The White Road, Edmund de Waal, c. 2015

The White Road: Journey Into An Obsession
Edmund de Waal
c. 2015

What is this thing of whiteness? -- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Prologue: Jingdezhen -- Venice -- Dublin

• the city of porcelain: Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province, the fabled Ur, where it all began
• author says he's been making white pots for 40+ years; porcelain for 25 years
• his plan is to visit three white hills where porcelain was invented: in China, Germany, and England
• he wants to see how "white" looks different in different places, different times
• author's porcelain comes from Limoges in the Limousin region of France
• author's studio: Tulse Hill, just off the South Circular road in South London
• porcelain has been made for 1,000 years; traded for 1,000 years. In Europe for 800 years
• porcelain is a synonym for far away
• Marco Polo. A city called Tinju. Porcelain. His was the first mention of porcelain in the west
• Latin, porcellani, or little pigs, is the nickname for cowrie shells... which feel as smooth as porcelain
• he was 17 years old when he touched porcelain clay for the first time. Author left school early
  to start a two-year apprenticeship with Geoffrey (in his sixties)
• the Gaignieres-Fonthill vase -- page 14; 14th century Chinese vase; now in the National Museum of Ireland, Decorative Arts and History
• saggar: the container of rough clay that protects porcelain from the smoke and flames of the kiln duri the firing
• mentions his last book, on netsuke
• a trembleuse, a chocolatier, a girandole -- page 17
• mentions Meissen, around the 1780s
• Schlagsahne, page 18, coating of cream
• mentions Moby-Dick, "so I know the dangers of white"

Part One

Jingdezhen

Chapter One: On Shards

• shards and saggars
• a mountain of shards
• one of hundreds of such hills in this area; not a major kiln site; unimportant and undocumented
• looks across a wide river that flows through the city on its way to the Yangtze

Chapter Two: Sorry

• bonfire: will make a pot, but it will crumble in one's hands
• 1,000 degrees Celsius: earthenware -- first kind of potter, but porous; with glaze, could hold water
• 1,200 degrees Celsius: stoneware -- ring when you tap them; not translucent; needs to be glazed, also
• > 1,300 degree Celsius: porcelain; far smoother; and there is no such thing as porcelain clay
• porcelain is made of two kinds of mineral
• first element: petunse, aka porcelain stone: provides translucency, hardness -- the body
• second element: kaolin or porcelain clay -- the bones; gives plasticity;
• petunse and kaolin fue at great heat to create a form of glass that is vitrified (one of the author's favorite words) -- at a molecular level the spaces are filled up with glass, making the vessel non-porous
• again, the analogy, flesh supported by bones; petunse supported by kaolin
• apparently Chinese petunse is not the answer; it requires Chinese kaolin; kaolin in England with Chinese petunse did not work, page 29
• different mixtures
• 50:50 petunse:kaolin -- hottest part of kilns; lower kaolin pots in cooler parts of the kiln
• it is possible to make porcelain with small amounts of other minerals added to the petunse, but at the end of the day, it appears it's all about Chinese petunse and Chinese kaolin
• easy to find petunse; have been mining it since the Sung dynasty
• best petunse: black markings
• kaolin: white; sprinkled with mica that glitters; harder to find; the best with blue-black seams and spot like grains of sugar; faint traces of quartz and mica would need to be washed out
• kaolin takes its name from "Koa-ling, or High Ridge
• known to outsiders since the 18th century
• petunse: "little white brick" in Chinese; shorter and fatter than European house brick; about 2 kg each

NOTE: Song dynasty, Wade-Giles romanization Sung, (960–1279), Chinese dynasty that ruled the country during one of its most brilliant cultural epochs. It is commonly divided into Bei (Northern) and Nan (Southern) Song periods, as the dynasty ruled only in South China after 1127.


Chapter Three: Mount Kao-ling

• kaolin mines
• Mount Kao-ling, the author's "First White Hill"
• less work required to cleanse than petunse
• both pounded with hammers; powder - watery slurry
• I believe the author is in the city of Jingdezhen -- on the river where the kaolin/putense/porcelain was shipped to the Yangtze
• 23 distinct categories to the creation of porcelain
• six categories of decorator
• three of specialist in packing kilns
• three each for firing kilns, mould-makers, carpenters for crates, basketmakers, ashmen for clearning away the residue after a kiln-firing, compounders for clay and grinders for oxides, experts in how to place pots inside saggars, others to place them inside a kiln, men to carry them out
• this is just the "visible" part of the army needed; many, many poor invisible people involved
• on page 38, it looks like there are errors in formatting -- misplaces the quotes and the indentation of of quotes from Pere d'Entrecolles
• yes, in the city of Jingdezhen -- on the river Huang, the tributary that runs into the Yangtze
• eager to learn how they use cobalt

Chapter Four: Making and Decorating and Glazing and Firing

The rest of the notes will be off-line.