Chinadaily BBS - China Today - Chinese Tradition and Culture

Guest: Login | Register | Search | FAQ

Chinadaily BBS » News Talk» China Today» Chinese Tradition and Culture

Last Thread

Next Thread

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Tradition and Culture

The culture of China is home to one of the world's oldest and most complex civilizations.

China boasts a history rich in over 5,000 years of artistic, philosophical, political, and scientific advancement.

Though regional differences provide a sense of diversity, commonalities in language and religion connect a culture distinguished by such significant contributions such as Confucianism and Taoism. Confucianism was the official philosophy throughout most of Imperial China's history and strongly influence other countries in East Asia. Mastery of Confucian texts provided the primary criterion for entry into the imperial bureaucracy.

2007-4-19 05:46 AM

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese art

Chinese art has varied throughout its ancient history, divided into periods by the ruling dynasties of China and changing technology, as well as influenced by great philosophers, teachers and religion. Early forms of art in China were made from pottery and jade in the Neolithic period, to which was added bronze in the Shang Dynasty. The Shang are most remembered for their bronze casting, noted for its clarity of detail. Early Chinese music and poetry was influenced by the Book of Songs, Confucius and the Chinese poet and statesman Qu Yuan. Early Chinese music was based on percussion instruments, which later gave away to string and reed instruments.

In early imperial China, porcelain was introduced and was refined to the point that in English the word China has become synonymous with high-quality porcelain. Around the 1st century AD, Buddhism arrived in China, though it did not become popular until the 4th century. At this point, Chinese Buddhist art began to flourish, a process which continued through the 8th century. Around this period, several well-known Chinese poets influenced Chinese poetry, which included Cao Cao and his sons and Tao Qian. It was during the period of Imperial China that calligraphy and painting became highly appreciated arts in court circles, with a great deal of work done on silk until well after the invention of paper.

Buddhist architecture and sculpture thrived in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Particularly the Tang Dynasty was open to foreign influence. Buddhist sculpture returned to a classical form, inspired by Indian art of the Gupta period. Toward the end of the Tang Dynasty, all foreign religions were outlawed to support Taoism. Also during this period, Chinese poetry thrived and the Tang is considered the "Golden age" of Chinese poetry. In this period, the greatest Chinese poets, Li Po (李白) and Du Fu (杜甫) composed their poems. Late Tang poetry was marked by the influence of two poets, Li Shangyin (李商隱) and Li Yu (李漁), the latter of whom introduced the stanza form. Painting from the Tang dynasty period mainly consisted of landscape that was to grasp emotion or atmosphere to catch the "rhythm of nature." Also in the Tang dynasty, Chinese opera was introduced.

In the Song Dynasty, poetry was marked by a lyric poetry known as Ci (詞) which expressed feelings of desire, often in an adopted persona. Also in the Song dynasty, paintings of more subtle expression of landscapes appeared, with blurred outlines and mountain contours which conveyed distance through an impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena. It was during this period that in painting, emphasis was placed on spiritual rather than emotional elements, as in the previous period. Kunqu, the oldest extant form of Chinese opera developed during the Song Dynasty in Kunshan, near present-day Shanghai. In the Yuan dynasty, painting by the Chinese painter Zhao Mengfu (趙孟頫) greatly influenced later Chinese landscape painting, and the Yuan dynasty opera became a variant of Chinese opera which continues today as Cantonese opera.

Late Imperial China was marked by two specific dynasties: Ming and Qing. Of Ming Dynasty poetry, Gao Qi was acknowledged as the greatest poet of the era. Artwork in the Ming dynasty perfected color painting and color printing, with a wider color range and busier compositions than Song paintings. In the Qing dynasty, Beijing opera was introduced; it is considered the one of the best-known forms of Chinese opera. Qing poetry was marked by a poet named Yuan Mei whose poetry has been described as having "unusually clear and elegant language" and who stressed the importance of personal feeling and technical perfection. Under efforts of masters from the Shanghai School during the late Qing Dynasty, traditional Chinese art reached another climax and continued to the present in forms of the "Chinese painting" (guohua, 國畫). The Shanghai School challenged and broke the literati tradition of Chinese art, while also paying technical homage to the ancient masters and improving on existing traditional techniques.

Chinese art was heavily influenced by the New Culture Movement in the 20th century, which adopted Western techniques, introduced oil painting and employed socialist realism. The poetry was also influenced by the Cultural Revolution, but several poets attempted to resist the Cultural Revolution by incorporating pro-democratic themes. Contemporary Chinese artists continue to produce a wide range of experimental works, multimedia installations, and performance "happenings" which have become very popular in the international art market.

Figures:
(a) Song Dynasty (960-1279) Jian tea bowl (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
(b) No. 4 of Ten Thousand Scenes. Painting by Ren Xiong, a pioneer of the Shanghai School of Chinese art; ca. 1850.

[ Last edited by changabula at 2007-4-19 03:46 PM ]

Image Attachment: Jian_bowl.jpg (2007-4-19 05:50 AM, 102.71 K)

Image Attachment: Renxiong_wan04s.jpg (2007-4-19 03:44 PM, 119.74 K)

2007-4-19 05:50 AM

shallli
Newcomer
Rank: 1

UID 132424
Digest Posts 0
Credits 21
Posts 21
Registered 2007-4-9
Status Offline

should li yu a poet in qing dynasty

2007-4-19 11:22 AM

shallli
Newcomer
Rank: 1

UID 132424
Digest Posts 0
Credits 21
Posts 21
Registered 2007-4-9
Status Offline

should be “李商隐”and “杜牧”

i remeber that the late Tang poetry was marked by the influence of Li Shangyin and Du mu, who was called "junior li du" at that time. as to liyu, he is a poet in Qing dynasty, we have learnt one of his famous article named "ode of lotus" during high scool. Am i right?

2007-4-19 11:29 AM

adai716
Newcomer
Rank: 1

UID 133611
Digest Posts 0
Credits 2
Posts 2
Registered 2007-4-19
Status Offline

China is a country with a long histroy of 5000 years.I love the novels of Ming &Qing dynasty such as the world-known 4 masterpieces.Chinese civilization is a miracle whose culture and art is so rich that so many foreigners are interested in them.Wish our civilization spread through all over the world.Everyone of us chinese should do whatever we can to accomplish the mission.

2007-4-19 12:31 PM

liangzai (靓仔)
Senior Member
Rank: 4

UID 50589
Digest Posts 0
Credits 2909
Posts 2370
Registered 2004-12-21
Location 瑞典
Status Offline

5,000,000 years BC: Somewhere on the cooling igneous rock formed from millenia of geological turmoil that will one day settle and form the land we now know as China, sulphuric emissions from falling meteorites destroy stretches of lush forestry and wipe out all but the hardiest forms of life.  A cycle is begun that will be repeated many times throughout the entire history of this land.

4,999,999 BC - 3001 BC: A quiet time for Chinese civilisation.

3000 BC: Exactly 5007 years ago this Tuesday, primitive man all over the world began to pick up objects using small wooden sticks as tools.  Two advanced primates along the Yellow River basin decide that their way of picking up things with wooden sticks indicates their superior level of civilisation, and establish the foundations of Chinese civilisation after taking a ---- in a hole.

2500 BC: Chinese scientists rename the fatherland “the motherland” after determining the sex of China.

1600 BC: The great Yu, last of the Five Legendary Rulers, promises to eradicate bad habits such as spitting and queue jumping within the next five years.  “China is a developing country” he reminds critics.

770 BC - 476 BC: The Spring and Autumn Period occurs in China, and is only brought to an end by the invention of Summer and Winter by Chinese scientists.

479 BC: Confucius: philosopher, educator, and the man responsible for consolidating the guidelines that would shape East Asia, dies after chocking on a chicken bone.  Though his earlier works were hailed as successes, commentators note that as he got older, the old man started to lose clarity.  Phrases like: “Confucius says: Kids today don’t know they’re born”, “Confucius says: Take your coat off or you won’t feel the benefit”, and “Confucius says: I remember when this was all fields”, fail to make it into final editions of The Analects.

221 BC: The armies of Qin Shihuangdi “peacefully liberate” the whole of China for the first time, and the government goes around relieving citizens of burdensome relics of the old feudal system, like life and happiness.  Qin Shihuangdi also builds the Great Wall of China: a feat of engineering so magnificent, that it can be seen anywhere in the world.

771 AD: At the height of China’s “Golden Age”, rebels An Lushan and Shi Siming lead an armed uprising against the ruling Tang Dynasty.  Disgruntled peasants complain that the government spends too much time and money having passionate affairs and stirring political intrigue in order to attract CCTV producers of costume dramas from the future.  The Curse of the Golden Flower fails to win a single Oscar nomination at the 2007 Academy Awards, and producers begin to leave the past as audience’s demand more modern dramas.  The An Lushan rebellion is quickly quelled and the Emperor blames everything on the time-travelling foreigners.

1167: The five year old Genghis Khan is left at home with his “Uncle Tommy” while his mother pops down the shops to buy some yak’s butter.  A disturbed Genghis promises not to tell his mother about the “special games” he’s been playing, and grows up to conquer Asia and slaughter millions.

1266: Marco Polo arrives in Beijing and brings with him the inventions of spaghetti, ice cream, and gunpowder.  Five years later, after investing in the Joint Venture “Sino-Polo Happy Food and Fireworks Factory”, a bankrupt Marco leaves China with all his ideas pirated and distributed freely around China.  The Mongol government responds to Venetian protests by saying it was all a ”misunderstanding”, and Marco “didn’t understand the Chinese way”.

1368: The Ming overthrows the Mongols and establishes a new dynasty that will last for nearly 200 years.  During his coronation, the Emperor promises to eradicate bad habits such as spitting and queue jumping within the next five years.  “China is a developing country” he reminds critics.

1405: Admiral Zheng He and his men arrive on the east coast of Africa: a feat accomplished 87 years before Columbus discovered America.  Zheng He and his men spend their time in Africa walking around in a tour group and refusing to eat the local food.  After being asked to leave for saying the locals were “too black”, Zheng He steals a giraffe, and cooks it upon arriving in China.  The giraffe disagrees with the stomach of the Chinese Emperor; Zheng He is imprisoned and the African natives are then asked to apologise for hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.

1793: Lord MaCartney, a well-known celebrity in Great Britain, sails to China and pleads with the Emperor Qianlong to accept British exports of microwaved vegetarian meals and recordings of The Mull of Kintyre.  MaCartney’s demands aren’t met, and he returns disheartened to the United Kingdom.  On the way he is robbed of most of his fortune by a one-legged gold-digging pirate.

1842: Faced against powerful slogans like “Keep China British” and “It’s time to euthanise the Sick Man of Asia”, feeble catchphrases like “Get high on Confucianism!” fails to win the War on Drugs for the Qing government.  Hong Kong is ceded to the British, and the Chinese vow to seek revenge by bricking the windows of the British Embassy 125 years later.

1911: Sun Yat-sen’s new Republic ends nearly 5000 years of imaginary imperial rule.  The new Chinese Congress promises to eradicate bad habits such as spitting and queue jumping within the next five years.  “China is a developing country” they remind critics.

1949: After years of civil war, Japanese invasion, and national humiliation, a giant poster of Mao gains control of China.  The giant poster wields power through an army of smaller, photocopied, versions of itself, and promises to rid all China of stamps featuring Queen Victoria and placards of Chiang Kai-Shek.  The giant poster of Mao is head of the Chinese Communist Party, which at the time was the biggest, and probably the best, Communist Party in the whole world.

1958: Mao begins the Great Leap Forward, which quickly leaps to the top of the BBC’s All-Time Best Misnamed Political Campaigns, pushing aside old favourites like Hitler’s “Great Hanukah Promotion Drive” and Gandhi’s “Let’s Kick Their ----ing Heads Open”.

1966: Mao follows his success with “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”.  A time which seemingly everybody chose to ignore completely and read a book about the Nanjing Massacre instead.

1969: The dreams of Man are realised as Neil Armstrong takes his first step on the moon.  China responds by stating it too will place a man selling lamb kebabs, t-shirts, and musical lighters, on the moon by 2040.

(May++) (3++)th 1988++: According to the official records of the CCP, on this day the sun was shining, so Deng Xiaoping decided to have a nice picnic with his friends out in the countryside.  On the way home, he saw a cute kid selling homemade lemonade by the roadside, so he bought six glasses for only one yuan each, and then gave the kid a shiny button to take home.

1997: The comet Hale-Bopp graced the heaven’s in one of the most beautiful sights ever to appear upon the celestial basin in recent years.  Angry that the arrival of the comet was diverting media attention from the upcoming handover of Hong Kong, Deng Xiaoping passed away in a pathetic face-saving attempt to bring global attention back to China.  The trick is a success, and none less that Dame Edna Everage himself arrives in Hong Kong to preside over the handover ceremony.

2000: Beijing authorities greet the arrival of the Olympic committee by painting the grass green and removing all the tramps off the streets.  Six weeks later, Beijing authorities greet the arrival of the Eurovision Song Contest committee by painting the grass brown again, bringing the tramps back in, and letting them run wild on crack cocaine.

2006: Sinocidal bursts onto the Internet like a shining beacon of truth in a forest of doubt.  Chinese nationalists are quick to logon and tell the authors that China promises to eradicate bad habits such as spitting and queue jumping within the next five years.  “China is a developing country” they remind us.

(from The Sinocidal History of China)

P.S. Don't you ever forget to mention to foreigners that China has 5000 years of history.

2007-4-19 12:56 PM

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese architecture

Chinese architecture, examples of which can be found over 2,000 years ago, has long been a landmark of the culture. There are certain features common to Chinese architecture, regardless of specific region or use.

The most important is its emphasis on the horizontal. In contrast to Western architecture, which tends to grow in height and in depth, Chinese architecture stresses on the width of the buildings. The halls and palaces in the Forbidden City, for example, have rather low ceilings when compared to equivalent stately buildings in the West, but their external appearances suggest the all-embracing nature of imperial China. This of course does not apply to pagodas, which in any case are relatively rare.

Another important feature is its emphasis on symmetry, which connotes a sense of grandeur; this applies to everything from palaces to farmhouses. One notable exception is in the design of gardens, which tends to be as asymmetrical as possible. Like Chinese scroll paintings, the principle underlying the garden's composition is to create enduring flow, to let the patron wander and enjoy the garden without prescription, as in nature herself.

Feng shui designed architecture plays an important role in Chinese Culture. For example, Paifang is a Feng Shui designed gate of China town.

Figure:
Mix of old and new at Jing'an Temple in downtown Shanghai.

[ Last edited by changabula at 2007-4-19 03:50 PM ]

Image Attachment: waterjing'anshi.jpg (2007-4-19 03:50 PM, 79.13 K)

2007-4-19 03:49 PM

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese porcelain

Chinese porcelain is porcelain, a type of ceramic, from China and has been created for well over a millennium. The term covers a wide range of Chinese high-fired ceramics, some of which would probably not be recognized as porcelain under some Western definitions of that term. It is usually green-fired or once-fired, which means that the body and the glaze are fired together. After the body of a piece is formed and finished it is dried, coated with a glaze, dried again and fired. In the high temperature of the kiln the body and the glaze are fused together to become a unit.

Chinese enamelled wares are also produced in this way, but the enamels are added after the first, high-temperature, firing and the pieces are sent for a second firing in a smaller, lower-temperature kiln. Suitably modified with a flux, the material used to form the body of a piece of Chinese porcelain was often used as a glaze. The similarity in composition of the body and the glaze helped to produce a good fit between the two that reduced cracking in the glaze.

Materials

Chinese porcelain is mainly made using porcelain stone, china clay or a combination of the two materials. Both rocks derive from the weathering and decomposition of granitic rocks. China clay (Gaoling) largely comprises the clay mineral kaolinite. Chinese porcelain stone, petunse (baidunzi), is a micaceous rock containing sericite and other minerals including quartz (Kerr and Wood 2004). Porcelain stone often occurs kaolinised to a greater or lesser extent.

Porcelain stone and china clay are both composed of platy minerals, which is to say that they are composed to varying degrees of small platelets of high surface area (external and internal) and are capable of holding relatively large amounts of water. This is of importance because some of the methods used for forming the body parts of ceramic pieces (throwing on a wheel, for example) depend upon the application of compression to align the platelets and increase the plasticity and workability of the clay body. In the case of throwing, compression is applied by the hand of the potter.

Classification

In the West whiteware ceramics includes the categories of earthenware, stoneware or porcelain, depending largely upon the composition of the body and the kiln temperature required for its firing. However, the Chinese tradition recognises only two primary categories of ceramics, high-fired [cí 瓷] and low-fired [táo 匋] (Pierson 1996). The oldest Chinese dictionaries define porcelain [cí 瓷] as "fine, compact pottery" [táo 匋] (Bushell 1977). In the West the property of translucence is often regarded as a defining feature of porcelain, but this is not the case in China, where any thick or opaque piece that rings with a reasonably clear note on being struck would be regarded as porcelain [cí 瓷] (Bushell 1977).

Chinese ceramic wares are also often classified as being either northern or southern, so called because present day China comprises two separate, and from the geological point of view distinctly different land masses, the northern and the southern. The two land masses were brought together by the action of continental drift, forming a junction that lies between the Yellow river and the Yangtze river. Geological differences between the northern and the southern land masses have influenced the nature of the ceramic wares made in the two areas and, for example, in the north ceramic wares tend to have bodies made with clays, in the south ceramic wares tend to have bodies made predominantly of porcelain stone[citation needed]. In turn, this led to the development of coal-fuelled kilns suitable for the slow, high-temperature firing of clay-rich wares in the north and wood-fuelled kilns more suitable for the faster, lower-temperature firing of the stone-rich southern wares.

Figure:
A Chinese Ming Dynasty cylindrical porcelain vase, dated to the early 15th century, Freer Gallery of Art.

Image Attachment: 415px-Ming_Dynasty,_Clyndrical_Vase,_porcelain,_early_15th_century.jpg (2007-4-19 03:55 PM, 37.91 K)

2007-4-19 03:55 PM

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese porcelain

History

In the context of Chinese ceramics the term porcelain lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made. Claims have been made for the late Eastern Han period (100 to 200 AD), the Three Kingdoms period (220 to 280 AD), the Six Dynasties period (220 to 589 AD), and the Tang Dynasty (618 to 906 AD). Some experts are currently of the view that the first true porcelain was made in the Chinese province of Zhejiang during the Eastern Han period. Chinese experts emphasise the presence of a significant proportion of porcelain-building minerals (china clay, porcelain stone or a combination of both) as an important factor in defining porcelain and shards recovered from Eastern Han kiln sites in Zhejiang, estimated to have been fired at a temperature of between 1260 to 1300 degrees Celsius, were found that met this condition (He Li 1996). However, so-called porcelaneous wares or proto-porcelain wares made using at least some kaolin and fired at high temperatures are known that date to well before the year 1000 BC. Unfortunately, the line that divides porcelaneous wares and proto-porcelain wares from true porcelain wares is not a clear one.

One of the first mentions of porcelain by a foreigner was made by an Arabian traveller in the eighth or ninth century (during the Tang Dynasty) who recorded that "They have in China a very fine clay with which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen through them. The vases are made of clay" (Bushell 1906). The Arabs were well acquainted with glass and there can be little doubt that the author of these words knew that the vases were not made of that material.

During the Sui and Tang periods (581 to 906) a wide range of ceramics, low-fired and high-fired, were produced. These included the well-known Tang lead-glazed sancai (three-colour) wares, the high-firing, lime-glazed Yue celadon wares and low-fired wares from Changsha. In northern China, high-fired, translucent porcelains were made at kilns in the provinces of Henan and Hebei.

Figure:
A Tang Dynasty porcelain bottle with lid, 8th century AD, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington D.C.

Image Attachment: 487px-Tang_Dynasty,_porcelain_bottle_with_lid,_8th_century.jpg (2007-4-19 03:58 PM, 24.27 K)

2007-4-19 03:58 PM

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese porcelain

Increasing use of china clay in the South

During the Song and Yuan dynasties porcelain was made at Jingdezhen and other kiln sites in southern China using crushed and refined porcelain stone alone, but by the early eighteenth century china clay and porcelain stone were mixed in about equal proportions. China clay when added to the body material produced a porcelain of great strength and whiteness (whiteness, in particular, was a much sought after property of porcelain, especially that used for blue and white wares).

Porcelain bodies made from porcelain stone fire at a lower temperature, in the region of 1250 degrees Celsius, than those made with a mixture of china clay and porcelain stone, which require firing in the region of 1350 degrees Celsius.

The temperatures within a typical large, southern, egg-shaped kiln varied greatly, from hot, near the firebox, to cooler, near to the chimney at the opposite end of the kiln. One advantage gained by the addition in varying amounts of china clay was that the composition of the paste could be altered to suit the position that the wares made from it would occupy in the kiln, with a clay-rich mix being used for wares to be fired at the hot end of the kiln and a stone-rich mix being used for wares to be fired at the cooler end of the kiln.

Figure:
A Northern Song Dynasty porcelain Ding Ware Bottle, dated 11th century - 12th century, Freer Gallery of Art.

Image Attachment: Northern_Song_Dynasty,_porcelain_Ding_Ware_Bottle,_11th-12th_century.jpg (2007-4-19 04:03 PM, 35.25 K)

2007-4-19 04:02 PM

#10

hanjingjing
Newcomer
Rank: 1

UID 133250
Digest Posts 0
Credits 16
Posts 12
Registered 2007-4-16
Status Offline

When it comes to the Chinese traditional arts and culture, as a Chinese, I did take great pride in its 5000 yeas of rich and long history. I really wish the Chinese civilization can spread through all over the word. To my great disappointment, as the increasing number of more and more western scholars, professors, and even ordinary people are beginning to demonstrate great interest in Chinese history and culture, but we our Chinese people are ignorant of such brilliant history and culture our ancestor endowed us. Even our education department is also calling for the cancellation of Chinese course from university’s program.

I recalled an article in 环球时报, writing when you travel to many southern cities of China, you cannot distinguish yourself whether you are in China or western country. Our real estates developers or construction designing institute prefers to imitate the construction fashion and their style. In Shanghai, there is a residential region called Times Town imitating the construction style in London, red telephone booth, London-formed buildings. All those make you confused where you are in. More ridiculously, a high-level residents region, named 兰乔圣菲, copyed the traditional Spanish-style construction, where in 1997, 39 people committed suicide together. In some people’s mind, the construction involved western designing are meaning social and economic status and demonstrate their fortune and success. And they did not care about what name they are called.

2007-4-19 04:02 PM

#11

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Porcelain

Jingdezhen

The city of Jingdezhen has been an important centre for the production of ceramics in southern China since at least the early Han Dynasty. The early wares were low-fired but by the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 to 589) locally available raw materials were being used to produce a form of porcelain. In the year 1004, under the Song emperor Jingde, the newly re-named city of Jingdezhen was established as a centre for the production of Imperial porcelain. Detailed descriptions of the manufacture of porcelain at Jingdezhen during the Qing dynasty exist, including a memoir written by Tang Ying and the letters of Père d'Entrecolles.

Two letters written by Père Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary (and industrial spy) who lived and worked in Jingdezhen, described in detail the methods and materials used in the manufacturing process of porcelain wares in the later years of the reign of the Kangxi emperor; an important period in the history of Chinese ceramics. In his first letter, dated 1712, d'Entrecolles described the way in which porcelain stone was crushed, refined and formed into little white bricks known in Chinese as petuntse or baidunzi. He then went on to describe the refining of china clay, kaolin or Gaoling, the preparation of glazes, the stages of forming porcelain wares, glazing and firing. Père d'Entrecolles, explaining his motives for describing what he had seen at Jingdezhen, states that "Nothing but my curiosity could ever have prompted me to such researches, but it appears to me that a minute description of all that concerns this kind of work might, somehow, be useful in Europe" but his first letter came too late to be of much help in the European search for the secret of making porcelain. In 1743, during the reign of the Qianlong emperor, Tang Ying, the imperial supervisor at Jingdezhen produced a memoir entitled "Twenty illustrations of the manufacture of porcelain." Unfortunately, the original illustrations have been lost but the text of the memoir is still accessible, together with photographs replacing the missing illustrations and an additional commentary.[2]

Jingdezhen was the main production centre for porcelain exported to Europe. The large-scale trade started in the reign of the Wanli emperor (1572 to 1620).

Figure:
Decorating porcelain at modern-day Jingdezhen

[ Last edited by changabula at 2007-4-19 04:08 PM ]

Image Attachment: Porcelain_Workshop,_Jingdezhen,_Jiangxi,_China.jpg (2007-4-19 04:06 PM, 64.19 K)

2007-4-19 04:06 PM

#12

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Porcelain

Tang sancai burial wares

Sancai means three-colours. However, the colours of the glazes used to decorate the sancai wares of the Tang dynasty were not limited to three in number. In the West, Tang sancai wares were sometimes referred to as egg-and-spinach by dealers, not without reason, for three of the colours commonly used in its decoration were green, yellow and white (though the latter two colours might more properly be described as amber and off-white or cream).

Tang sancai wares were northern wares made using white and buff-firing secondary kaolins and fireclays (Wood 1999) at kiln sites that include Tongchuan in Shaanxi, Neiqui county in Hebei and Gongxian in Henan (Wood 1999). The clays used for burial wares were similar to those used by Tang potters for the bodies of high-fired whitewares, but the burial wares were fired at a lower temperature than contemporaneous whitewares. Burial wares, such as the well-known representations of camels and horses, were cast in sections, in moulds, the parts being luted together with a clay slip. In some cases, a degree of individuality was imparted to the assembled figurines by hand-carving.

Figure:
Tang Dynasty sancai horse. Shanghai Museum

Image Attachment: Tang_horse.jpg (2007-4-19 04:12 PM, 22.24 K)

2007-4-19 04:12 PM

#13

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Porcelain

Jian tea wares

Jian blackwares, mainly comprising tea wares, were made at kilns in the county of Jianyang in the province of Fujian and reached the height of their popularity during the Song dynasty. The wares were made using locally-won, iron-rich clays and fired in an oxidising atmosphere at temperatures in the region of 1300 degrees Celsius. The glaze was made using clay similar to that used for forming the body, but fluxed with wood-ash. At high temperatures in the kiln phases within the molten glaze separated to produce the patterning called hare's fur. Some pooling of the glaze is usually evident in Jian wares and where the bowls were set tilted for firing the glaze often ran into drips on one side of the bowl.

The hare's fur Jian tea bowl illustrated is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was made during the Song dynasty (960 to 1279 AD) and exhibits the typical pooling, or thickening, of the glaze near to its foot. The hare's fur patterning in the glaze of this bowl resulted from the random effect of phase separation during early cooling in the kiln and is unique to this bowl, no two bowls have identical patterning. The bowl also has a dark brown iron-foot which is typical of these wares. It would have been fired, probably with several thousand other other pieces, each in its own stackable saggar, in a single-firing in a large dragon kiln. One such kiln, built on the side of a steep hill, was almost 150 metres in length, though most Jian dragon kilns were fewer than 100 metres in length.

An eleventh century resident of Fujian wrote: "Tea is of light colour and looks best in black cups. The cups made at Jianyang are bluish-black in colour, marked like the fur of a hare. Being of rather thick fabric they retain the heat, so that when once warmed through they cool very slowly, and they are additionally valued on this account. None of the cups produced at other places can rival these. Blue and white cups are not used by those who give tea-tasting parties" (Bushell 1977).

Jian tea wares of the Song dynasty were greatly appreciated and copied in Japan, where they were known as temmoku or tenmoku wares. Phase separation in the iron-rich glazes of Chinese blackwares was also used to produce the well-known oil-spot, teadust and partridge-feather glaze effects.

Figure:
Song Dynasty Jian tea bowl (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Image Attachment: Jian_bowl.jpg (2007-4-19 04:14 PM, 102.71 K)

2007-4-19 04:14 PM

#14

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Porcelain

Qingbai wares

Qingbai wares were made at Jingdezhen and at many other southern kilns from the time of the Northern Song Dynasty until their almost complete eclipse, starting early in the fourteenth century, by underglaze-decorated blue and white wares. Qingbai in Chinese literally means "clear white". The qingbai glaze is a porcelain glaze, so-called because it was made using porcelain stone. The qingbai glaze is clear, but contains iron in small amounts. When applied over a white porcelain body the glaze produces a greenish-blue colour that gives the glaze its name (qingbai in Chinese means greenish-blue). Bowls, some with incised or moulded decoration and varying from the everyday to more finely made pieces represent the overwhelming bulk of surviving qingbai wares.

The Song dynasty qingbai bowl illustrated was possibly made at the Jingdezhen village of Hutian, which was also the site of the Imperial kilns established in the year 1004. The bowl has incised decoration, possibly representing clouds or the reflection of clouds in the water. The body is white, translucent and has the texture of very fine sugar, indicating that it was made using crushed and refined porcelain stone, rather than a mixture of porcelain stone and china clay. The glaze and the body of the bowl would have been fired together, in a saggar, possibly in a large wood-burning dragon-kiln or climbing-kiln typical of southern kilns of the period.

Though not the case with the bowl illustrated, many Song and Yuan qingbai bowls were fired upside down in special segmented saggars, a technique first developed at the Ding kilns in Hebei province. The rims of such wares were left unglazed but were often bound with bands of silver, copper or lead.

One remarkable example of qingbai porcelain is the so-called Fonthill Vase, described in a guide to Fonthill Abbey published in 1823 as "...an oriental china bottle, superbly mounted, said to be the earliest known specimen of porcelain introduced into Europe". The vase was made at Jingdezhen, probably around the year 1300 and was sent as a present to Pope Benedict XII from the court of the last Yuan emperor of China, in 1338. The mounts referred to in the 1823 description were of enamelled silver-gilt and were added to the vase in Europe in 1381. An eighteenth century watercolour of the vase complete with its mounts exists, but the mounts themselves were removed from the vase in the nineteenth century and lost. The vase is now in the National Museum of Ireland. It is often held that qingbai wares, which were not subject to restrictions and regulations applied to the production of some other porcelain wares, were made for everyday use and that, even though they are highly regarded today, they were not valued as significant at their time of production. The Fonthill Vase, given by a Chinese emperor to a pope, might appear to cast at least some doubt on this view. It is, however, also the case that qingbai wares were mainly mass-produced and that they received little attention from scholars and antiquarians.

Figure:
Song Dynasty qingbai bowl

Image Attachment: Qingbai.JPG (2007-4-19 04:15 PM, 29.76 K)

2007-4-19 04:15 PM

#15

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Porcelain

Blue and white wares

Following in the tradition of earlier qingbai porcelains, blue and white wares are glazed using a transparent porcelain glaze. The blue decoration is painted onto the body of the porcelain before glazing, using very finely ground cobalt oxide mixed with water. After the decoration has been applied the pieces are glazed and fired.

It is believed that underglaze blue and white porcelain was first made in the Tang Dynasty. Only three complete pieces of Tang blue and white porcelain are known to exist, but shards dating to the eighth or ninth century have been unearthed at Yangzhou in the Jiangsu province. It has been suggested that the shards originated from a kiln in the province of Henan. In 1957 excavations at the site of a pagoda in the province Zhejiang uncovered a Northern Song bowl decorated with underglaze blue and further fragments have since been discovered at the same site. In 1970 a small fragment of a blue and white bowl, again dated to the eleventh century, was also excavated in the province of Zhejiang. In 1975 shards decorated with underglaze blue were excavated at a kiln site in Jiangxi and, in the same year, an underglaze blue and white urn was excavated from a tomb dated to the year 1319, in the province of Jiangsu. It is of interest to note that a Yuan funerary urn decorated with underglaze blue and underglaze red and dated 1338 is still in the Chinese taste, even though by this time the large-scale production of blue and white porcelain in the Yuan, Mongol taste had started at Jingdezhen.

Starting early in the fourteenth century, blue and white porcelain rapidly became the main product of Jingdezhen, reaching the height of its technical excellence during the later years of the reign of the Kangxi emperor (du Boulay 1973) and continuing in present times to be an important product of the city.

The tea caddy illustrated shows many of the characteristics of blue and white porcelain produced during the Kangxi period. The translucent body showing through the clear glaze is of great whiteness and the cobalt decoration, applied in many layers, has a fine blue hue. The decoration, a sage in a landscape of lakes and mountains with blazed rocks is typical of the period. The potting is well executed and the porcelain body is finely textured, indicating the presence of a significant proportion of china clay in the paste. The piece would have been fired in a saggar (a lidded ceramic box intended to protect the piece from kiln debris, smoke and cinders during firing) in a reducing atmosphere in a wood-burning egg-shaped kiln, at a temperature approaching 1350 degrees Celsius.

Distinctive blue-and-white porcelain was exported to Japan where it is known as Tenkei blue-and-white ware and (or) ko sometsukei. This ware is thought to have been expecially ordered by Japanese tea masters and forms a part of the tea ceremony culture of Japan.

Figure:
Kangxi period (1662 to 1722) blue and white porcelain tea caddy

Image Attachment: Bluepot.JPG (2007-4-19 04:17 PM, 38.01 K)

2007-4-19 04:17 PM

#16

summerlao
Newcomer
Rank: 1

UID 131483
Digest Posts 0
Credits 42
Posts 23
Registered 2007-3-31
Location Zhaoqing,GD
Status Offline

We should love our culture more than the foreign goods,or one day we have lost everything!

2007-4-19 07:14 PM

#17

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Cinema

Shanghai was the original center of Chinese filmmaking, giving birth to 1940s and 1950s Chinese movie stars such as Zhou Xuan, Ruan Lingyu and Hu Die. After the Communist takeover, the movie scene transferred from Shanghai to Hong Kong, where it has remained a center of Chinese filmmaking. In Hong Kong, the majority of films made centered around the common themes of martial arts (Wu-xia films), organized crime (in particular Triads), and other traditionally Chinese themes. While these films were always popular in the domestic Hong Kong market, they were also popular around the globe, and especially in the United States. This reached its zenith in the 1970s, when martial arts films were very popular in the United States. Now, in the 2000s, Asian-made films seem to be having a resurgence in popularity abroad. In the last two decades, Mainland China has also become a hotbed of filmmaking with such films as Farewell My Concubine, 2046, Hero, Suzhou River, The Road Home and House of Flying Daggers being critically acclaimed around the world. American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino plans to shoot his next film, a traditional Wu-Xia movie, in China and have its dialogue in Mandarin Chinese.

Another genre of films that become better known internationally is those depicting the exotic past of China with remarkable traditional and nostalgic symbols, notably under the directors Wong Kar-wai (Mandarin: Wang Jiawei) and Zhang Yimou.

Image Attachment: 2046_movie.jpg (2007-4-19 08:37 PM, 42.78 K)

2007-4-19 08:37 PM

#18

changabula
Super Member
Rank: 6

UID 122842
Digest Posts 0
Credits 7261
Posts 7128
Registered 2007-1-6
Location Milky Way, Universe
Status Offline

Chinese Cinema

The Beginnings: Shanghai as the centre, 1896-1945

Motion pictures were introduced to China in 1896. The first recorded screening of a motion picture in China occurred in Shanghai on August 11, 1896, as an "act" on a variety bill. The first Chinese film, a recording of the Beijing Opera, The Battle of Dingjunshan, was made in November 1905. For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry did not start in earnest until 1916, centering around Shanghai, a thriving entrepot center and the largest city in the Far East then.

During the 1920s film technicians from the United States trained Chinese technicians in Shanghai, and American influence continued to be felt there for the next two decades. The first truly important Chinese films were produced starting from the 1930s, when the "progressive" or "left-wing" films were made, like Cheng Bugao's Spring Silkworms (1933), Sun Yu's The Big Road (1935), and Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934). During this time the Nationalists and the Communists struggled for power and control over the major studios, and their influence can be seen in the ensuing films produced. The post-1930 era is called the first "golden period" of Chinese cinema, where several talented directors, mainly leftists, worked. Three production companies dominated the market in the early to mid 1930s: the newly formed Lianhua, the older and larger Mingxing, and the Shaw Brothers' Tianyi.[1] The period also produced the first big Chinese movie stars, namely Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Zhou Xuan, Zhao Dan and Jin Yan. Other major films of the period include New Women (1934), Song of the Fishermen (1934), Crossroads (1937), and Street Angel (1937).

The Japanese invasion of China, in particular their occupation of Shanghai, ended this golden run in Chinese cinema. All production companies except Xinhua closed shop, and many of the filmmakers fled Shanghai, relocating to Hong Kong, Communist- and Nationalist-controlled regions, and elsewhere. The Shanghai film industry, though severely curtailed, did not stop however, thus leading to the so-called "Solitary Island" period (also known as the "Sole Island" or "Isolated Island"), with Shanghai's foreign concessions serving as an "island" of production in the "sea" of Japanese occupied territory. It was during this period that artists and directors (who remained in the city) had to walk a fine line between staying true to their leftist and nationalist beliefs and the Japanese censors. Director Bu Wancang's Mulan Joins the Army (1939), with its story of a young Chinese peasant fighting against a foreign invasion, was a particularly good example of Shanghai's continued film-production in the midst of war.[2] Following declared war with the Western allies in the aftermath of December 7th, 1941, this period largely ended; the solitary island finally being engulfed by the rest of the Japanese occupation. By the end of WWII one of the most controversial Japanese-authorized company, Manchukuo Film Association, would be separated and integrated into Chinese cinema.

Figure:
Actress Zhou Xuan in Yuan Muzhi's Street Angel (1937)

Image Attachment: Street_Angle.jpg (2007-4-19 08:41 PM, 20.62 K)

2007-4-19 08:41 PM

#19

wowzers (Andrew)
Senior Member
Rank: 4

UID 29369
Digest Posts 0
Credits 4683
Posts 4362
Registered 2004-5-22
Location Guangzhou
Status Offline

Enjoying this thread!

I've seen all the films you have mentioned (and have them on DVD)

Wong Kar Wai is a Hong Kong based director and has lived there from an early age.
I don't see as you claim that 2046 could be considered a mainland film.

As a matter of fact the location of In The Mood For Love was changed from Shanghai to Macau because the government wanted to approve the script (don't know if that's true but that's what I heard)

Zhang Yimou (Hero,The Road Home and House of Flying Daggers) is a terrific director. His big budget films have done alright but he seems to be pigeon-holing himself in the historical costume drama.
I thought that Curse of the Golden Flower was diasppointing and although Flying Daggers had a great cast and beautiful sets it too was just OK.
Hero on the other hand was a terrific movie.
I really enjoyed his low budget Not One Less featuring a cast of non-actors, a wonderful film, I highly recommend.
On a side note his outdoor spectacle in Yangshou Third Sister Liu is absolutely amazing and one of the best hours or so of any kind of entertainment, I have ever had the pleasure to experience

Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) has stumbled recently relying on the historical costume drama genre to carry him. (see Emperor and the Assassin and The Promise, two less then satisfying films)
And his English language attempt Killing Me Softly disappoints as well.

Lou Ye's Suzhou River is reportedly banned in China and he was banned from filming for two years because of it.
I have his Purple Butterfly but haven't watched it yet.
His new fim Summer Palace is controversial for its full frontal nudity. (and he has reportedly been banned for 5 years from making films)
If true, this is a sad commentary on the present state of affairs and does not bode well for the development of the arts and artistic integrity.

I still think you should consider a thread on modern Chinese culture.

[ Last edited by wowzers at 2007-4-20 05:55 AM ]

2007-4-19 10:15 PM

#20

Printable Version | Email to Friend | Subscription | Favorites


Forum Rules	Feedback	Privacy