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Celadon

Ceramics
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Celadon is a Chinese stoneware with subtle green glazes evoking jade, prized for its serene, translucent quality.

Detailed Definition
In the category of ceramics, celadon represents classical East Asian aesthetics of restraint and natural beauty. In poetry, it evokes tranquility, antiquity, and contemplative domestic spaces, with its glaze mirroring themes of calmness amid flux. Poets employ celadon to contrast understated elegance with inner depth, using these vessels in explorations of mindfulness, heritage, and sensory subtlety. Its literary resonance lies in symbolizing enduring grace and the quiet poetry of simple forms.
Example
Example in poetry:
Celadon's grey-green glaze — evoking jade, rain, and the colour of the sea before a storm — has inspired Chinese poets for over a thousand years, who praised it as "the colour of mountains after rain"; Su Dongpo and other Song dynasty poets celebrated celadon bowls as fit vessels for tea and contemplation, their glaze holding the eye as water holds a reflection; A Western poet might write: "the celadon bowl sat on the sill — not green, not grey, the colour of the hour before the hour"; Seamus Heaney's interest in surface, texture, and the transformation of natural materials makes celadon a fitting image: earth become the colour of the sea that shaped it; In a poem about a museum visit, the Song celadon bowl behind glass concentrates centuries of attention: "so many eyes have rested here, the glaze has grown contemplative"; Amy Lowell's imagist poems about Chinese art find a natural subject in celadon — the colour that refuses to be named, the form that refuses to be hurried.
Additional Notes
Celadon glazes derive their characteristic grey-green or sea-green colour from iron oxide fired in a reduction atmosphere, which strips oxygen from the iron and produces a colour range from pale grey through olive to deep grey-green. The name "celadon" in European usage may derive from a character in Honoré d'Urfé's pastoral romance L'Astrée (1607–27), who wore grey-green ribbons, though Chinese terms such as qingci (blue-green ware) are older. Chinese celadon — particularly from the Longquan kilns of Zhejiang — was prized across Asia and the Islamic world for its jade-like quality. Poems invoking celadon tend to reach for associations of serenity, depth, and the luminous quietness of still water or mist.
Also Known As
Greenware Seiji
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