Painted Pottery Jar with Stork, Fish and Zax Patterns

Painted Pottery Jar with Stork, Fish and Zax Patterns is a representative artwork of painted pottery in the Neolithic Age of China. It is unearthed from a burial chamber under the Yangshao Culture Relics in Linru County, Henan Province, and belongs to Yangshao Temple bottom-channel type.
 
The jar is made of sandy red pottery, with the surface being coarse and painted with a stork holding a fish in its mouth and a zax standing up close to it. To perform colored painting, firstly, add a thin yellow pottery coating onto the surface of the jar, and draw basic figures of the stork, fish and zax with white paint, then get partial positions painted with reddle and outline the fish and zax in black, with the stork being outlined merely at the eyes to present its pure white feather. Patterns on the jar represent expressions of the fish-holding stork in a pithy and vivid way, which is speculated by contemporary people as suggesting the praying for good harvest of fish.

Patterns on the jar are boorish and vigorous, featuring by sculpts of remote antiquity of China. It is the fine art craft of pottery in Chinese primitive society, with comparatively high value of artistic admiration. Patterns and lines on the jar jointly present the rudiment of skills and techniques applied in traditional Chinese painting.