“Porcelain is the creative fruit of the working people of ancient China … [It] promotes economic and cultural exchange between China and the outside world, and profoundly influences the traditional culture and lifestyle of people from other countries”.
During Ancient China, not everyone could make porcelain or ceramic wares. Only those familiar with the techniques, which were few, could make them, and, as a result, kilns were created. Kilns are chambers that fire ceramics. In other words, it’s a type of oven. Clay, or objects made from clay, were burned to produce pottery, tiles, and bricks. And, to keep up with demand, different types of kilns were established: imperial kilns and private kilns. At first, each kiln differed in quality: while products of higher quality were made in private kilns, low quality work was produced in imperial kilns. The quality of the kilns differed so much, in fact, that “the imperial kilns often did not succeed at producing enough items, both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality”. Fortunately, the imperial kilns were able to produce porcelains of greater quality, which could be even used in ceremonial events, by the 16th century.
Jingdezhen, a city now known as the Porcelain Capital that is located in southern China, was the major scene in ceramic and porcelain production. Now that there were many job opportunities for the people, “the workforce in Jingdezhen changed from hereditary craftsmen and corvee labourers to hired hands who were paid for their service”; however, despite there being an increased demand for laborers, the people who worked for the kilns still faced wage problems. Workers were paid based on their level of skill. If they did more skilled work, like making actual pottery or ceramic objects, they received higher wages than those who couldn’t. Because of this, people with lower wages had “to supplement their income with other work”.
Bibliography
Gerritsen, Anne. The City of Blue and White : Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
