Ding ware bowl, Northern Song dynasty
About this video
Steven and Kristen look at a Northern Song dynasty Ding ware bowl in the Shanghai Museum. Ding ware is an early white porcelain prized for its pure color and light weight; the bowl is thin, wheel-thrown, and decorated with incised reeds and geese. A metal band covers the unglazed rim left by stacked firing, so the bowl could be used at court.
You'll be able to
- describe the features that identify Ding ware.
- explain why a metal band was added to the rim of Ding ware bowls.
- explain how the bowl's shape and decoration reflect the refined taste of the Northern Song court.
Key words
- Ding ware
- A white Chinese porcelain from the Song period, prized for its purity and light weight.
- porcelain
- A fine ceramic made from kaolin clay and fired at very high temperatures.
- kaolin
- A white clay used to make porcelain.
- incising
- Cutting lines into a surface to make a design.
- stacked firing
- Firing bowls piled on one another in the kiln, which leaves the touching rims unglazed.
Transcript
(jazzy piano music) - [Steven] We're in the ceramics galleries in the Shanghai Museum and we're looking at a Northern Song bowl.
- [Kristen] It's a ding ware and in fact, ding ware always refers to this white porcelain, one of the earlier porcelains. It was something that was prized for its purity of color, its lightness of weight.
- [Steven] The walls of the ceramic bowl themselves are incredibly thin. This would have been thrown on a wheel and the glaze probably would've been added with a brush while it was still on the wheel. The walls are even, and there's this beautiful elegant S curve to the edge.
- [Kristen] The body was made out of kaolin clay, the material of porcelain so that it could be fired at high temperatures and glazed. One of the telltale marks of a ding ware is this metal around the rim.
- [Steven] So that dark line at the very lip of the bowl is a thin piece of metal that's been wrapped around that edge, and that's added to cover the unglazed section at the very lip because these would have been fired in a stacked manner. And so the glaze would not have been allowed to touch the rim itself.
- [Kristen] So if the artisans were then going to submit these to the court for use, they would need that rim in order to use it as tableware.
- [Steven] The S-curve of the contour of the bowl is echoed by the incising of the decoration within the bowl. You can see that there are reeds and there are two geese with wonderful S-curve necks.
- [Kristen] It's very elegant, not at all ostentatious.
- [Steven] You can see that not only in its shape, but in the evenness of the glazing, in the sensuous warmth of the white color of the glaze itself, and then in the refined incising.
- [Kristen] The whiteness of jade, the purity and the translucence of the form. You can see the refined aesthetic of the Northern Song dynasty court. (jazzy piano music)
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