【Eurasia Times, Jingdezhen／Reporter Wang Zilong】On the afternoon of October 19, overseas Chinese media publishers, editors-in-chief and influencer bloggers continued their in-depth visit to Jingdezhen, coming to understand the cultural lineage and the devotion to craft of the thousand-year porcelain capital amid fine ceramics of every dynasty and living handmade skills.

The group visits the China Ceramics Museum in Jingdezhen

The group first visited the China Ceramics Museum in Jingdezhen. It is the country’s first large museum devoted to ceramics, with a seven-story main building whose design weaves in porcelain-culture elements such as ice-crackle patterns and dragon kilns, and a collection of more than 50,000 cultural relics, over a thousand of them precious. The permanent exhibition follows a timeline, displaying Neolithic pottery, Song and Yuan qingbai porcelain, Ming and Qing official-kiln blue-and-white, doucai, and fine contemporary ceramic works, systematically tracing more than a thousand years of porcelain-making in Jingdezhen, and combining the functions of collecting relics, academic research and study-and-exchange.

The group takes a close look at the museum’s treasure, a Yuan-dynasty blue-and-white meiping vase with interlocking peony scrolls

Members of the group moved through the exhibition halls — from the rustic pottery of the Neolithic to the jade-like warmth of Song and Yuan qingbai, from the rich color of Ming and Qing official-kiln blue-and-white to the varied expressions of contemporary ceramics — pausing now and then to look closely and take photographs. Each piece of porcelain carrying the warmth of history let the media executives and influencer bloggers feel directly the continuity, innovation and inclusiveness of Jingdezhen’s ceramic culture. The group then went to Mingfang Garden in the Changnan New District. Set against hills and beside water, the garden gathers over a hundred master workshops, intangible-heritage studios and specialty ceramics galleries, showcasing fine porcelain of all kinds such as blue-and-white, linglong and colored-glaze wares, and is known as the “condensed porcelain capital.” As a base for the living transmission of intangible-heritage skills, Mingfang Garden combines viewing and study, hands-on experience and the purchase of fine pieces, a distinctive study space for immersing oneself in handmade porcelain art and feeling the craftsperson’s devotion.

The exhibition space inside the Guoci Pavilion

Entering the Guoci Pavilion, visitors are met by a spacious, bright exhibition space and a dazzling array of fine national porcelain. The pavilion has a floor area of 20,000 square meters, and the whole hall is skillfully designed, rigorously laid out and elegant in color, steady and grand. The porcelain for “state banquets and state gifts” on display is especially eye-catching — from the Tiananmen porcelain for the 60th National Day anniversary, “Guotai Min’an,” to the Great Hall of the People state-banquet porcelain “Yingtai Ruyi,” and the porcelain specially made for the 2014 Beijing APEC meeting, “Ruyi” — each set carries special historical significance and exquisite craftsmanship. Members of the group moved among the display cases, feeling up close the pulse of the times in which Jingdezhen ceramics innovate within tradition and develop through innovation.

“State banquet and state gift” porcelain on display at the Guoci Pavilion

Beyond the tour, members of the group tried porcelain making by hand at the Guoci Pavilion. Kneading clay, throwing on the wheel… under the guidance of professional instructors, everyone felt for themselves how clay turns and takes shape at the fingertips. After repeated attempts, many members remarked that only by touching clay with their own hands and experiencing the porcelain-making steps did they truly understand the craft wisdom and the spirit of craftsmanship behind Jingdezhen ceramics.

The group tries throwing on the wheel for themselves

Hong Xiaoya, head of new media at Macau Commercial Daily, admitted that before this trip she had always thought of Jingdezhen as a relatively traditional city. “After this visit I found it is very young and full of vitality, and it also draws young people from around the world to start businesses and develop here. It has kept iterating and innovating within tradition, from upgrades that better suit young people’s tastes to industrial upgrading through intelligent manufacturing and digital empowerment, making traditional craft fit modern life better.”