"Once freed from the distractions of this world, I was at one with harmony; my garden gate opened into a bamboo grove." Tchou i (12th century)
Following upon times of troubles and upheavals, the Tang Dynasty weakened and, in 907, collapsed. China was then subjected to a new period of division (in the south, known as the Ten Kingdoms and, in the north, as the Five Dynasties) until the arrival on the scene of a personage named Zhao Kuangyin, who, at the head of his army, reconquered the land. He took the name of Song T'ai Tsou, and set up his capital city at Kaifeng. At this point in its history, China would reexperience a golden age.
The early Song sovereigns were outstanding administrators and economists, even more talented than their predecessors, and they did everything in their power to promote the sciences, literature and the arts. They can be credited with the invention of the compass, gunpowder, the hydraulic clock with seventeen time read- ings, and movable type. The latter was, of course, a boon to literature; in less than thirty years, almost 13,000 volumes were published. It also furthered the thinking of the time, introduced scientific classification - indeed, spurred intellectualism on the whole, such as it would appear in all realms: metaphysics (Neo-Confucianism), the arts, and literature. Buddhism began petering out after it came to be considered decadent and lost the court's favor. This comes through in the Dunhuang frescoes, for instance, where the lithe beauty of the scenes is devoid of all spirituality. In fact, the Song paintings - "the material and spiritual triumph of landscapes" - and ceramics represent the dynasty's most beautiful realizations. The quest of the potters can be compared with that of alchemists: out of an alliance of earth and fire, a perfect material is expected to burst forth. They shaped their pieces into simple and harmonious forms, in beautifully nuanced monochromes to which, at times, a delicately carved or molded decorative design would be added. The pottery of this period fell into two categories: the North Song production (prior to the court's exodus to Hangzhou) and the South Song production. From the north came the ding, smooth-grained and translucent white porcelains featuring a creamy ivory glaze, with runoffs on the backside of the pieces; the ru, in gray-blue and lavender tones and finely crackled; and the jun (called "clair de lune"), featuring purple splashes.
The most beautiful celadons were produced in the south, at Longquan: vases in pure shapes, featuring green shades and creamy surfaces reminiscent of jade. The Fujian region was the source of the jian ware - or temmoku as they were known to the Japanese, who were most fond of them - that is, cone-shaped and coarsegrained tea bowls adorned with streaks with a metallic sheen (hare's fur pattern), with flecks (rice-grain pattern), or with sorts of alveoli (dragon-eye pattern). And, finally, the first enamelled decors showed up at Cizhou in Hebei.