Neolithic culture is a period that begins worldwide about 8000 bce and is defined by humanities move from hunter-gather culture to settled agriculture centered around small villages. Important innovations and technology of the time were stone tools and the regular manufacture and use of pottery. It is in fact through pots and fired ceramic objects that we have learned about many of these early cultures, because the ceramic is able to survive the decay of long years in a way that other crafts that were practiced by these early ancestors cannot.This illustration is a recreation of a neolithic community in Jiangzhai Village, Lintong China. The image was taken from this website below, where a discussion of the layout and functions of the buildings is discussed. Most interesting to this article is the area near the river, which was the locations of the potteries and kilns. This would have been a very important industry for the village and so was located within the walls of the town.
The area of this site, while outside of the Gansu province was from the neighboring province of Shaanxi and was a part of the Yangshoo culture which give us the Gansu Jars.This jar was found in the Jiangzhai Village and has many of the distinctive characteristics of the Banshan Yangshoo or Gansu Jars. Bulbous shape, small handles and free flowing dynamic brushwork are all characteristics of this work. In addition, these pots were light and well made, which is one of the reasons for the large number of these that have survived the many years since their creation (from the 4th to the 3rd millennium BCE) These were thought to have been built quickly with an eye for function. The majority of those that survive were used as burial jars.These beautiful forms were made by coiling and then paddling to refine the form, they were then scraped and burnished and painted with colored slips and fired in small updraft kilns.
“The forms of Chinese are are…in the widest and deepest sense harmonious…we can appreciate them because we too feel their rhythms all around us in nature, and instinctively respond to them” -Michael Sullivan 1967I dont dispute this quote, but I would go further, in that all art springs from that which came before, either in celebration or protest. Chinese culture is rare in that it traces its beginning, unbroken, to the Neolothic. There are many villages in China that still employ techniques for making pottery that were used during this early period and many of the forms produced clearly owe their origins to this formative period. Not only are these forms still relevant in China, but the pottery of China has been traded and treasured all over the world since the opening of the silk road. We respond to these forms and these designs because they are fundamental to the culture of the entire world, nearly every artistic tradition owes a debt to the pioneering potteries of Neolithic China.
Speight, Charlotte F., and John Toki. Hands in Clay. 5th ed. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield, 2004. Print.
Wood, Nigel. Chinese Glazes: Their Origins, Chemistry, and Recreation. London: & C Black ;, 1999. Print.
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