Why did ceramics become the most commonly used utensils in ancient Chinese life?

In the late Neolithic period, China's pottery technology has developed to a very high level, and it is able to make very fine ones"Faience".Therefore, the culture of this period is called"Painted pottery culture".

In the Shang Dynasty, ceramic craftsmanship was divided into gray pottery, white pottery, glazed pottery and so on. During this period, due to the improvement of pottery firing technology, the pottery tire was hard and durable. Among them, white pottery is a special product in the pottery process of the Shang Dynasty, which is made of kaolin.

The glaze color of glazed pottery is also the germ of Chinese porcelain.

The ceramics of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period were more developed than those of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and there were both official and private production. By the Han Dynasty, ceramic craftsmanship had been further improved and innovated, and various types of ceramics had replaced some of the bronze and lacquerware. It shows that China has completed the transition from pottery to porcelain from the Han Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, and has become the first country in the world to make porcelain.

The porcelain of the Tang Dynasty mainly includes celadon, white porcelain, flower porcelain and Tang Sancai. Tang Sancai is a strange ceramic flower that appeared in this period, because it often uses yellow and green. Brown and other color glaze, on the vessel to form flowers, spots or geometric patterns and other colorful color glaze decoration, so it is called Sancai, this is a kind of bottom temperature lead glaze glaze glaze pottery.

In the Song Dynasty, ceramics are the most outstanding varieties of arts and crafts, and it is a heyday of the development of porcelain in ancient China, so it is called the Song Dynasty"Period of porcelain"Abbreviation"Song porcelain".There are five major kilns that are more famous: Jun kiln, Guan kiln, Ru kiln in Henan, Ding kiln in Hebei, and Ge kiln in Zhejiang.

During the Jingde period of Zhenzong, the tribute porcelain made in Jiangxi, the bottom book"Made in Jingdenian"Four characters, this is the latter and well-known Jingdezhen porcelain. At that time, it was one of the main goods exported to Japan, Korea, Nanyang countries, India, Arabia, Syria, Egypt and European countries.

The Ming Dynasty was the heyday of the creation of purple clay pots, and the purple clay pots in Yixing, Jiangsu Province were very famous.

Qing Dynasty ceramics, inheriting the tradition of the Ming Dynasty, with Jingdezhen as the firing center, the porcelain color of Qing porcelain is white and blue, producing a more harmonious artistic effect, becoming the main variety of Qing Dynasty porcelain.

The reason why ceramics can become commonly used utensils in ancient Chinese life is because ceramics were well-known at that time, and they also represent the pursuit and cultural inheritance of literati for that era.

The development of productive forces, the appreciation of aesthetic art, the accidental discovery.

Traditional ceramic raw materials are cheap, as we all know, the raw materials of ceramics are natural rocks, minerals, clay and other materials, of which the main raw material is kaolin, which is convenient to take materials, widely distributed, and the content is relatively high.

People often compare porcelain with pottery and call it ceramic, but they are actually two completely different things. Although pottery and porcelain are two different things, there is a close connection between them, so what is the difference between pottery and porcelain?

1. The appearance time is different: the primitive porcelain is developed from pottery, and China has been using pottery in the primitive society of the Neolithic Age, about 10,000 years ago, and the earliest porcelain fragments found today are from the Shang Dynasty.

2. Different materials used: The firing methods of pottery and porcelain are also similar, and the appearance of porcelain is thousands of years later than that of pottery. Fired pottery can be glazed or unglazed.

The glaze of pottery is not very particular, and the requirements for glaze are not very high.

3. Different ways to use stupid glaze: the glaze of porcelain is also very simple, you can directly hang the glaze at high temperature while firing porcelain, and you can also hang the glaze directly at low temperature.

Although pottery and porcelain are very different, they were both used to hold things in ancient times, but now they are both used as decorations, and few people use them to hold food or water.

1. Practicality: general household items. It is used to hold wine glasses, rice bowls, etc. Pen wash on the desk, pen mountain, etc. Daily necessities, tableware, tea sets, jars, jars, basins, jars, plates, plates, bowls, etc.

2. Ornamental: used as a fish tank, etc.

3. Artistry: vases, sculptures, garden ceramics, utensils, furnishings, etc. Ceramic art and painting, whether in terms of artistic essence, characteristics, or the means of expression of cave models, have something in common.

The art of painting is exquisite"The atmosphere is vivid"、"Write God in the form"、"It has both form and spirit", exquisite"Bone method with a pen"、"Putting the finishing touch", focusing on the portrayal of the image and the pursuit of artistic conception beauty, pay attention to part-time work with writing, with natural, natural, implicit implication as the taste, follow"The beauty of the work lies between the plausible and the dissimilar, the big seems to be kitsch, and it does not seem to be deceiving the world"The principle of creation emphasizes that artists should go deep into life, obtain creative nutrition from life, and reflect life. All these required by the art of painting, the art of ceramics without exception has to follow. This is true of traditionalism, and this is no exception to academics.

4. Industrial ceramics: refers to ceramic products used in various industries.

First of all, the invention of pottery is one of the signs of the development of mankind from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic.

Pottery and porcelain are two different things, but they are closely related to each other, and the firing method is also similar, as early as more than 10,000 years ago in the Neolithic Age, pottery appeared, and thousands of years later in the Shang Dynasty, porcelain appeared in the Shang Dynasty, porcelain was developed from pottery.

The raw materials are different. There is no particular material for pottery, and general clay can be used as a raw material for firing pottery, and after the clay is made into a blank, it is made by firing it at a temperature within a certain range.

The porcelain materials are more particular, using porcelain clay, with kaolin as the main raw material. Porcelain is made of kaolin clay and fired at a specific high temperature.

The firing temperature is different.

The temperature of firing pottery is 700 800 degrees, and the clay firing temperature should not be too high, because too high clay will be melted into vitreous and cannot be fired into pottery. The firing temperature can be relatively high, reaching 1000 degrees.

Because the porcelain is made of kaolin, the firing temperature is high, above 1200 degrees, generally between 1200 and 1400 degrees. So, generally speaking, pottery is produced at low temperatures, and porcelain is produced at high temperatures.

The texture is different. The firing of pottery is relatively simple, due to the low firing temperature, the soil is not completely sintered, so the pottery tire is relatively loose, the water absorption is strong, the color of the pottery is also dull, and there is variegation, and the quality is rougher.

The age of porcelain appeared late, because of the use of kaolin, the firing temperature is high, the soil has been completely sintered, the tire is solid and fine, the finished product is delicate, the color is bright, the feel is smooth, and the porcelain basically does not absorb water.

The glaze is different. The surface of porcelain is usually glazed at a high temperature, which gives the surface of the object a shiny finish. The surface layer of the pottery has no glaze or a low-temperature glaze with lead as the solvent.

At present, all the utensils made of clay with two different properties of clay and porcelain clay as raw materials, through batching, molding, drying, roasting and other technological processes, are collectively called ceramics.

The difference between pottery and porcelain is that one uses materials; Second, the firing temperature is indispensable. Pottery can be made of various mineral clays including porcelain clay, the firing temperature is low, mostly between 700-1000, the carcass is basically sintered, and it is no longer decomposed in water, but the porosity and water absorption rate are higher. When observing the carcass under the microscope, there are very few glass-phase mullite crystals, in other words, there is no porcelainization, and the sound of percussion is dull.

The porcelain uses porcelain clay with a high alumina content, that is, aged clay firing. The firing temperature of porcelain is at least 1100 or more, the fetal quality is basically porcelain, there are a large number of mullite crystals in microscopic observation, the porosity and water absorption rate are low, and the percussion sound is crisp. Western scholars also use the amount of iron content in the fetus as the criterion for judging pottery and porcelain, and they believe that the pottery contains more metal impurities such as iron and is darker in color.

The porcelain has less iron content and is whiter in color. The author does not think so, the amount of iron does not affect the properties of porcelain, but the aesthetic orientation is different. Taking the five famous kilns of the Song Dynasty as an example, Ru, Guan, Ge, Jun and Ding were all porcelain used by the royal family.

Among them, the first four are celadon products, and the iron content of the fetal material exceeds the porcelain standard considered by Westerners, and only the Ding kiln is white porcelain, and the iron content of the fetal material is low.

The difference between pottery and porcelain is not that there is glaze or not, pottery can have glaze, such as Han Dynasty glazed glaze (commonly known as: Han green glaze), Tang Dynasty five-color glazed ware (commonly known as: Tang Sancai) and so on.

Porcelain can also be unglazed, such as white porcelain plain fetal ware, because the texture is white and delicate, so no one will see it as pottery. In fact, from the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the Warring States Period, the so-called hard pottery produced by porcelain stone in southern China has reached the degree of porcelain, and the sound of percussion is crisp and pleasant, which should also belong to the category of primitive porcelain.

One is that the raw materials are not the same, and the other is that the sintering temperature is not the same. The firing temperature of pottery is low, and it can be fired at 900 1200, and some are even only fired at 700. Porcelain is more than 1300.

The raw material of the pottery is mainly clay, with the addition of moderate amounts of feldspar and quartz. The raw materials of porcelain are divided into feldspar porcelain (i.e., feldspar, quartz and kaolin), sericite porcelain (i.e., sericite, quartz and kaolin), memorial porcelain (i.e., phosphate, feldspar, quartz and kaolin) and talc porcelain (i.e., talc, feldspar and kaolin) according to the main flux in the body.

The cross-section of pottery is rough and loose, and the porosity is large; The cross-section of porcelain is smooth and dense.

The characteristics of each dynasty are as follows:

1. The "green glaze ware" found in the ruins of the Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty obviously has the basic characteristics of porcelain. Their texture is more delicate and hard than pottery, the tire color is mostly gray and white, the sintering temperature is as high as 1100-1200 °C, the tire is basically sintered, the water absorption is weak, and the surface of the vessel is covered with a layer of lime glaze. But they are not exactly the same as porcelain.

It is called "primitive porcelain" or "primitive celadon".

2. After the original porcelain appeared in the Shang Dynasty, it went through the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Eastern Han Dynasty, and went through the changes and development from 1600 to 1700 years, gradually from immaturity to maturity.

3. The porcelain made from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin dynasties is mostly celadon from the unearthed cultural relics. These celadon porcelains are finely processed, the tire is hard, does not absorb water, and the surface is covered with a layer of cyan vitreous glaze. This high-level porcelain-making technology marks a new era in Chinese porcelain production.

4. China's white-glazed porcelain germinated in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and has developed to a mature stage in the Sui Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, there were new developments. The firing temperature of porcelain reaches 1200 °C, and the whiteness of porcelain also reaches more than 70%, which is close to the standard of modern high-grade fine porcelain.

This achievement laid the foundation for the development of underglaze and overglaze porcelain.

5. The porcelain of the Song Dynasty has been improved in terms of fetal quality, glaze and production technology, and the porcelain firing technology has reached a complete maturity.

6. The successful firing of the delicate white glaze in the Ming Dynasty and the successful firing of monochrome glazed porcelain with copper as the coloring agent made the porcelain of the Ming Dynasty rich and colorful. The diversification of glazing methods for porcelain in the Ming Dynasty marked the continuous improvement of Chinese porcelain-making technology.

7. A kind of porcelain with enamel effect of imitation copper fetal painting in the Qing Dynasty. Enamel color is also known as "material color".

1. The firing temperature is different.

The firing temperature of pottery is relatively lower than that of porcelain, and the lowest can reach below 800 degrees Celsius and the highest can reach about 1100 degrees Celsius. The firing temperature of porcelain is different, relatively high, generally above 1200 degrees Celsius, and sometimes even around 1400 degrees Celsius.

2. The degree of hardness is different.

Due to the low firing temperature of pottery, the embryo body is not completely sintered, so the sound made when striking is muffled, the hardness of the carcass is poor, and some can cut grooves with steel knives. The firing temperature of porcelain is high, the carcass is basically sintered, the sound is crisp when striking, and it is difficult for ordinary steel knives to cut grooves.

3. The raw materials are different.

In terms of the choice of materials, pottery can be fired using general clay, while porcelain needs to choose specific kaolin as the raw material.

4. Transparency is different.

Even if the embryo body of pottery is thin, it does not have a translucent effect. The carcass of porcelain, regardless of its thickness, has a translucent effect.

5. The glaze is different.

There are two types of pottery: glazed and unglazed, and the glaze of the glazed pottery can be melted at a lower firing temperature. The glaze of porcelain is also divided into two kinds, which can be fired with the carcass at a high temperature, or it can be fired at a low temperature and then hung on the high-temperature plain firing tire, and fired at a low temperature for the second time.

The practice of taoqi is generally to hit the mud first, the mud is made of clay and water, and after the mud is done, these mud blanks must be kneaded into the shape of the pottery by manual means. Generally, when making pottery, a rotating clay tray is used, and the clay is placed on the clay pan, and the clay pan can be pulled into the desired shape by turning the clay tray on electricity.

Moreover, the surface of the pottery is rough, and the surface of the porcelain is smooth. Because the clay will crack during the firing process, this will lead to some cracked texture on the surface of the pottery, which will appear rougher. But it is these rough feelings that make Taoqi look very rustic and charming.

On the contrary, the surface of porcelain is very smooth, because the enamel of porcelain is different from that of taoware, and the glazed porcelain will not crack when fired, so it looks very rough. It is this roughness that brings out the unique beauty of porcelain.

Both porcelain and pottery embody the Chinese spirit and are a kind of realm of beauty pursued by literati and scholars.