Black Pottery

Black pottery is closely connected with Changbai Mountains. Archaeologist were surprised to find, in Hunjiang (flowing from Changbai Mountain) basin which flows through Jiangyuan in 1986, black pottery wares belonging to Longshan culture once found in Shandong Peninsula These wares of 3000 years old are made with astonishingly wonderful craftsmanship. A black pottery industry insider said, “It is really unbelievable to find black pottery featuring Changbai Mountain culture in Jiangyuan and this makes up the vacancy of Changbai Mountain culture.”

After efforts over ten years, local people in Jiangyuan succeeded in mastering the key technique to enable the black pottery to be as black as black paint, crystal as mirror, hard as porcelain, flimsy as paper, and pleasantly-sounding as a chime stone, which helps to give the black pottery a sense of mystery, solemnity and simplicity. The black pottery in Jiangyuan is rather distinctive because its raw materials can only be found in the county. Smooth and clean surface, vivid patterns and clear veins make the item valuable to be kept. The black pottery is hand-made combining methods such as embossing, hollow-out engraving, painting engraving, grooving and forming flower with separate points. Jiangyuan’s black pottery take on shapes similar to those of paper cutting, wooden sculpture, embroidery and other folk arts. With these in place, local black pottery wares have an artistic style of harmonious look, multi-layer structure and orderly changes.