Zhengzhou black pottery artisans inherits the Yellow River culture

Black pottery, born in China's Neolithic Age, is an ancient Chinese pottery making technique, which boasts as black as lacquer, sound as qing(an kind of ancient percussion instrument), thin as paper, bright as mirror and hard as porcelain.

Black pottery is an excellent kind of pottery after colored pottery of Yangshao Culture. Black pottery culture is the culture of the Yellow River Basin. The deep soil deposited in the Yellow River is delicate, sand-free, viscous and rich in various mineral elements, which creates a unique superior condition for the firing of black pottery.

photo/Dengfeng Release

A qualified piece of black pottery not only needs the red clay in the Yellow River valley as raw material, but also needs to go through more than 70 procedures, such as mud mixing, mud stepping, drawing, airing, carving and firing. Under the high temperature environment of 800-900 degrees Celsius, the black pottery product is made by the special method of smoking and carburizing method.

How is this ceramic product fired to be all black? Xu Daoxian, the inheritor of Zhengzhou black pottery firing technique, said that the firing process is absolutely natural.

He told reporters that black pottery has been around for thousands of years since the agrarian age. In the early days, black pottery products were mostly used as living vessels, but now they have evolved into works of art. Xu's black pottery skills, inherited from his great-grandfather, are now in their fourth generation. The production of black pottery reflects the unique charm of the Central Plains culture, which is reflected in the selection of mud.

With its profound historical deposits and rich humanistic connotation, black pottery constitutes the origin of Chinese culture. Known as "the art of earth and fire, the crystallization of power and beauty", the world is amazed at this ancient civilization.