外国人眼中的“中国白”| 1935年一位西方学者的瓷都见闻（四） - 憨鼠网

（翻译：德化窑遗产文化研究院 孙延燕）

编者按：瓷器的工业化最早从中国开始，因此，对于早期的西方人来说，瓷器就是他们向往的诗和远方。

然而，当时真正来过中国的西方人并不多。1935年5月，西方学者萨顿（Willard James Sutton）到德化瓷厂参观，英国作家唐纳利撰写的《中国白—福建德化瓷》（《Blanc de Chine -Porcelain of Tehua in Fukien》）一书记录了他当时的见闻。

千年不断的窑火成就了德化这样一座特殊的城市，古老的匣钵及陶瓷碎片静静地述说时代的更迭。瓷都的时间似乎过得很快，发展日新月异；瓷都的时间似乎又过得很慢，古老的烧窑和陶瓷制作方式如今在此仍依稀可见，韵味隽永。

The lowest compartment is a small one with no seggars or steps, into which wood is thrown, to burn directly opposite the openings into the compartment above, which thus admit pre-heated air to pass over the flames from the wood on the lowest step and so on into the next and finally out of a flue in the topmost. To fill such a large kiln(Sung Pai-yin gives the capacity of one as 13,000 catties)requires about three months' production of whole families who sometimes own one section or part of one, a wealthy potter might own several. All share in the firing, the triggering compartment being started twenty-four hours before the main fires are lighted, one after the other, long narrow billets of timber being fed through small openings in the doors until the foreman judges the temperature right, the whole process taking a week. The wares nearest the flames tend to be overfired. A measurement made subsequently in a similar kiln in Min-tsing,about 50 miles north of Tehua, gave a reading of between 1410 and 1435°C (2570-2615°F).We are thus concerned with a high-fired glaze, rather higher than the average at Chingtechen, though still 100°C or so lower than the temperatures required for the more refractory paste of eighteenth-century European porcelain. The Chinese potters, of course, had no means of measuring kiln temperature and judged this mainly by the colour of the flames. That they succeeded so well in baking batch after batch of closely similar products is a tribute to the empiricism of the craftsman.

If colour was wanted the high-fired porcelain would be brought into Tehua for decorating, being afterwards placed in a small crude updraft muffle kiln about 7 ft.high. Wood is burned at openings near the floor, the flames passing upwards around a tile muffle containing the pieces and protecting them from the full heat of the furnace.

最底部的窑室没有匣钵或台阶，木材投入后直接对着通火口燃烧，然后进入上面的窑室。这样允许预热的空气通过最底层木头燃烧的火焰进入下一个窑室，最后从顶部烟道里排出。装满这么大的一条窑，需要一个家庭三个月左右的时间，按宋伯胤估计可以装一万三千斤。有时一个家庭拥有一段窑炉，或者一段中的一部分，一个富有的陶工可能拥有几段。

所有人都参与了烧窑，点火室在主体窑火点燃前24小时启用，然后一个接一个。狭长的木柴通过窑门的小孔投入，直到窑工获得理想的温度，整个过程需要一周时间。离火焰最近的器皿往往会燃烧过度。后来，在德化以北约50英里的闽清，对一个类似窑炉进行的测量显示，温度在1410至1435摄氏度(2570至2615华氏度)之间。