The White Road

Starred review from September 14, 2015
Artist de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes), a potter by trade, blends art history and personal travelogue in this immersive hands-on study of porcelain and its commercial and artistic appeal over the centuries. Beginning in Jingdezhen, China, where porcelain was first fired 1,000 years ago, de Waal gradually works his way west to 18th-century Europe—specifically the German city of Dresden, and Plymouth on the South Coast of England—and eventually to Ayoree Mountain in what is now North Carolina. He enlivens his account with portraits of the people whose quirky personalities and entrepreneurial zeal advanced the manufacture of porcelain across Europe, among them mathematician Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus, who partnered with alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger to develop “a porcelain body for a pure white clay through which light can pass.” De Waal punctuates his chronicle with descriptions of his own work in the medium and poetic reflections on the art form: for example, he describes the cobalt used in designs on porcelain pots as a pigment “that allows the world to be turned into stories,” and the quest for a porcelain “so white and true and perfect, that the world around it is thrown into shadows.” The book transforms an otherwise esoteric subject into a truly remarkable story. Agent: Felicity Bryan, Felicity Bryan Agency.

Starred review from August 1, 2015
A lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation.Ceramic artist de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss, 2010, etc.) is obsessed with white porcelain, "thin as silver...white as driven snow," a material so exceptional that it invites comparison to "smoke coiling up from a chimney, or from incense on an altar, or mist from a valley." Porcelain gets its quality from two kinds of mineral: petunse, a fairly common stone, which yields amazing translucence and hardness; and the rarer kaolin, a soft, white earth that imparts plasticity. In short passages of allusive, radiant prose, the author chronicles his journeys in search of both the materials and the history of porcelain, discovering along the way men as obsessed as he. In 14th-century China, the Yongle emperor coveted porcelains of the purest white-"white as transcendence," de Waal writes-with finely drawn decorations under a lucent glaze. In 17th-century France, Louis XIV 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, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, "philosopher and mathematician and observer of how the world changes," pursued his investigations in Dresden's Goldhaus, a laboratory for natural philosophers and alchemists. In Cornwall, the Quaker William Cookworthy and the enterprising Wedgwoods perfected porcelain manufacture. Shockingly, in 1940, the Allach Porcelain Factory moved to Dachau, where inmates made figurines beloved by Nazis. Amassing a cache of kaolin, each with idiosyncratic properties, de Waal created an installation of 2,455 porcelain pots, glazed in white. For the author, white has mystical resonance: "White is truth; it is the glowing cloud on the horizon that shows the Lord is coming. White is wisdom....White brings us all into focus....It reveals. It is Revelation itself." De Waal's poetically recounted journey is a revelation, as well: of the power of obsession and the lust for purity.

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Starred review from October 15, 2015
Following up on his award-winning, internationally best-selling family history, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), ceramic artist de Waal reveals the depths and permutations of his life-shaping fascination with porcelain, which has been so maniacally treasured worldwide that it's called white gold. A potter and a scholar enthralled by old books and antique documents, de Waal brings a historian's ardor for detail and a poet's gifts for close observation and radiant distillation to this exquisite chronicle of his extensive porcelain investigations and arduous pilgrimages. He begins in China, where porcelain was paramount. He watches potters at work, and explains the long-secret chemistry responsible for porcelain's entrancing translucency. When the glowing white ceramic creations finally reached Europe, porcelain sickness quickly spread, inducing King Augustus II of Poland to acquire 35,798 pieces, while the competition to figure out how to make Western porcelain was fierce. In Dresden, de Waal tracks the efforts of seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. On home ground in England, he portrays William Cookworthy, whose porcelain discoveries helped him cope with grief. De Waal also uncovers the dark side of porcelain manufacturing, including the forced labor of prisoners at Dachau. De Waal's passionately and elegantly elucidated story of porcelain, laced with memoir and travelogue, serves as a portal into the madness and transcendence of our covetous obsession with beauty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

September 15, 2015

Porcelain is primarily white earthy minerals, but it's also alchemy; dust changed to a mystical substance that is hard, translucent, and capable of being formed into the simplest or most extravagant of shapes. Noted potter and author (The Hare with the Amber Eyes) de Waal has written an immensely enjoyable meditation on what happens when the right mix of stone and clay enter the incandescent heat of a kiln. The intricate steps involved in mining, refining, shaping, and firing first took place in China well over 1,000 years ago. The products of the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen were as precious as jade and coveted worldwide. Journeying to Jingdezhen, Dresden, South Carolina, and southwest England, de Waal tells the story of determined experimenters who reproduced the magic the Chinese had mastered. Each episode is tied to a particular personality who is traveling the white road, enthralled by the beauty of porcelain. Bankrupt Quakers, overworked Chinese clay slaves, headstrong German royals, protective Cherokee, and the anxious author all revolve through a study that culminates with an exploration of the porcelain workshop run by the SS in the concentration camp at Dachau. VERDICT This page-turning account, both sweeping and intimate, will appeal to a broad audience. [See Prepub Alert, 6/1/15.]--David McClelland, Andover, NY

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2015

Following up his much honored, much purchased memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal turns his obsession with porcelain into a study that shows how it originated, was perfected, and has fired up collectors for centuries. De Waal begins by traveling to sites in three countries tied to porcelain's creation--China, Germany, and England--then expands his purview and eventually finds that porcelain is linked to some of the harsher moments in recent history.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.