The Ingenious Proto-celadon
1 min readThe birth of porcelain is an e-poch-making progress in Chinese ceram-ics history. The differences between pot-tery and porcelain lie in the following as-pects: Firstly, the raw materials they use are different. Any kind of clay can be ap-plied to make pottery, while only porcelain clay can be used to make porcelain; sec-ondly, they differ in firing temperature.Generally, the temperature for firing pot-tery is below 1,000℃, while for porcelain it must be over 1,200℃. As a result, porce-lain is much harder than pottery and isbetter for holding water. In addition, an extra layer of glaze is added on the exte-rior of porcelain, which makes it more lus-trous and beautiful, and easy to clean.Due to these factors, the transformation from pottery to porcelain became a ne-cessity, and promoted the advancementof ceramic manufacturing technology.
Such transformation started as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties when bronze ware was still in dominance，and led to the emergence of proto-porcelain.It was created through innumerous experiments of ancient potters，and excelled pottery in all aspects.As dark green is the primary glaze applied on such porcelain，it is also called“proto-celadon”.
