Porcelain

“ You have first to persuade yourself that you are looking at something made of porcelain: once convinced of this, you marvel at the technical difficulties that have been overcome in its manufacture, but what it never even occurs to one to look for in these monstrous vases, is any trace of that beauty of surface and brilliancy of decoration that we are accustomed to associate with the substance of which they are composed. ”

“ Those whose eyes have become accustomed to the beautiful porcelains of the Orient with their imperishable pictures in brilliant yet soft enamels or blue under the glaze, can never again look without disgust at the productions of that hybrid branch of Western art which smears upon the surface of porcelain dull, lustreless paints, adapted only to canvas or paper, and incapable of resisting any of the cleansing processes to which vessels in every-day use must of necessity be subjected. ”

“ Between faience and porcelain comes, midway, Stoneware, in which many wonderfully, and some fearfully, made things have been done of late, but which possesses the combined qualities of faience and porcelain—the ease of manipulation of the former, and the hardness and durability of the latter; but the tendency to over-elaborate the detail of its decoration, and rely less on the beauty of its semi-glossy surface than on meretricious ornament, has rather spoiled a very hopeful movement in Ceramic Art. ”

“ In the domain of porcelain the outcome of these favourable conditions is seen in an extraordinary advance along technical lines unparalleled in the history of ceramics. A white body of the utmost purity, a glaze fusing so perfectly on to the surface of the paste as to give an appearance of deep luminosity, underglaze colours and overglaze enamels unsurpassed in brilliance and liveliness, brought within the reach of the potter a wonderful variety of effects far beyond anything that had been attained before. ”

“ Porcelain-painting is done in two ways: under the glaze directly on the clay, or upon the glaze. Most of it is upon the glaze, into which it is melted by a mild heat. To show to the uninitiated what time, talent, and labor, are applied to pottery and porcelain, it may be well to state that fine work requires many firings, and that the delicate teacup, which fools hardly look at, passes through some seventy hands to{197} reach its perfectness! In some eyes a big thing (even if ugly) is admirable; a small thing, however beautiful, is contemptible. ”

“ Porcelain.—By this word we distinguish broadly all those pieces of pottery in which the body of the ware is vitrified and translucent, and also, broadly speaking, in which the material is white throughout, unless minute quantities of metallic oxides have been definitely added to colour it. It is impossible to draw any hard and fast line between porcelain and stoneware, for both may be thoroughly vitrified and translucent in thin pieces—but generally the stonewares are drab, red or brown in the colour of the fired clay, and they seldom exhibit the precious quality of translucence. ”

“ When we come to consider the various factories of porcelain that sprang up in Europe in the course of the eighteenth century, we shall find that what strikes the inquirer above all (in comparison with the kindred arts of the time) is the little we can observe in the way of development either in the technique or decoration of the wares. The art springs up full-blown; what history there is is concerned rather with an artistic decline. ”

“ There may be a beauty of a certain kind in the ware itself. As a rule, porcelain should never be overloaded with gold or any kind of decoration or color less beautiful than its own enamel. It demands lightness of ornamentation and gracefulness of design, rather than brilliancy of decoration. ”

“ But in this rude ware we see at times a certain barbaric, almost Oriental feeling for colour and decoration, giving more promise of artistic possibilities than we can find in the tame imitative work of the eighteenth century porcelain maker. ”

“ Porcelain, then, is distinguished from other fictile wares by possessing in a pre-eminent degree the following qualities: hardness, difficult fusibility, translucency, and whiteness of body or paste. Any specimen of ceramic ware that possesses all these qualities may be classed as porcelain, and from a practical point of view, the more it excels under these heads, the better specimen of porcelain it is. ”

“ In porcelain, even to a more marked degree than in pottery, the peculiarities of Japanese art are noticeable. It brings before us, in their greatest perfection, the careful attention to finish, the harmonizing of the most minute detail with the general design, the boundless variety of form, and the general tendency to subordinate the latter to ornamentation and color. The porcelain is less capable of resisting heat than that of the Chinese. ”

“ This is a practical, and, we may also add, a hygienic defect, that is now sometimes forgotten, the more so as nowadays our common table ware is free from this fault, and resembles fine porcelain in so far that the white, compact body is covered by nothing but the transparent glaze. In fact, as far as European experience is concerned, we may say, broadly, that the merits of porcelain compared with those of fayence are rather of a practical than of an artistic nature. ”

“ Then they dip a brush in the mixture and trace various designs on the porcelain, and when they are dry the glaze is applied. When the ware is fired, these designs emerge in a white which differs from that of the body. ”

“ There is a large class of enamelled porcelain, doubtless made chiefly for export, which found its way into our country houses in the last half of the eighteenth century. It is painted with panels of figure subjects in which rose pink and iron red are uncompromisingly blended, and the space surrounding the panels is filled with composite designs of blue and white with passages of pink scale diaper or feathery gilt scrolls broken by small vignettes in which a bird on a bough, insects, growing plants or fragments of landscape are painted in camaieu pink, red or sepia. ”

“ The verdict of the T’ao lu, “extremely refined and elegant,” is fully justified by the porcelain itself no less than by its decoration.
Not the least deserving of this praise, though mainly made for export, is the important group discussed on page 209, viz. the saucer dishes, plates, tea and coffee wares, etc., of delicate white porcelain, painted, apparently at Canton, in the famille rose enamels. It is an “eggshell” porcelain, white, thin, and beautifully finished, and the dainty little conical or bell-shaped tea cups, though without handles, are the perfection of table ware. ”

“ It has been the aim of the writer to dwell more especially on the nature of the paste, on the glaze, and on the decoration of the various wares, and above all to accentuate any points that throw light upon the relations with one another—especially the historical relations—of the different centres where porcelain has been made. ”

“ Beyond these, the colors used in decorating hard or natural porcelain are laid on the glaze, to which they adhere without incorporating themselves.
The great difficulties attending the manufacture of porcelain may now be estimated. The piece must pass through the kiln as many times as there are colors requiring different temperatures. Too much heat will blot out the delicate colors, too little will leave them dull. Those on artificial or soft porcelain sink into the glaze, and thus present a softness and creamy delicacy never seen on any other kind of ware. ”

“ Tang-ying in his report to the emperor on the manufacture of porcelain, from which we have lately quoted, tells us that during all the processes of turning on the lathe, painting and glazing, a solid bar is left at the base of the vase by which it is conveniently handled. ”

“ The girls who paint china become very skilful in estimating the changes in colors. These who are working beside us are doing the finest sort of porcelain decoration—faces, figures, and flowers. Those across the aisle are doing a vastly different type of work. They are putting coarse, sketchy flowers on the cheaper ware. Some of them, you will observe, are filling in designs that have either first been printed, or transferred by the decalcomania process, and must afterward be finished by hand. The girls supply the dabs of color that are needed to complete the pattern. ”

“ The painting upon porcelain is executed after the ware has been baked. Whilst in a biscuit state, the piece to be painted is dipped into a diluted glaze; it readily absorbs the water, leaving on the surface a thin coating of components which quickly dries [Pg 111] into a solid shell, uniformly thick over all its parts, and sufficiently firm to bear handling without being rubbed off during removal into the seggar or case which protects it in the kiln.
The amateur must be upon his guard in collecting porcelain, and not place too much reliance on the marks which he may find upon the ware. ”

“ The painting on the steatitic porcelain differs in style from that of the ordinary blue and white of this period. It is executed with delicate touches like miniature painting, and every stroke of the brush tells, the effects being produced by fine lines rather than by graded washes. The ware, being costly to make, is usually painted by skilful artists and in the finest blue. Fig. ”

“ Taken as a whole, our English porcelain, whether of soft or hard paste, shows little originality. From the point of view of design and decoration we may divide the ware made during the eighteenth century into two schools:—
(a) The Oriental school, the wares principally imitated being—1. The white porcelain of Fukien, with decoration in relief, often of prunus blossom. 2. ‘Blue and white,’ the blue under the glaze—this is often combined with the previous class. 3. The earlier type of Imari, that known at the time as ‘old Japan,’ or ‘partridge and wheatsheaf.’ 4. ”

“ My porcelain may be distinguished from all other wares which are vulgarly called earthen or stone wares, which can sustain an equal degree of heat, by the grain, the colour of the grain, and by its semi-transparency; whereas the earthenwares, such as Staffordshire white and yellow earthenwares and all other earthenwares which sustain a strong heat without being fused, are found, when subjected to the most intense heat, to appear cellular or otherwise, easily by the eye to be distinguished from the true porcelain. ”

“ With the employment of professional artists—flower-painters, landscape-painters, and painters of genre scenes—to adorn the surface of the already glazed ware with miniature pictures, a style of decoration came in, if decoration it can be called, which became more and more the dominant note of European porcelain during the next hundred years. ”

“ It is not for me to determine which of our English porcelains is the best; probably, indeed, one will be found superior in hardness, another in whiteness, a third in the thinness and evenness of the glaze, a fourth in the form of the articles, a fifth in the design, and a sixth in the colours. In hardness and in fusibility, they are probably all inferior to the Dresden and to the Sevrès porcelain; for pieces in biscuit and in white glaze, from both these manufactories, are imported in considerable quantities, in order to be painted and finished here. ”

“ Champion could have drawn a distinct line between the various kinds of earthenware and porcelain that have been made, and are now made in this kingdom, and his porcelain, a clause might have been formed to have confined him to the invention which he says he possesses, and to have prevented him from interrupting the progress of other men’s improvements, which he may think proper to call imitations of his porcelain ”

“ A delicate piece of ware is in peril every second. It may be dropped and broken; chipped in handling; its clay body may crack when exposed to the heat; the colors in the decoration may fire out unsatisfactorily; or at the very end there may be a defect in the glaze."
"Great Scott!" gasped Theo. "Why, I never should expect to get a single perfect piece of porcelain."
"On the contrary, we get a great many," smiled Mr. Marwood. "They are almost all perfect. The imperfect piece is the exception. But each piece represents untold care. ”

“ Hard porcelain is made from clays containing much aluminia and felspar or decomposed granite, having but little plasticity, which necessarily influenced the shape or profile of the vessel. The beauty of form, which is so typical of the Greek earthenware vase, is absent in porcelain, where the cylindrical or octagonal form is principally used. ”

“ But though innocent of colour the white porcelain was rarely without decoration. The finest Imperial services were usually delicately etched under the glaze with scarcely visible dragon designs. Other kinds have the ornament strongly cut, such as the eggshell cups and saucers with patterns of hibiscus, lotus, or chrysanthemum petals firmly outlined, or the vases with full-bodied designs in low relief obtained by carving away the ground surrounding the pattern. ”

“ I believe, then, that the best and purest art will be found in porcelain when applied to the decoration of dinner and tea services, of vases, and of articles which do not attempt to rival sculpture or high art ”

“ One painter does the mountains and the water, another the birds and the animals. It is the human figure that is the most badly handled.... As for the colours on the porcelain, we find all sorts. Little is seen in Europe except that with bright blue on a white ground. I think, however, that our merchants have brought over other kinds.’ (The implication is, no doubt, ‘since I have left France.’ This helps us to fix the date of the introduction of coloured porcelain{130} into Europe.) ”