Dangyangyu Jiaotaici Firing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Dangyangyu marbled (jiaotai) porcelain firing craft originated in the Tang and flourished in the Song; it has been passed down through the generations in Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, and takes its name because it was mainly produced in the Dangyangyu kiln-group area of Jiaozuo. The Dangyangyu marbled-porcelain craft has been transmitted through the generations within Jiaozuo since the Tang dynasty, reaching its peak in the Song, when the porcelain kilns numbered over a thousand; the stele to the kiln god, the "Record of the Temple of the Spirit Lord Deyinghou Bailingweng," still preserved at the ancient Dangyangyu kiln site in Jiaozuo and dated to the fourth year of the Chongning reign of the Northern Song, records: "Now the craftsmen of Dangyang are skilful, living on porcelain through the ages; more than a hundred households ply the clay, and over ten thousand households are sustained by it." In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the transmission of this craft gradually hid away among the folk.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Marbled porcelain is also called "through-pattern porcelain"; it is formed and fired from two or more differently coloured porcelain clays that are interleaved and kneaded together by the hand marbling technique to make the body. The Dangyangyu marbled-porcelain firing craft uses the gangue stone unique to the Taihang Mountains as its porcelain raw material, with more than thirty process steps: selecting the earth, refining the clay, colour-mixing and kneading, body-making (throwing, patterning, appliqué, inlay, etc.), trimming the body, shading to dry, polishing, glazing, and firing. Because the porcelain's pattern is born of the body, connected inside and out, transparent from within to without, one body one face, and unreproducible, it is also called "woven porcelain." The characteristics of the Dangyangyu marbled-porcelain craft show a combination of body-transformation and kiln-transformation; it is made by interleaving and kneading multi-coloured porcelain clays, its ornament is transparent inside and out, and its decorative patterns are represented by feather, mat-weave, chrysanthemum, and natural motifs. After the Reform and Opening, the Dangyangyu marbled-porcelain craft flourished again; today in Jiaozuo more than ten scale enterprises engage in marbled-porcelain production, along with many unscale family workshops and scattered artisans, transmitted to the present by way of the trade and the master-apprentice system.
Documented process record
The Dangyangyu marbled-porcelain firing craft uses the gangue stone unique to the Taihang Mountains as its porcelain raw material, with more than thirty process steps: selecting the earth, refining the clay, colour-mixing and kneading, body-making (throwing, patterning, appliqué, inlay, etc.), trimming the body, shading to dry, polishing, glazing, and firing.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
This heritage item is an important component of China's ceramic culture and an important carrier of regional culture, with fairly high socio-cultural value.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present it is mainly distributed in Xiuwu County, Shanyang District of Jiaozuo, and surrounding areas. Its craft is complex and its requirements strict; especially in the hand body-making patterning and the high-temperature firing, the grasp of the various coefficients of different clay bodies emphasises precision, so the yield of finished pieces is low — but this is precisely one of the reasons for its artistic and collectible value. Dangyangyu marbled porcelain is porcelain whose pattern is the same inside and out, called the "gentleman among porcelain," embodying the Chinese nation's esteem and transmission of traditional virtue, and enriching the variety and developmental history of China's ceramics. Chai Zhanzhu (recorded in the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1964, a native of Jiaozuo City, Henan Province. A representative inheritor of the Dangyangyu marbled-porcelain firing craft, a project under the fifth national-level batch of the national intangible cultural heritage. An expert enjoying the special government allowance of the State Council. In 1985 he studied the marbled-porcelain firing craft under the old artisans Wang Youzhou and others, gradually mastering the basic techniques of such marbled-porcelain textures as feather, chrysanthemum, mat-weave, wood-grain-like, and natural, as well as the traditional firing craft of marbled porcelain. Through decades of effort, on the basis of the traditional techniques he has developed the decorative techniques of marbled porcelain from the original few to over a hundred, the variety of forms to nine great categories and more than a hundred types, and the coloured clays from the two of black and white to many colours — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple. For decades he has devoted himself to cultivating successor talent, having taught more than eighty apprentices, long run ceramic-art training classes, and actively carried out intangible-heritage-into-campus activities.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chai Zhanzhu 05-2893
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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