Art
Traditions
Guan ware or Kuan ware (Chinese: 官窯; pinyin: guān yáo; Wade–Giles: kuan-yao) is one of the Five Famous Kilns of Song Dynasty China, making high-status stonewares, whose surface decoration relied heavily on crackled glaze, randomly crazed by a network of crack lines in the glaze.
Guan means "official" in Chinese and Guan ware was, most unusually for Chinese ceramics of the period, the result of an imperial initiative resulting from the loss of access to northern kilns such as those making Ru ware and Jun ware after the invasion of the north and the flight of a Song prince to establish the Southern Song at a new capital at Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. It is usually assumed that potters from the northern imperial kilns followed the court south to man the new kilns.[1]
In some Asian sources "Guan ware" may be used in the literally translated sense to cover any "official" wares ordered by the Imperial court.[2]
官窑广义是指朝廷开设的窑场，狭义是北宋大观、政和年间，官府在汴京（今河南开封）开设的瓷窑场。官窑是中国古时五大瓷窑（汝窑、官窑、哥窑、钧窑、定窑）之一。后世广意上官窑意指由中国历代政府营建，为其烧造瓷器的窑场，所生产的陶瓷供宫廷所用。因此除了有名的宋代官窑之外，亦有辽代官窑、明代官窑等。官窑产品必须符合皇家的审美观，客观上就限制了陶瓷工匠的艺术发展，清乾隆之后，官窑产品也就逐渐没落了。