Ren Xinghang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Ren Xinghang, Male, Han, from Yuzhou, Henan, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-93). The tradition is documented in Yuzhou, Henan. Within the regional tradition and school record of Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship in Yuzhou, Henan: The Jun porcelain firing craft is centered on Yuzhou City, Henan Province; the ancient Jun Terrace lies in the northeast of Yuzhou City, hence the kiln name 'Juntai Kiln,' abbreviated as 'Jun Kiln.' Because the kiln site is near the ancient Jun Terrace of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it was named the 'Juntai Kiln.' As Jun-kiln craftsmen scattered far and wide, the Jun porcelain firing craft gradually spread to various places. After the founding of New China, Jun porcelain production entered a period of comprehensive restoration. The Yuzhou City Cultural Center is the protecting unit of the item. Jun porcelain is one of the five great famous porcelains of the Song dynasty—Jun, Ru, Guan, Ge, and Ding. It was first created in the Tang dynasty and flourished in the Northern Song dynasty, and its unique kiln-transmutation craft holds a style of its own in Chinese ceramic firing technology. During the Huizong reign of the Northern Song dynasty, the government set up an official kiln in the northeast of present-day Yuzhou City, Henan Province, to fire tribute porcelain for the imperial palace. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty, the Jun kiln ceased firing. During the Jin and Yuan periods, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shanxi, and other places all imitated Jun porcelain, but due to factors such as raw materials, their artistic achievement could not match that of the Song-dynasty official kiln In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Jun porcelain production developed slowly.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Born in January 1955 in Yuzhou, Henan Province, he is a man of the Han ethnic group. He is a national representative bearer of Jun porcelain firing craftsmanship, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a technician of Jun porcelain firing. In 1966 he began learning the family's inherited Jun porcelain making techniques from his father, Ren Jian. In 2004 he funded the construction of the Yuzhou Jun Porcelain Kiln Museum at his own expense, reconstructing and re-presenting more than ten Jun porcelain kilns that had exerted a major influence in history and fully restoring their firing processes. The most distinctive feature of his skill is his adherence to the traditional firing techniques of Jun porcelain, especially the Song dynasty wood-firing process. Building on the family craft, and by reconstructing successive historical kilns and their firing patterns, he has identified and mastered the kiln structures, glaze formulations and firing techniques suited to the traditional wood-firing process. His works have archaic, elegant forms and a lustrous, opalescent glaze that appears entirely natural and unforced. He attaches great importance to transmitting the craft and has trained many disciples, a number of whom have mastered the essence of the Ren family Jun porcelain making technique and become technical mainstays of the Jun porcelain world in Yuzhou. Within the documented technical tradition of Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship in Yuzhou, Henan: Because the kiln site is near the ancient Jun Terrace (Juntai) of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it was named the 'Juntai Kiln,' abbreviated as the 'Jun Kiln,' and the porcelain it produced is named 'Jun porcelain.' As Jun-kiln craftsmen scattered far and wide, the Jun porcelain firing craft gradually spread to various places. compared with the products. After the founding of New China, Jun porcelain production entered a period of comprehensive restoration. The Ren-family and Lu-family Jun-porcelain lineages—such as Lu Guangdong and Lu Guangwen—contributed their ancestral secret techniques, making contributions to the development of Jun porcelain. The reason Jun porcelain is so prized, apart from its vigorous, dignified forms, lies chiefly in two aspects: first, during firing Jun porcelain exhibits a kiln-transmutation phenomenon; glazes containing copper, after transmutation, form glaze colors such as begonia red, cinnabar red, and rooster-blood red, which permeate and reflect one another in mutual brilliance—hence the saying 'one color entering the kiln, ten thousand colors leaving it'; second, the Jun porcelain crafting process is complex, with a low yield rate; a single piece of Jun porcelain passes through 72 process steps from material selection to firing. In recent years, with the spread of mechanization technology in the ceramics industry and the application of natural-gas and electric kilns, the traditional Jun porcelain firing craft has gradually declined, and both its cultural connotation and artistic quality show a downward trend, making the protection of the traditional Jun porcelain firing craft urgent. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Account of Craft Procedures": complex, with a low yield rate; a single piece of Jun porcelain passes through 72 process steps from material selection to firing.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2012, Ren Xinghang was announced in the fourth batch of national representative bearers for Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship, with Yuzhou, Henan as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship in Yuzhou, Henan: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Yuzhou, Henan as its declared area, and Yuzhou Yang ZhiJunYao Co., Ltd. as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Ren Xinghang · National Representative Bearer Archive