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Die weiße Straße
Ein Buch, drei Leidenschaften: Schreiben, Reisen, Porzellan – vom Autor des Bestsellers "Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen" Edmund de Waal.
Wie in seinem Bestseller „Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen“ beweist Edmund de Waal hier seine großartige Fähigkeit, Privates und Historisches ineinanderfließen zu lassen. Es war in Japan, als Edmund de Waal mit 17 das erste Mal Porzellanerde in die Hand bekam. Seither arbeitet er mit diesem Material, und er hat wunderbare Kunstwerke daraus geschaffen. Nun macht er sich auf Spurensuche nach dem Stoff, an dem sich über Jahrhunderte die Phantasie des Abendlandes entzündete. Sie führt ihn nach Deutschland, nach Frankreich und Amerika, ins heimatliche England und schließlich nach China, woher Marco Polo mit einer kleinen Vase einst angeblich das erste Porzellanobjekt überhaupt nach Europa gebracht hat.
Wie in seinem Bestseller „Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen“ beweist Edmund de Waal hier seine großartige Fähigkeit, Privates und Historisches ineinanderfließen zu lassen. Es war in Japan, als Edmund de Waal mit 17 das erste Mal Porzellanerde in die Hand bekam. Seither arbeitet er mit diesem Material, und er hat wunderbare Kunstwerke daraus geschaffen. Nun macht er sich auf Spurensuche nach dem Stoff, an dem sich über Jahrhunderte die Phantasie des Abendlandes entzündete. Sie führt ihn nach Deutschland, nach Frankreich und Amerika, ins heimatliche England und schließlich nach China, woher Marco Polo mit einer kleinen Vase einst angeblich das erste Porzellanobjekt überhaupt nach Europa gebracht hat.
462 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2015
303 people are currently reading
2470 people want to read
About the author
Edmund de Waal
53 books405 followersEdmund de Waal describes himself as a 'potter who writes'. His porcelain has been displayed in many museum collections around the world and he has recently made a huge installation for the dome of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Edmund was apprenticed as a potter, studied in Japan, and read English Literature at Cambridge University. 'The Hare with Amber Eyes', a journey through the history of a family in objects, is his most personal book.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/edmund...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/edmund...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 193 reviews
September 26, 2015
BOTW
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06bgbvzDescription: In The White Road, bestselling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold." A potter who has been working with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about, refined, collected and coveted--and that would help him understand the clay's mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three "white hills"--sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain's creation. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history.
Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft and purity. In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of "the spectrum of porcelain" and the mapping of desire.
1/5: Mount Kao-ling 2/5: Dresden and Tschirnhaus 3/5: Meissen and Bottger 4/5: Tregonning Hill 5/5: Allach3* The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
4* The White Road: Journey into an Obsession
November 24, 2015
As a ceramicist who has worked with clay for the past 25 years creating slender and delicate pots, all things white are an passion for de Waal. This book is a physical and spiritual journey to the places and origins of these materials that fuse together to create the translucent, ethereal material that is porcelain. His desire is to hold the raw materials in his own hands, to climb the hills where the white earth is dug from, to possess a pot made that place.
China was the place where porcelain was invented; the fusion of two materials kaolin and petuntse after purification, blending and firing at 1300 degrees brings forth this glass like substance. His pilgrimage starts in the city of Jingdezhen, centre of porcelain for 1000 years, but best known now for its helicopters. Modern China is an intense place, I know I have been there, and as he finds his way around the city avoiding road traffic, he realises that the city seems to built on broken pottery, stooping he picks up a 12th century shard laying on a spoil heap. All around the hillside are kilns, and the failed firings are just tossed away. This city produced thousand upon thousand of pieces of pottery for the Emperors, the final order being taken shortly after the turn of the nineteenth century. They are still making porcelain there, but not in the volume they used to, and he is there to source tiles for an exhibition too.
And so to Germany. A young alchemist called Böttger claims to have found the secret of changing other metals into gold. He couldn’t. Held in prison, he works alongside a mathematician called Tschirnhaus, and after many failures they manage to reveal the secret of making porcelain like the Chinese. Soon after producing this single white cup, Tschirnhaus dies. He wasn’t able to make gold, but the discovery of this white gold changes the fortunes of many in Europe. One inventory details a few hundred pieces of porcelain, the last time it was counted was over 35,000 items.
De Waal heads home to England, in pursuit of his final white hill. As the English potters scour the countryside in search of this white clay, necessitating a trip to the land of the Cherokee in America, the find the materials just down the road in Cornwall. Plymouth becomes the third place in the World to produce porcelain around 1000 years after the Chinese first achieved it.
This book is a blend of genres; part travelogue, part history book, semi auto-biographical and full of whimsy and occasionally random thoughts. There are accounts of his art installations and exhibitions, his first workshop on the Welsh border, his angsts of the creative process, the collectors and guardians of exquisite pieces of pottery and those that have made and lost fortunes with this white gold.
But much more than that, this is an account of his obsession with porcelain.
It sometimes feels like he has just transcribed his notes directly onto the manuscript prior to sending to the publisher, with little or no editing. Not everyone will like that style, but for me that is its allure. Like his artful pots, the writing is beautiful, quirky, flawed in parts and most importantly soars. Now he has written again, he has returned to the wheel and the white clay and is making again.
China was the place where porcelain was invented; the fusion of two materials kaolin and petuntse after purification, blending and firing at 1300 degrees brings forth this glass like substance. His pilgrimage starts in the city of Jingdezhen, centre of porcelain for 1000 years, but best known now for its helicopters. Modern China is an intense place, I know I have been there, and as he finds his way around the city avoiding road traffic, he realises that the city seems to built on broken pottery, stooping he picks up a 12th century shard laying on a spoil heap. All around the hillside are kilns, and the failed firings are just tossed away. This city produced thousand upon thousand of pieces of pottery for the Emperors, the final order being taken shortly after the turn of the nineteenth century. They are still making porcelain there, but not in the volume they used to, and he is there to source tiles for an exhibition too.
And so to Germany. A young alchemist called Böttger claims to have found the secret of changing other metals into gold. He couldn’t. Held in prison, he works alongside a mathematician called Tschirnhaus, and after many failures they manage to reveal the secret of making porcelain like the Chinese. Soon after producing this single white cup, Tschirnhaus dies. He wasn’t able to make gold, but the discovery of this white gold changes the fortunes of many in Europe. One inventory details a few hundred pieces of porcelain, the last time it was counted was over 35,000 items.
De Waal heads home to England, in pursuit of his final white hill. As the English potters scour the countryside in search of this white clay, necessitating a trip to the land of the Cherokee in America, the find the materials just down the road in Cornwall. Plymouth becomes the third place in the World to produce porcelain around 1000 years after the Chinese first achieved it.
This book is a blend of genres; part travelogue, part history book, semi auto-biographical and full of whimsy and occasionally random thoughts. There are accounts of his art installations and exhibitions, his first workshop on the Welsh border, his angsts of the creative process, the collectors and guardians of exquisite pieces of pottery and those that have made and lost fortunes with this white gold.
But much more than that, this is an account of his obsession with porcelain.
It sometimes feels like he has just transcribed his notes directly onto the manuscript prior to sending to the publisher, with little or no editing. Not everyone will like that style, but for me that is its allure. Like his artful pots, the writing is beautiful, quirky, flawed in parts and most importantly soars. Now he has written again, he has returned to the wheel and the white clay and is making again.
December 5, 2021
As the Financial Times reviewer quoted on the back cover put it, this is "an intensely personal history of porcelain." You need to be up for the meandering--it's as much memoir as history--but the pieces eventually do cohere.
The author begins with definitions: earthenware, the first kind of pottery, fired above 1,000 degrees Celsius; stoneware, fired around 1,200 degrees Celsius; and porcelain, made from a combination of petunse, a kind of stone that gives translucency and hardness, and kaolin, a kind of clay that gives plasticity, and when fired together above 1,300 degrees Celsius, "fuse...to create a form of glass that is vitrified: at a molecular level the spaces are filled up with glass, making the vessel non-porous." (p.29)
He takes us from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, the porcelain capital of China for more than a thousand years, to Dresden, where the first porcelain factory in the West was established in 1708, to Plymouth, where William Cookworthy fired "the first piece of true porcelain ever made in England" (p.281), and finally to Dachau, where the SS moved the Allach porcelain factory at the end of 1940, so that prisoners could take over the work.
Throughout, people become obsessed with porcelain. One example: Augustus II (1694-1733), King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, etc., who by his own confession had la maladie de porcelaine, die Porzellankrankheit, and by the time he died owned 35,798 pieces of porcelain, including Chinese blue-and-white wares and Japanese Kakiemon. (pp.151-52)
As de Waal concludes:
The author begins with definitions: earthenware, the first kind of pottery, fired above 1,000 degrees Celsius; stoneware, fired around 1,200 degrees Celsius; and porcelain, made from a combination of petunse, a kind of stone that gives translucency and hardness, and kaolin, a kind of clay that gives plasticity, and when fired together above 1,300 degrees Celsius, "fuse...to create a form of glass that is vitrified: at a molecular level the spaces are filled up with glass, making the vessel non-porous." (p.29)
He takes us from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, the porcelain capital of China for more than a thousand years, to Dresden, where the first porcelain factory in the West was established in 1708, to Plymouth, where William Cookworthy fired "the first piece of true porcelain ever made in England" (p.281), and finally to Dachau, where the SS moved the Allach porcelain factory at the end of 1940, so that prisoners could take over the work.
Throughout, people become obsessed with porcelain. One example: Augustus II (1694-1733), King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, etc., who by his own confession had la maladie de porcelaine, die Porzellankrankheit, and by the time he died owned 35,798 pieces of porcelain, including Chinese blue-and-white wares and Japanese Kakiemon. (pp.151-52)
As de Waal concludes:
This white porcelain has cost.Haunting--I'm sure I'll never look at a piece of porcelain in the same way again.
Obsession costs. Porcelain is a success. Porcelain consumes hills, the wood on the hills, it silts the rivers and clogs the harbours, enters the deltas of your lungs.
I remember my years in the workshop, sweeping. And if it costs me, that is one thing. But it is the cost to others, to all those children in the factories in Staffordshire and Jingdezhen, to the men standing by the burning lenses in the cellars with Tschirnhaus...and the modeler of the figures killed on the electric fence in Dachau.
February 7, 2017
His bestseller The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss is an all-time favourite of mine and I gave it five stars without hesitation. When I learned that he'd written a new book, this time about porcelain, I bought it immediately. And I've tried and tried and tried to like it, to get through it! But at page 278 I gave up :-(
What's wrong with this one? It's not the porcelain as a subject - I find it fascinating. But the build-up of the book doesn't work for me and where in The Hare, his incredibly beautiful and poignant language floored me with admiration, in this one it annoys me because it seems so forced.
I'm sorry Mr. De Waal, but I do hope you write another book some time. I will buy it, hoping hoping hoping that it's another Hare.
If any of my friends want to give it a shot, you can collect it here in Copenhagen V. Untrue to form I have it as a hardcover book.
What's wrong with this one? It's not the porcelain as a subject - I find it fascinating. But the build-up of the book doesn't work for me and where in The Hare, his incredibly beautiful and poignant language floored me with admiration, in this one it annoys me because it seems so forced.
I'm sorry Mr. De Waal, but I do hope you write another book some time. I will buy it, hoping hoping hoping that it's another Hare.
If any of my friends want to give it a shot, you can collect it here in Copenhagen V. Untrue to form I have it as a hardcover book.
June 1, 2021
Ik houd erg van keramiek en porselein, en ik houd vooral van de poëtische stijl van Edmund de Waal. Het gaat over zoveel meer dan de geschiedenis van porselein.
I remember a moment at fourteen, fifteen, when the desire for anything to make sense was so strong that making pots was irresistible. It was the feeling that something was being handed on in those long hours in the workshop, something that had come down from one potter to another across centuries, which had the feeling of being part of an elect. What was being promised to me? A path, a vocation, a discipleship. I remember starting work in the pottery workshop.
And if you tell stories you have to keep your promises.
I remember a moment at fourteen, fifteen, when the desire for anything to make sense was so strong that making pots was irresistible. It was the feeling that something was being handed on in those long hours in the workshop, something that had come down from one potter to another across centuries, which had the feeling of being part of an elect. What was being promised to me? A path, a vocation, a discipleship. I remember starting work in the pottery workshop.
And if you tell stories you have to keep your promises.
September 6, 2021
Im ersten Teil des Werkes beschreibt de Waal eine faszinierende Reise nach Jingdeshen und in die Geschichte des chinesischen Porzellan. Im Zweiten gibt er die Wiederentdeckung des Porzellans auf eine generische Art und Weise wieder, die man auch in jedem anderen Werk nachlesen kann. Im dritten Teil widmet er sich dann dem englischen und amerikanischen Porzellan zu, was eher langweilig ist. Zum Glück ist Edmund de Wall ein großartiger Abschweifer und die Abscheifungen prägen dann auch den vierten Teil, in dem er neue Fäden öffnet und keine mehr zusammenführt. Hier gewinnt das Werk die Qualität, die ich beim Hasen mit den Bernsteinaugen sehr genossen haben und die an W.G. Sebald erinnert.
March 25, 2022
I am so glad I chanced upon this one. In the beginning it felt overwritten, but I eased into the rhythm of the book, and started to enjoy beng carried by it; and in the end, when I expected it to slowly fizzle out, the author packs a punch, telling the story of the Allach porcelain manufacture in Dachau in chapters 50-62 (you can read the story here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201... ). What a paradox. And also so easy to imagine, if you know how the Nazis managed their camps.
December 3, 2016
Edmund de Waal takes you on an investigative journey in search of the mysteries of discovery and history of porcelain. As the title intimates it is indeed a journey of an obsession. While his time traveling in search of the villages and descendants of the potters of the past and glory days of Chinese porcelain creating, I find that de Waal's descriptions were too detailed and intricate for any reader not as engaged with the subject matter as he was. In addition to his travels in China he spends time with the porcelain production in Germany and England. And along the way he discovers more about the wider conext of history than anticipated.
October 14, 2015
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Author of The Hare With Amber Eyes potter Edmund de Waal's new book on the history of porcelain.
On a personal pilgrimage to the countries and people who make porcelain, the author's first stop is China and Jingdezhen, the city of porcelain.
Episode 2/5: The author travels back in in time to Dresden and explores the dramatic events which led to the creation of European porcelain.
Episode 3/5: Imprisoned in Meissen castle, young alchemist, Johann Freidrich Bottger, is about to unlock the secrets of porcelain creation.
Episode 4/5: The author's pilgrimage to the lands and people who make porcelain takes him to Cornwall where he explores William Cookworthy's contribution to porcelain's history.
Episode 5/5: The author's pilgrimage to the lands and people who make porcelain takes him to Dachau where he uncovers the dark history of Allach porcelain.
Read by Julian Rhind-Tutt
Abridged by Jules Wilkinson
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06bgbvz
Author of The Hare With Amber Eyes potter Edmund de Waal's new book on the history of porcelain.
On a personal pilgrimage to the countries and people who make porcelain, the author's first stop is China and Jingdezhen, the city of porcelain.
Episode 2/5: The author travels back in in time to Dresden and explores the dramatic events which led to the creation of European porcelain.
Episode 3/5: Imprisoned in Meissen castle, young alchemist, Johann Freidrich Bottger, is about to unlock the secrets of porcelain creation.
Episode 4/5: The author's pilgrimage to the lands and people who make porcelain takes him to Cornwall where he explores William Cookworthy's contribution to porcelain's history.
Episode 5/5: The author's pilgrimage to the lands and people who make porcelain takes him to Dachau where he uncovers the dark history of Allach porcelain.
Read by Julian Rhind-Tutt
Abridged by Jules Wilkinson
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06bgbvz
November 30, 2015
This is a really unique book. When you first start reading it, you think it is just about porcelain (this is of a lot of interest to me, as both of my parents used to be potters), but, once you start reading the book, it turns into so much more: history, a bit of a mystery, and more. It deal with a lot of issues, and I like how the book blends several genres into one. Well-written, interesting to read, and kept me turning the pages, wanting to know more.
March 16, 2024
Maandboek Maart-April Boekenwurm
Vooropgesteld: ik ben chemicus, pottenbakker en bovenmatig geïnteresseerd in dingen maken en in China. Ik vond het een fantastisch boek! De alchemie, de zoektocht, de experimenten en de geschiedenis van China/Mao/culturele revolutie, prachtig!
Twee zinnen blijven me bij:
- er is geen rechte weg naar het vinden van jezelf, naar het maken van iets
- wit is een manier om opnieuw te beginnen
Maar is dit boek voor iedereen? Ik denk het niet, ik zou het niet gauw aanraden aan anderen.
Vanwege de opsommingen en het niet de hele tijd ‘gepakt’ door het verhaal: 4/5 sterren
Vooropgesteld: ik ben chemicus, pottenbakker en bovenmatig geïnteresseerd in dingen maken en in China. Ik vond het een fantastisch boek! De alchemie, de zoektocht, de experimenten en de geschiedenis van China/Mao/culturele revolutie, prachtig!
Twee zinnen blijven me bij:
- er is geen rechte weg naar het vinden van jezelf, naar het maken van iets
- wit is een manier om opnieuw te beginnen
Maar is dit boek voor iedereen? Ik denk het niet, ik zou het niet gauw aanraden aan anderen.
Vanwege de opsommingen en het niet de hele tijd ‘gepakt’ door het verhaal: 4/5 sterren
May 7, 2024
Edmund de waal een fantastische man, met jaloersmakende beroepen, schrijver en keramist. Prachtig geschreven. Langzaam in opbouw, maar dat hoort geloof ik bij handwerk.
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August 5, 2021I recently read de Waal's The Hare with the Amber Eyes and thought it extraordinary. And then I moved onto The White Road. A very different book but it shares the hallmarks of Hare in terms of the detail and research, the personality and the personal, set within history, with erudite knowledge and how those histories and those knowledges connect. It's extraordinary in its own way. Here we see de Waal as potter and ceramicist, more up close, his own necessary obsession with porcelain, as he journeys to three places, "three white hills," where porcelain was invented, or reinvented, in Jingdezhen, China, Dresden, Germany, and Cornwall, England. This is a shaggier book, a quest and journey that expands, to the American Southwest and what was once the Cherokee nation, to Dresden during the Holocaust when the prisoners in Dachau were sent to work in the porcelain factory making SS porcelain figures; it is a biography, a bit of autobiography (we learn about de Waal as a potter apprentice, his first pots, his first failed exhibition, his studios, growing into the renowned potter he's become, some of his exhibits, etc (and I'd love to read a book by him about his journey)) - art history as filtered through a history of times, places, searches and desires for porcelain, and a travelogue. For centuries, only the Chinese knew how to make porcelain, discovering that it requires two minerals to be mixed: petuntse, which means little white brick, and kaolin that is soft and imparts plasticity. Both are white, need to be mined, purified, mixed in the correct proportions, and intense heat is needed to fuse the two. Kilns, glazes, and more. De Waal chronicles his journey to these places, and the obsessions he and others have with porcelain: in 14th century China, the Yongle emperor coveted porcelain of the purest white; in 17th century France, Louis XVI built the Trianon de Porcelaine, filled with Delft imitations until a porcelain industry began in Rouen, Saint-Cloud, and Limoges; in early 18th century Germany, Tschirnhaus, a philosopher, mathematician, and observer of how things change from one form to another, pursues his obsession with porcelain in Dresden's Goldhaus, a laboratory for natural philosophers and alchemists, where he meets a young man, a supposed alchemist who was believed to be able to create gold, imprisoned by the German emperor and saved in a way by Tschirnhaus; in Cornwall, the Quaker William Cookworthy and the enterprising Josiah Wedgewood perfect porcelain manufacture there, although one will fail and the other succeed, business dealings, patents, and more. He explores the demands of emperors and kings centuries before the porcelain works at Dachau - Himmler was in charge of those works, craved the stuff, Hitler loved porcelain too and gave special editions to favored underlings, at Christmas, Nazis gave each other porcelain figurines. The structure of the book is interesting as well - divided into these journeys to the white hills, and despite its length, it's mostly written in short paragraphs, with white space, delivered mostly in the present tense which has the breezy effect of bringing close long-ago times. I enjoyed my time being immersed in this obsession, and now when I reach for my white porcelain plates and coffee mugs, etc, I don't see them the same way at all.
June 13, 2022
Colossal obliviousness from this white man to produce a 400 page book obsessing after whiteness without acknowledging the bleeding obvious.
Nearly thought he was about to when mentioning the SS asking for the paint to be removed from the porcelain figurines to restore them to pure whiteness. Clearly not a man of great intellect or introspection.
Nearly thought he was about to when mentioning the SS asking for the paint to be removed from the porcelain figurines to restore them to pure whiteness. Clearly not a man of great intellect or introspection.
December 21, 2018
not to say that I didn’t enjoy this book or find it illuminating, but this guy’s ego is.... whoa. like shut the fuck up sometimes. best part by far is the section on alchemy (part two) and may be worth reading for this section alone
September 28, 2020
This was a bit of a struggle to get through; a few of our fellow book club attendees agreed. It is a combination of the history of porcelain (key cities + important characters, throughout time) and the author's personal experience traveling to each place, researching, and sharing his experience as a potter.
p. 69:
"As a teenager I pinned a postcard above the wheel in the studio. It was of a celadon tea bowl with a crackle as fine as a skeletal leaf. And I tried to make it again and again, hoping for the moment when it would come to life and cranes would fly out of it."
p. 200:
"In the beautiful phrase of the American philosopher John Dewey, describing art as process is like the flight and perching of a bird. You are in it. Then you pause and see what it is. And then back to absorption, the flight of music."
p. 205:
"You can gain the shape of an idea by losing its particulars."
p. 69:
"As a teenager I pinned a postcard above the wheel in the studio. It was of a celadon tea bowl with a crackle as fine as a skeletal leaf. And I tried to make it again and again, hoping for the moment when it would come to life and cranes would fly out of it."
p. 200:
"In the beautiful phrase of the American philosopher John Dewey, describing art as process is like the flight and perching of a bird. You are in it. Then you pause and see what it is. And then back to absorption, the flight of music."
p. 205:
"You can gain the shape of an idea by losing its particulars."
January 26, 2018
After reading De Waal’s The Hare with the Amber Eyes I was intrigued to read this book on porcelain. I know he is a potter, I’ve looked up his work. It’s good, very plain, but very beautiful too.
This book is about the history of porcelain, where it comes from and why white is so attractive to us. For the most part it’s quite an interesting read. But there are parts that can get a bit boring. Unless you are a massive porcelain/pottery fan, I think most people would find it hard going.
I really enjoyed the stories about the inventors of English porcelain. I have also learnt that porcelain is made up of kaolin and petunse. Whether I will ever use this knowledge, who knows!
This book is about the history of porcelain, where it comes from and why white is so attractive to us. For the most part it’s quite an interesting read. But there are parts that can get a bit boring. Unless you are a massive porcelain/pottery fan, I think most people would find it hard going.
I really enjoyed the stories about the inventors of English porcelain. I have also learnt that porcelain is made up of kaolin and petunse. Whether I will ever use this knowledge, who knows!
December 14, 2020
Lovely, obsessive, amazing journey. I loved de Waal's authorial voice, I loved surrendering with him to the feel of the white clay, the purity of the material informing the purity of the journey. Gorgeous.
November 23, 2020
3.5 Momentami mocno liryczna, przez co czasem chaotyczna, co w książce (niejako) o historii może stanowić problem. Zdecydowanie cenne oba wątki "niemieckie": Miśnia i Allach.
April 2, 2016
I am, like the author, a massive fan of porcelain. I too ask the question 'who could not be obsessed with porcelain', apart from James Joyce (apparently) and 'most people' that is. I believe, of course, that people just haven't yet had the chance to learn, as I have, what the mystery of white is all about. Which is why I take the chance to lift plates to the light, in private or public, to remind myself of the art and science that makes a plate. Nature's detritus, transmuted into treasure, a kind of white gold.
It's usually a good sign that I am reading a book I will love when I am ready to begin writing after the prologue. In truth, I could have started my own dedication to porcelain after reading the back cover. Like the author, I have become fascinated by porcelain by making it, although my approach, through geology, and my longevity in the field, a few years, differ. But I'm hooked. (It is possible to begin a review after a chapter or so of a bad book, but that is not likely in this case.)
China, the original materials and porcelain, the dignity of copying, a world somehow the same as it has always been despite the rolling revolutions that have gone on around it. Decadent Dresden, alchemy and order (more inventories but complete ones perhaps?), the copying going westward rather than the modern eastward trend. Plymouth and the birth of English porcelain, Puritanism, patents and competition with wedgwood's pottery - the unfortunate story of innovative perseverance left unrewarded. Tennessee and Cherokee Indians clay and finally, the saving art of porcelain in concentration camps.
I found this book lost its zing as it went on. I did accelerate my reading as I grew more interested, and the writing probably requires more patience than I gave it. It's hard to read the story as it leads to the big exhibition and not have the chance to see it - even the pictures of it in the book are limited, although the effect is no doubt only captured by the live scene. I was expecting that more of the secrets of bone china and pottery stone might have been revealed, but I'm glad they weren't - some secrets of my own to enjoy and perhaps write about myself.
It's usually a good sign that I am reading a book I will love when I am ready to begin writing after the prologue. In truth, I could have started my own dedication to porcelain after reading the back cover. Like the author, I have become fascinated by porcelain by making it, although my approach, through geology, and my longevity in the field, a few years, differ. But I'm hooked. (It is possible to begin a review after a chapter or so of a bad book, but that is not likely in this case.)
China, the original materials and porcelain, the dignity of copying, a world somehow the same as it has always been despite the rolling revolutions that have gone on around it. Decadent Dresden, alchemy and order (more inventories but complete ones perhaps?), the copying going westward rather than the modern eastward trend. Plymouth and the birth of English porcelain, Puritanism, patents and competition with wedgwood's pottery - the unfortunate story of innovative perseverance left unrewarded. Tennessee and Cherokee Indians clay and finally, the saving art of porcelain in concentration camps.
I found this book lost its zing as it went on. I did accelerate my reading as I grew more interested, and the writing probably requires more patience than I gave it. It's hard to read the story as it leads to the big exhibition and not have the chance to see it - even the pictures of it in the book are limited, although the effect is no doubt only captured by the live scene. I was expecting that more of the secrets of bone china and pottery stone might have been revealed, but I'm glad they weren't - some secrets of my own to enjoy and perhaps write about myself.
February 6, 2016
Edmund de Waal made his literary mark with The Hare with Amber Eyes (2009), a very readable narrative of his family history set in Paris and Vienna, taking the family netsuke collection as its anchor. Having enjoyed the earlier book, I approached this one with high expectations.
However, The White Road is quite a different beast. It is incredibly diffuse, both thematically and in its prose. Without the very specific anchor of the netsuke, de Waal seems to drift from one alluring topic to the next, without offering much in the way of structure or argument. He covers Jingdezhen. Meissen. Wedgwood. Dachau. He visits everywhere that he writes about. He writes everything up in a somewhat breathless present tense, even the historical parts.
In the background, he tells the story of his own career as a potter. Again, the telling is kind of piecemeal, but I found this material fascinating – the journey from his earliest work (nobody would buy it) to his bespoke installations for museums around the world. The copy I bought in the UK was called The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts, whereas the US edition has the slightly scary title The White Road: Journey into an Obsession. In fact, I think the US edition has the better title, because it acknowledges that this book is more than a porcelain travelogue, it’s very much his autobiographical journey too.
Definitely recommended, but be prepared for something long, rambling and idiosyncratic in style, more like a script for a film documentary than an art history book.
Review first posted at http://asianartbrief.com
However, The White Road is quite a different beast. It is incredibly diffuse, both thematically and in its prose. Without the very specific anchor of the netsuke, de Waal seems to drift from one alluring topic to the next, without offering much in the way of structure or argument. He covers Jingdezhen. Meissen. Wedgwood. Dachau. He visits everywhere that he writes about. He writes everything up in a somewhat breathless present tense, even the historical parts.
In the background, he tells the story of his own career as a potter. Again, the telling is kind of piecemeal, but I found this material fascinating – the journey from his earliest work (nobody would buy it) to his bespoke installations for museums around the world. The copy I bought in the UK was called The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts, whereas the US edition has the slightly scary title The White Road: Journey into an Obsession. In fact, I think the US edition has the better title, because it acknowledges that this book is more than a porcelain travelogue, it’s very much his autobiographical journey too.
Definitely recommended, but be prepared for something long, rambling and idiosyncratic in style, more like a script for a film documentary than an art history book.
Review first posted at http://asianartbrief.com
January 22, 2016
When I plucked this lovely looking book* from the shelf in the bookshop I assumed, for no accountable reason, that it was a novel. I realised my mistake as soon as I started reading, but within a couple of paragraphs I was completely hooked. Who could possibly imagine the history of porcelain to be so interesting? A marvellous book, full of historical information and fascinating anecdotes. De Waal's enthusiasm and passion for his subject is undeniably infectious, despite the fact that reading this book is as close as I'll ever come to throwing a pot of any kind!
* hardback, well bound, good quality paper, excellent typeface, nice bookmark - all these add multiple bonus points for reading pleasure.
* hardback, well bound, good quality paper, excellent typeface, nice bookmark - all these add multiple bonus points for reading pleasure.
March 29, 2016
Patchy. At its best engages history and reflections on the making of porcelain well. At its worse degenerates to disconnected dot points. Surprisingly the British history is the least well written aspect of the book. Needed lots more illustrations. Those used were not especially apt.
October 17, 2015
Abridge audio from BBC radio.
Quite interesting but far too brief when abridge. Bottiger sounds like an interesting person that I would love to read more about.
Quite interesting but far too brief when abridge. Bottiger sounds like an interesting person that I would love to read more about.
December 30, 2018
A most interesting whip round the history of porcelain making.
September 19, 2017
If you share de Waal's obsession with porcelain, you will be fascinated. I do; I am. Plain pottery is perfectly serviceable, you can drink your tea out of it just fine. The plates hold dinner just fine. So why this centuries-long pursuit of a plate you can hold up to the light and see the shadow of your hand through it, that you can tap smartly with a pencil and it rings like a crystal bell...Some of the stories are well known, like the mad scientist and the wacky apothecary assistant virtually imprisoned for years in Dresden until they could duplicate the purity of Chinese porcelain. De Waal goes through the meticulous German archives recording all the minutia surrounding this discovery. Meissen still commands astronomical prices. While planning exhibitions of his own work, and finishing his "Hare with Amber Eyes" surprise best seller, he revisits the Chinese clay works with mountains of discarded shards. The British side of the story is full of bankruptcy and broken dreams. The fate of fine china under Nazis and Communists is well known, though still ludicrous beyond belief. One omission: I wish he had included something on Royal Copenhagen, maybe too pure...no prisons, no bankruptcy. But the story I found most compelling was the native American story of the Cherokee potters, who found a vein of fine white clay and made beautiful pots (before being evicted). I'm American, why didn't I know?
September 13, 2018
Now that I have finished this book and successfully taught a class on it and porcelain and no longer feel deep resentment about having to read it, I can honestly say this book was incredibly insightful and the most I've ever learned about porcelain in one text while also being enjoyable to read. This book is self-aggrandizing and overly precious, much like porcelain itself. And it able to be self-reflexive about these traits. It leaves you feeling all the complicated feelings that the imperial, capitalistic history of porcelain should leave you with.
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January 14, 2019
The author travels to China to the White Hills to continue his obsession with porcelain. Glad I chose this book. Not really what I would have picked but I saw the author on Sunday Morning and I became interested then.
June 9, 2019
A superb blend of personal memoir, art history and insights into both how we look at art, collecting and the process of creating. Beautifully written, witty, and thought provoking.
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