When shopping for ceramics, keep in mind that those sold in antiques markets around China are not genuine. They are replicas. That doesn’t mean you can’t find some nice pieces, just don’t believe that you are getting a genuine antique worth thousands of dollars even if that is what they are charging. Once at an antiques market in Nanjing, I was approached by two peasants who said they had some original ceramics unearthed in the countryside. I was skeptical but decided to take a look. I selected a small covered dish that had an inscription on the bottom indicating it was made during the Qianlong Emperor’s reign of the Qing Dynasty, which would make it more than a 200 years old. It was more expensive than what was selling in the market but was still fairly cheap. Of course it was not authentic but it was a pretty good replica. This is a common strategy near antiques markets. In reality, it is illegal to take anything out of China that is more than 100 years old, and anything that is truly antique will have a special seal and documentation to prove its authenticity.
A gently sloping tunnel-like brick and earth ‘dragon’ kiln, developed in China 3,000 years ago for firing pottery and ceramic ware.
An antique blue and white Chinese vase.
Traditional Chinese decorative porcelain vases and jars.
If you just want some Chinese calligraphy to display on your wall at home, a bookstore is a good place to shop. It will usually carry a wide range of styles and texts, sometimes mixed with a landscape. Remember that calligraphy is an art form and what is written is less important than the style and aesthetic of the work. Once you have decided which style of calligraphy you want, inspect the scroll. Look for a heavy, good quality silk and characters that look original, not photocopied. Black ink on white silk is typically of higher quality than colored paintings. The other option is to have a calligrapher do a scroll for you with your choice of wording, such as a favorite poem or an excerpt from the Confucian Analects of the Tao Te Ching.
Although I personally own calligraphy scrolls in many different styles, I tend to favor the Running Style because the characters are recognizable yet have a beautiful flowing character to them, much like well-written cursive. My second favorite style is the Li Style. Sometimes the style of the calligraphy for me is dictated by the text. For example, I have a line from the Confucian Analects which I had written in the Li Style, which would have been roughly contemporary to Confucius’s time.
LI OR OFFICIAL STYLE CALLIGRAPHY
LANDSCAPE PAINTING
Among a number of different types of Chinese painting themes and styles, landscape painting remains one of the most highly regarded and is certainly the most commonly seen in the West. Landscape painting evolved into an independent genre of Chinese painting in the last years of the 9th century as the Tang Dynasty disintegrated into chaos and cultivated Chinese intellectuals (painters and poets alike) attempted to escape society and withdraw into the natural world to commune with nature through their paintings and poems. The genre reached its epoch in the Northern Song Period (907–1127 CE), which became known as the ‘Great Age of Chinese Landscape’. As landscape painting evolved during the Song, it became more than just a description of nature and began to be an expression of the inner landscape of the artist’s heart and mind, how the artist perceived the world around him, commonly referred to as the ‘mind landscape’.
While Chinese landscape painting has been transformed over the centuries, images of nature have remained a potent source of inspiration. Early landscapes often depicted the Five Sacred Mountains and Four Great Rivers, places of imperial and religious significance, and they were often judged in terms of how well the subject matter served the gods, buddhas, sages and emperors. Depictions of wild nature, with waterfalls, towering peaks, rivers and trees and the occasional building or person were common, as well as more restrained depictions of well-ordered imperial gardens. Figures in landscape paintings were, and still are, often very small, and usually in one corner of the painting. This reflects Chinese attitudes about man’s relationship with nature, that of being part of nature but being overshadowed by the permanence of it. It was also common to annotate a landscape painting with a poem written in one of the standard calligraphy styles, often the Running Style.
Landscape paintings, as with other types of painting, were often done with a single brush and black ink. Although natural color pigments were used, black was the predominant choice among Chinese artists, rendered boldly or subtly.
Chinese landscape paintings can be viewed in museums in China, such as the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, the National Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum. The National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan, has an excellent rotating collection of Chinese landscape paintings. In the US, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Art Institute in Chicago all have large collections of Chinese art, as does the British Museum in London.
A LONG TRADITION OF CHINESE SILK
Silk, one of the oldest fibers known to man, is produced from silkworm cocoons, the best of which come from the larvae of the mulberry silkworm. A single silkworm can produce over 3,000 feet (900 m) of silk thread in its short 28-day lifespan. Silk was first produced in China as early as 3500 BCE. Archeologists have found intricately dyed and woven silk textiles dating back to the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BCE).
Although the lengthy, labor-intensive process of producing silk was kept a strictly guarded secret in China for 3,000 years, where silk was regarded as a luxury item and its use was strictly controlled, silk gradually spread, both geographically and socially, as Chinese traders ventured forth, taking with them their products and their culture. In the 2nd century, demand for the exotic fabric created the lucrative trade route now known as the Silk Road, which stretched 4,000 miles (6,400 km) from eastern China to India, Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa.
Silk has played a significant role in almost every aspect of Chinese society, politics, economics and culture, but nowhere more obviously than in clothing. Because silk is a wonderfully light, soft, lustrous and yet strong material, which also has a sensuous sheen but is not slippery (unlike many synthetic fibers), it has always been used primarily for clothing. It is cool in hot weather and warm in cool weather. Although it was initially reserved exclusively for the use of the emperor and his close relatives and highest dignitaries for making ankle-length robes, and as gifts for others, silk is now available to people all around the world, especially for fashioning into clothing for special occasions.
Silk was also used as a medium for painting and calligraphy and for weaving into fine rugs.
China remains the largest producer of silk in the world, producing more than two-thirds of all output. The raising of silkworms is still very much a cottage industry in rural households but silk production is largely automated, carried out in factories on high-end machinery.
Silk is still commonly worn in China for formal and celebratory occasions. Fabric shops have a wide selection of silk available in just about every type to suit all pockets—chiffon, crepe, jacquard, raw silk, shantung—and any color to suit all tastes, for tailoring into formal gowns, dresses, blouses, jackets, trousers and shirts. As in the US, silk is sold by the meter.
The slim-fitting traditional Chinese dress called the qipao or cheongsam, as the Cantonese call it, is a popular item for purchase while in China. These can be bought off the rack in a department store or can be custom-made by a tailor. Many fabric stores have in-house tailors who can make clothing to measure.