China News Agency, Nanjing, June 30th: How does China's "porcelain" suction effect connect things?
——Interview with Zhang Liangren, Professor of the Department of Archaeology, Nanjing University
China News Agency reporter Yang Yanci
China is the hometown of porcelain.
Originating from Chinese porcelain nearly 4,000 years ago, it has gone abroad since the Three Kingdoms, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, stimulated overseas imitation firing, and promoted the production and sales of porcelain around the world.
Today, porcelain is still a treasure of art in the world, and it has become a window to promote the world's pluralistic integration and strengthen people-to-people bonds.
Why is Chinese porcelain so popular in the world?
How did Arab and European merchants bring Chinese porcelain to the world?
What technological innovations do Eastern and Western porcelain have today, and how to promote cultural exchanges between the East and the West in their respective development?
Zhang Liangren, a professor of the Department of Archaeological Relics at the School of History of Nanjing University, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "East and West Questions", answering from an archaeological perspective.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: What is the origin of porcelain?
Zhang Liangren: The origin of porcelain is controversial in academic circles.
I tend to think that porcelain originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Before the Eastern Han Dynasty, Chinese porcelain had a development process of nearly two thousand years. The porcelain produced during this process is called primitive porcelain.
It was born out of pottery and was gradually explored by ancient ancestors in the experience of firing white pottery and imprinted hard pottery.
Proto-porcelain unearthed from the high-grade mound tombs of the Zhou Dynasty in Qujiang, Zhejiang.
Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued by China News Service
Porcelain has a very low water penetration rate and a smooth surface because it is glazed.
When Europeans saw Chinese porcelain in the early years, they praised that porcelain is very clean as a container, which can effectively reduce the food residue left in the gaps of the pottery, thereby reducing the diseases caused by bacterial growth.
Chinese ancestors have been enjoying this benefit since the appearance of primitive porcelain.
The Europeans, judging from the existing data, did not obtain a small amount of Chinese porcelain until the 15th century through the Arabs.
After the Portuguese opened the Asian route, more Europeans used it.
In May 2022, a pair of Ming Yongle official kiln blue-and-white candlesticks with twined branches and flowers will be auctioned in Hong Kong.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Zhihua
China News Service reporter: Chinese porcelain has spread overseas, which has stimulated a global upsurge in imitation. Can you describe the process?
Zhang Liangren: It is generally believed in the academic circles that Chinese porcelain first "went out to sea" during the Three Kingdoms, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
At that time, porcelain was mainly fired by Yue kilns in Zhejiang Province, and its products were exported to the Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula; it is not clear whether they were sent to Southeast Asia.
Chinese porcelain entered the era of "big export" after the 9th century.
In the Tang Dynasty, sea routes connecting Southeast Asia and West Asia were opened.
Generally speaking, Chinese merchants transported porcelain to Southeast Asia, and Arab merchants went to Southeast Asia to purchase Chinese porcelain, or directly arrived in China to purchase, and then brought it to the Persian Gulf, Egypt and Syria.
After Chinese porcelain arrived in these places, it was transferred again and sold to the whole Arab world and Europe.
By the 16th century, the porcelain trade, dominated by the Arabs, changed.
The Portuguese opened trade routes to Asia and dominated the porcelain trade.
After the 17th century, the East India Company of European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom replaced the Portuguese as the main export force of Chinese porcelain.
After the spread of Chinese porcelain to West Asia, it stimulated the enthusiasm of Arab kiln workers for imitation firing.
According to the available information, they imitated Tang Sancai, Tang blue and white porcelain and Xing kiln white porcelain.
West Asia lacks Chinese porcelain stone; there is kaolin, but it has not yet been discovered and utilized.
But West Asia is rich in clay and sand, and has a long history of firing glass.
West Asian kiln workers make full use of these materials.
They like Xing kiln white porcelain and Tang blue and white porcelain. In order to imitate the firing, they invented the tin glaze technology. By adding tin to the glaze, white glaze is obtained. Although the embryo is made of ordinary clay, it is yellow in appearance, but it looks like Chinese white porcelain.
In order to imitate the white tires of Chinese porcelain, West Asian kiln workers invented a new material in the 11th to 12th centuries, which is "frit tires".
According to an Iranian scholar in the early 14th century, the material used 10 parts sand, 1 part clay and 1 part glass.
The tires fired in this way are thin and hard, white in color, close to the white tires of Chinese porcelain.
After this material appeared, it became the main material for imitating Chinese blue and white porcelain and other porcelain.
It and the tin glaze technique were later spread to Europe and became the basis for European craftsmen to imitate Chinese porcelain.
Of course, after Chinese porcelain was exported to Japan, the Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia, it also set off a wave of imitation firing by local kiln workers.
Colorful European porcelain from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Photo by Faxian Si of China News Agency
China News Agency reporter: Where is the impact of Chinese porcelain on overseas porcelain? After long-term development, Chinese and foreign porcelains have differentiated in terms of function and appearance. Why do these changes occur?
Zhang Liangren: In the process of selling Chinese porcelain to West Asia and Europe, it is in turn influenced by the living habits of West Asia and Europe.
West Asians like to take the family out of the city for picnics on holidays, and prefer to use large plates and pots; at the same time, they like blue, so they love blue and white porcelain.
Therefore, in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Jingdezhen kiln workers mostly fired large pieces of blue and white porcelain to meet the needs of consumers in West Asia.
Europeans love to drink tea, and there is a great demand for teapots and cups.
After the 16th century, Europeans often ordered tea sets.
Europeans imitated Chinese porcelain. The earliest kiln workers sponsored by the Medici family in Italy began in the 15th century. They first accepted the West Asian tin glaze and frit tire technology from Spain.
In the early 18th century, French missionaries brought back to Europe the binary formula of china clay and kaolin found in Jingdezhen.
Afterwards, European kiln workers produced porcelain with crisp sound, hard texture and bright colors.
In the 19th century, Europe began to industrialize the production of porcelain, and a large number of products entered the market, which squeezed the sales of Chinese porcelain to a certain extent.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese kiln workers introduced Western production lines and business methods to open porcelain factories.
Brightly coloured European porcelain from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Photo by Faxian Si of China News Agency
In general, the history of exporting Chinese porcelain is also a history of stimulating imitation firing in Asia and Europe, and a history of constantly creating new products to meet the needs of local markets. It is a two-way process of exporting and learning from each other.
China News Service reporter: How can Chinese porcelain be better inherited and developed in contemporary times? Compared with a wide variety of overseas porcelain, how does China pursue "beauty and beauty in common" while "harmony but different" and "each with its own beauty"?
Zhang Liangren: Keep an open mind and keep learning.
Chinese porcelain has a huge impact on the world.
On the one hand, Chinese porcelain is being exported, and on the other hand, it has inspired the imitation firing of kiln workers all over the world, and imitation firing has stimulated the innovative potential of craftsmen everywhere.
Through this process, the high-quality products fired by kiln workers in Japan and Europe have inspired imitation firing by Chinese kiln workers.
This process is worth continuing.
The development of human society is actually a process of imitation and innovation.
We need to keep an open mind, accept and learn from foreign good products and technologies with an open mind.
This enriches culture, broadens horizons and stimulates innovation potential.
There is an endless stream of tourists visiting Tianjin Porcelain House.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Tong Yu
China News Service reporter: How can China "use porcelain as a medium" to better promote the integration of the East and the West?
Zhang Liangren: The global porcelain market is full of competition, but it is not a zero-sum game, but learning from each other and growing together in the competition.
There are still many markets worth developing on a global scale.
What we have to do is to continuously develop and innovate to create competitive products.
One year, I saw a batch of porcelain sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
From this I see that they have unearthed the potential of porcelain stone and kaolin, giving them new power and creating beautiful works.
Some domestic porcelain artists are also actively developing new glaze colors and patterns to create new products.
Therefore, it is necessary to inherit the traditional firing process, but also to develop new processes and new products; as a raw material, porcelain stone and kaolin clay provide a broad stage for kiln workers and artists to display their productivity and imagination.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Photo by Zhang Liangren, China News Agency reporter Ge Yong
Zhang Liangren is a professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Archaeology, School of History, Nanjing University.
In 2000, he went to study in the United States, and in 2007 received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mainly engaged in archaeology in Northwest China and foreign countries, and now presides over cooperative archaeological projects in Russia and Iran.
Published more than 50 papers in domestic and foreign journals such as "Archaeology", Antiquity, Archaeometry, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports and Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, and published the monograph Ancient Metallurgy and Society: A Comparative Study of Bronze Age Societies in Central Eurasia and North China (British Archaeological Report 2328, 2018), edited the conference proceedings Archaeology and Conservation along the Silk Road (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Co Gabriela Krist and Liangren Zhang, 2018 and 2022) 2.