The history of ceramics

The history of the development of ceramics is an important part of the history of Chinese civilization, China as one of the four major ancient civilizations, for the progress and development of human society has made outstanding contributions, in which the invention and development of ceramics is more unique significance of the Chinese history of the various dynasties have different artistic styles and different technical characteristics. China in the English language means both China and ceramics, clearly shows that China is the hometown of ceramics. As early as the Europeans mastered the porcelain manufacturing technology more than a thousand years ago, the Han Chinese have produced very fine ceramics. China was one of the first countries in the world to apply pottery, and Chinese porcelain is highly respected for its great practicality and artistry.

With the development of modern science and technology, many new varieties of ceramics have appeared in the last hundred years. They no longer use or rarely use clay, feldspar, quartz and other traditional ceramic raw materials, but the use of other special raw materials, and even expanded to non-silicate, non-oxide range, and the emergence of many new processes. The literature of the United States and some European countries have been "Ceramic" term understood as a variety of inorganic non-metallic solid materials. Therefore, the meaning of ceramics has actually gone far beyond the narrow traditional concept of the past.

In China, the production of ceramic technology can be traced back to the era of 4500 to 2500 BC, it can be said that an important part of the history of the development of the Han people is the history of the development of ceramics, the achievements of the Han people in science and technology, as well as the pursuit of the pursuit of beauty and molding, in many ways, through ceramics, and the formation of the era of the very typical technical and artistic characteristics.

Earlier than a thousand years before Europe mastered the technology of porcelain production, China has been able to produce quite exquisite porcelain. From the history of China's ceramic development, generally the term "ceramics" is divided into two, for the pottery and porcelain two categories. The development of traditional Chinese ceramics, through a fairly long historical period, a variety of special technology, so the classification of traditional Chinese ceramics in addition to consider the technical hard indicators, but also need to take into account the traditional customary classification method, combined with the ancient and modern scientific and technological understanding of the changes, in order to be more effective in reaching a categorization of the conclusion. The invention of pottery is an important symbol of the Neolithic era of primitive society.

China has been found about 10,000 years ago about the early Neolithic period of the remnants of pottery. Pottery fragments found at the Nanzhuangtou site in Xushui County, Hebei Province, have been identified as relics from 10,800 to 9,700 years ago. In addition, pottery sherds dating from 1,000 to 7,000 years ago were also found in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province, Caipi Yan, Guilin, Guangxi Province, and Qingtang, Yingde County, Guangdong Province.

Magnetic Hill-Peilongang Culture

The Magnetic Hill Culture, named after its first discovery in 1973 at Magnetic Hill in Wuan, Hebei Province, is more than 7,900 years old according to radiocarbon determination, and archaeologists in 1977 found cultural remains of similar age and content in Peilongang in Xinzheng, Henan Province, which is collectively known as the "Magnetic Hill-Peilongang Culture".

Magnetism is the most important culture in the world, and it is the most important culture in the world.

Magnet Hill-Peigang culture predates the Yangshao culture, and is a representative of the Neolithic culture in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The pottery of this culture mainly includes tripods, jars, plates, beans, three-footed pots, three-footed bowls, amphorae, etc. The wares are mostly plain and unwritten, and some of the sandwiched pottery is decorated with floral patterns. With the continuous progress of society, the quality of pottery has gradually improved. By the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there were already work types specializing in pottery production. During the Warring States period, various elegant decorations and birds and flowers appeared on pottery. At this time, pottery also began to apply lead glaze, which made the surface of the pottery smoother and had a certain color.

In the Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty sites found in the "green glazed ware" has clearly have the basic characteristics of porcelain. They are delicate and hard texture than pottery, tire color to gray and white mostly, sintering temperature as high as 1100-1200 ℃, the tire is basically sintered, less absorbent, the surface of a layer of lime glaze. But they are not exactly the same as porcelain. Known as "primitive porcelain" or "primitive celadon".

Porcelain is the Chinese Han Chinese working people invented, which is recognized worldwide. The invention of porcelain is based on the continuous development and improvement of pottery technology. The white pottery of the Shang Dynasty is made of china clay (kaolin) as raw material, firing temperature of more than 1000 ℃, which is the basis for the emergence of primitive porcelain. The success of the firing of white pottery on the transition from pottery to porcelain played a very important role.

Primitive porcelain from the emergence of the Shang Dynasty, after the Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States to the Eastern Han Dynasty, after 1600-1700 years of change and development, from immature to mature. By the time of the Western Han Dynasty, the glazed pottery process began to circulate widely. A variety of colors of glaze also began to appear in the Han Dynasty.

The porcelain made since the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, from the excavated artifacts are mostly celadon. These celadon processing fine, hard, non-absorbent, the surface of a layer of green vitreous glaze. This high level of porcelain technology, marking the Chinese porcelain production has entered a new era.

China's white glazed porcelain sprouted in the North and South Dynasties, to the Sui Dynasty, has developed into a mature stage. Sui dynasty porcelain became people's daily necessities. Tang Dynasty more new development. Porcelain firing temperature reached 1200 ℃, the whiteness of porcelain also reached more than 70%, close to the modern standard of high-grade fine porcelain. This achievement laid the foundation for the development of underglaze and overglaze porcelain.

There is a kind of pottery prevalent in the Tang Dynasty, to yellow, brown, green as the basic glaze color, and later people customarily called this kind of pottery "Tang three colors". Tang Sancai is a kind of low-temperature glaze pottery, add different metal oxides in the color glaze, after baking, it will form light yellow, ochre yellow, light green, dark green, sky blue, maroon, aubergine purple and so on many kinds of colors, but mostly to yellow, brown, green three colors mainly. The emergence of Tang Sancai marked the beginning of more colorful types and colors of pottery. Song dynasty porcelain, in the tire, glaze and production technology, and so on, there is a new improvement, porcelain firing technology to reach a fully mature degree. In technology, there is a clear division of labor, an important stage in the development of China's porcelain.

There are many famous kilns in the Song Dynasty, Xiao Kiln, Yaozhou Kiln, Magnetic Kiln, Jingdezhen Kiln, Longquan Kiln, Yue Kiln, Jian Kiln, and known as the five famous kilns in the Song Dynasty, Ru, the official, Brother, Jun, and Ding products have their own unique style.

Yaoshu Kiln (Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province) products are exquisite, the tire bone is very thin, the glaze is even and clean;

Magnetism Kiln (Pengcheng, Hebei Province) to magnetite clay as a billet, so porcelain is also known as magnetism. Magnetic state kiln mostly produces white porcelain with black flowers;

Jingdezhen kiln's products are thin and colorful, light and exquisite, high whiteness and translucency is pushed to be one of the representative works of Song porcelain;

Longquan kiln's products are mostly pinkish green or emerald green, with a beautiful glaze and bright;

Yueyue kiln fires a thin tire of porcelain, delicate and meticulous, with a beautiful luster;

Jianyao kiln produces black porcelain is one of the famous porcelain of Song dynasty, with black glaze. One of the famous porcelain of the Song dynasty, black glaze as bright as lacquer;

Ru kiln for the Song dynasty five kilns of the crown, porcelain glaze color to light green as the main color, the color is clear and moist;

Official kilns has been the existence of the issue of people's controversy, scholars generally believe that the official kiln is the official kiln of Bianjing, kiln is set up in Bianjing, the court fired porcelain;

Ge kiln where the firing has also been a matter of dispute. According to the analysis of all aspects of information, brother kiln firing location is the largest possible with the Northern Song Dynasty kilns together with the production;

Jun kiln firing of colored porcelain more to carmine red the best, green and ink-colored porcelain is also good;

Ding kiln production of ceramic tires fine, thin and light, ceramic color nourishment, white glaze like powder, called powder Ding or white Ding. China's ancient ceramics glaze development, from unglazed to glazed, and from monochrome glaze to multi-color glaze, and then from underglaze to overglaze color, and gradually developed into underglaze and overglaze painting of five colors, bucket color.

Color porcelain is generally divided into underglaze color, glaze color and glaze color three categories, in the billet first painted pattern, glaze after the kiln firing colored porcelain called underglaze color (temperature 1250-1340 ℃); glaze after the kiln firing into the porcelain and then painted and then burned 1250-1340 ℃ for the glaze color, glaze after the kiln firing into the porcelain and then painted and then baked by the baking furnace firing (600-800 ℃) Made of colored porcelain, called glaze color. Qing dynasty Jingdezhen produced blue and white porcelain is a kind of underglaze color.