readx;

Compared with the development of tea, the development of ceramics in the current Great Qin Empire seems to be more backward. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

This can be greatly related to the people's livelihood concept of the Great Qin Empire, which is mainly using pottery at present.

......

In the Great Qin Empire, it was not that no one used porcelain, or that there was no market for porcelain.

But there is no doubt that the official attitude of the Great Qin Empire had a great influence on the development of porcelain.

Even after the death of the First Emperor, most of the burial goods in the interior of the Lishan Imperial Mausoleum were pottery-related objects, especially the terracotta warriors and horses.

It is generally believed that the earliest pottery was handmade and fired over bonfires. The firing time is short but the maximum temperature reached by the fire can be very high, around 900C, and the speed at which it is reached is very fast. Clay is mixed with sand, gravel, broken shells, or broken pottery to make bonfire-fired ceramics because they provide an open texture that allows water and other volatile components to easily escape. The coarser particles in the clay also act as they limit the internal shrinkage of the pottery body as it cools, a process that takes place at a slow pace and reduces the possibility of thermal stress and cracking. Early bonfire-fired pottery was mainly round-bottomed, with the intention of avoiding sharp corners that could make it easy to break. The earliest kilns built for purpose were cave kilns or trench kilns, that is, a hole was dug in the ground and covered with fuel. Holes in the ground provide optimal insulation for better control of the firing process.

The earliest pottery in China appeared in the early Neolithic period. Around this year, experiments in pottery making may have begun in southern China, and the invention and exploration of pottery were roughly completed around 9,000 years ago. In 1962, the round-bottomed jar found at the site of Xianren Cave in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province, was dated to BC according to the radiocarbon test, and was a sand-filled red pottery with rope patterns on the outside.

The pottery in the Peiligang culture (BC) is mostly clay or sand-filled red pottery, and there is also a small amount of gray pottery. In the following Cishan culture (5400 BC ~ 5100 BC), Dadiwan culture (5200 BC ~ 4800 BC), Yangshao culture, Majiayao culture, Dawenkou culture and Longshan culture, it can be seen that the pottery making technology of ancient Chinese has continued to develop, the quality has improved, and the variety has increased.

In China, faience appeared around 4000 BC. "Banpo painted pottery" is a part of Yangshao culture, which was first discovered in Banpo Village, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province in 1953, mainly including kettles and bowls. At first, they were purely red, but gradually there were unique symbols on the pottery, called Banpo pottery symbols, decorated with animal patterns, geometric patterns, weaving patterns, etc. Similar pottery has since been found in neighboring provinces. In the Longshan culture in BC, black pottery appeared, which was a peak of Chinese pottery technology.

In the Shang Dynasty, it is theorized that it was the Indo-European nomads who brought the potter's wheel technology to the mass production. During the Zhou dynasty, pottery made with potter's wheels would be fired at higher temperatures to increase its hardness, and green glazes would be used. The terracotta warriors and horses of the Qin Dynasty became the most representative pottery of the time, and at this time, the depiction theme of pottery changed from animals to people. In the Han Dynasty, the depiction of pottery was characterized by the appearance of the image of the Buddha for the spread of Buddhism. In the Tang Dynasty, white ceramics appeared in China, and other pottery statues also appeared, and Tang Sancai became the representative of the essence of art at that time. In the Song Dynasty, the splendor of Chinese pottery was completely overshadowed by porcelain because porcelain technology began to mature. Since then, the focus of Chinese ceramics has fallen on porcelain. However, the pottery of the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as purple clay pots, and even the pottery craftsmanship of Yixing, Jiangsu and Shiwan, Guangdong in modern times still have a very high standard.

From the perspective of the development history of pottery in China, it can be said that the development foundation of porcelain in this period is inseparable from the production process of pottery.

As for why the development of porcelain was relatively slow, it was only in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty that there was a certain scale and even a technical personality. This has a great inevitability with the support of the state and the needs of the people.

Moreover, at the time of the appearance of porcelain, the price of porcelain should have been much higher than that of pottery, which should be inevitable. After all, in many ways, the cost of making pottery is much lower than that of porcelain. The cost of making a fine piece of pottery is still much less than that of porcelain.

And the most important point, that is, the official demand for porcelain, before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period or even the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, was not much or even basically not needed.

And this can be seen from the historical terms of "official kiln" and "imperial porcelain kiln".

......

The official kiln is the porcelain fired by some kilns for the court during the Gaozong period of the Southern Song Dynasty and Song Dynasty, which was commonly known as the "official kiln" at that time. Guanyao, the first Maogongdong (now Yangzhou, Jiangsu). The porcelain of the official kiln of the Southern Song Dynasty follows the style of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is regular and symmetrical, the palace is imposing, elegant and elegant, and meticulous. Because the iron content of the fetal soil is extremely high, the feel is heavy, and the fetal soil is dark black and brown, which is later called "purple iron foot". The glaze is heavy and bright, the glaze is thick like a pile of grease, and warm and moist like jade. The glaze is repeatedly scraped in multiple layers, the glaze sinks without dazzling, the texture layout is regular, and the shape is solemn and generous.

In addition, the "flesh rot and bones" (the exposed fetus resembles the bones of a dead man, commonly known as "Gu Dong") was also created at that time. What we call the official kiln today generally refers to the porcelain fired by the government of the previous dynasties, in fact, the history only refers to the porcelain fired in the Song Dynasty, and there is no such name in later generations.

Official kiln porcelain, mainly used by the huge bureaucratic monarchy, the type requirements are relatively low, mostly limited to flowers, birds, insects, fish myths and other "etiquette" outside the theme, sometimes the royal will be used as a "fun" toy purchase, but mostly for officials, rich businessmen use. This kind of porcelain is generally procured by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and there is a special pottery supervisor in Jingdezhen, who has been firing for many years.

Imperial kiln porcelain, refers to the porcelain exclusively for the royal use, in the shape, ornamentation have strict etiquette regulations, strict hierarchy, and the "car uniform system" strictly corresponds, misuse or unauthorized use is a felony.

Imperial kiln porcelain is a special porcelain for the royal family under strict grade specifications, and its subdivisions are as follows:

1. Royal porcelain: For example, the "Zhenghuang porcelain" of Qing Yongzheng is a special color for the royal family, which can only be used by the emperor and the prince. In terms of patterns, the emperor used a five-clawed golden dragon, and the prince could only use a four-clawed dragon, and it was called a python (in the Qing Dynasty, only "one edict and two seals" Prince Gong Yixun enjoyed the treatment of giving Zhenghuang and five-clawed golden dragon), all of which have been systematically handed down to this day, and the first "Tongzhi Emperor Wedding Porcelain";

2. Wangfu porcelain: the model is specially burned according to the rules for other royal family members, including the prince. The famous "Le Dao Tang porcelain" in the cultural relics is a model work in the palace porcelain.

3. Yipin palace porcelain: under the whole world, it is not the king's land, and the shore of the land is not the king's minister. It is used as a reward for the emperor. The early palace porcelain themes were mostly taken from the supplementary elements on the official uniforms, such as the unicorn of Wu Yipin, the crane of Wen Yipin, etc.

It is worth mentioning that the folk kiln porcelain uses dragons to hide their claws in the clouds and water, which can be said to be a mutual compromise between the royal ritual system and folk customs.

"Qing Historical Manuscript" records: the royal kiln firing, under the Yangxin Palace Office is responsible, that is, by the Yangxin Palace Office to provide the type, system, pattern, process requirements, many samples are in the capital test firing, this is especially in the Kangxi Dynasty. During royal ceremonies, senior officials (often members of the royal family) are assigned to supervise them. For example, the "Tongzhi Emperor's Grand Wedding Porcelain" was specially supervised by Prince Gong Yixun, the prime minister and auxiliary prince at the time.

......

However, the demand of the official nature is far from the most important basis for the development of porcelain, and in the development of porcelain in Chinese history, there is a place that can be said to be the most important embodiment of the rise of porcelain.

This area is Cizhou.

Later generations believe that the ancestors of Fengfeng in the Cizhou area began to fire pottery as early as 7,500 years ago, and the Neolithic site of Cishan, 20 kilometers north of Pengcheng, has unearthed a large number of sand-filled brown pottery and red pottery, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences named it "Cishan Culture". Thus confirming the historical status of this region as the birthplace of ancient pottery.

During the period of the two Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Pengcheng and Linshui were located in the most economically and culturally developed areas of the Central Plains, and became the famous places of interest in the western suburbs of Linzhang in Yecheng, Beijing. The pottery technology has also become mature, and celadon and cosmetic white porcelain have been fired, completing the leap from pottery to porcelain.

In the past archaeological investigation, it was found that the kiln site of Linshui kiln, unearthed more than 100 pieces of celadon bowls, more than half of these utensils began to apply white makeup soil at the mouth, covered with blue-yellow transparent glaze, and the makeup part showed yellow-white, which is the primary stage of the transition from Cizhou kiln glazed pottery to makeup white porcelain.

In 1975, an ancient kiln site of the Tang Dynasty and fragments of white porcelain were found in Linshui. It shows that at this time, the firing of white porcelain in Cizhou kiln has entered a mature period, and the kiln ware has also been changed from branch firing to cage (sagger) bowl firing.

In the Song Dynasty, Cizhou kiln began to enter a prosperous period. Cizhou kiln is a model of northern folk porcelain in the Song Dynasty, both in shape and decoration with an eye on practicality, beauty and economy. In the long-term practice of pottery and porcelain, a unique style and characteristics (i.e., white makeup techniques) have gradually been formed, and the style and appearance of Cizhou kiln products have been formed with unified modeling and unique decoration techniques, reflecting local characteristics, national styles and characteristics of the times.

Its products are mostly plates, bowls, cans, bottles, basins, boxes and other utensils necessary for daily life, with fluent lines and free spirit, showing the bold and simple style shared by folk art. The Cizhou kiln of the Song Dynasty drew on a wide range of themes, formed a variety of forms, and had rich meanings. And the ceramic skills and art are kneaded together, the ceramic objects are raised to a new artistic realm, and a new era of ceramic art is created.

Among the many varieties of Cizhou kiln, the white ground black flower (rust flower), carved flower, and kiln black glaze are the most famous. Its decoration techniques broke through the limitations of the monochrome glaze of the five famous (official) kilns (Ru, Guan, Jun, Ge, Ding) that were popular at that time, and used dozens of colorful decorative techniques.

The craftsmen of Cizhou kiln absorbed the traditional techniques of ink painting and calligraphy art, and created the decorative art of white ground and black painting with ink painting style, which opened a precedent for Chinese porcelain painting and decoration.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the Cizhou kiln in the Pengcheng area set off a porcelain-making upsurge, in addition to inheriting the traditional varieties of the Song and Jin dynasties, and expanded the scale of production, and the production of large-scale utensils also increased. The products tend to be thick and heavy, the shape is huge, round, and the ornaments mainly include cloud dragons, cloud winds, cloud geese and fish algae patterns.

In 1973, there was a stone grinding trough of "the third year of the Great Yuan Kingdom to the Yuan ......Dynasty" unearthed in Pengcheng Dalugou, and many typical fish algae pot fragments of the Yuan Dynasty were unearthed. Its shape and decoration style are very similar to the fish algae basin unearthed in the Yuan capital of Beijing. For a long time, tens of thousands of Yuan Dynasty porcelain and porcelain pieces have been discovered and unearthed in large quantities and on a large scale in the reconstruction of the old city of Pengcheng.

In the Ming Dynasty, the Pengcheng Cizhou kiln still maintained a considerable output, and set up an official kiln in Pengcheng, and set up a warehouse to store the official wine jar in Cizhou Nanguan - "Guantan Factory", in order to prepare for the boat to be transported into Beijing along the Fuyang River. As the center of Cizhou kiln, Pengcheng also became the northern porcelain capital.

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Pengcheng Cizhou kiln entered a relatively prosperous period, the kiln field increased, the kiln type was changed, the variety increased, the output increased, and the daily porcelain covered the private market. "Cizhou Chronicles" recorded, "Pengcheng Fuyuan residents are good at pottery jars, boats and vehicles, sold in other counties". There is a folk saying that "there is Jingde in the south and Pengcheng in the north". Qing Wei due to the "foreign porcelain" of a large number of imports, resulting in the decline of Cizhou kiln production, the variety of sharp decline, the traditional artistic style gradually declined, Pengcheng Town only left 130 cylinder magnetic kilns, more than 1,000 porcelain workers.

It can be said that Cizhou kiln represents the rise of Chinese folk porcelain production technology.

And there is a concept that is not unreasonable, that is, if Jingdezhen is the representative of the "official kiln" system, then Chizhou can really be said to be one of the embodiments of the development history of folk porcelain.

...................................................... Dividing Line................................................

Zhang Jiashi now believes that it is not too difficult to support the development of the folk power of porcelain, because the development of porcelain in this period is not a creation from scratch, but a way to inherit the skills of the ancestors and innovate and develop.

It's just a pity that Zhang Jiashi is actually quite interested in investing a lot of money in his own private development of porcelain.

For Zhang Jiashi, the profit of porcelain is not bad, but it is very helpless that even if there is any technical breakthrough and development, so that the quality of porcelain can be thrown off the pottery a few streets, I am afraid there will not be too much market.

This is obviously limited by the current situation of the Great Qin Empire. After all, according to Zhang Jiashi's calculations, if you want porcelain to have a certain market demand and reach the category of profitability, I am afraid it is not a problem that can be solved in one or two years.

Zhang Jiashi didn't think that he himself was an immortal, and he could make the people's livelihood of the Great Qin Empire, which was riddled with holes, in a short period of time, have the same level as the middle and late stages of the reign of Wenjing...... (To be continued.) )

This book is from //.html