"What did the ancients use this basin for? Kneading dough? Washing? Or storing things?"

On September 13, at the Fengfeng Museum, visitors paused in front of a large, solid porcelain basin, speculating about its use.

The porcelain basin has a wide, flat rim with a diameter of nearly half a meter. Its interior is decorated with fish and seaweed patterns, the glaze is lustrous, and the body is thick and sturdy, embodying a unique, robust, and unrefined beauty.

This is the representative artifact of the Yuan Dynasty's Cizhou Kiln—the fish and seaweed patterned basin.

"Fish and seaweed patterned basins are practical folk artifacts and a high-volume product of the Cizhou Kiln, popular both domestically and internationally. Numerous shipwrecks discovered along important routes of the ancient Maritime Silk Road have yielded large quantities of this porcelain," explained Ge Shuang, a docent at the Fengfeng Museum. As an ancient folk kiln site, the Cizhou Kiln has always focused on producing everyday porcelain for the people.

"Down-to-earth"—this is the charm of the Cizhou Kiln.

The Cizhou Kiln is named after its central kiln site located within the ancient Cizhou area (present-day Cixian County and Fengfeng Mining District of Handan City). In 2006, the Cizhou Kiln's firing techniques were listed in the first batch of China's National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Cizhou Kiln produces a wide range of products, from everyday functional porcelain to decorative, architectural, and religious porcelain—everything the people need. Its extensive variety of artifacts and rich range of forms make it stand out among numerous porcelain kilns.

Although born out of the need to "meet practical uses," the craftsmen of the Cizhou Kiln have added "beauty" to "practicality," achieving a perfect combination of utilitarian value and artistic value in Cizhou products.

The Cizhou Kiln is renowned for producing white-glazed porcelain with black decorative patterns, known as "the art of black and white." It broke through the limitations of monochrome glaze decoration prevalent in the Song Dynasty, pioneering a new realm in Chinese ceramic aesthetics and making a significant contribution to China's ceramic decorative arts.

The Shanghai Museum houses two Cizhou Kiln white-glazed black-flower plum vases, both of which were used to hold wine at the time. The two exhibits feature upright and elegant forms, and the white background with black flower decorations on the vase bodies bestow a unique, rustic, and unrestrained beauty to the artifacts. The vase bodies are adorned with delicate lotus petals, clusters of grass, and other patterns drawn with bold, black lines. The decorations are simple, bright, natural, and generous. Within the evenly spaced circular highlights, the inscriptions "Qing Gu Mei Jiu (Fine Wine)" and "ZuiXiangJiuHai (Drunken Land Wine Sea)" are rendered in a free and bold style, evoking a profound artistic conception.

Li Zhiyan, a researcher at the National Museum of China and an expert in ancient ceramics, highly praised this pair of Jin Dynasty plum vases, writing: "When they are filled with wine for people to enjoy, they truly embody a unique charm."

Regarding the free and unrestrained creativity exhibited by Cizhou Kiln artifacts in every gesture, Zhao Xuefeng, the former director of the Cizhouyao Museum, explained that the Cizhou Kiln's craftsmen come from the folk. Unlike official kiln craftsmen who are bound by strict rules and standardized methods, Cizhou craftsmen work freely, and their decorative carvings are inspired by what they hear and see in daily life, as well as their reflections on life and experiences of beauty.

The Cizhou Kiln boasts over 60 types of decorative techniques, truly "a culmination of Song Dynasty ceramic decorations." In addition to the underglaze black painting, incised and carved patterns, and red and green coloring techniques used on this pair of Jin Dynasty plum vases, other decorative methods are also particularly renowned.

"The decorative arts of the Cizhou Kiln creatively combine traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy techniques with porcelain-making crafts, forming a new comprehensive art that has a profound impact on world ceramic art," Zhao Xuefeng stated.

The Cizhou Kiln is not only a pinnacle of artistic achievement in the ceramic world but also a cultural tome that carries the societal moods, folk customs, and societal trends.

The Hebei Museum's display of a Song Dynasty white-glazed black-painted pillow with a child fishing pattern is greatly loved by visitors.

On the pillow surface, a few simple strokes depict a child fishing alone by the riverbank, with the fishing line and swimming fish, grassland and riverbank. The image appears ethereal and simple, vividly portraying the tranquil countryside and the child's innocence.

This is another characteristic of the Cizhou Kiln—the wide and rich variety of pictorial themes. Landscapes, flowing water, flowers, birds, fish, and insects, scenes drawn from daily life are ubiquitous in Cizhou kiln artifacts. Games of children, horse racing, historical stories, and more can also be depicted on Cizhou kiln items.

"Cizhou kiln artifacts embody local flavors, folk colors, and ethnic characteristics, possessing a strong 'popularity'." Zhang Lintang, former director of the Fengfeng Mining District Cultural Heritage Preservation Office, stated that this is the most prominent feature of the Cizhou Kiln, which also creates its vibrant vitality.

Established during the Northern Dynasties, the Cizhou Kiln endured through the Sui and Tang Dynasties, reached its peak during the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods, and has persisted from the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the present day. The Cizhou Kiln has remained vibrant for a thousand years, making it one of the kiln sites with the longest continuous firing history in China. During the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods, it formed a vast "Cizhou Kiln System" that extended across most of China.

Moreover, the Cizhou Kiln has also spread beyond China's borders. Historically, the King of Thailand brought Cizhou kiln craftsmen back to his country to teach the techniques; Korean "HuiGoryeo" ceramic products also imitated the Cizhou Kiln's white background with black flowers; 16th-century porcelain excavated in Japan is similar to contemporary Cizhou kiln porcelain; shards from ancient Cizhou kilns have been found in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Iran, Iraq, and Egypt.

Over a millennium, the Cizhou Kiln has achieved brilliance multiple times.

Today, more and more ceramic companies are rooted in this ancient land, seeking inspiration from traditional crafts, forging ahead on the path of innovation, and creating new legends of Cizhou Kiln.