Pottery Art with A Long History V – The Tang Tri-Colored Pottery in China (down)

In the tomb of the great right-guard general of the Tang dynasty, a tri-colored pottery shaped in a camel carrying with music figures was unearthed. The camel stands with a perking head, whose whole body is brown yellow, and there are drooping long hairs in the head, neck, from the jaw to the belly, and in the fore parts of forelimbs’ up parts of the camel, it is soft and beautiful. On the back of the camel there is a flat board and on which coved with a blanket, and two figures sit on the flat board with back to back and played the musical instrument, and on the center of the flat board there’s a dancing figure. The tree music figures all have deep eyes, high noses and whiskers, they worn long green lepal clothes and white fur boots, and only the figure in the front wearing a yellow shoulder overcoat. This tall figure of ceramic camel carrying with music and dancing figures is so beautiful and amazing.





The origin places of the Tang tri-colored pottery are Xi’an city and Luoyang city, and Yangzhou city is the connection point between land and sea of the ancient Silk Road. And the main means of transportation on the ancient silk road is camel, so we can image that in the desert, is the camel shared the hard journey with people together, so there’s a sort of intimacy sense between human and camels, its tall body, persistent and burdened expressions moved us much, on whose face, you can even see vast windblown dusts in the ancient silk road.

The Tang tri-colored pottery is the essence of Tang pottery, which had attained its peak in the early and mid times of the Tang Dynasty. After the An Lushan-Shi Siming Rebellion, along with the gradual declination of the Tang Dynasty, and due to the rapid development of porcelain, the production of tri-colored pottery declined gradually too. Although later there appeared with similar styles tri-colored pottery such as "The Liao tri-colored pottery” and "the Kim tri-colored pottery”, but in terms of the quantity and quality of which, as well as the artistic quality, they are all inferior to the Tang tri-colored pottery.

As early as in the early times of Tang Dynasty, the Tang tri-colored pottery were exported abroad and loved by foreign peoples. This kind of multi-colored glaze pottery are famous in the world with its gorgeous colors, its bright and shiny luster, and its elegant, beautiful and exquisite designs, the Tang tri-colored pottery is a brilliant star in antique Chinese pottery.

Pottery Art with A Long History V – The Tang Tri-Colored Pottery in China (up)

The Tang Tri-colored pottery was invented and popular in the Tang dynasty over 1300 years ago, the basic glaze colors of which are yellow, brown and green, and people laterly were customary to call this type of pottery as ”Tang tri-colored pottery".

The Tang Tri-colored pottery is one kind of low-temperature glazed pottery, people add different metal oxides in the pottery glazes and through baking the glaze color tansformed into light yellow, sienna, light green, dark green, sky blue, brown red, eggplant purple and so on, but among them the main colors are yellow, brown and green. With changeful shades in the glaze colors of the Tang tri-colored pottery, which infiltrated mutual and taken on blocky and dripping effect, the Tang tri-colored pottery could display its splendid grand artistic charms.

The Tang tri-colored pottery in the Tang dynasty is treated as a sort of burial objects and used for burying with the dead, because it is crisp and poor in waterproof performance, whose practicality is far less than celadon porcelain and white porcelain that had already appeared in that times. With a round and full body, the characteristics of Tang tri-colored pottery are in accordance with the art features as chubby, bonny and broad in the Tang dynasty.

The category range of Tang tri-colored pottery is wide, and the main species of which there are figures, animals and daily use utensils. With moderate scales and smooth lines, the figures and animals of Tang tri-colored pottery are lifelike and brisk. Among figures of the Tang tri-colored pottery, those warriors have strong muscles and angry eyes and who looks like are ready to taken into a fight; and ladies featured have high buns and broad sleeves, and looks slender and elegant, relax and adagio, also very rich. The most animals in the Tang tri-colored pottery are horses and camels.

Pottery Art in China with A Long History IV --- Chinese Ceramic Pottery

As one of the four ancient civilization nations, China has contributed much to the society of development and progress of human, among them the invention and development of pottery is particular important and significant.

Pottery craftwork and ceramic art is the oldest arts and crafts of our country. As far away as in the New Stone Age there are gray pottery, terracotta, white pottery, painted pottery and black pottery with simple and rude styles. In Shang Dynasty glazed pottery and rigid glazed pottery which initially featured with porcelain characters appeared yet. The porcelain was created in the Eastern Han Dynasty, whose production techniques and artistic creation level reached to a high degree of maturity. In Song Dynasty the industry of porcelain flourished greatly, and dozens of famous porcelain kilns emerged in rush. As to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the technology of blank forging, decorating and glazing to firing of pottery are more advanced than those in previous generations.

The mainly species of Chinese pottery are terracotta, black pottery, white pottery, painted pottery, printed pottery and faience pottery and so on.

* Terracotta Pottery

Terracotta Pottery is one kind of pottery in Neolithic Age, and as the clay of which containing a few elements of Fe, which will be oxidized into ferric oxide when roasting, as a result the color of the pottery will take on earth red, brick red or henna, and it got its name consequently.

* Black Pottery

The invention of black pottery, according to archaeological discoveries was taken placed in late Neolithic Age, it was bred out between 2600 BC - 2000 BC. As the black pottery was produced through traditional techniques of pottery, so people often shocked by the magnificent and noble beauty of black pottery, it could bring people will feelings of dignity, comfort, quietness and extending. The discovery of Black pottery culture indicates the pottery production technology of Chinese ceramic has achieved to an unprecedented level, and it also displayed to backwards the historical process of the conversion of pottery production from possessing practicability to meeting aesthetic demands.

* White Pottery

"White pottery" is a leap forward from pottery to porcelain. "White pottery" is one kind of pottery, whose inside and exterior surface are both taken on white. Most of ceramic blanks are handmade and using porcelain clay or kaolin which contains less Fe elements than china clay, and the firing temperature of which is about 1000 degrees. The invention and application of incised white pottery in late Shang Dynasty is an achievement in the history of the development of Chinese ceramics production technology.

* Painted Pottery

Painted pottery is a remarkable achievement of Yangshao culture, it is one kind of pottery that painted with sienna, red and black colors. The art of painted pottery featured with strong flavors of life and unique artistic style, the image of which should be painted on the ceramic blank before firing thus the painted patterns will fixed on the ceramic utensil surface and will not break off easily after being fired. The pottery with stamping back patterns from late Neolithic ages to Han Dynasty in China were fired out in such a way: before firing, to press down patterns the pottery needed on its special places just before the ready-made ceramic blanks become dry.

The main sculpts of pottery there are burners, pots, jars and bowls. Among them the main types of ceramic burners there are Ge style burner, Boshan burner, smoke burner and so on; the main types of ceramic pots there are saliva pot, cock head pot, dish mouth pot and so on; the main types of ceramic jars there are four tied jar, small jars with bubbled abdomens, “Tian” word shape jars and small mouthed jars with break shoulders and so on; and the main types of ceramic bowls there are high foot bowls, palace bowls, bamboo hat bowls, lying foot bowls and so on.

Chinese ceramics has flourished for many years till today, the dark-red enameled pottery in Yixing city, the ceramic sculpture in Shiwang town, the three-color glazed pottery in Jieshou area, the purple-red pottery in Zibo city, the green glazed pottery in Tongguan area, the carved glazed pottery in Chongning county, the porcelain sculpture in Dehua county, the porcelain willow leaf bottle and porcelain phoenix tail bottle in Jingdezhen are all well known in the world.

Pottery Art with A Long History III – History of Ceramic Pottery in The World (down)

In this region we can through another method to deduce the ages more accurate, that is analysis the roof beams of these houses. Dr. Douglas in the University of Arizona invented a method of through analyzing the annual rings of the house roof beams to confirm the exact age of the beam. This way not only has fixed on the time frame of the Mayan’s settlement on calendar, but also has determined the corresponding ages of different potteries in the time scope. Compared to the United States Pueblo region, the sediment layers in the Maya region of pottery production were distributed more widely.

In addition to ceramic relic piles, in the ground of squares and buildings as well as tombs left by those upper ranks we also had found the sediment layer of ceramic flakes. All these sediment layers had been found in the Wuwaxiake, these sediment layers described a chronology for the main types of Maya’s pottery.

This chronology has provided us with a basic framework of the Peten region, and the age orders about Kepan will be published too, and other materials come from regions of Pidelasi, Nicholas, Palenque also had been dig out and been arranged well, and a book written about potteries dig out from Yucatan are just on printing process.

And the order of pottery from Zacualpa and Zaculeu are same, on the high ground of Guatemala, and the pottery orders of the formative years of Kaminaljuyu and former classical period were been recorded same.

Viewed from the marked changes of the pottery production in these regions, for the development of the whole Maya’s pottery, a large number of excavations in other areas are very essential, and due to the widely comparability between different areas, and timely amendment in individual areas based on the Maya chronology, all these have shown us with an overall chart of the Maya development.

Through the Maya monument that marked with dates, one day we would finally get an accurate dating standard. The accurate years of many Maya monuments were determined strictly in accordance with the Maya chronology, whose existence are merely used to make the Maya chronology corresponded to the Gregorian calendar, just as we could conclude the accurate age of a tree according to its tree-ring.


The above-mentioned we said are related to the at the types, the complexity, the quantity and specialization of Maya pottery, while they are so agree with the monuments that marked with accurate dates, so that when all the story fragments and all evidences came together, compared with the pottery production industry in other nations of ancient America, and from the pictures of Maya we may get more about the Maya’s pottery production, the origin places and sites of different types of Maya pottery, the industry distribution of Maya pottery and its final decline.

Pottery Art in China with A Long History III – History of Ceramic Pottery in The World (up)

Pottery is the most significant symbol of the immortal ancient culture that passed down by human, and pottery is the best reflection for the progress of human culture, it also marked the culture descension and continuation of human beings.

A heap of pottery fragments has confused us about the Mayan’s previously living sites, but just like as geologist analyzing the different geological periods of the Earth had experienced, we can make use of the same technology of analysis too. The technology, known as "geological setting", followed a unified principle of – materials which produced or formed former will deposited earlier. As a result, the pottery found in the deepest reactor bottom of the sediments is the oldest pottery.

In the areas of pottery makers who lived together, pottery relic piles of ceramic fragments were gradually formed, and mixed with other debris. These relic piles usually were found in exposed places, of which most perishable materials have disappeared. Aside from those relic piles that in rare dry climate or with covers, in those exposed relic piles only those hardly damaged objects could been found, such as stones, shells, bones, as well as ceramic flakes, some of them are valued with archaeological meanings and are most important for the recording of break-off ears.

These relic sites always near to the areas the maker lived in, the depth of which usually as deep as several rules. The cross-section of the sediment has displayed that it is no doubt that the Mayas who lived near to the accumulation site of debris has a long period of history of pottery making. The sediment layer just like the ceramic flakes could provides us a reliable and related order about pottery, but does not offer us with an absolute chronology of the pottery development.

This technology of judging the era according to the typical pottery of various pottery species had improved the Pueblo’s Indian culture in the southwestern United States greatly.

Pottery Art in China with A Long History II --- About Pottery

Pottery refers to the project that with a model of clay, through a processing of pinching, ring forming and molding, then sintered under a temperature of 800-1000 ℃, thus finally formed into a molding, the model body is non-transparent, has tidy poles, and water-retaining, and sounds dull when knocked on it.

Pottery can be divided into groups of coarse ceramic and fine ceramic, colored or white ceramic, naked ceramic or glazed ceramic, and the varieties of which are grey pottery, terracotta, white pottery, painted pottery, black pottery and so on, which are full with thick flavors of life and unique artistic styles.

As seen to the discovery of the ceramic flakes produced in late Paleolithic Age that found in the Nihe district of Hebei province China, from now there is a long history of 11,700 years of the birth of Chinese pottery. As early as in the Shang Dynasty of China, the glazed pottery and hard-glazed pottery which initially possessed the characters of porcelain had just already appeared. The contents expressed by the pottery are also various, such as peoples, animals, pavilions and a variety of utensils used in daily life were all been involved in.

The invention of pottery is an important process of human civilization, it is the first try that human took advantage of natural materials to create a brand-new article in accordance with their own purpose.

People mixed clay with water and use the mixture to produce a variety of utensils and housewares, which formed into ceramics through a process of baking and whose quality changed consequently, it opened a new chapter of human’s using nature and reconstructing nature, it was an important occasion in the development life of human and has historical and epoch-making significance. At the same time, the appearance of pottery also is a mark of the beginning of the Neolithic Age.

The invention of pottery also greatly improved the living conditions of human beings, it opened up a new era in the history of human’s development. However, the invention of pottery is not a patent of ancient ancestors of some or other region or a tribe, it is an invention that could be created out by any ancient agriculture tribes or groups independently in the long-term practice of human.

The appearance of pottery is also one of major stamps of the Neolithic age in China, it enhanced the settlement stability of early humans, and made people’s daily lives more rich and colorful.

Pottery Art in China with A Long History I --- Preface

"Tao (pottery)", according to the figure described in oracle bone inscriptions, it implies a person who was squatted and sit on the ground, with a tool just like a wood stick modeling clay. Through sintering adobes will form into ceramics, which we called pottery today.

Archaeological discoveries have proved that as early as in the Neolithic Age (about 8000-2000 BC) the Chinese people had invented pottery. The agricultural production emerged in later primitive society had bought a relatively more fixed life to the ancestors of the Chinese people, which also produced the demand for pottery objectively. So, in order to improve the quality of life and make their lives more convenient, gradually Chinese people invented pottery through the burning of clay.

The word first appeared on pottery, it was found on a ceramic flake left by Shang Dynasty, and which is the only piece so far, while there are many pieces of ceramic flakes without words on. With a long history of pottery, China has left a great number of ceramic heritages, among these historic treasures, the oldest pottery was been produced out in BC 9,000 (with carbon isotope C14 detection).

The original pottery were been burned into in open-air, and these primal pottery are rough and fragile. About BC 8000, people started to put the ceramic model into pottery kiln, and with the method of controlled burning to improve the pottery, quality, through this method the pottery produced became not only more strong but also more beautiful, and turned into one kind of artworks.

Before the Shang Dynasty, the main colors of the pottery are only three: red, gray and black. Later based on the development of enamel coating technology, the color of pottery became more abundant and bright. In the Tang Dynasty, faience ware, also called painted pottery or colored pottery, one kind of Tang handicrafts was created out, among which, the Tang tri-colored pottery is the most well-known typical work.

On the basis of the high-level ceramic technology accumulated long-term, China produced porcelain ware in the world, which has become an important medium of the exchanges between the East and West cultures and economy, and people in the West just called porcelain as CHINA namely the country of China, it can be also said to describe China with Chinese porcelain (china). In Western languages the word “china”, whose meaning also includes pottery. In the history of the development of Chinese ceramics, the pottery was appeared before porcelain, and the porcelain was took birth from pottery.