If you’re new to ancient Chinese ceramics, here’s the secret: Together they’re all one story, but that story has two storylines. Their two plots twist and turn, but through this lense is how you’ll learn.
The first story is the physical, told by what you can see and touch. It’s the story of clay and glaze and kiln technology developing over 5,000 years from the late Stone Age to the last dynasty. Or, in one series of pictures…
Did you see it? You certainly noticed something! Looking only at the surfaces, they went from plain and incised then cold painted to burnished (polished) then lead glazed, then iron glazed (white, green, brown and black) then underglaze blue to many colored overglaze enamels.
Under the surface, the clay bodies were evolving through three stages: earthenware to stoneware to porcelain. Each stage required increasingly refined clay, more careful potting and throwing, and a whole host of developments in kiln construction and firing temperature and atmospheric control. With a general understanding of these changes, you’ll be well on your way to understanding how to date any Chinese ceramics you come across.
Before moving on to the second storyline of Chinese ceramics, let’s take a closer look at the differences between the three types of clay:
The clay is loose and granular, a bit like sand. Inconsistencies in the clay made it crack if fired at high temperatures. So it was fired at low temperatures, leaving the grains and minerals not melted together (vitrified) and resulting in a body like terra cotta, with similar beige, brown and reddish colors. Water weeps through the material. Flicking the vessel makes only a dull thud sound.
The clay is compact and dense, with few impurities. Stoneware was fired at higher temperatures and fully vitrified, so it’s completely watertight. It’s usually a dark or light grey color, though can also be whiteish. Depending on the thickness of the walls, flicking the vessel makes a high-pitched ping.
That’s it! To understand Chinese ceramics, you just need to keep this technology timeline in mind while you consider another: the Dynastic Timeline. Think of it as shorthand for all the cultural influences on the ceramics of the period. Whereas the tech timeline is all about the physical; this one is all about style and design. Together these two timelines are the only secret you need to understand the whole story of Ancient Chinese Ceramics.