A fact from China painting appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 January 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that in the late 19th century china painting(illustrated) was considered a useful occupation for women "who have nothing better to do than novel reading"?
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The diffuseness of this interesting article would be lessrned if it didn't attempt a full history of porcelain. Any mention here of the body and glaze should relate directly to characteristics they exert upon the painted decoration, for a start. Each section can be headed with a Main article... boilerplate, achieved with {{Main:Article name}} or {{Hatnote|Hatnote text}}. Any text that might be deleted in this focusing process, together with its citations, should be edited into those Main articles. The result will fully integrate an interesting article into the encyclopedia.--Wetman (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is a long and covers a very wide range. It is a huge subject though. Pulling out some sections as stand-alone articles, leaving a summary behind, would help. A discussion of body and glaze is needed that shows the difference between over- and under-glaze and the effect of the paste on firing temperatures and hence available colors. Perhaps that could be made a separate article and summarized though. Ditto with the mechanical methods of transferring pictures and designs. The country-by-country sections are fairly drastically summarized as it is. New or expanded articles on specific countries would be nice. Also more detail on the factory processes. The section on Victorian amateurs could definitely make a separate article, summarized here. I actually think the section on evolving styles is too cursory. Maybe after it is off the main page and a bit less visible those improvements could be made. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:03, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly agree re the last point. Actually there is hardly a word on the style of the painting. The key work is Rawson, Jessica, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon, 1984, British Museum Publications, ISBN0714114316, which covers the development of the basic Eurasian plant-based style. The article is not very well linked to a number of articles we already have on technical aspects, not all very full. In an ideal world it would be Painted pottery, as the distinction between porcelain and the rest is artificial. Johnbod (talk) 12:39, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Style is another huge subject, as the illustrations show, and deserves its own overview and detailed articles. In some areas this article has more detail than the related technical articles, which are more like short unreferenced essays, so {{main}} links would be pointless. I think to most people "china" is a generic term for glazed pottery. The lead puts the alternatives "porcelain painting" and the broader "ceramic painting" in bold, and these terms redirect to the article, but the term "china painting" seems more common. "Pottery painting" may be a bit too broad: the term is commonly used for unglazed objects, which is outside the current version's scope. I would be more comfortable with another broad article on unglazed ceramic decoration, with hatnotes to link the two. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:01, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm. The article begins "China painting, or porcelain painting,[a] is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects..." and that is indeed what it covers (with some big gaps). Not a mention of maiolica, faience etc. But then famille rose etc aren't mentioned - indeed you have more detail on unpainted Chinese wares than painted ones. We have a better photo of that Ding vase, but it is very rare and untypical, & I would say it is rather misleading to use it - a later piece would be better. Whether it is porcelain is also a very moot point. But I won't change anything since you always revert. Johnbod (talk) 02:38, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnbod: I assume "you" means me. I have not reverted your edits, just tweaked to conform to the article's citation style and to reflect what the sources say. The article is mostly about porcelain painting, but mentions earthenware (including faience) and stoneware since there is overlap in concepts, and readers may not make a sharp distinction. The article covers Chinese wares in two paragraphs, with two more on European exports (where famille rose is mentioned). Chinese ceramics gives more complete treatment. Ding ware is porcelain under the Chinese definition: fine grained, cannot be scratched and resonates. Ding ware is often plain, but the illustrated Ding bottle is a painted one, for obvious reasons. The article is intended as a broad overview of this huge subject, only skimming the surface but providing links to articles that cover specific topics in more detail. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:06, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
