Historical Origin of Shiwan Pottery Sculpture

Shiwan pottery sculpture technology is developed on the basis of daily pottery, and its artistic prototype can be seen from the pottery sculptures unearthed from the Eastern Han Tomb in Shiwan. The development of Shiwan pottery sculpture technology can be roughly divided into four periods, from Tang Dynasty to Ming Dynasty, Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China. After the founding of New China, especially after the reform and opening up, it was the heyday of innovation.

As early as the late Neolithic Age in Beiqiu, Shiwan Ceramics had already unveiled the historical preface of firing pottery, and the history of large-scale kilns in Shiwan can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty at the latest. In 1950s and 1970s, the kiln sites of Tang and Song Dynasties were discovered in Shiwan, Foshan and Kistler, Nanhai. The excavated kiln sites are all semi-ceramics, with low temperature, low hardness, thick green tires and loose tires, which are typical southern pottery in Tang Dynasty.

The Song Dynasty was the heyday of ceramics, and the consumption fashion of the whole society promoted the unprecedented development of ceramics industry. Kilns engaged in ceramic production are all over the country, and the varieties of daily-use ceramics, architectural garden ceramics and artistic ceramics have increased sharply, and their modeling styles have been renovated day by day, so they have been praised by the later Tang Dynasty. Ceramic production is one of the most important commodity production in Song economy, and most of the export commodities are ceramics. In order to adapt to export and expand foreign trade, the ceramic industry has gradually developed from the mainland to coastal Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi.

At that time, two important factors for the development of Shiwan pottery industry were convenient transportation and rich clay. The Guanyao waterway gradually silted up, and the water transport center had to be moved to Foshan and Shiwan. Foshan is connected with Shiwan, Fenjiang River and Dongping River are directly connected to Guangzhou, so it is very convenient for products to be transported to Guangzhou for export. There are mud mounds and sandy soil in Taiwan Province Province, which are easy to obtain, so Shiwan, which has a ceramic industry foundation, has rapidly developed into an important pottery production base in Lingnan.

In Song Dynasty, Shiwan daily-use pottery injected artistic expression into the modeling and decoration techniques, with full and balanced modeling, smooth lines and rich varieties, including soul altar, short pottery jar with overlapping tiles and eaves, painted vase, pottery piano and so on. , involving various pottery categories, such as utensils, Wan Wen, animals and figures. The Shiwan Taobanzhuoqin, existing in the National Palace Museum, is a masterpiece of Wan Wen's pottery sculpture.

The decorative art of Shiwan pottery in Song Dynasty attached great importance to ornamentation. These patterns have a wide range of themes, rich images and exquisite craftsmanship, reaching a fairly high artistic level. Judging from the cultural relics unearthed from the Song Tomb in Shiwan and the Song Kiln in Qishi, the painted flowers in the Song Dynasty have great freehand brushwork, such as bluegrass and bamboo leaves, which are elegant and interesting. In addition, there are rope patterns, chord patterns, wave patterns, melon ridge patterns, branch-binding patterns, two-way continuous patterns and so on. Among them, the flower pattern of winding branches is very exquisite, the flowers and creeping grasses stretch freely and curl freely, and the bending, stretching, rolling and winding of winding branches are full of natural vitality.

Shiwan, located in the south corner of China, mainly produces daily-use pottery. Although the pottery-making skill has reached a certain level, it is far less than the famous kilns in the north, and it has no significant position in the ceramic forest of the Song Dynasty. From the Southern Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, Foshan was the settlement of Han immigrants from the Central Plains. They brought the pottery-making skills of the northern Han nationality to Shiwan, and merged with the original pottery-making skills in Shiwan, greatly improving the manufacturing level and artistic level of Shiwan pottery.

So Shiwan is a collection of famous kilns in Song Dynasty. The products of Ding Kiln, Ru Kiln, Guan Kiln, Ge Kiln and Jun Kiln were imitated vividly by Shiwan, and the shapes, glazes and decorative means of the eight major porcelain systems were digested and absorbed by Shiwan, becoming famous kilns characterized by good imitation in southern China, especially Guang Jun and Nijun Kilns.

Since the Ming Dynasty, Shiwan has broken the past situation of single export of daily-use ceramics. Art ceramics, architectural garden ceramics, handicraft ceramics, etc. It is also exported abroad, especially garden building ceramics, which are very popular in Southeast Asia. Up to now, there are nearly 100 tile ridges made in Shiwan, Southeast Asia and temples in Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan Province provinces, but the architectural ornaments are still impossible to count.

After the Ming Dynasty, there are more and more kinds and themes, such as fishing, firewood, ploughing, reading, animal husbandry, playing, drinking, playing the piano, traveling, playing ball and even shooting mosquitoes, scratching and digging ears. There are all kinds of things familiar to the people, such as flowers, birds, insects, fish, beasts, livestock, vegetables, fruits and so on, as well as Arhat dharma, Guanyin and Shoushou. Shiwan pottery and plastic arts vividly reflect people's moral concepts and social attitudes. For example, urinals with the image of European invaders appeared in the late Qing Dynasty to express the social ideological trend of China people's resistance to aggression. Therefore, some people call the theme of Shiwan pottery sculpture a condensed encyclopedia of China folk culture.