Magic clay in Ancient Pottery in china
2 min readAs raw material of pottery, the magic properties of clay were discovered by people at very early age: it becomes soft and highly plastic when mixed with water, but will be densely sintered when fired under high temperature, and irreversibly becomes very hard. The formed utensil can resist high temperature and is impervious to water. Therefore, clay is indeed a special gift from nature as the most suitable material for pottery making.
Clay is mainly composed of silicon and aluminous oxide, with microelements such as iron, kalium, magnesium, and autunite. Widely spread in nature and rich in reposition, clay is formed by quartz-like rocks which endured long-term air slaking and geological force, but the component of metallic elements in clay is different due to the diversified geographical or weather conditions in different places, which affects the properties of clay. For example, the colour of a finished pottery ware is darker if the clay contains high proportion of iron, while the colour is lighter if contained with less iron. With deeper understanding of such character, potters learnt to control the amount of certain metallic elements to produce pottery wares with diversified qualities and colours.
It was a great creation for our ancestors to make pottery wares out of ordinary clay, because it solved the problem of food storing and cooking, thus enormouslyimproved people’s living conditions. Moreover, pottery making also displayed our ancestors’ faculty in pursuit of art. The artistic operation on pottery in terms o shape and pattern vividly reflects their art impulse, as well as their religious belief and world outlook.
