- 7 weeks ago
- #tracesofchina
Russell Beard explores porcelain’s journey from ancient China to Europe, revealing how it captivated and inspired European nobility. Indeed, Polish King Augustus the Strong launched a grand quest to crack the code of Chinese porcelain – an endeavor which eventually led to Europe’s first porcelain factory in the German city of Meissen. The documentary examines how kaolin clay deposits, first documented thousands of years ago, grew to shape entire cities like Jingdezhen and Meissen. It also showcases contemporary artists like Felicity Aylieff and Lin Wang, who continue this cross-cultural artistic exchange, demonstrating porcelain’s enduring power to connect civilizations and embody the traditions and stories it encounters. #tracesofchina
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00:00.
00:07Would you like to try it here on the machine,
00:10a hubel to try it?
00:12Oh, I'd love to try it.
00:14Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:16I've never worked with porcelain before either.
00:20Let me just give it a push.
00:22No pressure.
00:30My name's Russell Beard and I'm a potter.
00:34I usually work with the indigenous clays of my Scottish homeland.
00:38I've never worked with porcelain.
00:42It feels so different to a normal stoneware.
00:45There's no sensation of any texture or grains.
00:49It just feels like silk.
00:52Human hands have crafted pots from baked earth
00:55since the dawn of civilization.
00:58Earliest records reveal pottery fragments
01:01discovered in the southern regions of China
01:04dating back 20,000 years.
01:06Over thousands of years,
01:08Chinese craftsmen advanced their ceramics traditions,
01:12leading to the creation of an art form
01:14that would soon be heralded
01:16as the hallmark of elegance and sophistication.
01:25Porcelain first arrived in Europe
01:27through the Silk Road trade routes
01:29during the Middle Ages.
01:31Available only to the very wealthy.
01:34I think they would have been astonished
01:36by its brightness, its cleanness
01:40and its shininess
01:41and the ability to create
01:43these sort of very complex designs.
01:46A lot of European pottery at the time
01:49had very simple designs,
01:51nothing nearly as complex as it is.
01:55As maritime routes were established
01:57by the Portuguese and the Dutch
01:59in the 16th and 17th centuries,
02:01the import of porcelain increased substantially.
02:04Replacing all of that brown earthenware
02:08and green lead glazed ware
02:10with this beautiful blue and white porcelain.
02:13and you've got the many silk roads
02:25which brought porcelain across Asia into Europe
02:29but you've also got the maritime routes
02:32and then you've got to think of the scale of the trade.
02:34one boat would carry 23,000, 30,000, 50,000 pieces.
02:41The allure of this exotic glossy material
02:43captivated all who encountered it
02:46leaving Europe transfixed
02:48and igniting a quest to unravel the secrets
02:51of what had become known as white gold.
02:54Meissen, a small town in the German state of Saxony,
03:03once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
03:06At the centre of the town there is a castle
03:09used by Polish king Augustus the Strong
03:13to launch a grand endeavour.
03:16Who is this guy Augustus the Strong
03:18and how on earth does he fit into
03:20the story of porcelain in Europe?
03:23I think even he had no real idea of the Chinese porcelain.
03:28It was exotic, it was expansive
03:31and definitely he loved it also.
03:33And these pieces are here to show
03:36what sort of Chinese porcelain influenced the king,
03:39late Ming and 18th century porcelain
03:42which were brought to Europe.
03:45He was fond of this porcelain and collected it
03:49and after a while had the idea
03:51to make his own porcelain.
03:55For this Augustus employed the services of an alchemist,
03:59Johann Friedrich Bottger.
04:01Bottger claimed he could make gold from lead
04:04but he was also tasked with working out
04:07what this new Chinese pottery was made of
04:10and how to recreate it.
04:12Two things came together.
04:16A king with high ambition, good taste
04:20and a guy who pretended to be able to make gold,
04:24Mr. Bottger.
04:26Wow, excellent.
04:27So this is him?
04:28This is the guy?
04:29Yeah.
04:30They did things a little differently back then
04:35and Bottger wasn't employed for his services.
04:38He was in prison in the king's castle
04:41where they demanded that he make both gold and porcelain.
04:46What do you think the kind of driving force was behind the king?
04:50Why did he care so much about porcelain?
04:53On the first line it was status.
04:56Status.
04:57Everything which was rare, which was brought from abroad was interesting.
05:02You could show how educated you were.
05:07After years of intense chemical exposure
05:10and countless failed experiments,
05:12Bottger finally created that first true European porcelain.
05:18And after a while he was lucky enough to have a good composition
05:25and this is the recipe.
05:29It turned out the key ingredient in porcelain
05:32was a powdered clay called kaolin.
05:35With the right amount of this you could achieve
05:38the translucent almost glass-like finish
05:41that was so elusive to nearly every European craftsman.
05:45And so this palace in the summer of 1710
05:49became the first European porcelain factory.
05:59Why did they put it on the castle?
06:01Because it was well protected.
06:03These recipes were holy.
06:05No one was allowed to see them.
06:08Unlocking porcelain secrets was a triumph.
06:11Without kaolin the quest was far from over.
06:15At this time that rare pure white clay
06:18could only be found in one place.
06:20Jingdezhen is known as China's porcelain capital
06:24as it's the main centre for producing porcelain
06:27from the 12th century all the way to the present day.
06:32Jingdezhen's kaolin deposits are so vast and pure
06:36that they've supplied the world with porcelain
06:38for almost a thousand years.
06:41It's uniquely placed because it's on a crossroads
06:45of waterways for transportation.
06:48It's surrounded by forests for wood to fuel the kilns
06:52with kilns which snake like dragons
06:55up the sides of these mountains
06:58and also the deposits of the clay
07:01and porcelain stone are nearby.
07:06Meanwhile, the king's new porcelain
07:08was still struggling to match the brilliance
07:11of its Jingdezhen predecessor.
07:15The very interesting thing about Meissen
07:17perhaps a little mystic even
07:19when they invented porcelain here
07:21they were working with kaolin
07:23with the material which they got
07:24from about 80, 90 kilometres away from here
07:27and 50 years after they had invented porcelain here
07:31and this is when you have to think
07:33there are things that happen between heaven and earth
07:35which are very special.
07:36they found the purest and most valuable kaolin
07:41within 3 kilometres vicinity of this place here
07:45and we're still using this kaolin today
07:48and this has been one of the factors
07:52why continuity has been ensured here
07:55for over 300 years now.
07:57The coincidence is off the charts.
07:59Really a lot of coincidence, yes
08:01and it's just wonderful.
08:03the world's smallest mine still extracts
08:04some of the purest kaolin on earth.
08:06Over 300 years later, just a few miles
08:09from the original production site
08:11the world's smallest mine still extracts
08:13some of the purest kaolin on earth.
08:16Yeah, so it's very loose, right?
08:26Is this what they're talking about
08:27when we hear this idea of white gold?
08:29Yes, yes.
08:30The kaolin is called white gold for us.
08:33We always make sure that it's dark and dark.
08:37For us, it's dark and dark.
08:38For us, it's dark because it's dark
08:39because it's dark and dark.
08:41That's why it's also called white gold for us.
08:44This high-quality primary deposit soon established
08:49Meissen porcelain as one of the whitest in the world.
08:53To the uninitiated, this looks very Chinese.
08:57But you're saying this was made here?
08:59It was meant to look Chinese.
09:01Right.
09:02They called it chinoise.
09:04Chinoiserie.
09:05Everything which pretended to be Asian was fashionable.
09:10This early Meissen porcelain was so remarkably similar
09:15to its Chinese counterpart
09:17that third-party traders often passed it off
09:20as authentic, more expensive Chinese pieces.
09:24But this didn't please Augustus.
09:26He decreed that his porcelain needed to be signed.
09:31The Swords of Meissen, that brand originated in 1722
09:37into the European trade register.
09:40It's the first brand that was ever registered.
09:42It was Meissen porcelain.
09:48For decades, Meissen remained the dominant force
09:52in European porcelain manufacture.
09:54As its secrets began to spread,
09:57competing regions emerged,
10:00such as Vienna in neighboring Austria
10:02and Sèvres in France.
10:05That led to porcelain as a material
10:10to be used in households,
10:12to be used as art objects,
10:13being spread out in the Western Hemisphere.
10:15Meissen's early creations drew inspiration
10:18from the exoticism of the East,
10:20becoming sculpted works of art in their own right.
10:24These fantastic beasts, 1734.
10:28These artworks evolved alongside items of utility,
10:36proving that function and beauty could go hand in hand.
10:41And that was the beginning of an era
10:43where porcelain found its way
10:46to determine tableware culture in Europe.
10:50The desire for this material and product was everywhere,
10:57yet not all were blessed with white gold beneath their feet.
11:02This drove innovators to seek out alternatives
11:05that would rival even the finest porcelain.
11:09This is still earthenware,
11:12but this is how they make it look like porcelain.
11:16They're super thin, really light, beautiful,
11:19but they're not porcelain.
11:22And then a term emerged in the UK, bone china,
11:26that aptly traces back to where porcelain began.
11:30If there was a thread that you could connect
11:32from the original porcelain manufacturing
11:36that went on back in the day, thousands of years ago in China,
11:39how does it connect up with bone china
11:42and the porcelain equivalents that were being made here in the UK?
11:46So you definitely would have a line going all the way
11:49from China to the continent to the British Isles.
11:53And I think it was this pursuit of whiteness
11:56and having this really beautiful white translucent body
12:02that was pure canvas to paint on it.
12:05And bone china is similar to continental porcelain,
12:09but it's also different.
12:11Both are white, both are translucent, both are beautiful,
12:14but the main difference is really in the recipe.
12:16So as the name almost indicates, bone china actually contains bone,
12:21bone ash, and it makes this clay after firing really bright,
12:25really bright white.
12:30That was what made Chinese porcelain attractive.
12:33That is what made continental porcelain attractive.
12:36And that is something that certainly the English potters wanted
12:39to be able to make here as well.
12:43Over the centuries, the manufacturing processes
12:46behind European porcelain and its offspring have been refined.
12:52I think that's what, when people think about pottery,
12:55this is kind of what they imagine.
12:57Wheel-throwing techniques were first developed in China
13:01over 2,000 years ago.
13:03Today, it remains an integral part of ceramics workflows,
13:07preserving the human touch and skill the machines cannot replicate.
13:11So he puts the blank now into the mould and will press the clay against the inner wall.
13:20Alongside this, the Chinese later pioneered the use of moulds for shaping and decorating ceramics,
13:27allowing for greater consistency and intricate details.
13:31Isn't it beautiful?
13:3319th century decorative relief.
13:36In the 18th century, Europeans advanced ceramic production with the development of slip casting.
13:43Look how silky that is.
13:46An innovation that enabled the efficient and precise replication of complex shapes.
13:52So you need the liquid porcelain paste for thousands and thousands of products.
14:01This breakthrough laid the foundation for large-scale manufacturing,
14:05making porcelain more widely available than ever before.
14:10This is, despite all of the industrial equipment,
14:13we're still seeing good old-fashioned manual work.
14:15Yeah, as it was 300 years ago, the same way of glazing.
14:24Glazing is the final alchemy of porcelain,
14:27transforming raw clay into a luminous glass-like surface.
14:39It's interesting, isn't it?
14:41I mean, to the untrained eye,
14:42that looks like she's just covering up all of that precise brushwork
14:46and she's just painting over it, right?
14:48It would be a pity, wouldn't it?
14:49Yeah.
14:50But of course she doesn't do, she covers it with glaze,
14:53but the cobalt blue, yeah, the painting,
14:55will be even more fascinating after the second firing.
15:03Cobalt blue on white porcelain is one of the most iconic decorative styles in history.
15:08Basically, blue and white porcelain starts in about 1320,
15:13when the Mongols are ruling China,
15:15and they certainly used it both for the domestic market and for exports.
15:21I think from its very beginnings,
15:23it was conceived of as an international product,
15:26and now you could liken it to denim jeans or Coca-Cola.
15:31It's a sort of ubiquitous global product originating in China,
15:36but now made in local copies all over the world.
15:39The decorating process moved beyond the iconic blue and white.
15:52New colour palettes and evolving styles
15:55truly gave European manufacturers their own identity.
15:59Yet even in Europe's latest collections,
16:02traces of China can be found hidden in plain sight.
16:06And so these look quite traditional in a sense.
16:10This is the very classic and iconic onion pattern.
16:15The inspiration came from the Far East.
16:18We know this belongs to our DNA from the beginning,
16:21so we don't only develop new,
16:23we also take the old plates and combine them in a new style,
16:27so that you see it in a different way.
16:30I like that idea.
16:31There is a continuity that takes us all the way back to China.
16:35I can't help noticing this dragon,
16:37and that's a clear reminder of the kind of heritage.
16:40But this Ming dragon is actually very European-alized.
16:45But in China, they did not accept the dragon.
16:48The dragon needs five claws.
16:50The Ming dragon from Meissen has only four,
16:52and this is not acceptable.
16:54Wow, that's fascinating in no way. Let's see.
16:57Right enough, one, two, three, okay.
16:59Yes.
17:00Wow, isn't that brilliant?
17:01I mean, if you hadn't pointed that out, who would notice?
17:03But to our eyes?
17:04Yeah.
17:05That's fascinating.
17:09Over the centuries, the influence of Chinese porcelain
17:12has sparked both imitation and innovation,
17:15and led to the birth of many distinct European styles.
17:19Today, porcelain serves as both an item of everyday utility,
17:24while still remaining an inspiration for artists,
17:27eternally drawn to its timeless beauty.
17:32One of the interesting things about porcelain today
17:35is how blue and white has been revitalized by Chinese artists
17:40and Western artists working at Jingdezhen,
17:43some on a truly huge scale.
17:47So I think that it's very exciting as a material
17:50that it's still sparking innovation in artists across the world.
17:56It's very white, which is magical.
17:59So the color radiates.
18:01It has a fantastic depth, and the glaze shimmers.
18:07Today, artist Felicity Aleph explores what can be achieved
18:11when European and Chinese sensibilities and talents come together.
18:17Wow.
18:18Yes.
18:20Big forest of blue.
18:24Oh, my goodness.
18:28That's exactly how I want people to feel,
18:30that you walk in here and you just see this big forest of pots,
18:34and it's so unexpected to see porcelain on this scale.
18:39It is absolutely fantastic, isn't it?
18:41My goodness.
18:43Well, I'm glad you feel the excitement of it.
18:45I do, I do.
18:46They're so dynamic.
18:48But you can see they're made in sections.
18:52And you can actually feel the ripples from where they've been,
18:56because these have been hand-thrown.
18:58They've been hand-thrown.
18:59This is amazing.
19:00Maybe I can show you more easily on this one.
19:02This is probably the largest in height you can make.
19:06In a sense, they look simple forms,
19:08but for anybody who's ever tried to throw anything on a wheel,
19:11they will understand the technical skill required.
19:15In England, I worked in my own studio, on my own, struggling with everything.
19:25In China, that offered the opportunity to work with a group and to tap into what were really some extraordinary skills that go back hundreds and hundreds of years.
19:37So it's a team of four people that throw these sections.
19:44You can see the different sections.
19:46So tell us about this Jindagen.
20:01It sounds fantastical, really.
20:04It is very magical.
20:05There's nowhere else I know that has a whole city that has all these workshops doing these stunning pieces of work.
20:14You don't really paint on, you squash it on.
20:18You squash it on.
20:19But how many you squash it is important?
20:22In China, collaboration is the norm.
20:25Different processes will go from one workshop to another workshop.
20:30You know, there's a lot more flow between techniques.
20:33So talk a little about that collaborative process, because often we're thinking of potters as being these kind of solitary creatures.
20:47Like, how was that making that shift for you?
20:50Well, it wasn't easy.
20:52And it was finding a way to collaborate.
20:55I don't speak the language, so it was mainly through drawings.
20:59And when we opened the kiln and things had collapsed, both parties thought, this is it.
21:04We've had enough.
21:05But in fact, once we talked about, well, what is going wrong?
21:09How can we put it right?
21:11It's a bit crazy, like people climbing mountains.
21:14You know, you want to get to the top.
21:20Wow.
21:24Like climbing a mountain, working with porcelain on this scale
21:27is a test of patience, precision and perseverance.
21:32That was part of what the research was about, was to see how far we could push this material.
21:41And I knew I couldn't make them in England.
21:43I couldn't work on this scale.
21:45They don't have the technology.
21:47They don't have the clay, the porcelain.
21:50Well, yeah.
21:51So it takes us all the way back down to literally the soil and the earth beneath the feet.
21:56Yeah.
21:57The city wouldn't be there without the porcelain.
22:00Right.
22:01It is a magical material, this Jingdagen porcelain.
22:07Jingdagen's rich kaolin deposits have shaped the city's destiny for over a thousand years.
22:13And like my sin, these cities are intrinsically linked, defined by the earth beneath them, calling out to be crafted into the world's finest porcelain.
22:25When we talk about Jingdagen as the birthplace of porcelain, I mean, this is Jingdagen.
22:31You literally have brought a piece of that place.
22:34Yeah.
22:35Absolutely.
22:36It's the material, it's the skills, it looks back to the historical techniques in a new way.
22:44So it's very much Jingdagen.
22:49Felicity's work brings a fresh vision to a centuries old path, from east to west.
22:56One of the interesting things about porcelain is its versatility.
23:00And in a way, whatever you could create is only limited by the imagination.
23:09Bringing this craft into the future, Chinese-born contemporary artist Lin Wang shows how porcelain can still tell new stories,
23:17exploring progressive themes of identity, evolving our cultural exchange.
23:24I think the material itself already tell a lot of stories.
23:28Porcelain is one of the first globalisation items in the world.
23:35I feel I could borrow this piece of history by telling my personal story.
23:40Lin maintains studios in Jingdagen as well as here in Oslo.
23:48Her own life journey reflects the journey of porcelain itself.
23:51I mean, we've been following the journey of porcelain.
23:57Could you talk a little bit just about the material itself?
24:00It's obsession.
24:03Once you start to work with material, it's so hard to control.
24:08And it needs a lot of experience until you can make a sort of perfect one.
24:13Lin, would you talk us through some of the pieces that you've brought out for us today?
24:18This one is one of my favourite pieces.
24:21The title of this work is The Harbour Romance.
24:25They're the sailor tattoos.
24:27And I also feel that as an artist from another culture moved to a new country,
24:34I feel I'm like a sailor.
24:38I'm not belong to one identity anymore.
24:41And so what about this guy? I feel like he's trying to get in on the conversation.
24:45The artist and the material escape back and forward to encouraging each other,
24:58to shape each other, and to create magic of each other.
25:03And it's a journey to allow the material to become part of yourself.
25:15Lin's art has achieved international success at prestigious exhibitions,
25:19highlighted by her acclaimed solo show, The Silk Roads.
25:23This piece references the Silk Road trade routes,
25:47and features over 30 different cobalt blues from the connected regions,
25:52made up of over 22,000 individual porcelain pieces.
25:58Because all these blues are travelling and gathering from everywhere in the world,
26:05like this one is typical Somali blue.
26:09After hundreds and hundreds of years of trading between the West and the East,
26:13we already changed the social landscape of each other.
26:17There's no pure West, no pure East exists.
26:21You're already part of me. I'm already part of you.
26:25Could you have had a similar effect if you'd been working with just a standard earthenware or stoneware clay?
26:33No, only porcelain has its magic.
26:37And now I show you how fine the porcelain is all.
26:52Mmm, the magic ingredient.
26:54Yeah, the soul of the porcelain.
26:56I love that, the soul of the porcelain.
26:58Absolutely.
26:59Yeah.
27:00In the history of porcelain, they always reflect something about the time that they've been made,
27:06about how people live or lived and reflect the values of the times.
27:12There is a huge cultural exchange occurring through this material, skills, knowledge, know-how,
27:21which has been passed down from generation to generation.
27:24What is the importance of having this kind of physical connection between China and Europe?
27:34God, it's totally, increasingly important to have another sense of what the different countries can offer
27:41and how we can connect.
27:43I needed the expertise that China could offer to do this.
27:49So it is very much that bringing together of cultures.
27:55In every piece of porcelain, traces can be found, not only of China, but the world that it touched, shaped and inspired.
28:05It's a sort of Chinese dish with European patterns, Chinese patterns and Iranian patterns,
28:12not even fused anymore.
28:14Wow.
28:15A material and art form that continues to carry ideas, identities and conversations across cultures and time.
28:24I mean, this is a very different piece, right?
28:27It's a Colombian artist responding to social and political challenges.
28:32And through this, you can see how artists are continuing to find relevance in porcelain as a material,
28:38and material being the message.
28:42The porcelain is the most fragile material.
28:47Somehow, if you don't broke it, it's kept in memory stories forever.
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