China News Service Nanjing, June 30 Title: How does China's "porcelain" suction effect connect things?
——Interview with Zhang Liangren, Professor of the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Relics of Nanjing University
China News Service reporter Yang Yanci
China is the home of porcelain. Originating from Chinese porcelain nearly 4,000 years ago, it has gone abroad since the Three Kingdoms, two Jin, and Southern Dynasties, stimulating the overseas imitation burning wind and driving the production and sales of porcelain around the world. Today, porcelain is still a treasure of world art, and has become a window to promote the diversity and integration of the world and enhance the connection between the people and the people.
Why is Chinese porcelain popular around the world? How did Arab and European merchants bring Chinese porcelain to the world? In today's world, what are the technological innovations of eastern and western porcelain, and how to promote cultural exchanges between the east and the west in their respective developments? Zhang Liangren, a professor in the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Relics of the School of History of Nanjing University, was recently interviewed by the China News Agency's "East and West Question" and answered from an archaeological perspective.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: What is the origin of porcelain?
Zhang Liangren: Regarding the origin of porcelain, there is controversy in the academic community. I tend to believe that porcelain originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and before the Eastern Han Dynasty, Chinese porcelain had a development process of nearly two thousand years, and the porcelain produced in this process was called primitive porcelain. It was born out of pottery and was gradually explored by ancient ancestors in the experience of firing white pottery and printed hard pottery.
Primitive porcelain excavated from the high-grade earthen mound tomb group in QujiangXi Zhou, Zhejiang. Courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage
Because porcelain is glazed, the water leakage rate is very low and the surface is smooth. In the early years, europeans praised when they saw Chinese porcelain that porcelain was very clean as a container, which could effectively reduce the food residue left in the crevices of pottery, thereby reducing the disease caused by the breeding of bacteria.
The Chinese ancestors have enjoyed this benefit since the appearance of primitive porcelain. Europeans, from the available sources, did not get 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 candlesticks will be auctioned in Hong Kong for the Ming Yongle Guan Kiln Blue And White Tangled Flowers. Photo by Li Zhihua, a reporter of China News Service
China News Service: Chinese porcelain has spread overseas, stimulating a global imitation boom. Can you tell us about the process?
Zhang Liangren: Now the academic community generally believes that Chinese porcelain was first "out of the sea" during the Three Kingdoms and two Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. At that time, the main firing porcelain was the Yue kiln in Zhejiang Province, and its products were exported to the Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula; Whether it was delivered to Southeast Asia is unclear.
Chinese porcelain entered the era of "great export" after the 9th century. During the Tang Dynasty, sea routes connecting Southeast Asia and West Asia were opened. In general, Chinese merchants transported porcelain to Southeast Asia, and Arab merchants went to Southeast Asia to buy Chinese porcelain, or directly to China, and then brought it to the Persian Gulf, Egypt and Syria. After arriving in these places, Chinese porcelain was transited again and sold throughout the 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 Britain replaced the Portuguese as the main exporters of Chinese porcelain.
After the spread of Chinese porcelain to West Asia, it stimulated the enthusiasm of Arab kiln workers for imitation. According to the available information, they imitate Tang Sancai, Tang Qinghua porcelain and Xingyao white porcelain. Lack of Chinese porcelain stones in Western Asia; There was kaolin, but it had not yet been discovered. But West Asia is rich in clay and sand, and has a long history of firing glass. Western Asian kiln workers made full use of these materials. They liked Xingyao white porcelain and Tang blue and white porcelain, in order to imitate firing, they invented tin glaze technology, by adding tin to the glaze, to obtain white glaze; Although the tires are made of general clay and are yellow, they look like Chinese white porcelain.
In order to imitate the white tire of Chinese porcelain, the West Asian kiln workers invented a new material from the 11th to the 12th century, that is, the "frit tire". According to an Iranian scholar in the early 14th century, the material used 10 parts of sand, 1 part of clay and 1 part of glass. The tires burned in this way are thin and hard, white in color, close to the white tires of Chinese porcelain.
After the emergence of this material, it became the main material for imitation of Chinese blue and white porcelain and other porcelain. It and tin glaze techniques 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.
18th and 19th century colorful European porcelain. Photo by China News Service
China News Service: The influence of Chinese porcelain on overseas porcelain, where is the specific embodiment? After long-term development, Chinese and foreign porcelain have diverged in terms of function and appearance, why are these changes occurring?
Zhang Liangren: In the process of selling Chinese porcelain to West Asia and Europe, it was in turn influenced by the living habits of West Asia and Europe. West Asians like to take the whole family out of town for picnics on holidays, preferring to use large plates and large pots; At the same time, they like blue, so they love blue and white porcelain. Therefore, the Jingdezhen kiln workers in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties 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 teapot cups. After the 16th century, Europeans often ordered tea sets.
Europeans imitated Chinese porcelain, and the first kiln workers funded by the Italian Medici family began in the 15th century, and 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 recipes of porcelain clay and kaolin found in Jingdezhen. After that, European kilns fired porcelain with a crisp sound, a 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.
18th and 19th century brightly colored European porcelain. Photo by China News Service
In general, the history of Chinese porcelain export is also the history of stimulating imitation firing in Various Parts of Asia and Europe, and it is also the history of continuously creating new products to meet the needs of local markets, which is a two-way process of mutual output and mutual learning.
China News Service: How can Chinese porcelain be better inherited and developed in contemporary times? Compared with the wide variety of overseas porcelain, how can China pursue "beauty and commonality" while "harmony and difference" and "beauty of each other"?
Zhang Liangren: We must keep an open mind and continue to learn. Chinese porcelain has had a huge impact on the world. On the one hand, Chinese porcelain is exporting, on the other hand, it has also stimulated the imitation firing of kiln workers around 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 stimulated the imitation firing of Chinese kiln workers.
Such a process is worth continuing. The development of human society is actually a process of imitation and innovation. We need to keep an open mind, humbly accept and learn from foreign products and technologies. This enriches culture, expands horizons and unleashes innovation potential.
Tourists visiting the Tianjin Porcelain House are endless. China News Service reporter Tong Yu photographed
China News Service: 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 learns from each other and grows together in competition. There are many more markets worth developing worldwide. What we have to do is to continue to develop and innovate to produce competitive products.
One year, I saw a batch of porcelain sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From it, I saw them tap into the potential of porcelain and kaolin, giving them new power and creating beautiful works. Some domestic porcelain artists are also actively developing new glazes 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; Porcelain and kaolin as a raw material provide a broad stage for kiln workers and artists to display their productivity and imagination. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Zhang Liangren, China News Service reporter Ge Yong, photographed
Zhang Liangren is a professor in the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, School of History, Nanjing University. He went to the United States in 2000 to study, and received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007. Mainly engaged in northwest China and foreign archaeology, he is currently presiding over cooperative archaeological projects in Russia and Iran. He has published more than 50 papers in domestic and foreign journals such as Archaeology, Antiquity, Archaeometry, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports and Energyclopedia of Global Archaeology, and published monographs ancient Metallurgy and Society: A Comparative Study of Bronze Age Societies in Central Eurasia and North China (British Archaeological Report2328, 2018), editor-in-chief of conference proceedings Archaeology and Conservation along the Silk Road (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag GmbH &Co Gabriela Krist and Liangren Zhang, 2018 and 2022) 2.