Celadon

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

Celadon is a term for ceramics denoting both a type glaze, and a ware of a specific color, also called celadon.

Celadon glaze

Celadon glaze refers to a family of transparent, crackle glazes, produced in a wide variety of colors, generally used on porcelain or white stoneware clay bodies. The popularity and impact of these glazes is such that pottery pieces decorated with celadon glazes can also be known as "celadons."

Celadon glazes can be produced in a variety of colors, including whites, greys, blues and yellows, depending on the thickness of the applied glaze and the type of clay to which it is applied. However, the most famous celadons range in color from a very pale green crackle to deep intense greens, often meant to mimic the green shades of jade. The color is produced by iron oxide in the glaze recipe or clay body. Celadons are usually fired in a reducing atmosphere kiln. As with most glazes, crazing (a glaze defect) can occur in the glaze and, if the characteristic is desirable, it is referred to as crackle glaze.

Large quantities of Longquan celadon was exported throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Much has been written on the various qualities of its glazes, the most celebrated being a glaze of a decided blue cast sometimes referred as kinuta in Japanese. Traditionally in China other tints and textures have had their places and continue to be admired. Japanese celadon originally took its inspiration from Korean wares. However the golden age of the Japanese variety only reached its height in the 1800s with the development of Kyoyaki (Kyoto Ceramics) and the celebrated potter Aoki Mokubei (1767-1833). His celadons paid conscious homage to Chinese wares. This was especially so for late Ming period celadons with their bright greens in a departure from tradition Japanese taste in Chinese celadon which favored a blue glaze known as kinuta. Traditional Korean celadons can be considered a development of Chinese celadon with distinctive Korean directions in the ware. The most distinctive are decorated by overlaying glaze on contrasting clay bodies. With inlaid designs, small pieces of colored clay are inlaid in the clay used to produce the ware. Carved or slip-carved designs require layer[s] of a different colored clay adhered to the base clay of the piece. The layers are then carved away to reveal varying colors. Korean celadonware, usually a pale green-blue in color, developed, flourished, and was refined during the 10th and 11th centuries. Both the Mongol invasion in the 13th century and the Japanese invasion in the 16th centuries dealt blows to the craft. With the Japanese invasion, many potters are said to have been forcibly relocated to produce porcelain in Japan.

Name

The term "celadon" for the pottery's pale jade-green glaze was first applied by European connoisseurs of the wares. One theory is that the name first appeared in France in the 17th century and is named for a shepherd named Celadon (after a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses) in Honoré d'Urfé's French pastoral romance, L'Astrée (1627) who wore pale green ribbons. Another is that the term is a corruption of Salah ad-Din (Saladin), Ayyubid Sultan, who in 1171 sent forty pieces of the ceramic to Nur ad-Din, Sultan of Syria. Yet another is the word derives from the Sanskrit words sila and dhara, which mean stone and green respectively.

Notes

See also

• Chinese porcelain
• Korean porcelain
• Imari porcelain
• Yi Sam Pyong
• Kaolinite
• Longquan celadon

External links

• Celadon in Thailand
• Modern Celadon

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 12:06:45 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation