Chinese ceramics

They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court and for export.

China comprises two separate and geologically different land masses, brought together by continental drift and forming a junction that lies between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, sometimes known as the Nanshan-Qinling divide.

Ware-types can be from very widespread kiln-sites in either north or south China, but the two can nearly always be distinguished, and influences across this divide may affect shape and decoration, but will be based on very different clay bodies, with fundamental effects.

[11] By the Middle and Late Neolithic (about 5000 to 1500 BCE) most of the larger archaeological cultures in China were farmers producing a variety of attractive and often large vessels, often boldly painted, or decorated by cutting or impressing.

The distinctive Majiayao pottery, with orange bodies and black paint, is characterised by fine paste textures, thin walls, and polished surfaces; the almost complete lack of defects in excavated pots suggests a high level of quality control during production.

[12] The Majiayao and other phases of the Yangshao culture are well-represented in Western museums,[13] with Banshan pots as the most widely recognized type of Neolithic Chinese pottery in the West.

[14] Distinct from Central China ceramic tradition developed in the modern eastern coastal provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, with principal cultures like Dawenkou, Longshan, Majiabang, Songze, and Hemudu.

East coast produced the most technologically advanced ceramics in neolithic China and is best known for thin-walled, wheel-thrown, intricately shaped black pottery vessels that frequently had a burnished surface.

The stems and high feet of the raised Dawenkou vessels are often decorated with pierced openwork, a feature also of some black pottery of Longshan culture (see illustration).

Northern China present a different chronology in the production of high-fired wares, probably due to establishment of strong political and economic center by the Shang dynasty.

In tombs of Eastern Zhou archaeologists found many pottery burial objects emulating different ritual bronzes (see illustration of ceramic ding).

[29] One of the first mentions of porcelain by a foreigner was in the Chain of Chronicles, written by the Arab traveler and merchant Suleiman in 851 AD during the Tang dynasty who recorded that:[24][30] They have in China a very fine clay with which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen through them.

Because of this, improvements in water transportation and the re-unification under Mongol rule, pottery production started to concentrate near deposits of kaolin, such as Jingdezhen, which gradually became the pre-eminent centre for producing porcelain in a variety of styles, a position it has held ever since.

[37] The Yongle Emperor (1402–24) was especially curious about other countries (as evidenced by his support of the eunuch Zheng He's extended exploration of the Indian Ocean), and enjoyed unusual shapes, many inspired by Islamic metalwork.

[42] Indeed, by the late 16th century, Chenghua and Xuande era works – especially wine cups[43] – had grown so much in popularity, that their prices nearly matched genuine antique wares of the Song dynasty or even older.

This esteem for relatively recent ceramics excited much scorn on the part of literati scholars (such as Wen Zhenheng, Tu Long, and Gao Lian, who is cited below); these men fancied themselves arbiters of taste and found the painted aesthetic 'vulgar.

'[44][45] In addition to these decorative innovations, the late Ming dynasty underwent a dramatic shift towards a market economy,[46] exporting porcelain around the world on an unprecedented scale.

The lengthy civil wars marking the transition from Ming to Qing caused a breakdown in the imperial kilns system, forcing the managers to find new markets.

Two letters written by Père François Xavier d'Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary and industrial spy who lived and worked in Jingdezhen in the early 18th century, described in detail manufacturing of porcelain in the city.

He explained his motives: Nothing but my curiosity could ever have prompted me to such researches, but it appears to me that a minute description of all that concerns this kind of work might, be useful in Europe.In 1743, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, Tang Ying, the imperial supervisor in the city produced a memoir entitled Twenty Illustrations of the Manufacture of Porcelain.

The major group of celadon wares is named for its glaze, which uses iron oxide to give a broad spectrum of colours centred on a jade or olive green, but covering browns, cream and light blues.

Already in production when the Song emperors came to power in 940, Ding ware was the finest porcelain produced in northern China at the time, and was the first to enter the palace for official imperial use.

Classified under his sixth discourse, the section on "pure enjoyment of cultured idleness", Master Gao said: "The best sort has marks on it like tear-stains... Great skill and ingenuity is displayed in selecting the forms of the vessels.

As with Ding ware, the Song imperial court lost access to the Ru kilns after it fled Kaifeng when the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty conquered northern China, and settled at Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou) in the south.

Though many Song and Yuan dynasty qingbai bowls were fired upside down in special segmented saggars, a technique first developed at the Ding kilns in Hebei province.

Only three complete pieces of Tang blue and white porcelain are known to exist (in Singapore from the Indonesian Belitung shipwreck), but shards dating to the 8th or 9th century have been unearthed at Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province.

The special characteristic of Dehua porcelain is the very small amount of iron oxide in it, allowing it to be fired in an oxidising atmosphere to a warm white or pale ivory colour.

These are commonly known by their French names of famille jaune, noire, rose, verte, based on the dominant element in each colour palette are terms used to classify.

The story vividly describes a scene of domestic violence as a result of the wife, Yang Shi, purchasing a drink worth a penny to soothe her aching stomach.

These markets inspired creativity and innovation as seen in how "Jingdezhen and other pottery centres produced ceramic versions of reliquaries, alms bowls, oil lamps, and stem-cups"[99] The difference in code did not necessarily contribute to a hierarchical division but rather a diversification in the personality behind Chinese porcelain.