R. L. Hobson

“ The technique, then, is that of the T'ang wares, but instead of being made in a mould like the grave statuettes, this monumental figure is modelled in the round by an artist worthy to rank with the masters of sculpture and painting who made the T'ang period famous.
When one looks at the powerful modelling of the head, the strong features composed in deep contemplation, and the restful pose of the seated form, one realises that here, at last, we have the great art which inspired the early Buddhist sculptors of Japan. It is no conventional deity which sits before us. ”

“ The antiquity of Chinese porcelain, its variety and beauty, and the wonderful skill of the Chinese craftsmen, accumulated from the traditions of centuries, have made the study of the potter's art in China peculiarly absorbing and attractive. There is scope for every taste in its inexhaustible variety. Compared with it in age, European porcelain is but a thing of yesterday, a mere two centuries old, and based from the first on Chinese models. ”

“ The art of the Chou dynasty, as expressed in bronze and jade, is fairly well known from illustrated Chinese and Western works. It reflects a priestly culture in its hieratic forms and symbolical ornament. It is majestic and stern, severely disdainful of sentiment and sensuous appeal. Of the pottery we know little, but that little shows us a purely utilitarian ware of simple form, unglazed and almost devoid of ornament. ”

“ The merits and beauty of porcelain have always been recognised by the Chinese, who ranked it from the earliest days among their precious materials. Chinese poets make frequent reference to its dainty qualities, its jade–like appearance, its musical ring, its lightness and refinement. The green cups of Yüeh Chou ware in the T ́ang dynasty were likened to moulded lotus leaves; and the white Ta–yi bowls surpassed hoar–frost and snow. Many stanzas were inspired by the porcelain bowls used at the tea and wine symposia, where cultivated guests capped each other's verses. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII MARKS ON CHINESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
THE custom of placing on works of art the name of the maker, the date of manufacture, or some sign or symbol indicating the intention with which they were made, dates back in China at least as far as the Han dynasty. Such marks occur on pottery and porcelain rarely at first, but with a frequency which increases in proportion as we draw nearer to modern times. They are incised or stamped in the soft body of the ware, or painted under the glaze (usually in blue) or over it in enamel colours or gold ”

“ THOUGH no authenticated example of Ju ware is known in Europe, it is impossible to ignore a factory whose productions were unanimously acclaimed by Chinese writers as the cream of the Sung wares. Its place of origin, Ju Chou, in the province of Honan, lies in the very district which was celebrated in a previous reign for the Ch ́ai pottery, and it is probable that the Ju factories continued the traditions of this mysterious ware. ”

“ The presence of iron in greater or less quantity is a common feature of potter's clays all the world over, and it is usual in modern potteries to pass the clay over strong magnets in order to remove this disturbing element when a pure white ware is in view. This fact alone will explain the prevalence of green tints of the celadon type among the earlier Chinese wares, and observation of these results would naturally lead to the discovery that a certain quantity of particular clay mixed with the ordinary glaze would produce a beautiful green colour, resembling jade. ”

“ The opening up of China and the increased opportunities which Europeans enjoy, not only for studying the monuments of ancient Chinese art, but for acquiring examples of the early masterpieces in painting, sculpture, bronze, jade, and ceramic wares, have given the Western student a truer insight into the greatness of the earlier phases of Chinese art, and have awakened a new and widespread enthusiasm for them. ”

“ WHEN we consider the great extent of the Chinese Empire and its teeming population—both of them larger than those of Europe—and the fact that a race with a natural gift for the potter's craft and a deep appreciation of its productions has lived and laboured there for twenty centuries (to look no farther back than the Han dynasty) , it seems almost presumptuous to attempt a history of so vast and varied an industry within the compass of two volumes. ”

“ It is so much a matter of personal taste. For my own part, I consider that the decorative genius of the Chinese and their natural colour sense, added to their long training, have placed them so far above their European followers that comparison is irrelevant. Even the commoner sorts of old Chinese porcelain, made for the export trade, have undeniable decorative qualities, while the specimens in pure Chinese taste, and particularly the Court wares, are unsurpassed in quality and finish. ”

“ The British Museum has a fair number of examples, quite enough to show the typical Corean glaze, a soft grey green celadon of decidedly bluish tint, a thick smooth glaze often of great delicacy and beauty of tone.
In view of this the colour of the Yüeh bowls, the blue–green of the hills, is easily visualised. But China boasts so many makes of celadon [70] that he would be a bold man who would single out any one piece and say this is Yüeh ware. ”

“ There is a remarkable, though sadly damaged, example of Northern Ting ware in the British Museum. It was found in a Manchurian tomb of the twelfth century, and bears out the current descriptions of the ware with its fine white body, rich ivory glaze, and "tear drops" on the reverse. The ornament, a lotus design in bold freehand carving, displays all the freshness and power of Sung craftsmanship. This dish has, moreover, a characteristic common to the Sung Ting bowls and dishes, viz. the mouth rim is bare of glaze. ”

“ A word, too, is usually added on colour of the body material, which in many cases would appear to have been of a red or brown tint, iron–coloured or copper–coloured. Not that it is necessary to infer that in every instance the ware was red or brown throughout. It is a matter of observation that in many of the early wares the exposed places (usually confined to the edge of the foot rim or the unglazed base) have assumed a rusty red colour in the firing, while a flake broken from the glaze elsewhere reveals a white or greyish white porcelain body within. ”

“ Some say that the potteries of Hsiang only began to be active when the original wares had ceased to be made. The village of Lei–hsiang is east of Shên Hsien, and it is the place of the temple of the Hsiang family. The inhabitants of the place sometimes dig up castaway Hsiang wares. Their shape and style are archaic; the colour of the ware is green (lü) , deep and dark, but brilliant. One kind has slight ornament in raised clay, but if the hand is passed over it, the surface feels smooth and without perceptible relief or indentation. ”

“ Though decorated in the characteristic style with slight sketchy design in brown and maroon, they show a decided falling off when compared with the older specimens. The body is a hard, greyish white stoneware; there is no slip covering, and the glaze is yellowish, soft–looking, and freely crackled, without the solid qualities of the older ivory glaze on a white slip coating. I am inclined to think that this degenerate type of ware dates back no farther than the nineteenth century, and that the Tz ́ŭ Chou pottery preserved its character up to and perhaps throughout the eighteenth century. ”

“ It is a thick and rather opaque glaze, sufficiently flowing to have left the upper edges almost bare and formed thickly on the flatter and lower levels; the colour is broken by streaks and clouding, which mark the downward flow of the glaze; the surface has a barely perceptible crackle, which will no doubt become more marked with age, and a subdued lustre between the brilliancy of the old opalescent Chün types and the viscous, silken sheen of the Canton glazes [407] which also imitate them. ”

“ What more could a man desire in the underworld? All these figures are of the usual white plaster–like body, with the pale, straw–coloured or greenish glazes which long burial has dissolved into iridescence where it has not actually caused it to flake away. ”

“ The ware, as a general rule, has a greyish white mass varying from porcelain to stoneware, and with the peculiar quality of assuming a reddish brown tint wherever the glaze is absent and the "biscuit" was exposed to the fire of the kiln. It has, in fact, the "iron foot" though not the "brown mouth," for the body is of a whitish colour under the glaze, and consequently the mouth of the vessel varies from green to greenish white, according to the thickness of the glaze. ”

“ For example, in the Li t ́a k ́an k ́ao ku ou pien, a modern work, we find: "As to what they call at present Yüan and Chün wares, these in material, colour, sound, and brilliancy are similar to Ch ́ai yao, but they differ in thickness, and are perhaps the common folk's imitation wares, and not the Imperial Shih Tsung ware. But we are not yet able to say. If the ware has sky blue colour, clear and brilliant on a coarse yellow brick–earth body, and rings like bronze, it must be Ch ́ai ware. As to Chün ware ... the specimens have in every case red colour and variegated surface...." ”

“ The features are so human as to suggest an actual portrait, but for the supernatural enlargement of the ears in Buddhist fashion. The contracted brows bespeak deep concentration; the eyes, dreamy yet awake, look through and past us into the infinite ”

“ What chance, then, is there of recognising any but the most celebrated wares of China?
In dealing with porcelain as distinct from pottery, we have a simpler proposition. The bulk of what we see in Europe is not older than the Ming dynasty and was made at one of two large centres, viz. Ching–tê Chên in Kiangsi, and Tê–hua in Fukien. Topographical arrangement, then, is an easy matter, and there [xvi] is a considerable amount of information available to guide us in chronological considerations. ”

“ It is, in fact, usually translated in the dictionaries as "opaque glass," and in connection with pottery it has the sense of glaze—e.g. liu li wa "glazed pottery."
We can now return to Ho Ch'ou, who "took green ware and made liu–li." [306] It has been thought that what he made must have been a kind of porcelain, but there is no indication of any [145] such achievement, for though it is possible to make an artificial porcelain with glass as a constituent, the converse is not true: you cannot make glass out of either pottery or porcelain. ”

“ Occasionally the purple is so deep as to appear almost black; and the details of the designs are often etched in the paste with a fine point. Precisely similar wares are found with an earthenware body; and they are, no doubt, contemporary with the analogous porcelains, though how long the traditions of this type of ware continued has never been precisely determined. The porcelain on which washes of turquoise and aubergine glaze are combined is a development of this type, and this has certainly survived to comparatively modern times. ”

“ Though the original glazed wares of Ou are probably rarer to–day than their Chün Chou prototypes, there is no reason to suppose that Ou ́s successors have not kept up the continuity of the manufacture. It is certainly very much alive to–day, and an early eighteenth century reference to "the applied glaze of Yi–hsing" [406] seems to imply its existence at that time. I have [182] before me as I write a tripod incense burner of archaic form, the body a light buff stoneware and the glaze a deep lavender, breaking into blue. ”