Ru Celadon Ceramic Teaware

83OZP-One_Zen_Pot-stripThis is something I love about my job.

I get to try all these very nice teaware. It gives me a reason to go and learn more about the finer things in life ?

Ru Ceramic, also known as Celadon, is a beautiful kind of ceramic started way back in Song Dynasty, around 12th century in China.

Ru porcelain is one of top five porcelains in China (Ru, Guan, Jun, Ge and Ding porcelains).

According to Wikipedia,

Ru (Wade–Giles : ju) was produced in North China for imperial use. The Ru kilns were near the Northern Song capital at Kaifeng.

In similar fashion to Longquan celadons, Ru pieces have small amounts of iron oxide in their glaze that oxidize and turn greenish when fired in a reducing atmosphere.

Ru wares range in colour—from nearly white to a deep robin’s egg—and often are covered with reddish-brown crackles. The crackles, or “crazing“, are caused when the glaze cools and contracts faster than the body, thus having to stretch and ultimately to split.

The art historian James Watt comments that the Song dynasty was the first period that viewed crazing as a merit rather than a defect. 

Certainly the fine lines that become apparent in the Ru Ware are not defects. It is amazing to see my little Ru Teapot grow after every use, with the fine lines only through time, they will reveal themselves, starting with larger lines, then becomes more and more intricate.

Ru Ware is robust and at first seems clumsy and maybe even “primitive”, as they are kind of “thick” – the thickness of the clay is quite unusual to other Chinese teaware I have come across.

Most of the time Chinese goes on about how thin the clay is, but in the case of Ru Ware, nop, thick and rich, some with amazing attention to details in the elegant sense – those little petal like flower shape cups, the little handles on the side to stop the pot from too hot to touch…

Ru Ceramic teaware is a very grounded kind of teaware that demand a certain kind of serene calmness when you use it.

 

 

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