Material Object: Slow Looking
The artifact category in review are Chinese ceramics. The chosen artifact shown below is a porcelain funerary jar depicting a dragon. The jar has an oval shape. It was created from clay and shaped into its form. It has a celadon glaze, which gives it its cool-toned green colour. There is a small creature (likely a dog) on the lid. The glaze has small cracks throughout, as well as brown patches near the lid, base, and dragon-to-vase interface.
The main decor of the piece is the Chinese dragon wrapping the jar. The dragon is carved and attached to the jar, all under a celadon glaze. The dragon has horns, back scales that run along its body, and long sharp claws gripping onto the jar like it is protecting it, which plays well into the purpose of funerary jars. Ceramics have a wide array of uses in medieval Chinese culture. The jar shown above was created during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) in China, and was to be buried with the dead as an object they could take into the afterlife (Harn Museum of Art, n.d.). It was believed that items stored within the jar would accompany the dead in the afterlife. It is as though the dragon’s purpose was to keep guard of the items inside the jar for the person who had passed.
Other ceramics pots relevant during the time period were vases. Vases were a major cultural item - porcelain ceramics and vases were mainly decorative, used as stationary or dishware (Jiang 2021), and wealthy families had them as displays or for gifts. The following figures are of ceramic vases created in China during the Southern Song dynasty and the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368).
The Dragonfish Handle vase is created from porcelain with a celadon glaze, similar to the first artifact, and has large cracks likely due to wear over time. The Meiping vase is made from stoneware - similar to porcelain, but has different firing temperatures and is generally more coarse (Sorrento Stoneware 2021). The vase is a jade green, also with a celadon glaze. There is an image of a dragon sculpted into the vase.
The three artifacts were chosen to present different uses of ceramics, how dominant ceramics were in medieval China, and how heavily integrated dragons were within the art form - from an offering to aid the dead as shown by the funerary jar to simple decorations as shown by the two vases.
Therefore, this artifact gives us a better understanding of dragons as it shows us a contrasting view. It challenges the previous notion that dragons are symbols of evil and replaces it with this symbol of good fortune. Dragons are heavily integrated into East Asian cultures as a symbol of luck (Ho 2021), thus incorporated into the three artifact ceramics to potentially act as protectors of the items or to imbue a sense of luck and happiness.