15 March 2019

Ornately decorated porcelain vessels, often in milky white with cobalt blue motifs, are a common sight amongst the altars found in Vietnamese homes, offices and businesses. To a foreign western eye, these vessels look like “china”— a fitting nickname for the ceramic wares made famous during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when courtly tastes in porcelain expressed not only the Ming family’s refined tastes but China’s global economic prowess and Chinese interest in reflecting and exporting to faraway cultures.

Even today, over four centuries after its heyday, Ming vases are still highly sought after by museums and collectors. It seemed only fitting given Imperial China’s influence in Vietnamese history in the thousand years up to 939 AD to muse over these ceramics.

Grade 9s and 10s transcribed various designs of Ming vases before sketching their own creative designs for a Ming-style vase. To execute their designs, they scratched into the surface of a paper primed in oil pastel in a technique called sgraffito. They were challenged to use art elements of line and shape to communicate form and design principles such as rhythm and balance to convey movement or distribute the visual weight in their designs.