Luoyang is one of the most impor t ant bir thplaces of Chinese civilization.With a long history of more than 5,000 years,many dynasties have made it their capital.On the western side are the relics of the famous Yangshao Culture.The tombs of princes and marquises with a history of several thousand years can be found on the Mangshan Hill outside the city.Various temples,steles,stone grottoes,and city towers overlap one other,displaying the genius of the Chinese civilization.
In 1880,the Longhai Railway,an east-west transportation artery of China,reached Luoyang.When it reached Mangshan Hill,known for its tombs since the Tang Dynasty,numerous underground tombs were excavated.Of the large amounts of cultural relics unearthed from the tombs of the Tang Dynasty,color ful potter y was found,including horses,camels,and human figurines in different postures.Thus,the tricolor pottery,a long-lost ancient art,was rediscovered.
According to research,the ancient tricolor pottery was developed during the Han Dynasty(206BC–AD220)and it flourished in the Tang Dynasty(618–907).However,beginning from the late Tang period,the making of tricolor pottery gradually declined and eventually disappeared.It is not clear whether it was because the upper class at that time gradually gave up their luxurious lifestyle or if there was a lack of successors of the folk art.It became
a puzzle lost in history over the past millennium.
After more than a thousand years the colored pottery unearthed from the tombs suddenly appeared before the eyes of the modern people.Their varied colors had been retained even after having been buried for such a long time.The lifelike formations and exquisite and fine workmanship made people gasp with admiration.The colors of the terracotta figures and pottery consist mainly of red,green,and yellow.Luo Zhenyu(1866–1940)and Wang Guowei(1877–1927),noted scholars on ancient artifacts,named them“the tricolor pottery of the Tang Dynasty from Luoyang.”
After the tricolor pottery of the Tang Dynasty was unearthed,experts began to study its process,which was puzzling itself.At first,the peasants of Mangshan Hill could just repair the fragmented tricolor pottery.As their skills gradually improved,the craftsmen and artists began making copies.Around 1920,an artist in Luoyang,Gao Liangtian,became the first to successfully reproduce tricolor pottery of the Tang Dynasty and these skills became the Gao family secret.The most famous of the artists was Gao Songmao.He not only had a superb skill in making imitations,but also grasped the technique for imitating the works in pink and multi-colored pottery,and attained the level of“no difference compared with ancient articles and capable of passing imitations for the genuine.”
The tric olor pottery is a low-tem perature glazed pottery. Assimilating the characteristics of the workmanship of traditional Chinese painting and sculpture,it has adopted the decorative patterns in printing designs,piling,pasting,carving,and drawing,and has inspired a unique style with varied colors,robustness,and forcefulness.Making the pottery is extremely complex and involves more than 30 processes.The base is made of meticulously processed clay with such minerals as copper,iron,cobalt,manganese,and gold as the color pigments and an appropriate amount of attendant sediment and ashes from the smelting lead.In baking pottery,first,the bases should be baked in the kiln at 1,000–1,100°C,glazed and put in the kiln again,where they are heated to around 900°C.The overflow of the lead glaze spreads to all sides and the various colors mix and form natural,mottled colors.Then it is necessary to“clear their faces”of the figurines,meaning that since the heads are not glazed,the facial and hair features are painted on.
After a series of complex processes,a traditional artwork merging sculpture,painting and pottery is completed.
Apart from the diverse glaze colors,the shapes of the tricolor pottery of the Tang Dynasty in Luoyang are also very attractive and are generally divided into three categories:everyday utensils,human figures,and animals.Everyday utensils include water containers,drinking vessels,and food containers.Human figures include women,warriors,and musicians.Of the various models of the pottery,animals were the most numerous,including birds,lions,camels,horses and cattle,of which the horses are the most outstanding. An unearthed tricolor horse is on exhibition in the ancient tomb museum on Mangshan Hill,north of Luoyang.The horse looks sturdy and robust with elegant colors.The eyes brim with radiating vigor,reflecting the ancient charm of the great Tang Dynasty and are characterized with a carefree,calm manner and the heroic spirit of an open mind.
The Tang Dynasty pottery is r om antic in color,reflecting a natural,unaffected beauty.In form,the pottery is realistic,as the work comes almost always from life itself and is striking portrayals of life and customs.
However,such beautiful glazed pottery was used mainly as burial objects. The Tang Dynasty had a prosperous economy,strong national strength and the high officials and noble lords not only attached great importance to enjoyment in life but also after their deaths.The pottery was a necessity in the custom of burying large amounts of objects with the dead.Though this art had been lost for a long time,this custom has enabled its preservation,so that its elegant appearance could finally be seen and developed after more than a thousand years.
