Harmony of blue and white: History and aesthetics of the Chinese porcelain and Gzhel

The article is devoted to consideration of white blue porcelain, its origin in Ancient China, ways of its development, distribution and influence on ceramic and porcelain production in the world, including the Russian folk craft – gzhel famous for its unique white blue traditional painting. The article presents historical and artistic features of the items, analyzes their symbolic and semantic content. The features and main reasons for rising the value of the Chinese white and blue Tsinghua porcelain are outlined, and its comparison with gzhel in terms of symbolism, forms, and technique of making is given. The comparative analysis of the famous samples of artistic ceramic products belonging to different cultures has been made, their special aesthetic qualities that condition their enduring artistic value have been correlated and identified, thus increasing the relevance of the study.