Porcelain Famous Quotes

As John Adams famously wrote during the American Revolution, “I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” So maybe today they’re writing apps rather than studying poetry, but that’s an adjustment for the age.

For this was Jingdezhen, porcelain capital of China, where the pottery made from local clay was shaped, painted, glazed, and fired in the town’s kilns—of which, if one counted even the smallest, there were more than nine thousand. The potters of Jingdezhen had been making porcelain since the Han dynasty, more than fifteen hundred years ago. There were many varieties, but the most famous was the blue and white.

The most famous room in the palace—for a time the most famous room in Russia—was the Empress’s mauve boudoir. Everything in it was mauve: curtains, carpet, pillows; even the furniture was mauve-and-white Hepplewhite. Masses of fresh white and purple lilacs, vases of roses and orchids and bowls of violets perfumed the air. Tables and shelves were cluttered with books, papers and porcelain and enamel knicknacks. In this room, Alexandra surrounded herself with mementoes of her family and her religion. The walls were covered with icons. Over her chaise-longue hung a picture of the Virgin Mary. A portrait of her mother, Princess Alice, looked down from another wall. On a table in a place of honor stood a large photograph of Queen Victoria. The only portrait in the room other than religious and family pictures was a portrait of Marie Antoinette.

Their father, seated near one end of the long table, smiles broadly. "Pass the vinegar, please!" His voice is so deep and loud that everyone turns to watch him. Holding a steaming dumpling in a large porcelain spoon, he drips a bit of sooty vinegar on top, greedy and focused. He picks up a sliver of ginger, using his chopsticks with the precision of a surgeon, and places it over the dumpling's puckered nipple. He raises the spoon to his mouth and takes a bite. "Hmm. It's good," he announces. "But I like my dumplings made with pork. Hot meat juice gushing into my mouth at the first bite. Hot, greasy, delicious pork juice!" Dagou's chest swells. "You know they're vegetarians here." "You prefer plain dumplings?" their father shoots back. Dagou doesn't answer. He and their father favor meat in all of their food. "I have nothing against 'plain food,'" their father says, addressing the community at large. "Winnie says it's sinful to eat living creatures, it amounts to killing, it's an act of violence, especially because the choice is an act of will, because we can decline to eat meat, because it's okay----and maybe even healthier, Winnie says----to eat only vegetables. She says people who stop eating meat have a long life, and people who eat only vegetables have the longest life. Yeah, yeah. But, Your Elderliness"----he nods at Gu Ling Zhu Chi----"I, Leo Chao, would rather be dead than stop eating pig. I will be ash and bone chunks in a little urn before I don't eat juicy pig.