Mark Albing

Raleigh Charter High School 2007

Ancient China: Pottery

Pottery is maybe one of the oldest works of art, very practical and fancy. The Chinese

learned to make pottery and mastered it before the Han Dynasty. They started firing their pots at

temperatures up to one thousand three hundred degrees Celsius before Jesus and Caligula were

born.

A specific type of clay called porcelain is more soft and “rubbery” than normal clay.

Porcelain is made with clay in the form of kaolinite. Porcelain is very resistant to electricity,

thermal shock and chemicals. It is white and glossy and modern shower tiles are usually ceramic.

There are a couple of bad things about ceramics; one is that they shatter very easily. Porcelain was

used sometimes as bricks, not just fancy dishes and bowls.

Pre-Han pottery such as the Yang Shao pottery, is usually red, a little like the mud we find

in our back yards except more brown. Potters sometimes used coil pottery, the type we all used in

elementary school. Coil pottery is when the potter makes a “snake” and coils the snake around

and around to make a pot. These old pots were smoothed around the outside and inside to make

them look better but they were still very crude. Pottery was becoming a useful art in this time. In

the Yang Shao time basic decorations were made by making an imprint in the pot or painting it a

little. These pots were fired in a basic little kiln.

Lung Shan pottery was a bit more fancy; some cups with stems and a base like our wine

glasses and jugs with three legs. These pots were not always round. They were much more

elaborate. Normal people in America would have a very hard time working clay into the fancy

shapes and patterns on Lung Shan pots.

From Shang to Han, the Chinese made glazed pottery. Pots started being more artsy
instead of just plain useful. In the Han Dynasty they sometimes used lead to give pots a yellow red

or green tint. Lead glazes are bright, smooth and have nice colors. The craftsmen also used lead

when they ground it up and added it to copper so when it is poured into a mold it is a bit sharper

and distinguished. The pots went from normal bowls and dishes to works of art because the

Chinese mastered using glazes and firing clay.

Potters have had a very important role in society over the past four thousand years or so.

The potter makes and creates, and if his pot does not live up to his standards the potter will

destroy the pot and reuse the clay. Clay can be reused as many times as one wants until it is fired

or painted. Christians sometimes refer to God as a potter; Egyptians put the organs of Pharaohs in

pots and preserved them. The potter has had important roles in the past. Think about it: back

three thousand years ago in China, the Chinese people did not have any plastic or anything so pots

were what they put their leftovers in and stored anything they wanted. Pottery would start with a

lump of clay called a “clay body” and would be finished by putting it in a kiln which is a type of

cover for pots to make sure it is dried all the way and stuck in one shape. Making the pot can be

done in many different ways: coils, potter wheels, and just forming it by hand.

Coil pottery, as I mentioned before, is where the potter makes a long snake of clay and

coils it around and around into a cylinder with a circle bottom. The pot may not be a cylinder but

sometimes bulges out in places to give it more of a round look. Potters don't stop there. They

have to smooth it out so it doesn't look so bad. The Chinese would cut clay off and smooth their

coils to seal off all holes. They would use water to make the clay easier to move so they could fill

in the cracks. These pots would end up being smooth and sealed so they don't leak. The finished

project, probably a painted, maybe glazed, waterproof pot storing whatever the owner wants,

would look great and be useful.

Working the clay with one’s hands is another way to make a pot. This way is harder. It is

hard to make something into a nice circle by playing with the clay in your hands. In hand building,

as it is called by professionals, gives one more control over the shape. It is not hard for a good
potter to make a good bowl or pitcher with their hands but it is harder to do hand building than

use a potters wheel. Pots made with hand building can be made more elaborate like a pitcher with

two mouths. Hand building is a way for the potter to be creative and stretch his or her mind and

make whatever comes to the potters mind at the time.

The final type of pottery uses a potters wheel. This way makes it very easy to make many

items identical and fast. A potter will start with a clay body, a lump of clay, and place it in the

middle of the wheel. Then he or she will spin the clay and with tools or his hands he will form the

body into a circle while adding water to make the clay easier to work with and move. This type of

pottery was not used by the ancient Chinese and does not offer much creativity. The pot must be

round but it can make nice shapes in the pot that can't be made easily with hand building like a fat

bottom and a very skinny and tall neck.

Glazing is the fancy professional word for making a pot shiny and reflective. Most pottery

is glazed now and the ancient Chinese started glazing their pots in the Han Dynasty. Lead is a

glaze the Chinese used. Today, normal salt in water can be used as a glaze to make the pot look

like a bleached orange peel. Ash glazing is another type of glaze with a slurry, or clay in water,

mixed with minerals.

There are many different ways of applying glaze to a pot. A potter can dust a powder of

glaze on the pot, spray some glaze on, dip the pot in glaze or brush it on. Most times the glaze

cannot cover the whole pot or the bottom of the legs on a pot. The bottom of the pot will also not

have glaze sometimes. If glaze was applied to the bottom of the pot, the pot would stick to the shelf

on the inside the kiln.

Chinese history dates back about five thousand years. The first dynasty was four thousand

two hundred years ago. In this dynasty there were seventeen kings. The first is Yu the

Great. The Xia Dynasty lasted either four hundred thirty one years or four hundred seventy one

years. The Xia people wrote on their pots and sometimes on shells. Not much is known about this

dynasty because it is so old.

 The Shang Dynasty came next, at maybe the sixteenth century BC. The Shang Dynasty

had thirty one kings. The first one, who was Tang of Shang and the last was King Zhou of Shang.

This dynasty ended up to be the longest one. The capital during the Shang Dynasty moved six

times. When the capital was moved to Yin, a golden age kind of broke out. So at thirteen

thousand fifty BC there was the Shang Golden Age.

The Zhou Dynasty started when the Shand deemed king Wu “western protector” because

he was protecting the Yellow River valley and all the Zhou. His uncle, Duke of Zhou, was his

regent and helper. When King Wu won the battle at Muye, he moved the capital near to what is

now Xi'an. To enforce his rule, King Wu pushed a mandate of heaven. The next major period in

the Zhou Dynasty was the spring and autumn period and the warring states period. In the warring

states period, the Zhou king did not have much power. He was just a symbol. In 214 BC the Zhou

dynasty ended.

The Qin Dynasty was the first dynasty in the imperial era with the first emperors. In the

Qin Dynasty, the emperor made the great wall of china which still stands today. The Qin also

standardized writing, language, and currency. The Qin standardized almost everything down to

the size of wheels on carts. The Qin, to stop a rebellion, buried a lot of scholars alive. Overall the

Qin were ruthless, strict rulers.

The Han Dynasty started in 206 BC. Emperor Wu enforced Confucianism and pushed the

Hans back. The Han Dynasty ended in 184 AD, making the period of the three kingdoms when

warlords in three states attempted to gain control of the others.

Bibliography

Arthur Cotterell, Ancient China: Discover the History of Imperial China – From the
Building of the Great Wall to the Days of the Last Emperor (London: Alfred A. Knopf,
1994).
Linde Wallner, An Introduction to Pottery: A Step-by-Step Project Book (New Jersey:
Chartwell Books, 1990).

Kathy Triplett, Handbuilt Ceramics (New York: Lark Books, 1997).

“History of Ceramics,” http://www.arttiques.com/about_history.html (accessed 11-10-07).

Margaret Medley, The Chinese Potter. A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics

(Phaden Press, 1999).

“Ancient China”, http://www.wikipedia.org (accessed 11-14-07).