The Power of Porcelain: Tang Ying’s Influence on Chinese Pottery

    In The Creative Spark, Agustin Fuentes notes how art has the powerful ability to tell the human story. Art can be so captivating that it tells you a story about both its creator and its history. Physical art that withstands time and performance arts that get passed through the generations inform others of the distinctly important historical and cultural periods that influenced these works.

    I turn now to an underappreciated art form, ceramics. Ceramics have been popular for centuries, most particularly in China, where porcelain became one of their biggest exports. The peak of Chinese ceramics is largely viewed as the Qianlong period, an era of the Qing dynasty from 1735 to 1796. This period is known not only for its immense quality of work but also for the impressive volume of works created for both imperial use and foreign trade.

    The most important ceramicist shaping this era’s creations was Tang Ying, whom the Qianlong Emperor named Superintendent of the Imperial porcelain works. Tang Ying created pieces with impressive precision, formulated new techniques, and helped solidify China as the premier porcelain producer. Every piece from this era and those subsequent have a touch of Tang Ying’s influence, and ceramics as a medium today is heavily influenced by his impact.

Tang Ying’s most important innovations include new colored glazes, specifically a stronger blue and purple shades:

 

New techniques like using black ink on pottery:

 

Methods of replicating textures found in nature, like marble, jade, and even wood:

 

And new and intricate styles and forms like this vase within a vase:

 

    Along with these innovations, Tang Ying also revived older forms and techniques used in previous centuries, aiming to tell the full story of Chinese history through his creations. His art tells the human story of centuries of Chinese ceramists in the past and into the future. Tang Ying’s work before and into the Qianlong period made Chinese ceramics some of the most coveted artworks of the West. His contributions ensured that the legacy of Chinese art would both flourish within the region as well as live on outside of China’s borders. Having just visited the Art Institute and taken a look through ceramics from around the world, I can say with confidence that everyone was inspired by Tang Ying, whether they knew it or not.