “Texts are for conveying truth,while artifacts are for providing usage”as the creation thought of Cizhou Kiln.As a famous folk kiln,Cizhou Kiln takes“Wen Tao”,which means ethics and truth,as its origin of creation,while taking the principle of “producing for use” as the fundamental starting point,so that the utensils could meet the needs of productive labor to the maximum extent.In the creation view of Cizhou Klin,the "text"(Wen),which has the same Chinese pronunciation as the word “pattern”(Wen),is the result of the integration of ideology and multi-ethnic groups,and the cultural connotation is depicted in the instrument through the vehicle of "pattern".The craftsman would implement the text in his heart into the pattern under his tool.This process is the selection and refinement of different cultures which has been lasting for thousands of years.The decorative patterns that are finally presented on the artifacts are in line with the public aesthetic and are filled with folk aesthetics,and are also the materialization of abstract creation thoughts."Producing for use" is the fundamental tone of Cizhou Kiln’s creation,thereby the artifacts are directly used in productive labor which meet the daily needs of the people,featuring both practicability and folk emotions.With the creation thought of “Texts are for conveying truth,while artifacts are for providing usage” as the logical frame,further study is in progress to explore the ideological core,aesthetic consciousness,emotional pursuit and other aspects of the creation view.Besides,combining historical materials,researches have improve the construction of Cizhou kiln’s creation view from different aspects,and reveal the “quality and content” and“application of artifacts” of Cizhou Kiln’s creation process in Song and Yuan Dynasties.The formation of the idea of creation is inseparable from social background and the immersion of other cultural forms.Through the study of Cizhou Kiln’s creation view parallelly with other traditional arts,the isomorphism can be seen between the microscopic Cizhou Kiln art and the macroscopic traditional art,in order to fully grasp the artistic emotion expressed by Cizhou Kiln creation thought in Song and Yuan dynasties.The art techniques of “Black painting on white background” and“Make-up soil” of Cizhou Kiln reproduce the mind and ingenuity of the creator,for the distinct colors “Black” and "White" provide unlimited expression space for traditional poetry,painting,calligraphy,sculpture and other art categories,which makes those art techniques become valuable materials for the further study of social culture and art.The interweaving of different arts makes Cizhou Kiln present the artistic aesthetic sense of both elegance and popular taste,which is the real portrayal of social trend of thought and historical culture in Song and Yuan Dynasties.With various advantages that pushing Cizhou Kiln forward,the artifacts produced in Cizhou Kiln have reached the organic unity of not only practicality and appreciation,but also the sense of form and sense of ceremony.Popular culture is the basic idea that runs through the creation of Cizhou Kiln.In Chinese folk art,auspicious elements had always been an important part of folk culture,and are of wide popularity in public with the specific forms and content in decorative style and aesthetic sentiment.The auspicious elements which embodied in elegance and secularity through the creation of the craftsmen of Cizhou Kiln reflected in diverse aspects including scratch,instrument type,painting,etc.,have brought sustenance and hope for the people living in a simple life.In addition,the elements reproduce the creator’s longing for a better life and the cognition of auspiciousness in the time background,and are also of great importance to ensure that artifacts produced in Cizhou Kiln could spread in the marketplace.The situation of “gradual transition from elegance to secularity” reveals the process of the elite class’ s transition to the citizen class,and it is also the result of the common change of social material foundation and ideology.Popular culture shows the formulaic rules in the people’s group consciousness,harmonizing the accompanying pattern of life and culture.During the periods of Song and Yuan Dynasties,due to the prosperity of productivity,people’s life focus changed from etiquette system to individual development.Under the opening and advanced social ideology,Cizhou Kiln artifacts display more vivid expression that are close to life instead of religious significance and imperial power color,gradually becoming an art form that be independently viewed under the immersion of the popular culture.This process represents a transformation of artifacts from its theistic view to the humanistic view,and is also the process of gradually tending to secularization of the creation view.Cizhou Kiln has been firing for thousands of years throughout different dynasties,and the thoughts during different periods express in variety.All of the thoughts are the vivid representation of the social background and historical environment.The transmutation of Cizhou Kiln’s creation view was affected by many aspects: the core feature changed from the etiquette-dominated in Song Dynasty to the relaxation-dominated in Liao-Jin Dynasties,and finally to the entertainment-dominated in Yuan Dynasty.The view of creation had experienced not an overnight change,but was gradually formed under the transformation of refined and popular culture and the immersion of aesthetic fashion of the time.The above-mentioned views implying in porcelains’ pattern,decoration,craft,shape and color suffered not a rupture mutation,but a gradually-changed continuity.The view of creation passed on from generation to generation,being an excellent spiritual quality formed in thousands of years of calcination,though,it is also unavoidably limited by the time.In the modern inheritance,it is of necessity to treat the ideological components of Cizhou Kiln’s creation view with a dialectical attitude,and uphold the spirit of “observation to the nature of things for better innovation” and “pursuit for the same destination of ancient and modern cultures” to achieve re-development in new era.Researches on the porcelain and literatures related to Cizhou Kiln make scholars better construct the thought system of Cizhou kiln’s creation view combined with the firing technique and traditional art.Through the creation view,it is of great significance to have a further observation on the extraordinary creativity and outstanding contributions of craftsmen working in Cizhou Kiln thousands of years ago,and explore the invaluable material and spiritual wealth of traditional ceramic art.