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Chinese Ceramics: From the Paleolithic Period through the Qing Dynasty (The Culture & Civilization of China) ReviewThis volume is the latest in the Culture and Civilization of China Series - a collaboration between Yale University Press and Beijing Foreign Languages Press. For those who are familiar with this series it is quite free ranging in its subject matter, ranging from the classic "Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting" which has become a fixture of Chinese art courses, "Chinese Sculpture", "Chinese Calligraphy", "Chinese Architecture" and a couple of books on Chinese Philosophy. Most of these (excepting the books on philosophy) are all lavishly illustrated coffee table books and aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject matter that can be accessible to both the lay reader as well as the expert.
Indeed this book does not disappoint, and I believe that it ranks with the best in the series (with the bar set high by Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting.) It provides a series of strong introductory essays on the various dynastic periods, setting out the historical background and their representative styles in a multifaceted analysis - subject matter, composition, technical breakthroughs in glazing and firing methods. The essays on the Song and Qing Periods are especially good. After reading this one should have a good idea of the characteristics of ceramics of each period, what celadon and blue and white ware are and the characteristics of true porcelain.
This book also has the benefit of showing the best and most representative pieces without being confined to a particular collection, having compiled photos from the collections of the British Museum, the Musee Guimet in Paris, Museum of Asian Art in SF, the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul as well as many University Collections and the latest findings from many provincial museums in China. An additional improvement over Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting in that Li Zhiyan, as editor, has taken pains to maintain a continuity in the format of the essays throughout the books so they can be read separately or more rewardingly as a single narrative, and best of all the language is easy to understand without needing too much technical background or background in Chinese history.
Admittedly, there are several places that the book could have done better, during the early part of the book, when discussing neolithic pottery the lack of a compelling narrative makes it difficult to keep track of the various styles as one moves quickly from one settlement area to another. However, this may be one of the pitfalls of the archaeology of that period. I would also have liked additional diagrams / explanations of the sculpting / firing / glazing methods as these are usually described in long wordy explanations. In some chapters I felt there weren't enough photos (the text described various pieces that were not shown) given the unprecedented access available to the scholars, although I realize that at 608 pages the book is already a brick by artbook standards.
Although this book will not provide anything new for the dedicated collector / historian, it is by far the best single work in English yet available, and the quality of the photos are superb. It offers very good value for money as I have paid the same price for art books of around 200 pages or so and this runs to 600 pages of color photos and quite dense text. I wish had had this work when I was first starting to learn about ceramics!
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