Bringing artifacts to life
Let the culture pass on
Water and fire are both harmonious and earthly
When it comes to pottery, everyone is no stranger. As early as the early Neolithic age nearly 10,000 years ago, the primitive ancestors had already mastered the art of pottery making. Perhaps one day more than 10,000 years ago, a primitive ancestor stumbled upon the clay next to the fire that became strong, fire-resistant, and water-resistant after being burned, and thus began a great age of pottery.
Song Yingxing pointed out in "Tiangong Kaiwu" that pottery is "water and fire and earth are combined", which is a high generalization of the foundation of the craft, so how is pottery made?
First, clay is collected for sorting. Common loess is difficult to make pottery due to its low plasticity, so the ancestors consciously chose sedimentary clay, and the treatment process generally includes sun drying, impurity removal, precipitation, mud training, etc.
The clay is then shaped. The earliest way of shaping is to beat the clay into pieces, several clay sheets to paste the synthesizer of the "mud sheet sticking method", today's handmade purple sand pot production, still widely used in this way; later in order to make large pottery, there was a "mud strip plate construction method" that stacked the mud strips from the bottom one by one, the way is similar to brick walls; in order to make the pottery more regular and exquisite, and improve efficiency, created the "wheel shaping method" of placing the clay on a rotatable countertop for shaping, which is considered to be the early "machine tool" of mankind.
The molded ceramic tires are then trimmed and decorated. Methods include surface polishing, brushing pottery, engraving appliqués, cutouts, paintings, etc. Among them, the decoration of the pottery coat is similar to the porcelain "hanging glaze", except that the glaze is not painted on it, but the clay suspension that is milled to a very fine amount.
Finally, it is fired in a kiln. The firing method has an early "flat-ground pile firing method", the kiln temperature is only about 700 ° C, and the pottery produced is fire-resistant, impermeable and strong. In order to improve the quality, a special kiln appeared in the later period, so that the kiln temperature increased to more than 1000 °C.
The development of pottery to the Longshan culture period, which is 4000-5000 years ago, there was a pottery that can be called the peak of Neolithic pottery technology - black pottery. In the history hall of the Cangzhou Museum, there is a piece of "polished black pottery cover (remnant)" excavated by Renqiu Dumb Village, which has a caliber of 37.2 cm and a height of 17 cm, although the shape of the vessel is huge, the carcass is very thin, and the overall weight is less than 1 kg. This piece of pottery concentrates on the exquisite pottery making skills of Longshan culture: in terms of shaping, the wheel forming method is used, which makes the shape of the vessel regular and the carcass light and thin; in terms of modification, the surface is polished, and the shoulder is attached to the bridge button, which reduces the water infiltration rate and is more convenient to use; the firing aspect is more obviously produced by the pottery kiln, and the special technique of black pottery production is "carburizing". That is, after the kiln temperature reaches the predetermined temperature, a large number of pine branches are put in, and then the kiln chamber is sealed, so that the kiln is hypoxic, a large amount of carbon particle smoke is generated, and the carbon particles gradually penetrate into the interior of the body during the process of kiln temperature drop, making up for and filling all the pores of the ceramic billet, increasing the density and mechanical strength of the billet, giving the pottery black metallic luster and strong and durable excellent quality.
Pottery and porcelain developed after pottery not only greatly enriched and facilitated the lives of the ancients, formed a world-renowned Chinese ceramic culture, but also had a profound impact on Chinese civilization. In the historical exhibition hall on the second floor of the Cangzhou Museum, many Longshan cultural pottery are also displayed, which are diverse in shape, different in texture, different in color, and exquisite in craftsmanship. During this wandering, we can not only immerse ourselves in the life of our ancestors, but also have a close contact with traditional culture.
Author Lu Qingyuan