About 10,000 years ago, the birthplaces of various cultures of the Chinese nation transitioned to the Neolithic Age.At this time, the economic life was not only gathering, fishing and hunting, but also primitive agriculture and animal husbandry, and people began to live a relatively stable and settled life.The development of production and the improvement of life require more and better tools and utensils, such as cookers, water lifters, grain storage containers, and tools that are inconvenient to be ground with stones such as spindles and spinning wheels.The invention of pottery is meeting the needs of the development of social life, and its appearance is also one of the important symbols of the beginning of the Neolithic Age.How was pottery invented?There are various speculations, and some people assume that it may be that humans first discovered the plasticity of clay, kneaded it into shapes, and made it into cute animals or idols of worshiped gods. It hardens and is no longer afraid of water, so it is further associated with kneading suitable utensils.Some people think that the oldest living utensils are made of branches. In order to make them fire-resistant and dense and seamless, ancient people often put a layer of clay on the inside and outside of the utensils. It was carbonized, but it was found that the clay part was not only preserved, but also hardened and still usable, which gave us the inspiration for pottery making.Of course, the production process of pottery in various regions does not follow the same pattern.But in any case, it took a long time in ancient times to obtain complete experience in pottery making.

The raw material for making pottery is clay mineral, its main components are feldspar and quartz, and a small amount of mica and ochre.When people put the clay into the fire and bake it to a certain temperature, these components in the mud will react chemically to form a small amount of glass phase, and the glass will bond other components together, thus forming a sintered clay. Whole, a new substance.The temperature required for sintering is related to the composition of the clay. For the same type of clay, the higher the calcination temperature, the greater the degree of sintering and the harder it is.Therefore, primitive pottery is the first new substance that does not exist in nature produced by humans using fire to transform nature through chemical processes, which can be called a great pioneering work in human history (Figure 1-1 and Figure 1-2).

During the evolution of pottery in our country, the following types of pottery have appeared one after another. The most primitive pottery in our country appeared around the beginning of the Neolithic Age.An early Neolithic cave was discovered in Dayuan Xianren Cave, Wannian County, Jiangxi Province, from which dozens of pottery fragments were excavated. The color is mainly reddish-brown, and some of them are mixed with red, gray and black, which is a manifestation of uneven heating.All this means that they are simply hand-kneaded and fired over a campfire.Similar primitive pottery was also unearthed in Peiligang, Xinzheng, Henan and Cishan, Wu'an, Hebei.

About 6,000 years ago, primitive pottery evolved into red pottery, because the base color of this kind of pottery was grayish red or reddish brown.It is a representative work of Yangshao culture (color picture 1).If we compare them with the original pottery, we can see the following progress and characteristics.First, the texture is relatively fine, indicating that the clay has been washed and clarified during the selection of materials; second, the thickness is uniform, the shape of the vessel is correct, and the symmetry is good, indicating that the clay rod molding method and Third, this kind of pottery is often decorated with colorful paintings, and those patterns are the portrayal of certain aspects of people's life at that time, and are an important basis for studying the living conditions of primitive society, so they are also of great historical value.This kind of painted red pottery is also called "painted pottery" (Figure 1-3).Its paint has been scientifically tested. The reddish-brown stripes are colored with ochre powder, that is, natural hematite powder; the dark brown is colored with iron-manganese ore powder; It is the beginning of the use of mineral pigments by our ancestors; Fourth, the texture of the utensils is uniform and the hardness is relatively high, indicating that the firing power is uniform and the temperature has reached above 900 ° C. kiln.

A kiln belonging to the Yangshao culture has been discovered at the Banpo site in Xi'an.The pottery kilns at that time can be roughly divided into two types: horizontal cave kiln and vertical cave kiln (Figure 1-4), and horizontal cave kiln is more common.The fire cavity of the Hengcave kiln is located in the front of the kiln chamber. It is a slightly dome-shaped cylindrical channel. There are three large fire channels at the rear that slope upwards, and the flame reaches the kiln chamber through the fire hole.The kiln chamber is circular in plane and about one meter in diameter.The fire holes are evenly distributed around the kiln chamber.The kiln chamber of the vertical kiln is located above the fire chamber, which is a bag-shaped pit with a small mouth and a large bottom, and several fire channels lead to the kiln chamber.At that time, the fuel of the kiln was firewood.Compared with these two kilns, the vertical kiln is more advanced, because the firepower in the kiln is even.Of course, the pottery kiln was gradually perfected after a long period of improvement.

The raw material of this kind of pottery is still fine clay, but the color is black gray or jet black.Some green bodies contain fine quartz sand, which is called "sandy gray pottery".Those quartz sands are likely to be added intentionally, because doing so can make the ceramic blanks less likely to crack during drying and firing. The inside and outside of the gray pottery is black and gray, which is caused by the iron in the pottery blank forming black FeO in the reducing atmosphere.Therefore, ceramic historians estimate that during the processing of gray pottery, the roof and door of the kiln were closed to speed up cooling when the kiln was roasted, and water was sprayed slowly from the roof of the kiln. The water and red charcoal could form water gas. So the kiln becomes a strong reducing atmosphere, which leads to the formation of FeO.At the same time, the surface of gray pottery is often covered with a layer of charcoal caused by smoke, so that it is black and shiny. This kind of pottery is called "black pottery".

Individual black pottery appeared 6,000 years ago, but a large number appeared 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, that is, the late Neolithic period.Some black pottery is exquisitely crafted, straight and elegant, with excellent shape symmetry, very uniform texture, extremely thin and hard walls, so it is also known as "eggshell pottery" and "thin-shell black pottery". This kind of black pottery was unearthed in Chengziya, Longshan Town, Zhangqiu County, Shandong Province in 1930. There are obvious ring patterns on the inner wall, indicating that a rotating disc pottery cart was used at that time (Figure 1-2).Therefore, black pottery is regarded as the representative work of Longshan culture, so Longshan culture is also called "black pottery culture".

This kind of pottery is white, the raw material is white clay, the main component is aluminum silicate, and the content of AlO is extremely high, up to 30%. There are very few complete white pottery.The content of FeO in this clay is significantly lower than other clays, so it will neither make the pottery body red nor black during the firing process, but always keep white. The appearance of white pottery is later than that of black pottery. The earliest one is more than 4,000 years ago, that is, the Longshan culture period, but it was probably produced in large quantities in the Yin and Shang Dynasties.The place where it appears is not common, which is obviously related to white soil resources.Due to the good plasticity of white clay, white pottery has a hard texture and thin walls.The walls of the utensils are often decorated with exquisite concave-convex pattern printing, which seems to be made by using carved molds to make pottery blanks, and then fired, which is more delicate and elegant than the painted paintings of red pottery.

The tire quality of this kind of hard pottery is finer and harder than that of ordinary clay or sandy pottery.According to chemical analysis, the composition of SiO and AlO is obviously higher than that of terracotta, while the composition of CaO and MgO is relatively small.Therefore, the firing temperature should be about 1200°C.It is precisely because this type of pottery is often highly sintered that it is hard and does not crack.The surface of this kind of pottery is often printed with patterns similar to geometric figures, so it is also called "printed hard pottery".Because the iron content in the raw material clay used is different, its tire quality will be in different colors such as purple brown, reddish brown, taupe and yellowish brown.The surface of a small number of imprinted hard pottery was even melted under the high temperature in the kiln for a time, showing a glass luster, as if a layer of glaze was applied.

Early hard pottery was unearthed in late Neolithic sites in Jiangxi, Hunan and Fujian, corresponding to the Xia Dynasty in the Central Plains. For example, the imprinted hard pottery unearthed in the middle layer of the Zhuweicheng site in Qingjiang County, Jiangxi was determined according to C-14 , about 4000 years ago. A Primitive glazed pottery from the Yin and Shang Dynasties The fetal bone raw materials of primitive glazed pottery are similar to those of hard pottery, so the firing temperature is similar, but there is a layer of intentionally processed glass glaze on the surface of the pottery.Its invention may be that people coated the surface with fine powder of limestone and calcite before firing the ceramic body, hoping to be beautiful; it is more likely that plant ash (rich in CaO, KO) accidentally adhered to the body during the kiln firing process. However, I did not expect that the alkaline CaO, KO and the clay of the carcass would form a transparent glass substance with a lower melting point under high temperature in the kiln, so it became a lime glaze, and the glaze contained about 15-20% CaO. .This kind of pottery is called primitive glazed pottery.Because the firing temperature of this glaze is relatively higher than that of later lead glazes, lime glaze is also called high-temperature glaze.Because the clay contains iron oxide, if the pottery is fired in a reducing atmosphere, the glaze will appear bluish yellow, which is generally called green glaze, and this kind of product is called green glaze ware; if it is oxidized Fired in a neutral atmosphere, the glaze is grayish yellow or brown.For example, glazed bean green cloth pattern pottery statues were unearthed in the Yin Dynasty site in Erligang, Zhengzhou.Glazed pottery is a great improvement over imprinted hard pottery. It not only has a smooth and beautiful surface, but also is impermeable and easy to clean. It is suitable for making water containers, brewers, water pipes, tiles and other construction equipment.

B The invention of lead glazed pottery Glazed pottery developed to the Han Dynasty, and lead glazed pottery appeared.However, it does not belong to the same development system as lime glaze, and its invention has two possible paths.One is made on the basis of early Chinese glass production, because traditional Chinese glass is fired with PbO as a flux, and the composition of lead glaze is similar to it, and this kind of glass was born at the end of the Warring States period or during the Qin and Han Dynasties; Another possibility is that it was directly inspired by the alchemy activities that arose in the early Han Dynasty, because the reactor in the early stage of Chinese alchemy was an earthen kettle coated with yellow dan (PbO), which would form a cyanide on the surface after long-term roasting. layer of lead glaze.But this is still speculation.This kind of lead-glazed pottery appeared in the Guanzhong area of ​​Shaanxi during the period of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, and it did not develop generally until the Eastern Han Dynasty. Lead glaze is made of yellow lead or lead powder [PbCO·Pb(OH)] as a flux, mixed with quartz powder or white clay to make ceramic slurry, which can be fired at a kiln temperature of about 800 °C.Compared with lime glaze, it is called "low temperature glaze", which has always been a unique traditional low temperature glaze in my country.In the initial period, potters intentionally added coloring agents to this glaze. At that time, the only coloring elements used were copper and iron, that is, adding a little malachite powder or ochre to the pottery slurry.When glazed pottery is fired in an oxidizing flame, Cu will make the glaze dark green, and Fe will make the glaze yellowish-brown or brown-red.Among them, the verdigris glaze is a magnificent flower in the history of Chinese ceramics.It not only has the beauty of emerald, but also the glaze layer is clear, smooth and radiant, which is the harbinger of the artificial and conscious production of color glaze in our country. However, the lead-glazed pottery found in Han tombs is purely burial Mingware. In addition to the models of tripods, boxes, pots, warehouses, stoves, and wells, there are water pestles [dui pairs, rice pounding utensils], pottery mills, and Livestock pens, pavilions, watchtowers and other large architectural models. C The emergence of architectural glass my country's traditional lead glaze technology seems to have been lost for a while during the Three Kingdoms and Jin Dynasties, probably due to successive years of wars and the displacement of craftsmen.It was not until the Northern Wei Dynasty that it gradually recovered, and glazed pottery for architectural decoration became popular.And from then on, people began to use the name "Liu Li" to refer to colored glaze pottery (before that, "Liu Li" generally referred to glass and colored glaze pottery with fetal bones).In the Tang Dynasty, colored glaze was widely used in palaces and temples.There are many related descriptions. For example, Du Fu, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, said in "The Song of the King of Yue": "A tall building rose from the northwest of the old city, and the green tiles and vermilion [meng Meng, roof] illuminate the city." Cui Rong's "Songgao Mountain Qimu Temple Inscription "There is a saying that "the rafters are made of tortoiseshell, covered with glazed tiles, red jade is used as the steps, and gold is used as the door". Li Jie, a native of the Northern Song Dynasty, wrote a book "Zao Fa Shi" (1091 A.D.), which recorded the formula for making green colored glaze at that time. The river stone contains 96.8% SiO) and three liang of copper powder, mixed with water, used as a glaze.This is the earliest surviving glass glaze formula.It shows that the glass making process at that time is in the same line as the green glazed pottery process of the Han Dynasty.The most important glazed building left over from the Song Dynasty is the Kaifeng "iron tower" built in the first year of Qingli (AD 1041). It is actually made of iron-black glazed bricks and tiles. The coloring agent is fired in a reducing atmosphere. D Magnificent "Tang Sancai" The use of low-temperature lead glaze and the invention of metal oxides as coloring agents contributed to the birth of "Tang Sancai".This kind of handicraft was all the rage in the history of pottery making in my country, and it is still famous up to now. It can be described as the peak of the development of Chinese glazed pottery works.It is a pottery product applied with various colored glazes.White clay is used as the body. Although this raw material is close to china clay, the firing temperature is relatively low, only about 800°C, so it is not porcelain.Its glaze colors include deep yellow, mustard yellow, dark green, green, emerald green, brown, ochre, blue, black, white and other colors, but white, green and yellow are used as the base colors.And there are at least three colors on the same utensil, so people used to call it "three colors". "Tang Sancai" uses low-temperature lead glaze. The basic raw materials of the glaze are white clay, yellow lead, and lead smelting slag, and then mixed with an appropriate amount of mineral powder containing copper, iron, cobalt, manganese and other elements as the colorant of the glaze. .The green coloring agent is malachite, azurite, etc.; the coloring agent of yellow glaze and brown glaze is hematite; the coloring agent of blue glaze is a kind of pyrolusite containing cobalt; the coloring agent of black glaze is ferromanganese; White glaze is the effect caused by covering cosmetic white clay with colorless transparent glaze.By adjusting the amount of colorant added and the composite effect of multiple colorants, it can also produce different shades and more brilliant hues.Its firing adopts the double firing process, that is, the plain tire is fired first, and then the lead glaze is applied.When fired in the kiln, various metal oxides dissolve in the lead glaze, and spread and flow outward, so that the interweaving and infiltration between the colored glazes occurs, forming a mottled and brilliant multi-colored glaze. Sancai pottery began to be made in Tang Gaozong Dynasty, and the Kaiyuan period was its heyday.During this period, the output was large, the molding skills were superb, the colors were gorgeous, and the shapes were diverse.The three-color pottery that was popular at that time was mainly used as a funeral vessel, and it was available in everything that the deceased had contacted in life, such as buildings, furniture, livestock and people.The buildings include pavilions, terraces and pavilions, as well as rockery and water pavilions piled up in the garden; the furniture includes boxes and cabinets; Ladies, servants, civil servants, warriors, barbarians, kings of heaven, etc., can be described as all-encompassing.Therefore, "Tang Sancai" is not only a treasure in my country's art treasure house, a masterpiece of glazed pottery technology, but also an important material for studying the social history of the Tang Dynasty. Since the advent of porcelain, those small pieces of pottery used in daily life, such as pots, bowls, pots, and cans, have naturally been ignored by people.However, after the Song Dynasty, a kind of unglazed fine pottery was produced in Yixing, Changzhou (now Yixing, Jiangsu) at that time. The brown "purple sand ware" was like a sudden rise in the ceramic industry, and it was favored by people from all walks of life, especially literati. , has developed rapidly since then. The famous and long-standing reputation of Zisha pottery is firstly due to the unique properties of this kind of pottery, which is very suitable for making tea sets.Drinking tea was originally a long-standing traditional hobby of the Chinese people. After the Tang Dynasty, tea drinking became popular. At that time, the famous poet Lu Yu wrote a book called "Tea Classics", which described the varieties of tea, tea cooking techniques, and the principles of fragrant tea. Tasting and selection of tea sets have been explained and rendered in detail. It can be said that Chinese tea culture has been formed since then, that is, tea tasting is consciously pursued as an artistic activity that can show elegance, accomplishment, express feelings, and express oneself. , create and appreciate.The literati and scholar-bureaucrats at that time hoped that the tea set could match and adapt to the three characteristics of famous tea - color, aroma and taste.The Yixing Zisha pottery tea set really came into being.Use it to make tea, the tea leaves are more aromatic and pure.Wen Zhenheng of the Ming Dynasty said in his "Chang Wu Zhi": "The teapot is made of [purple] sand. The color and fragrance of tea".Moreover, because the purple sand pottery is porous, the wall of the vessel can absorb tea juice. Once it is used for a long time, the tea juice will accumulate on the inner wall to form "tea rust", so even if boiling water is poured into this empty pot, this tea rust will still cause the water to emit The fragrance of tea leaves.In addition, Zisha pottery is resistant to sudden heat and cold, and has relatively low thermal conductivity, so there is no risk of cracking when pouring boiling water into this pot in severe winters, and it is not hot to hold in the hand. It is an ideal material for making tea sets. From the perspective of artistic effect, purple sand tea sets are unique in shape, often decorated with reliefs, and often combine traditional Chinese painting, poetry, calligraphy, seal cutting and other arts in one, so they have a unique charm.Due to its fineness and excellent plasticity, purple sand clay is not only used to make tea sets and flower pots in large quantities, but also used to make elegant toys and decorations for the study.Animals fired with purple sand mud, such as crabs, barberry, beasts, gods, etc., are lifelike and lifelike. They often become handicraft treasures and are loved by Chinese and foreign ceramic connoisseurs and collectors. The reason why Yixing purple sand ware has these unique properties is not only the ingenuity, exquisite skills and technical accomplishment of the craftsmen, but also materially, it is due to a unique local special purple clay as raw material.There are three kinds of purple clay, red clay and green clay. Among them, purple clay is more abundant. It is a kind of natural five-color pottery clay, which is hidden deep under the rock layer and mixed in the nail mud (hard horny mud layer). , so it is called "rock in rock" and "mud in mud".After the mined purple sand mud is stacked in the open air, it will gradually become loose after weathering, and it has strong plasticity after mixing with water. It belongs to the type of kaolin-quartz-mica, which is characterized by fine texture and extremely high iron content (iron oxide The total amount of matter accounts for 8-10%), which is why it turns brown after firing.Its composition contains 60-70% SiO, and generally 20-25% AlO. Therefore, the firing temperature of purple sandware is also very high, generally between 1100-1200°C, and an oxidizing atmosphere must be used.The water absorption rate of the finished product after firing is less than 2%, indicating that its porosity is between ordinary pottery and porcelain. The firing of Zisha pottery began around the Northern Song Dynasty. At that time, the products were mainly pots and jars. Most of them were rough in texture and not finely crafted. They were only used for cooking tea and water.However, some fine works have appeared and have attracted the appreciation of some literati. It is said that Su Dongpo chose to live in Shushan, Yixing, and he especially liked to drink tea with a beam-lifting pot. To commemorate him, the potter named this beam-lifting pot "Dongpo Pot", it is likely to be a purple sand ware.In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Mei Yaochen had poems such as "Xiaoshiling Spring retains the early taste, and the new purple mud flows through the spring" and "Snow storage double sand poppy, poetry without jade flaws", said "new purple mud" and "sand Poppy" is more likely to be Yixing Zisha ware.The fame of Yixing Zisha Ware rose greatly in the Ming Dynasty.During the Zhengde and Jiajing years (1509-1565 A.D.), the potter Gongchun (also called Gongchun because his original surname was Gong) was an outstanding folk artist who pushed purple clay ware to a new level.He was originally a child of Yishan, the Wu family in Yixing. Wu Sheng once studied in Jinsha Temple. There was a certain monk in the temple who was good at making pottery, so Gongchun was able to learn from the monk.After assiduous study and careful conception, he finally became a master of purple clay wares and a generation of famous artists. People describe his works as "dark chestnut, like ancient gold and iron, dunpang Zhouzheng", with extremely beautiful shapes.By the time of Wanli (AD 1573-1619), there were hundreds of new and famous craftsmen of purple clay wares. There were Dong Han, Zhao Liang, Yuan Chang and Shi Peng, which made this kind of works an independent craft. The system has entered a period of fully mature development.The craftsmanship of purple clay wares continued to develop in the Qing Dynasty. For example, during the Jiaqing period (1796-1820 A.D.), the "Mansheng Pot" was created by Yang Pengnian, a famous pot maker, and Chen Mansheng, a gold and stone calligrapher. According to the legend of the pot, the pot is as expensive as the word".