外国人眼中的“中国白”| 1935年一位西方学者的瓷都见闻（一） - 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，当时真正来过德化的西方人并不多。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，古老的匣砵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。

Tehua had to wait until 1938 for a recorded visit from a Western scientific observer, Willard J.Sutton, an American chemist working at that time at the Fukien Christian University at Foochow. He had had to wait ten years until the district was free from bandits and the roads were built to make possible the 200-mile journey, and his interest seems to have been severely technical. Arrived in the vicinity of Tehua he found modellers at work on figures in the town itself, and shops for the disposal of the wares, but the kilns themselves were in the neighbouring villages. The clay was being dug out from pits and dateral shafts near the top of a 400 ft. hill about a mile and a half from the town, hauled to the streams and ground, watered, purified and purified again, all exactly as we have seen the process described in the Ch'iian-nan tsa-chih three centuries earlier, except that by now waterpower came to the workers' aid, in the form of mills working steel tipped hammers operated by eight-foot over-or under-shot water wheels, a variant of the rice mill used in China from time immemorable. After many hours of pounding the rock was stirred in water pits to separate the finer particles from the coarser, which was subjected to more grinding until, by repeated settling and drying a suitable plastic material was ready for the potters. This work was usually performed by local farmers, who received for a load of 120 lb.of pulverised rock a sum equivalent to sixpence. Raw material costs were evidently not a factor in the production of blanc de Chine in the twentieth century any more than they had been earlier.

直到1938年，德化才迎来一位西方科学观察员萨顿的来访。萨顿是一位美国化学家，当时在福建协和大学工作。他等了十年，直到该地区摆脱了匪患，并修建了道路，才能使他踏上200英里的旅程。他对此似乎有专门的兴趣。到德化附近，他发现城里有人在制作瓷雕，还有出售这些商品的商店，但窑址位于邻近的村庄。粘土从距离县城约1.5英里处400英尺高的山顶附近的壕沟和侧井中挖出。它们被运到河流中研磨、加水、净化和再次净化。整个过程与三个世纪前《泉南杂记》所描述的过程完全相同，只不过现在水力代替人工，采用由八英尺高的向上或向下冲式的水车驱动钢锤带动磨坊，它是由中国自古以来使用的碾米机改变而来。岩石在水坑中经过多小时的捣碎、搅拌，将细颗粒与粗颗粒分离开来，这些颗粒经过更多的研磨，直到通过反复沉淀和干燥，得到适合陶工使用的可塑性材料。这项工作通常由当地农民完成，每120磅的粉碎岩石获得相当于六便士的报酬。与早期相比，原材料成本显然对于20世纪的白瓷生产不是一个考虑因素。

[憨鼠责编：谷莹]