The Process to Making Pottery

The first step in making anything is to gather the materials that are needed to make that item. For Chinese pottery, the materials needed include clay, kaolin, feldspar, and glass. The clay can be taken from a river, the kaolin and feldspar will be mined from quarries, and the glass cooked to be used in the pottery.
Once gathered, the materials will be ground down, cleaned, and mixed together to make a workable substance. The material is then fired so that it can become hard. The mixture will not melt during the firing, as glass does.
In the kiln, the pottery reaches up to temperatures of 1000 to 1300 degrees Celsius, which liquefies the mixture and allows the components it is made of to bind together.
After the components have bound and cooled to a workable temperature, the material is formed to the desired shape of pottery using a potter's wheel or hand molding. A potter's wheel is used to make a round pot. Hand molding is a technique used when a more intricate design that could not be achieved with a potter's wheel was desired.
After the pottery has been molded, it is fired again to make it hard. This firing reaches to about 1200 degrees Celsius, and the pottery will become very hard. After this final stage of firing, the pottery will be cooled and painted to be sold or used.
For a visual on what the process actually looks like, check out this video of pottery being made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYkBimql2s0

Potters wheel

Pottery kiln

Determining Chinese Literati Art From Other Chinese Art

Perhaps the most telling feature of a literati work is the formality of the work. If it looks like it was made to be held in a court room or depicts the life of a person in the higher class of Chinese society, then it is very likely not a literati painting. The literati painted mostly nature and used very little color, while the court paintings were painted using a wide range of colors. A good contrast between these two groups of artists can be seen between the following paintings.

Literati Painting

Court Painting

These are good examples to show contrast because they show the ideal Literati or Court painting. The Literati painting uses only black and white pigments, while the Court painting has a whole host of red, yellow, orange, brown, and other colors. the Literati painting shows a mountain, while the Court Painting shows a group of people seated at a table conversing.

Another feature that is more common in Literati paintings is the use of calligraphy and poetry in the work. as is seen above, there is a bit of calligraphy on the Literati work, but no writing at all on the Court painting.