Ruyao Site is located in Liang Qing Temple, Baofeng County, Henan Province. Baofeng belonged to Ruzhou in the Song Dynasty, so it was called Ruyao for short, and it was also called "Ruguan Kiln" because it was a kiln for burning palace porcelain.
Ru kiln is one of the five famous kilns in China in Song Dynasty, which is famous both at home and abroad, and is also famous for producing celadon, winning the praise of "the first of celadon, the first of Ru kiln"! However, Ruyao is unknown in historical documents, leaving many mysteries for future generations to know Ru Ci. Therefore, for a long time, our understanding of Ru Ci can only be measured by the works handed down from ancient times in museums.
Until June, 2000 to June, 10, the national cultural relics department conducted an archaeological excavation of the Ruins of Ruyao in Liang Qing Temple in Baofeng County, Henan Province, and unearthed a large number of kiln furniture and porcelain fragments, which provided us with a scientific material basis for further understanding Ruyao porcelain in the Song Dynasty, greatly broadened our appraisal vision of Ru Ci, and corrected the limitations of our previous appreciation of Ru Ci.
The firing time of Ruguan Kiln: from Yuanfeng period in Song Shenzong (1078- 1085) to Chongning period in Song Huizong (1 106). In other words, it has been 20 years since Ruyao burned the Ru Ci Empire.
Types of Ruguan Kiln Porcelain: Judging from the types of Ru Ci sculptures unearthed, it greatly exceeds the varieties handed down from Ru Ci in the past, including not only bottles, bottles, bowls, dishes, washing and so on. , also includes pots, cans, lamps, stoves, boxes, bowls, beans, jade pot spring bottles with carved holes, carved goose neck bottles, dish-folded shoulder bottles (. In particular, lotus-petal incense burner, begonia-type multi-layer box and lotus-leaf high-circle foot device were unearthed, all of which were more than 30 cm high, which changed the previous conclusion that "Ru kiln has no big devices". Some unearthed objects are decorated with carvings, overlapping stickers, sculptures, hollowing out, etc., which also changed Ru Ci's view of winning purely by shape and glaze color.
Note: Although Ru Ci has large utensils and decorations, Ru Ci mainly has small utensils. Exquisite appearance and pure glaze pigments can't change the mainstream of Ru Ci. At the same time, the carcasses of some Ru Ci porcelains are very special. The walls and bottoms of bowls, plates, dishes, bottles and washers are almost as thick as those of other kilns in the same period. And bowls, plates, and feet are all rolled outward.
Ru Guan kiln porcelain tire soil: Ru Ci tires are generally thin, but there are also thick tires with larger utensils. The fetal quality is not firm and thin, but slightly loose, and the color is quite similar to the incense ashes falling when burning incense, commonly known as "incense ashes" or "incense ashes". The color is mostly white with gray or gray, white with yellow, taupe or black. According to the test results, Ru Ci's tires are made of high-alumina clay, and they can only be completely dense when the temperature reaches at least 1300 degrees, while Ru Ci's firing temperature is only 1 150- 1200 degrees. Therefore, most of the cross sections of Ru Ci tires have no glass luster, so it can be seen that the tire bones in Ru Ci are "sandwich tires" that are not completely burned, which can be seen or seen.
Note: As for the color of Ru Ci fetus, it is like incense ashes when burning incense. Although it is vivid, the degree of gray, yellow and brown in white can only be understood by looking at the real porcelain, and I can't convey it to you in accurate language. Because the fetus is very important, it is an important basis to identify Ru Ci. At the same time, the fetal bone of genuine Ru Ci is "sandwiched", so the sound of playing the carcass by hand is dull. The sound of imitation is more solid.
Enamel of Ruguan Kiln Porcelain: Ru Ci's glaze is lime glaze mixed with agate. The firing temperature should not be too high, otherwise the glaze flow will be serious. The firing temperature range of Ru porcelain glaze is extremely small, and different kiln positions in the same kiln will show different colors with a slight temperature difference. As far as the glaze color of Ru Ci is concerned, with the change of temperature from low to high, the glaze colors are moonlight, pink green, egg green, azure, bean green, gray green (Ai Qing), shrimp green and so on. Enamel has also changed from completely translucent to jade texture and glass texture. It is recorded in the literature that "sky blue is precious, pink is precious, and sky blue is precious". In other words, these three colors in Ru Ci are the best.
Note: When the temperature is slightly higher, Ru Ci enamel will become glassy and glaze will flow, forming "glaze like fat accumulation". Therefore, the glaze surface of Ru porcelain with glaze flow is generally glass with strong texture, and the thicker the accumulated glaze, the darker the color.
Glaze of Ruguan Kiln Porcelain: The glaze of Ruguan Kiln is thin and thick, mostly split, showing ice crack, cicada wing pattern and crab claw pattern, and a few are oblique split, that is, fish scale pattern. There are also a few cases where one side is open and the other side is not tattooed or the whole is not tattooed, which is one of the characteristics of Ru Ci.
Note: Due to the low firing temperature in Ru Ci, the tightness between fetal glazes is not very good. Therefore, there will be obvious natural stripping phenomenon at the mouth edge, bottom edge and convex edge. Moreover, there will be a phenomenon of "brown eyes in the juice" on the glaze, that is, the glaze shrinks. As for the ancient saying that the glaze bubbles are sparse "as few as morning stars", they only exist on the surface of the glaze being fired, and the rest are small and dense, which can't be seen by the naked eye.
The technological characteristics of Ruguan Kiln: As long as the Ru Ci embryo can use the mold, it adopts the molding process to improve the regularity of the vessel. All kinds of bottles, bottles, cans, etc. Large vessels or inconvenient molds are still drawn and shaped by hand.
Ru Ci basically adopts the branch burning method, and there were long Zhi Ding (pine nut shape) and thick round watercress-shaped Zhi Ding in the early days. The long Zhi Ding is horizontally placed at the end face of the hoop leg and horizontally placed at the bottom. Some larger bottles and cans are directly burned with cakes, so these utensils are exposed in the tire, and some flat-bottomed devices have the whole bottom exposed in the tire. In the middle and late period, with the maturity of technology, the Zhi Ding is getting smaller and smaller, that is, sesame nails. According to the size of the object, there are three or five Zhi Ding, and there are more than five even numbers, including six 12.
Note: Most utensils in Ru Ci are glazed, such as washing, dishware, dishware, bowls, pots, bottles and individual bowls. Most bowls are mat-burned, that is, the feet are exposed, and there are also two processes: supporting and mat-burning. There are many kinds of bottles, but only the dish-folded shoulder bottles and some short-legged vials are full of glaze. Ru Ci's authentic Zhi Ding didn't scratch his hand, while the imitation did the opposite.
The bottom of Ru Ci: The bottom is engraved with the names Fenghua, Cai, Shoucheng Temple Queen Pavilion, A, B and C. Among them, "Fenghua" and "Shoucheng Hall and Empress Pavilion" should be the symbols of court carving in Song Dynasty. The word "Cai" should be the owner's surname, and some people think it is Cai Jing. "A", "B" and "C" were carved by the medieval palace directors in the Qianlong period. In addition, no other inscriptions were found.
Because of the short burning time in Ru Ci, wars and natural and man-made disasters have not been passed down from generation to generation. At present, only 67 pieces are registered in major museums around the world. So, is there anyone in Ru Ci? There must be. How many? Nobody knows. As for some people who say that there is no Ru Ci among the people, it is irresponsible nonsense. With our further understanding of Ru Ci and the continuous liberalization of the national cultural relics policy, we believe that some folk products handed down from Ru Ci will be gradually recognized and available. In the old society, swallows flew to the homes of ordinary people in front of Wang Xietang. May this highly spiritual and coveted treasure of Ru Ci appear in your collection, adding infinite artistic enjoyment to the world!
In the next article "Random Talk on Collection", let's talk about the Song Dynasty-the official kiln.
Note: since it is a ramble, the language is a little random, and with some personal opinions, there will definitely be some mistakes, please forgive me! )
The following are a group of Ru Ci specimens unearthed from the Miaoyao site in Liang Qing and photos of Ru Ci in the Song Dynasty collected in the National Palace Museum in Taipei for reference: