Porcelain daily utensils. Ancient porcelain pillow. There are also pottery pillows made of clay. The pillows are painted with colorful glazes to create exquisite pictures or inscribed with poems. It has been fired in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the Song Dynasty, Cizhou kiln, Dangyangyu kiln, Bacun kiln and Dengfeng kiln were the most popular. The shapes include rectangular, waist-round, cloud-shaped, petal-shaped, heart-shaped, oval, etc., and some are also shaped into baby, tiger, and dragon shapes. Ding kiln children's pillows are extremely rare, including porcelain pillows for women and lotus leaf pillows for children.
Archaeological data show that the oldest pillows in our country were natural stones, and later preliminarily processed stones began to be used as pillows. Later, it gradually expanded to use other materials to make pillows, such as bamboo pillows, wooden pillows, jade pillows, copper pillows, etc. The largest number of pillows preserved in the past dynasties is porcelain pillows. Porcelain pillow is a daily necessities, and it is a popular shape among ancient Chinese porcelain. It is said that it first appeared as a burial utensil, and later gradually became a bedroom bedding and a tool for treating diseases and measuring pulse. Porcelain pillows were first created in the Sui Dynasty. They began to be mass-produced after the Tang Dynasty and gradually became people's favorite bed pillows. In the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties, the development of porcelain pillows entered a prosperous period, with production areas all over the north and south and a variety of shapes. The more popular ones at that time included geometric pillows, animal-shaped pillows, architectural-shaped pillows, human-shaped pillows, etc., which were exquisitely shaped and delicately made. At the same time, there has also been great development in decorative techniques. Techniques such as carving, scratching, ticking, printing, and stacking have been adopted one after another, which greatly enriched the expressiveness and artistry of porcelain pillows. During this period, porcelain pillows gradually shifted from practical products to elegant and popular crafts. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the emergence of better pillow-making materials, porcelain pillows began to slowly withdraw from the stage of history.
When talking about porcelain pillows, we cannot do without the Song Dynasty. Most of the Song pillows I have seen are from Cizhou kiln. There are many words to describe Song Zhen. To put it simply, it is rich. Among animal-shaped pillows, there are dragon pillows and tiger pillows; among human-shaped pillows, there are children's pillows and lady's pillows; among geometric styles there are rectangles, octagons, ovals, silver ingots, etc.; there are also round waists, chicken hearts, cloud heads, petals, etc., which can be shaped at will... …
In the Song Dynasty, there were "Zhang Jia Zao", "Zhao Jia Zao", "Wang Jia Zao" and so on. Looking at it today, the porcelain pillows produced by the Song Dynasty more than a thousand years ago are still "beautiful". For example, a heron is among the reeds, with its legs spread out, looking back at it, with a few pens, showing a sense of life; a child fishing with a pole , with a focused expression, a few small fish are eager to bite and slip away, full of interest; two bunches of day lilies, plump, flexible, stretched and generous...
These patterns are unforgettable and impressive to me. Generally speaking, the development of porcelain pillows is that the earlier the age, the smaller the size. Tang pillows that are less than one finger long (the length between the open thumb and the middle finger) are commonly known as pulse pillows. Whether they are specially designed for measuring pulses remains to be verified. Song Dynasty pillows are of suitable size. After the Liao and Jin Dynasties, the size increased to one and a half feet, making them appear clumsy. Porcelain pillows are utensils used in daily life and are often buried with the deceased. Due to historical elimination, it is rare to see handed down products. Porcelain pillows were used by ordinary people, but the emperor probably thought they were too hard, so he had another pillow. Therefore, the porcelain pillow exudes a sense of well-being, which is, to put it bluntly, tacky. This vulgarity allows future generations to have a glimpse of the taste of Song people. People in the Song Dynasty wanted to be comfortable, not flashy, and could not do anything as brilliant and passionate as the people in the Tang Dynasty. Two quails, a line of flying geese, naughty boys playing Cuju, chasing ducks and catching birds, all reveal the Song people's outlook on life of being content and happy. You can imagine that when the population of the Song Dynasty increased and people were prosperous, they were intoxicated in this "little family jasper" atmosphere and enjoyed themselves.
In porcelain, nothing can directly reflect fashion than text decoration. Poems were often written in the Tongguan kilns of the Tang Dynasty, also known as Changsha kilns. Many poems can also be found in the "Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty". Obviously, this is directly related to the prosperity of poetry in the Tang Dynasty. Song Dynasty pillows, however, wrote a lot of lyrics and music. For example, a porcelain pillow unearthed from Ci County said: "It's hard to be on the left and right, and it's all in vain. Fame and wealth are not as good as leisure, and there will be no worries in the end. There is no limit to the accumulation of jade and gold, and there is a limited time, so regret it." Later in the evening, when the patient passes the test, who can save the greedy man? "Listen to this: "Famous and wealthy are not as good as idleness." It shows that the people of Song Dynasty are a little disillusioned with the world of mortals. As a result, the Song Dynasty fulfilled Zhao Ji, an emperor who was mediocre in state affairs but accomplished in art.
Pillows are closely related to people. It is inevitable to take a look at the pillow before going to sleep. The craftsmen of the Song Dynasty took advantage of this and wrote on the pillow "A few words among the crowd, return early if there is nothing to do", "Fighting for three inches of energy, the young man's head turned white", and "A guest asked about the floating world". , silently pointing to falling flowers", and wrote "You must dismount when crossing the bridge, do not sail when there is a road, seek lodging before it is too late, watch the sky early when the cock crows"... wrote many popular maxims, which are inseparable from the life and death of Song Dynasty. , give guidance while alive, and warn others after death.
The pillow has a very special status among Song porcelain. It records the life of the Song people in a limited picture and embodies the Song people's relaxed and indifferent mentality