Tang tricolor pottery (Tang Sancai) is the type of artistic craft that provides a vivid glimpse of the cultural grandeur of the high Tang period. The brilliance of the colorful Sancai molds, utensils, human figurines, and animal-shaped devices shed light on the extravagance and affluence of Tang society, as well as illuminate the Tang-era attitude of embracing foreign cultures. Aside from the cultural implications, these crafts can also be appreciated simply for their remarkable level of artistry.

In terms of quality, quantity, and diversity, the pieces of Sancai pottery housed by the National Museum of History are highly regarded around the globe. Most of the pottery works in the museum have precise excavation data (from the Henan region, 1928). The academic value of the pottery has led many researchers both at home and abroad to take interest in them.

From May 2003 to February 2005, the National Museum of History and the Graduate Program of Computer Science and Information Engineering of National Taiwan University joined hands to undertake a digital project aimed at creating 3-D data for Chinese artifacts. The museum selected 27 representative pieces of Sancai pottery, which have been made into 3-D images and tagged with detailed explanations and historical tales. With its rich content, the project is expected to make a significant contribution to extension education. Not only can teachers and students benefit from its role as a supplementary teaching material, the project is also conducive to the lifelong learning of the general public. 

In addition, for the substantial younger audience, the museum has drawn up another scheme entitled the “Tang Sancai Adveture” (for children). By providing a stress-free environment for children to learn happily, the project aims to expose our younger generation to Chinese cultural artifacts at an early age in both an instructive and entertaining manner.  

 

 

What is Tang Sancai Pottery?

For a long time, the most common types of Tang pottery to be found were monochrome, celadon, white, and black porcelain. Because of the rarity of Sancai pottery at the time, the discovery of a large quantity of Sancai pottery in Beijing at the beginning of the ROC era caused quite a sensation. People were fascinated when they first encountered the polychrome Tang Sancai pottery, but initially, no one knew how to refer to it. In Chinese culture, the concept of “poly” or “multi” is represented by the numbers “three” and “five,” which led to the use of the current term “Tang Tricolor (Sancai) pottery.”

Tang Sancai pottery is fired at a low temperature, using minerals such as copper, iron and manganese as coloring agents. The process depends on lead as the principal flux in the glaze. The pottery undergoes a firing process that includes both bisque firing and glost firing. Because of the high proportion of lead in the Sancai glaze, the various coloring agents are apt to dissolve and spread in all directions during the firing process; the resulting effect of intermingling colors renders Sancai pottery highly lustrous.

The fundamental techniques used in creating Sancai pottery had already been developed as early as the Han dynasty. The “bicolor lead-glazed pottery” and the “bicolor color-glazed pottery” — works that possess high aesthetic and technical value and have only been recently excavated from the Han graves in the Jiyuan region — used primarily red and green lead glazes, which were intermingled harmoniously. Blending contrasting colors so artfully and vividly required sophisticated skills, and the bicolor glazing techniques not only display remarkable creativity but also laid a foundation for the later development of Tang Sancai pottery.1

 However, lead-glazed pottery wares and building materials made their debut even earlier in the West, dating back to the 4th and the 6th centuries B.C., when low-temperature tricolor wall paintings were produced in places such as Babylon and Shush.2

The technique of color glazing was introduced into China from the West. According to Masahiko Sato’s research, yellow-green glazed pottery dates back to as early as 3000 B.C. in ancient Egypt. Back then, most of the clay used to produced glazed pottery contained a large quantity of silicon, and the glaze itself wore off very easily. When color glazes were first introduced into China, Taoism was becoming popular. Since the Taoist Chinese were familiar with the attributes of lead, they incorporated lead into color glazes, thus eliminating the drawback of the Egyptian style glazes and forming a solid basis for Tang Sancai pottery.3

The earliest Tang Sancai works appeared during the reign of Emperor Gaozong, including a blue enameled tricolor lid excavated from Ren-tai Zheng’s tomb, which dates back to 664 A.D. (the first year of the Linde calendar) and a tricolor double plate unearthed from Feng Li’s tomb, which dates back to 675 A.D. (the second year of the Shuangyuan calendar). The best tricolor pottery was created during the reign of Emperor Gaozong (in the second half of the 7th century). Changan and Luoyang were the geographic centers of the area pottery was being created. These areas flourished during Emperor Xuanzong’s Kaiyuan reign and gradually diminished during the Tianbao era. Regional or late-Tang style Sancai pottery continued to be produced after the An-Shih Rebellion; however, the high Tang kind of Sancai pottery with resplendent and saturated colors no longer appeared after the rebellion.

 

Tang Sancai Pottery: Types, Decorative Techniques, and Purposes

Tang Sancai pottery — with exquisite, solemn celestial beings, tomb-guarding beasts, Chinese soldiers and scholars, a wide variety of other human figurines, and gorgeous tools and utensils that are meticulous models of horses, camels, and other animals — fully exhibit the extensive imaginations and aesthetic refinement of Tang craftsmen. The pottery that incorporates influences from China’s western regions have a particularly rich, exotic feel.

The decorative techniques of Sancai pottery are very diverse. Their impressive variety and delightful appearances springs primarily from the application of glazes and the use of pattern motifs. First, the varied designs of Sancai pottery are achieved by controlling the flow of lead glazes in the low-temperature kiln, which allows diverse colors to dissolve and mingle. Using color glazes to decorate and embellish pottery produces widely different effects than using pens or knives to paint or carve. Aside from this, there are other ways to embellish pottery: plain painting, lost-wax techniques, pigment dyeing, and mixed painting and carving. The patterns seen most frequently are humans, horses, phoenixes, parrots, mandarin ducks, flying geese, wild geese, fish roe, linzhi mushrooms, pearls, peony-like lotus flowers, almonds, honeysuckles with twining twigs, auspicious Baoxiang flowers, and so on.

Due to the application of the highly poisonous lead glaze, most early scholars argued that Sancai pottery served primarily as “mingqi,” that is, funeral wares for the dead. However, new evidence has proven otherwise. According to more recent archaeological findings and excavations, Sancai pottery served a wide variety of uses. More recent discoveries include; Luoyang city relics, residential relics, restaurant relics, temple relics, ancient sites of arts and crafts, storehouses in Yangzhou, port relics, and ancient reception centers for foreign envoys. Excavation sites beyond Chinese frontiers include sites in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Some relics featuring the polychrome Tang Sancai design have even been found on the eastern coast of Africa. Judging from this geographical dispersion, it is certain that Tang Sancai pottery, apart from serving as funerary wares, assumed various functions.

 

Reasons for the Decline of Tang Sancai Pottery 

The Gong Kiln in Henan province is generally accepted to be the largest Tan Sancai kiln. It was used for a relatively short period and reached its production peak between the reigns of Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Xuanzong in the high Tang period. The rise and fall of the kiln corresponds with the rise and decline of the Tang dynasty. The cult of Hu culture, coupled with the influence of the cultures of the Western Regions of China, as well as the Tang ideal of a “proper burial,” gave rise to the production of refined Sancai pottery. However, after the An-Shih Rebellion, the fast decline of aristocrats and bureaucrats led to the rise of the middle classes, new landlords and wealthy businessmen. Such profound social changes made people reflect on the idea of a proper burial, and simple burials gradually became more common. This transition led to a significant decrease in demand for elaborate funeral ware. On the other hand, the kinds of pottery, porcelain and lacquerware that catered to new public tastes became more popular, accelerating the decline of Tang Sancai pottery.

Aside from exerting a strong influence on Liao Sancai, Jin Sancai, Nara Sancai in Japan and Islamic Sancai in Persia, Tang Sancai pottery also laid a solid foundation for low-temperature glazed pottery in the Song dynasty. Even to this day, the patterns and styles of Sancai pottery wares are still widely used.

The National Museum of History houses a variety of Tang Sancai wares, which attract audiences with their gorgeous rounded forms. The museum also features an assortment of figurines, which are age-old witnesses to the ups and downs of the Tang dynasty. The museum has recently acquired a special ceramic piece that was given shape in the Tang dynasty — a tricolor human-faced tomb-guarding beast decorated with blue glaze — which, similar to other tomb-guarding spirits, served to protect the deceased owner with whom it had been buried. The work measures 127 centimeters in height and 59.5 cm in width; according to extant data, its dimensions may well exceed all other Sancai wares (normally, Tang Sancai tomb-guarding beasts were between 45-70 cm in height). The artwork possesses an admirably intricate form: a human face with a beast body, protruding eyes, angry brows, bare teeth, a beard, a moustache, sideburns, a ferocious countenance, sharp horns on the head and fan-shaped big ears, with the valuable cobalt blue glaze adding to its unique preciousness. Its ferocity, large size, quality, rarity and extravagant blue glaze make it even more impressive than other Tang Sancai pottery wares.

 

 

1. Chen, Ian-tang. “A Case study of Henan Artistic Pottery in the Tang Dynasty.” Essays on the Formation and Development of the East Asian Cultural Circle. Taipei: National Museum of History and National Taiwan University, 28 June 2002. 488-490.  

2. Cheng, Qui-ren. “Artistic Production in the high Tang Era.” Essays on the Formation and Development of the East Asian Cultural Circle. Taipei: National Museum of History and National Taiwan University, 28 June 2002. 164-166. 

3. Hsieh, Ming-liang. “Tang Sancai.” Hsiung Shih Art Monthly 92 (1978): 55.