White-glazed Mei vase with inscriptions of "Chun xia qiu dong (four seasons)", collected by Henan Museum

                                  White-glazed pillow depicting a poetry of "Shui long yin", collected by Henan Museum

Topic: The beautiful of black and white--millennium Cizhou Kiln

Speaker: Zhao Xuefeng, director of China Ci Zhou Kiln Museum; Deputy president of Institute of ancient ceramics, Hebei province.

Date: at 3:00pm on September 11 

Location: Multi-function hall 

How to Attend: Please scan the code below to skip to the Museum's WeChat official account , and make your reservation!

Tel: 0371-63582521
Cizhou kiln is the largest system of folk kilns in north China, which distributed in today's Henan, Hebei and Shanxi province，and the most representative kilns are located around today's Ci county, Handan city, Hebei province. Ci county once belonged to Cizhou back to the Song danasty(960-1279 CE), therefore these kilns got their name "Cizhou kiln".

Cizhou kiln has a long history of firing, since its founding in the Northern dynasty（386-581 CE）and evolutions in the Sui(581-618 CE) and Tang dynasties(618-907 CE), Cizhou kiln reached its peak in the Song, Jin and Yuan periods, after that it continues to nowadays through thousands of years. In 1996, Cizhou kiln site was designated as a national key cultural relic protection unit by the State Council. Cizhou kiln has a wide variety of products, simple and upright in shape, vivid and bold in decorative art, and rich and colorful in decorative techniques. In particular, Cizhou kiln craftsmen directly applied traditional Chinese painting techniques to ceramic paintings, and created a brand-new decoration technique with "black decorations on white ground", presenting a strong artistic effect of black and white contrast. Unique in the ceramic history, Cizhou kiln developed a new style, which made it has the ability and capacity to keep pace with the five official kilns(Ru kiln, Jun kiln, Guan kiln, Ge kiln and Ding kiln) in the Song danasty, and its practice also has an influence on the kilns located in the vast southern and northern areas along Yellow River.

How does the system of Cizhou kiln come into practice? And what are the features in each period? In addition, director Zhao Xuefeng will also talk about the decorative art of "black decoration on white ground" and Cizhou kiln's influences on China's ceramic crafts. If you are interested, please don't miss the lecture on Sept. 11!