Chinese Ceramics

Pottery

Porcelain

Major differences

Major differences between pottery and porcelain

Category Material Temperature Glaze

Pottery Ordinary clay with iron content higher than 3%

Below 1000℃ With low-temperature glaze or no glaze

Porcelain Porcelain stone and clay with iron content lower than 3%

Above 1200℃ With over-1200 ℃high temperature glaze

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• Pottery emerged in the prehistorically Neolithic period when human beings started to have a settle life and use fire for living make their daily utensils with mud or clay buy firing.

Two methods of pottery making

• 1.Build up a vessel by winding up a clay cord

First to roll the wet mud or clay into a cord and wind it up from bottom to top to shape the vessel, then to smoothen the surface buy striking the built-up wall of the vessel with a bat, and finally to fire it.

• 2.Make a vessel with a wheelOn the basic of the first made, a simple machine-pottery

wheel-was introduced. It’s round working table with a central hole on the axle.

The potter put the pottery on the center of the table, then spin the wheel and repair the piece with a tool or just buy hands.

黑陶高柄杯

Polychrome-glazed pottery of the Tang dynasty

• Its technological achievements are of great important in the world. Tangsancai(Tang three colors), a common name for the polychrome glaze-pottery, was made of white clay covered by a low-temperature glaze with mineral pigments of copper, iron, cobalt and manganese and fired in a temperature about 800-1000°C. Actually, it has more than five colors, like green, yellow, white, blue, brown and purple, but the first three are the most popular ones. These kind pottery pieces like vase, pot, jar, plate, pillow, statues of animals and human beings, models of architecture and furniture were all made for tomb burying.

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Song dynasty

• Ru ware

• Guan ware

• Ge ware

• Ding ware

• Jun ware

Five famous porcelain wares

Ru ware

• An ash-gray body entirely covered by a finely cracked sky-blue glaze with “sesame-seed” spur marks on the underside. The kiln site has been found at Qingliangsi, Baofeng country, Henan province. It was produced in the Huizong reign(1101-1125), late Northern Song dynasty.

Guan ware

• A gay, black or yellow body covered by a crackled powder green, millet yellow or brownish yellow glaze. The Southern Song Xiuneisi and Jiaotanxia Guan ware kiln site has not been found at Fenghuangshan and Wuguishan in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, but its Northern Song site has not been found yet.

Ge ware

• Mainly with a crackled grayish blue glaze. The crackles with both thick black ones and fine yellow ones is called “iron wires with golden threads”. The kiln site has not been found.

Ding ware

• Mainly white wares, known as the “ivory white”, decorated with carved, incised, molded or engraved designs. The mouth rim of the ware has no glaze because of its upside-down firing, but the high quality ones for the royal family have been covered by gold, silver or copper. The kiln site has been found in Quyang county, Hebei province.

Jun ware

• A pure moon-white or sky blue glaze, or a blue glaze with red or purple by iron and copper pigments in a reduction firing. The kiln site is located in Yu county, Henan province.

Ming and Qing dynasty

Wucai

Underglaze painting

Overglaze painting

Underglaze red

Falangcai

Underglaze blue

Fencai

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清乾隆青花八

吉祥双耳扁

瓶

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明宣德釉里红三鱼

高足杯

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The End