Want to know the secret? Start with one: It’s one story, with two storylines. The first you can look and see right away. It’s the physical: the story of clay and glaze and kiln technology developing over 5,000 years. Ready? Here it is, from the neolithic to the last dynasty:
Did you see it? The 5,000-year tech storyline went like this: earthenware > stoneware > glazed stoneware > underglaze blue > overglaze enamels.
With a bit more detail: the ceramic bodies went from earthenware to stoneware to porcelain and the surfaces went from incised and cold painted to burnished then lead glazed, iron glazed (white, green, brown and black) then underglaze blue to many colored enamels.
Remember, that’s the Technology Storyline of this 5,000 year story. To understand Chinese ceramics, keep this technology timeline in mind and look at another: the Dynastic Timeline. Chinese ceramics are often organized this way. Together these two timelines are the only secret you need to understand the whole story and learn to place many or most pieces you come across in it.
Let’s pause for a moment. This Dynastic Timeline is trickier to see, so what exactly is it? Think of it as shorthand for all the cultural influences on the ceramics of the period. As dynasties rose and fell, as they traded widely or became more insular, as they opened and closed the doors to outsiders, as new emperors favored new styles or revived the old, all of these influenced the ceramics of the time. And while the dividing lines were rarely clear, the Dynastic Timeline is the best way to organize and understand them.
