Want to know the secret? Start with one: It’s one story, with two storylines. The first you can look and see right away in the first series of pictures below. 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? Here’s a recap: the ceramic bodies went from earthenware to stoneware to porcelain while the surfaces went from incised and cold painted to burnished (polished) then lead glazed, then iron glazed (white, green, brown and black) then underglaze blue to many colored overglaze enamels.
Let’s keep it real simple! Excluding glazes and surface treatments and looking at only the ceramics bodies themselves, the tech storyline of Chinese ceramics switched slowly from earthenware to stoneware to porcelain. Each stage required increasingly refined processing of clay, more careful potting and throwing, and a whole host of developments in kiln construction and firing temperature and atmospheric control.
Let’s take a closer look at these three broad stages. First, the earthenware:
Notice that 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.
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.
But before we get to the dynastic timeline, let’s take a quick diversion to Korea and Japan. Why? Because the story of Chinese ceramics is also the main story of East Asian ceramics. In fact, some of the best Chinese ceramics were made in Korea and Japan. They’re all part of the same big story.