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Wuyi Da DaoProvincial Museum: Pottery and Porcelain - Part II
The less well-known Changsha kiln, actually from Shizhouhu of Shutang village (Wangcheng county, Changsha city) has a long history of production, yet finding souvenirs in the area today is impossible. The Changsha kiln was one of the first to put decorations and calligraphic descriptions under the glaze - this trend is of course widely available today in a cheap and nasty form in every souvenir shop the length ad breadth of China. The first object in the exhibition is an extremely rare example of black Changsha pottery from the Tang Dynasty. The later three-colour Tang Changsha pottery remains stylish today. The lion poem porcelain pillow is also worth a few minutes.
The Liling Kiln, still the home of the Hunan Porcelain Company, has a rich, if somewhat short history at Weishan in Liling. The objects displayed are insufficient to show either the variety or the history of production there. Although perhaps too fussy for many, the incredible range of colours and the massive detail in many of the more recent Liling pieces is impressive.
It remains very sad that despite a new series of books on Chinese museums and Chinese cultural heritage, these books never, but never, reveal which art objects are in which museum. You may hunt for years to see the original art object in China! Another missed opportunity from China's generally hopeless cultural heritage publishing people, who seem to have no idea about why people would want a book on, say China's museums: the content of this book is mainly useless statistical information about the area, height and cost of museum buildings. Yawn. When will these people learn the first basics of communications?
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