Ceramic museum highlights glazes

Glazes are an integral part of the beauty of ceramic work. The Yingko Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), opened last November, is the first major museum in Taiwan dedicated to ceramic art, and is currently hosting a series of events to emphasize the important role played by glazes. The Beauty of Glazes in Yingko Ceramics, a show sourced from 18 kilns and 16 individual workshops in Yingko, will exhibit 126 examples of the town's famous glazing techniques such as the use of underglaze (釉下彩), colored glaze (色釉), crystal glaze (結晶釉), and overglaze (釉 彩).

Underglazing is the most traditional of the techniques used by potters in Yingko. In this technique, the clay is painted with colors, then coated with a layer of transparent glaze, and finally sent into the kiln for firing at a temperature of about 1,300 degrees Celsius.

A more complex method is the use of overglaze, in which vessels are coated with a layer of transparent glaze, sent for firing and taken out for painting. After the coloring and painting, they undergo a second firing. This process is capable of producing more extravagant designs and is often used for traditional motifs with flowers and birds.

In the past, the kilns of the Yingko region produced many vessels based on traditional designs of the imperial era, which were sometimes even passed off as genuine antiques.

As part of the current exhibition, the work of Hsu Chao-tsung (許朝宗), as seen in Bottle with Auspicious Animals, and Lin Ming-ti's (林明體) Big Bowl in Copper Red (釉袖紅大碗) still retain the classic, stately feel of court ceramics from the imperial era. Favoring underglazing techniques, and operating out of commercial workshops producing high quality reproductions of antiques, their work represents a traditional vein in Yingko's development.

The market for Yingko's imitations of ancient porcelain gradually fell off toward the end of the 1980s, but research on new glazes and designs has begun to influence local artists, who are using it to revitalize the age-old ceramic tradition of Yingko. The exhibition has two halls dedicated to works using crystal glaze and colored glaze, the fruits of modern artists who have gone beyond traditional glazes and designs.

Walking around Yingko, particularly the Old Street area, you will see tiny vases of crystal glaze selling for NT$100 a pair at many pottery shops. They are usually monochrome, with the design picked out in a crystalline glaze. This technique was developed by artist Sun Chao (孫超) in the 1980s, and is much imitated by workshops in Yingko. The exhibition showcases the real potential of crystal glaze techniques, which goes well beyond these simple souvenir works.

The key to producing crystallized patterns that look like flowers or butterflies is the addition of metallic oxides to the glaze, and the use of a three-stage firing process. Different metal oxides bring out crystals of different patterns. Ceramist Peng Wen-hsiung (彭文雄) used the process of zinc crystal oxidation to produce his beautiful work titled Promotion (步步高昇), while Lin Jen-yu (林仁宇) used magnesium, cobalt, and molybdenum to produce the irregular fluid pattern on his slender neck vase (膽瓶).

The selection on display chose from among 250 submitted works, and offers much more in terms of quality and quantity than the products displayed on nearby Old Street. Because of the quality of the displays, the museum has enjoyed over 470,000 visits since it opened its doors last November.