  The East the Cradle of Art.—The Antiquity of Egypt: Its Claim to Notice in every Branch of Inquiry.—The Fountains of Oriental and Greek Art.—The Nile Clay.—Egypt’s Early Maturity.—Limitation of Material.—Effect of Religion upon Art.—Two Periods in Art History.—Ancient Religion.—Various Symbols.—Unglazed Pottery—Sun-dried: Bricks.—Moulds, Stamps, etc.—Vessels.—Baked Ware: Its Early Date.—Color of Vessels and Bricks.—Coffins.—Cones.—Figures.—Sepulchral Vases.—AmphorÆ and other Vessels.—Decoration.—GrÆco-Egyptian Pottery.—Glazed Ware, miscalled Porcelain: Its Nature, and how Colored.—Wall Tiles.—Inlaying of Mummy Cases.—Personal Ornaments.—Images.—Beads, etc.—Vases.—Bowls.—Glazed Schist.—Stanniferous Enamel. TO the Orient we look for the birthplace of man, and in it we also find the cradle of Art. How it spread eastward to China and westward to Egypt, we may not be able, with precise accuracy, to tell; but this we know, that in and between these two countries the ceramic art had been carried to a lofty eminence long before Europe had awakened from barbaric slumber. Western history was, in fact, scarcely beginning, when Eastern civilization was in one direction fading, and in another was tottering to its fall. In beginning with Egypt, the most ancient relics of primitive art pass first in review. To that wonderful country, long hidden under a thick cloud of mystery, we must, in fact, first turn, no matter what may be the subject demanding investigation. It had reached antiquity before the oldest countries of the West were born. In the ceramic art, it appears as the centre from which radiated the two great branches, many centuries afterward converging in Southern Europe. On the one hand is the silicious-glazed pottery, which, after moving eastward, reached Europe in a slightly altered form; on the other Their religion also appears to have deadened their ambition to reach a higher excellence. There were two periods in their art history. In studying the works belonging to the first, the observer will frequently be impressed by the desire evinced to follow the forms offered by nature for imitation. Such is the most striking characteristic of what may be called the first school. It aimed at the reproduction of natural forms in the most literal manner. Afterward, when the emblematic school took its rise, the forms were still those of nature, with a religious or spiritual significance superadded. The idea is evidently fatal to art, that it can climb to nothing higher than the figure symbolical of a god. In their efforts toward the production of what was graceful and beautiful, the Egyptians are not, however, to be despised. Before foreign influences made themselves felt, the enlarge-image It is indispensable, in order to understand the highest forms of the art in Egypt, that something should be known of its religion. In that strange land we find an answer—possibly the first—to the question, “The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills, and the plains— Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns?” According to Bunsen, “the mythological system proceeded from ‘the concealed god,’ Ammon, to the creating god. The latter appears first of all as the generative power of nature in the Phallic god Khem, who is afterward merged into Ammon-ra. Then sprung up the idea of a creative power in Kneph. He forms the limbs of Osiris (the primitive soul) in contradistinction to Ptah, who, as the strictly demiurgic principle, forms the visible world. Neith is the creative principle as nature represented under a female form. Finally her son, Ra Helios, appears as the last of the series in the character of father and nourisher of terrestrial things. It is he whom an ancient monument represents as the demiurgic principle creating the mundane egg.” At the head of this Pantheon stands Ammon, the concealed and invisible. The other figures are personifications of his attributes, and appear as separate and individual gods. In order to make the theogony intelligible to the people, these gods are represented by symbols. There is thus a regular gradation from the symbol to the divine attribute, and thence to the Unknown Greatest. It is the sublimity of paganism, presenting us with one god carrying on the infinite works of the universe by means of his various attributes. The symbols were chosen from nature, and are generally expressive, if not always dignified. Firstly, as to the symbols proper, the lotus and scarabÆus may be mentioned as of most frequent occurrence. The former, the sacred flower, is often met with in connection with the figures of the divinities, and symbolizes the beneficence of nature’s revivifying powers, water and heat. The scarabÆus (Fig. 31) is the symbol of creation, and when represented with out-spread wings, of immortality. It may appear singular that a loathsome insect should thus have been honored, but the explanation is simple. It is to be found in the habits of the insect itself. Placing its egg in a ball, it The vulture was the symbol of divine maternity, because thought to conceive spontaneously; and hence Souvan, the mother of all, is represented with a vulture’s head. This single instance furnishes a key to the system. The symbol is chosen which most nearly represents the principle, and thus becomes a part of the embodied form of the deity possessing the principle as his or her peculiar attribute. The dog and jackal were emblems of Anubis, the guardian of the tombs, and the deity presiding over embalmment. The scarabÆus was the emblem of the demiurgic god Phtha. The lion was also the emblem of Phtha and of the goddess Pasht. Cynocephali were emblems of Chous and Thoth. Throughout the entire system, the birds, fishes, land animals, and plants of Egypt, the hawk, vulture, ibis, urÆi snakes, the cat, pig, cow, and so on, are all used as symbols. It will be sufficient now to glance at the converse, and note the forms under which the deities are represented. enlarge-image We are now in a position to give names to the group (Fig. 32), each piece in which is of the blue or green glazed pottery to be noticed hereafter. It may be said, however, that no engraving could give an idea of the exquisite finish of these pieces, especially of the two in the middle. The lower central figure is the plumed Amun. The ceramic productions of Egypt are divisible into two great classes, unglazed and glazed. enlarge-image Fig. 33.—Earthen-ware Vessels found at Thebes. Fig. 33.—Earthen-ware Vessels found at Thebes. Unglazed Pottery.—This may again be divided into the unbaked, or sun-dried, and baked. Of these the former is unquestionably the more ancient, and Egypt is one of the three countries whose sun-dried pottery has lasted until the present time. Unbaked bricks are the oldest examples. Some of those discovered recall the bondage and wrongs of the Israelites under the “new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph.” The command of Pharaoh will be remembered: “Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves.” The straw was used to bind them together. They were moulded generally in a rectangular shape, and were extensively used in the construction of pyramids of various ages. They vary in size in different edifices, and are marked according to their composition or destined use. In the former case, the marks were used merely to distinguish the quality; in the latter, the marks indicate either the individual’s tomb in the construction of which they were to be employed, or the king in whose reign they were made for public buildings. The whole process can be studied in the engraving (Fig. 30). The stamp for bricks was not used until the fifteenth century before the Christian era. The vessels of unbaked clay which have been preserved are few enlarge-image Fig. 34.—Red Pottery Cone. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.) Fig. 34.—Red Pottery Cone. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.) enlarge-image Fig. 35.—Fish-shaped Vase of Red Terra-cotta. Egyptian. (British Museum.) Fig. 35.—Fish-shaped Vase of Red Terra-cotta. Egyptian. (British Museum.) Egypt was exceptionally favored by nature for advancing in the potter’s art. The Nile mud was abundant and plastic, and was suitable for either moulding or throwing. Specimens of baked earthen-ware (Fig. 33) have accordingly been found belonging to a very remote period. They represent the second step in the manufacture, which was reached nearly three thousand years before our era. From the tombs of that period have been exhumed vessels of various kinds, such as were employed by the Egyptians in their households; and taking these as a starting-point, the art can be traced to its decline under imported ideas and foreign domination. This ware is mostly of a dull red color, verging at times toward purple or yellow, according to the temperature at which it was baked. The baked bricks were of the same red color. They were used, apparently, for purposes for which the less lasting unbaked bricks were not suitable, but were not generally employed. Of the same material coffins, although rare, have also been found. Many of the objects connected with the Egyptian customs regarding the burial of the dead were made of this clay. Among these were the cones (Fig. 34), with inscriptions in hieroglyphics stamped on the base, and giving the name of the deceased. They indicate the resting-places of many civil and ecclesiastical functionaries—clerks or scribes, priests, chamberlains, soldiers, and seldom of women. They appear to have fallen into desuetude in the sixth century before our era. Figures have also been found in the sepulchres of a later period. The vases for holding the entrails of the embalmed dead were of the same ware, and bring up for notice a very singular custom. The viscera were divided into four parts, and deposited in separate jars having the shapes of the Another kind of unglazed ware is of a light gray color, and was common to Egypt and some of the countries of Asia. AmphorÆ have been found of this material, with long bodies ornamented with horizontal grooves. Of these the larger ones appear to have been intended for liquids, and the smaller ones, some of which are very diminutive, for solids. The bases of the former are pointed, while those of the latter are occasionally rounded. The handles are both small and large, and the necks open or contracted, according to their use. These are well deserving of notice for the sake of comparison with the amphorÆ of the Greeks; and for the same reason reference may be made to the vessels with three handles, which were in all probability the prototypes of the Greek hydrai, and to others with only one handle, which were also reproduced in Greece. The former are very frequently oval-bodied, and the position of the handle is arbitrary. The latter were jugs of various shapes, with pointed bases. The further we come down, the more distinct become the proofs of Egypt’s having supplied models to the Grecian potters. It would be impossible to specify all the shapes, but reference may be made to those with handle arching the top from side to side, and of so small a size that they are thought to have been used by children as toys. enlarge-image Fig. 36.—Egyptian Red-polished Terra-cotta. Fig. 36.—Egyptian Red-polished Terra-cotta. The larger vessels, which answered all the purposes of a modern meat-safe, have no handle, and have the usual pointed base for fixing them upright in the floor of the cellar. They taper gradually from the base upward, until their greatest girth is reached, when they curve more suddenly inward to a short neck. From these the forms vary through the intermediate shapes of oval jars, bottles with long necks, enlarge-image Fig. 37.—Egyptian Red-polished Terra-cotta Bottle. (British Mus.) Fig. 37.—Egyptian Red-polished Terra-cotta Bottle. (British Mus.) Decoration of a simple kind is occasionally found on both domestic and sepulchral vessels. Colored bands were the usual ornament, and very rarely the entire body was painted with a ground color upon which bands were laid, and the whole was then varnished. It is rarely that a leaf or lotus flower is found. The use of varnish points to a step in advance. It has not yet been determined whether it is really varnish or a glaze applied by firing, but in either case it is found upon the finer and harder kinds of ware. The body color is black, brown, or red, of different shades (Fig. 36). To this class belong the single and double cruses, generally of pale red paste, but sometimes black, used apparently for holding oil or ointment. The best examples of polished ware are red. They show both ornamentation of a higher order and more artistic shapes than the others. The shape of one of these vases resembles the goddess Isis suckling Horus, in the attitude previously mentioned; another is in the form of a woman playing upon a stringed instrument (Fig. 37); a third is shaped like a fish; and many domestic vessels, cups, jugs, and vases are of the same material. The GrÆco-Egyptian pottery forms a distinct class, differing in paste, color, and decoration. The outside shows varying shades of enlarge-image Fig. 39.—Egyptian ScarabÆi used as Signets. Average, ¾ inch in length. Pale and dark green. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) Fig. 39.—Egyptian ScarabÆi used as Signets. Average, ¾ inch in length. Pale and dark green. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) enlarge-image Fig. 40.—Egyptian Pectoral Tablets. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) Fig. 40.—Egyptian Pectoral Tablets. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) Glazed Ware.—Leaving the unglazed and polished wares, there yet falls to be considered that with an undoubted glaze, to which belong the most artistic works of the Egyptian potters. This is the ware which has been miscalled porcelain (Fig. 38); and as the unglazed ware was never employed for purely ornamental purposes, so we find the glazed seldom used for domestic vessels. Contrary to what might be expected, specimens have been found as old as the Sixth Dynasty, or nearly two thousand years before the Christian era. The ware is not at all close in texture, and the silicious glaze was colored by metallic oxides, of the properties of which the Egyptians had an intimate knowledge. Chief among the colors thus produced are the blue and green, exemplified in some of the finest relics of Egyptian art. Their beauty is occasionally very remarkable, and led to their being highly valued both by the Egyptians and others, and to the ware itself being applied to special purposes of ornamentation. It is found, for example, in the form of tiles as a wall decoration, and as a material for inlaying. Tiles with figures in relief, having parts such as the hair, beard, eyes, or extremities inlaid with glazed ware, are among the most curious specimens discovered. Detached beards are not unlike spirally ribbed hose. Coffins, or mummy cases, are similarly inlaid. The forms the glazed pottery assumes, when employed for this purpose and for figures to be attached to other substances, are very numerous. The moulded ornaments and amulets of both the living and the dead were most frequently of the same material. These take the shape of finger and ear rings (Fig. 39), small images of the gods and of their symbols, and various other ornaments, such as bracelets, necklaces, and enlarge-image Fig. 41.—Egyptian Mummy Figure. Style, XIXth Dynasty. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) Fig. 41.—Egyptian Mummy Figure. Style, XIXth Dynasty. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) For the same reason the glazed vases are diminutive, but often very beautiful, and intended for purely ornamental purposes. They are of different shapes and sizes, generally a few inches in height, and some of them illustrate the peculiar ideas entertained by the Egyptians of personal beauty. One of their customs was that of darkening the eyes with a black powder, sometimes held in a small case resembling a series of reeds. The toilet is otherwise represented by a variety of boxes, jars, bottles, small vases, and oil flasks. The latter are unique, and sometimes elegant in shape, and supply good examples of the greenish glazed-ware to which reference has been made. Many of the bowls evidently used by the wealthy are of a finer and closer paste, and bear very characteristic ornamentation of flowers, fish, hieroglyphics, or of lines only. Their uses can only be conjectured from their shapes. The inscriptions sometimes point to their owners, and at others to the place of fabrication. The Egyptians also resorted to a process of glazing vases, figures, rings, and other articles for which pottery was usually employed, It will thus be seen that the Egyptians did not carry the art to a very high point. They were, however, successful in creating a foreign demand for the productions of their potteries. From discoveries made in Eastern Greece, Nineveh, and elsewhere, it would appear that the fine pottery ornaments of Egypt were in considerable repute in neighboring countries; and, as we shall hereafter see, Egypt contributed its full share to the furtherance of the art by supplying suggestions and models. enlarge-image Fig. 42.—Egyptian Mummy Figures. Blue or Greenish-blue Enamelled Pottery. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) Fig. 42.—Egyptian Mummy Figures. Blue or Greenish-blue Enamelled Pottery. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) One important matter remains to be disposed of. It has long been a subject of doubt whether or not Egypt possessed the secret of stanniferous enamel. It has been already intimated that the discovery of the use of tin for a pottery enamel is due to either that country or Assyria. The honor may probably be ascribed to Egypt. In the loan collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York is a fragment (Fig. 43) of a vase exhibited in the Egyptian section, and referable to a very remote antiquity, covered with what is apparently tin enamel, bearing purple decorations. Should this be the case, then this solitary fragment will settle the matter, and we must believe that the Egyptians possessed this secret of the art four thousand years ago. In that event, the Assyrians probably acquired it from Egypt. The fact supplies us with the means of arriving at a very clear idea of the grand antiquity of that civilization under which a valuable art was practised, to which Europe was a stranger for more than three thousand five hundred years afterward. enlarge-image Fig. 43.—Fragment with White Enamel. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.) Fig. 43.—Fragment with White Enamel. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.) It is, as we have seen, long since the art purely its own reached its culmination. The Egypt of the nineteenth century in this respect scarcely suggests that of the Pyramids. If we were to take that country as it appeared at the Philadelphia Exhibition, we would hardly be prepared to look upon its ceramic products as those of a country in which the art has been practised for four thousand years. A few pieces exhibited were of light, slate-colored body, unglazed, and so brittle that dozens were broken in transit. The ornamentation was laid on the bare surface, and was, as a rule, bright to the verge of gaudiness. The greater portion of the painting was the work of an Italian artist resident in Cairo. Some of the red terra-cotta was more satisfactory; but all that can be said in favor of either kind is that it was, in its way, characteristically Egyptian. One specimen of pale green “porcelain” was sent by the Museum at Cairo. The last is mentioned because it represented the farthest point which the Egyptians reached on the way toward a true porcelain.
|
| Red | Fire | South. | ||||
| Black | Water | North. | ||||
| Green | Wood | East. | ||||
| White | Metal | West. |
The earth was figured by a square, fire by a circle, water by a dragon, mountains by a deer.
The form of a vase is also of value in determining its use. Besides the complimentary manner already alluded to, in which vases were employed, they were bestowed as rewards upon deserving public functionaries, and passed between friends as tokens of good wishes. They also occupied a prominent place in religious rites.
We may now proceed to a division of Chinese wares into pottery and porcelain.
POTTERY.
When First Made.—CÉladon.—Crackle.—How Made.—Porcelain Crackle.—Decorations on Crackle.—Household Vessels.—Stone-ware.—Licouli.—Tower of Nankin.—Pipe-clay.—Boccaro.—Colors and Decoration of Pottery.—Colors on Crackle.
ALTHOUGH we may not accept without question the statement that pottery was first invented either by the Emperor Hoang-ti, or during his reign by Kouen-ou, it may at least be taken for granted that pottery preceded porcelain. To define the character of the earliest ware is not unattended with difficulty. One fact which had a great influence upon Chinese art may here be referred to. So soon as pottery was invented, it was taken under government supervision. Subsequently, when porcelain was discovered, the manufacture for many years made very little progress. It was not until it came under imperial protection and patronage that it rose to its greatest height. It will be seen hereafter that in Continental Europe also the best works in ceramic art were, as a rule, produced under the fostering care of the sovereign power.
The oldest Chinese pottery is very hard, opaque, closely akin to stone-ware, and covered with a partially translucent enamel. The latter called CÉladon, and made by mixing the colors with the glaze, varies from the old, and now very rare, sea-green to a brown-gray. The term cÉladon was originally restricted to the sea-green variety, but was ultimately applied to all wares, of whatever color, made in the same manner. The most ancient specimens are of the coarse body above referred to. Occasionally they are decorated with incisions in the paste under the glaze, or with studs and other reliefs, or with flowered designs (cÉladon fleuri), and are called by the Chinese Tchoui. There is also a cÉladon of a deeper green than that last referred to, which, with that of the gray varieties, is very often covered with an inextricable net-work of cracks. This is the kind known as crackle. The process which the Chinese succeeded in bringing to the most exact precision in regard to the size of the cracks is not thoroughly understood. Several theories have been advanced to explain it. Examination shows that the paste or body of the ware and the glaze differed in consistency, the one being more or less expansive than the other. To perform the operation successfully, the vessel is
Steatite was sometimes mixed with the glaze, and had the same effect as a sudden immersion. It would naturally follow that no such ornamentation could be applied to porcelain, the paste and glaze being too closely allied in composition. To surmount this difficulty, the glaze was combined with materials destructive of its close affinity with the kaolinic paste. A simultaneous shrinkage being thus made impossible, the glaze cracked. Although both Chinese and foreigners place a high value upon good specimens of crackle, admiration of such a style of ornament involves a decided perversion of taste. It is safe to say that nine persons out of ten would, if left to exert their own uninfluenced judgment, condemn a crackle vase as devoid of all pretension to ornament. It is when we find that the deformity is the result of design, that the piece is a curiosity of workmanship, and represents the mechanical ingenuity of the potter, that it becomes an object of interest and a desirable possession. Crackle-ware has been made by the Chinese since the Song Dynasty, which extended from A.D. 960 to 1279, and probably from a much earlier date. Ornamentation is sometimes laid above the glaze. One very old style of decoration in relief upon the crackle (Fig. 70) consists of medallions and bands of a brown paste, of which imitations, having lions’ heads holding rings in the centre of the medallions, are abundant.
Pottery is used by the Chinese in the making of household vessels
Fig. 70.—Rice-colored Crackle, with Brown Zones. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)
Fig. 70.—Rice-colored Crackle, with Brown Zones. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)
Their stone-ware, covered with porcelain, presents us with some of their most wonderful works. This ware is made into jars, seats, cisterns, and many other utensils and objects. It is said to have been in attempting to make plaques of this kind that Pousa or Pou-tai met with his tragic end as before told. The plaques, Licou-li, or glazed tiles, are devoted to the embellishment of imperial and religious edifices, and by the brilliancy of their many colors, yellow, blue, green, red, and violet, produce a dazzling and gorgeous effect. The famous porcelain tower of Nankin (Fig. 71), or, as it is alternatively called by the Chinese, Tower of the Licou-li, or Poa-en-ssi, the Convent of Gratitude, was covered with tiles of the above description. This building has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. The original consisted of three stories, and was erected B.C. 833. Having been demolished, it was rebuilt A.D. 371-373. It was again destroyed, and again rebuilt by one of the Ming emperors, who, after nineteen years’ work, finished it in 1431. Once more it was demolished during the insurrection of the Taepings; and although travellers—including some Americans—have within the past twenty years been fortunate enough to secure a few fragments as relics (Fig. 72), nothing now remains to mark its site. It was this last tower which was known as the Convent of Gratitude. It consisted of nine stories, and was three hundred and fifty-three feet in height. It was covered with enamelled bricks of red, white, blue, brown, and green
A material which is neither stone-ware nor porcelain, but resembles very fine pipe-clay, is used in making opium pipes. The bowl is enamelled, and decorated with flowers or other forms, and is not unfrequently almost perfect as a work of art. The Chinese boccaro remains one of the finest specimens of a grÈs known to ceramists, and far above any of the stone-wares of Europe. Some specimens are as perfect in their beauty as jewels. The paste is sometimes brown of a reddish tinge, sometimes a gray faintly colored with yellow. It is made into single pieces and services, occasionally of fantastic design. When covered with colored enamels, the boccaro is at once so delicate and brilliant as to be likened to nothing but a gem.
enlarge-image
Fig. 72.—Enamelled Bricks from the Tower of Nankin. (N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)
Fig. 72.—Enamelled Bricks from the Tower of Nankin. (N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)
At a very early period the Chinese attained to that wonderful mastery of the secrets of color which made them the envy of the artists
Fig. 73.—Crackle Vase, with Crabs in Blue. 7 in. high. (J. C. Rankle Coll.)
Fig. 73.—Crackle Vase, with Crabs in Blue. 7 in. high. (J. C. Rankle Coll.)
enlarge-image
Fig. 74.—Chinese Porcelain Lantern. (S. P. Avery Coll.)
Fig. 74.—Chinese Porcelain Lantern. (S. P. Avery Coll.)
PORCELAIN.
When Invented.—King-teh-chin.—All Classed as Hard, Exceptions.—Old Porcelains.—Kouan-ki.—Blue-and-white.—Persian Styles.—Turquoise and other Blues.—Leading Events of Ming Dynasty.—Egg-shell.—Tai-thsing Dynasty.—Mandarin Vases.—Families.—Old White.—Jade.—Purple and Violet.—Liver Red.—Imperial Yellow.—Chinese Ideas of Painting.—SoufflÉ.—Grains of Rice.—Articulated and Reticulated Vases.—Cup of Tantalus.
Porcelain having been invented in the province of Ho-nan, during the Han Dynasty, between the years B.C. 185 and A.D. 88, was manufactured for upward of fifteen hundred years before it was generally
All Chinese porcelain has been classed as hard. The only kind about which any doubt has been entertained is the white, variously ornamented in relief. To this ought, however, to be added certain rare but superb specimens which come from China as well as from Persia. The process by which they were manufactured is not known, but it seems clear that they belong to the same family as the pate tendre of France, that is to say, that their vitrification is due to an alkaline frit, and that the glaze is also alkaline.
Of the dynastic colors the azure-blue adopted by the Tcheou, in 945, is the most celebrated. It was very highly valued, and after the secret of making it passed out of sight, which it did at a very early date, it was never rediscovered. It is known as Tch’aÏ porcelain, and in color resembled the “blue of the sky after rain.” Under the Song Dynasty four very valuable kinds of porcelain were made. The first of these was the Jou-yao, a very fine blue, produced at Jou-tcheon, where crackle porcelain was also made in great perfection; the second (1107-1117) was the famous Kouan-yao, or porcelain for magistrates, of two shades of blue, with a slightly reddish tint; the third takes its name from the Tchang family of potters, and was pale blue and rice-colored crackle; the fourth, the Ting-yao, was of different colors—red, white, brown, and black, and was of great value. These, with the Tcheou blue, are the five ancient qualities held in highest estimation.
There were many other kinds, too numerous to be here given in detail, including the “porcelain of concealed color,” so called because designed for imperial use, and others of varying tints of violet, brown, purple, and blue. At King-teh-chin jade-colored porcelain was made before the tenth century, and a hundred years later the entire empire was interested in the manufacture. With a mere reference, in the mean time, to the blue-and-white porcelain of the Youen Dynasty, we pass to that of the Ming, to which some of the porcelain most highly prized by collectors belongs. When, in 1369, a factory was started at King-teh-chin to supply the imperial wants exclusively—an event not to be confounded with the foundation of the King-teh-chin manufactory, which took place during the Song Dynasty, three hundred and fifty years previously—the vases of blue camaÏeu, called Kouan-ki, or magistrate’s vases, were made in that city. These valuable works were probably intended to follow as nearly as possible the more ancient Tcheou porcelain, which had reached so great a value that even fragments of it were employed like precious stones. It will be observed that the earlier magistrates’ porcelain was made under the Song, and the explanation is given that the Ming Kouan-ki were so called to distinguish the porcelain made at the royal factory from those made for vulgar use. It may be added that the old turquoise blue was made from copper, and the sky-blue from cobalt.
The blue-and-white “Nankin” is a comparatively modern ware made at King-teh-chin. It takes its name from the place of export. It is, in the strict application of the term, not older than the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Chinese began to use imported cobalt; but as now employed, it includes all Chinese porcelain with blue-and-white decoration. The folly of such an unmeaning subdivision finds its reward in the confusion of the student. The blue-and-white is not only the oldest of all Chinese decoration in colors, but is found upon some of the most interesting and valuable works.
Fig. 77.—Tablet of Honor. Fig. 78.—Sacred Axe.
Fig. 77.—Tablet of Honor. Fig. 78.—Sacred Axe.
Fig. 79.—Celosia. Fig. 80.—Treasures of Writing.
Fig. 79.—Celosia. Fig. 80.—Treasures of Writing.
The best pieces, whether ancient or modern, are distinguished by the purity of the white and the clearness of the blue. To this class belong the Kouan-ki already referred to as having been made soon after the middle of the fourteenth century at King-teh-chin. These productions frequently bear certain honorific marks, from which their destination can be inferred. The leading symbols are eight in number;
Fig. 83.—Blue-and-white Plaque, with Honorific Marks. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
Fig. 83.—Blue-and-white Plaque, with Honorific Marks. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
There is in Mr. Avery’s collection a Ming bowl, or cup of “the learned,” which closely resembles one described by Jacquemart. The rim projects slightly, and in panels reserved in the border are the honorific marks. The author is represented seated at a table, deep in meditation, in the very throes of composition. From his forehead issues a scroll which expands into the semblance of a cloud, wherein are depicted by the artist the scenes of the drama which the poet is composing. This method of representing literary travail is in our time left to the caricaturist; but it is, nevertheless, a vivid way of giving artistic form to the thoughts passing in the brain of “the learned.”
Fig. 84.—Blue-and-white. Eight Chinese Celestials standing on Clouds. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 84.—Blue-and-white. Eight Chinese Celestials standing on Clouds. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
The blue-and-white will
Fig. 85.—Blue-and-white Lancelle Vase, Ming Dynasty. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 85.—Blue-and-white Lancelle Vase, Ming Dynasty. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
An exceptional style of decorating blue-and-white Chinese porcelain is that in which a light buff, varying at times to a clear brown, is mingled with the blue. This is seen in bands surrounding the necks of bottles and similarly shaped pieces, and is also occasionally mingled with the blue on the necks of vases.
Fig. 86.—Blue-and-white Chinese. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
Fig. 86.—Blue-and-white Chinese. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
As to the forms and styles of decoration of blue-and-white porcelain, they are too varied to permit of classification. Some of the finest shapes are to be found in this class, and also some of the most unique and curious. Beakers, with gracefully expanding necks alternate
Fig. 87.—Blue-and-white Chinese, “Hawthorn” Pattern. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)
Fig. 87.—Blue-and-white Chinese, “Hawthorn” Pattern. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)
When the Chinese artist condescends to adopt a regular pattern, his attention is directed to relieving the monotony of repetition by diversity of detail. In the vase (Fig. 86) there are at least six distinct styles of edging, and a slight change in the arrangement of the same pattern on the body and neck gives all the variety of two distinct designs.
A well-known but rare pattern is that called Hawthorn (Fig. 87) by Europeans, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, since the so-called “hawthorn” is the blossom of certain fruit-trees better known to the Celestials. In this the blue is the ground-color, and in it the decoration, consisting of sprigs of bud and blossom, is reserved. The ground
Although not belonging to the same family, we may here refer to a rare vase (Fig. 89), which supplies us with a remarkably fine specimen of a kindred style of ornamentation. In this case the ground is black, and the “hawthorn,” or plum-tree, sprays, with white flowers, are wreathed gracefully over its surface. The green of the leaves would
Fig. 89.—Chinese Porcelain. White “Hawthorn” on Black. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)
Fig. 89.—Chinese Porcelain. White “Hawthorn” on Black. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)
To return to the blue-and-white, there are specimens, generally plaques, with flowers resembling asters, painted in blue (Fig. 90). One has some difficulty in bringing the formal arrangement of these flowers into accord with Chinese art as we find it elsewhere. The flowers are regularly disposed in the centre of the plaques, and repeated, in smaller size, in a single row round the rim. It seems more than probable that the style is borrowed or slightly modified, and one is strengthened in such a supposition by the fact that it is seldom, if ever, found upon pieces as pure in paste as the average Chinese porcelain. Possibly, with the intention of following his model more closely, the Chinese artist designedly resorted to an inferior body, such as might have reached China from Persia.
There are certain pieces of blue-and-white in which both Persian forms and Persian styles of decoration have been followed, and these introduce the general subject of Persian influence as felt in China. It first manifested itself as far back as the Siouen-te period (1426) of the Ming dynasty, and is further represented by pieces belonging to
Fig. 90.—Aster Decoration. Blue-and-white. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 90.—Aster Decoration. Blue-and-white. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Of the other blues which were used as ground colors, one of the most famous is the turquoise obtained from copper. It has all the clear depth of the stone from which it takes its name, a liquid transparency elsewhere unequalled. It appears on a great variety of pieces—gods, kylins, birds, dogs, and vases. The latter are very often graved in the paste, after designs more or less ornate. In the specimen given (Fig. 92), which is very finely
The lapis lazuli blue has a deeper tint, and is usually decorated with gold. It is used as a ground color, and fine specimens lead one to question the appropriateness of the name, as the porcelain so decorated has a brilliancy and depth far in advance of the comparatively dull stone. The color is occasionally employed in Persian decoration, and varies in shade.
Fig. 91.—Chinese Porcelain. Persian Style. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
Fig. 91.—Chinese Porcelain. Persian Style. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
The mazarine blue is similarly treated, and is also effectively heightened by a super-ornamentation of gold of different shades. There are many other tints to which it is hard to give even a distinctive name. They illustrate the extreme partiality of the Chinese for this color, a partiality which has never wavered for at least sixteen centuries. It has been the means of giving to the world a greater number of beautiful works of art than would otherwise seem to be within the reach of the most skilful manipulation and the most prolific fancy, when restricted to a single color.
The soufflÉ porcelain will be hereafter noticed, but in the mean time, to prevent misapprehension, reference may be made to the bleu fouettÉ, a style sometimes confounded with the soufflÉ. It is less deep in shade than the lapis lazuli, and has a mottled appearance. It is
We may now glance briefly at the various fabrics of the Ming Dynasty, in their chronological order.
Fig. 92.—Turquoise-blue Chinese Porcelain. TruitÉ Crackle. (S. P. Avery Coll., New York Metropolitan Museum.)
Fig. 92.—Turquoise-blue Chinese Porcelain. TruitÉ Crackle. (S. P. Avery Coll., New York Metropolitan Museum.)
The establishment of an imperial factory at King-teh-chin, as above stated, marked the beginning of the Ming, during which (1368-1649) the art rose to its highest level. After the blue Kouan-ki came vases and vessels of various colors and styles of decoration. Between 1403 and 1424, egg-shell porcelain, so called from its remarkable thinness, was first issued from King-teh-chin, and between 1465 and 1487 reached its greatest excellence and fineness. It was made as thin as paper, and was so favorably regarded by the emperors that they gave rewards to those making the finest pieces. Its gauzy transparent tenuity is effected by grinding it down after glazing. Vases, as well as cups, etc., were made of egg-shell, which at a later date was painted in colors. The fifteenth century saw the greatest triumphs of Chinese artists. From 1426 to 1435, the Siouen-te period, very brilliant blue, red, white, and veined crackle was made. Representations of crickets were a fashionable style of ornamentation. Afterward, between 1465 and 1487, although the colors deteriorated, the beauty of the ornamentation increased toward
There are, besides the works of such an artist as Thang-kong, exceptional pieces of the Tai-thsing Dynasty, especially those of the Kien-long period, during which Thang-kong lived, that are in every way admirable. One example of this period (Fig. 93) has a ground color of light green, overrun with a graceful floriated design graved in the paste, and having reserved panels, in which are a landscape on one side and a tree and bird on the other. In another the ground is a delicate pink, and the figures are raised. Examples might be multiplied
Fig. 93—Kien-long Green Porcelain Vase. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
Fig. 93—Kien-long Green Porcelain Vase. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
The Tai-thsing Dynasty is also marked by the production of the vases called “Mandarin,” usually, but in our opinion mistakenly, ascribed to Japan. The history of China at this time is for our present purpose valuable. So long as the two dynasties were at war, art was neglected; and we therefore find that, for several years prior to the establishment of the Tartar Dynasty, the manufactories gave out no works of note. When the Tai-thsings were firmly seated on the throne the art received a new impulse. While Khang-hi reigned (1661-1722), Thang-ing-siouen was director of the imperial factory, and made two yellows, a green and blue. He was succeeded in 1722 by Nien, who was equally successful, and in 1736 was associated with the artist Thang-kong before mentioned. After Kien-long, the fourth of the Tartar Dynasty, the art went rapidly downward. It will be observed from these few facts that when the decline of Chinese art is spoken of as beginning with the eighteenth century, allowance must be made for the check experienced under Kien-long (1736-1795). When he ascended the throne there were, according to M. Julien, fifty-seven manufactories of porcelain in China, of which seven besides that of King-teh-chin were in the province of Kiang-si. Whatever condition art may have been in, there was plainly no stagnation in production.
And now as to the mandarin vases, which strictly reflect the history of China: the word “mandarin” is applied to all the public
The mandarin vases upon which these costumes are seen, are thick in the paste and frequently uneven on the surface. The hexagonal form, as well as the general features of the decoration, were followed and made familiar to Europeans by the potters of Delft. The decoration is so varied that the group is divided by Jacquemart into six sections. The chief colors are pink, lilac, green, iron red, Indian ink, gold and black. The painting is not executed after the usual Chinese fashion, and the faces in particular are finished with a minute care suggestive of an influence not felt before this period. What concerns us chiefly at present is the reason given by Jacquemart for assigning the entire group to Japanese workmanship. He says:
“The special character of this costume marks out perfectly the group of porcelain upon which it is to be found. It offers, besides, the advantage of rendering incontestable the Japanese origin of these porcelains. The artists of the Celestial Empire have never represented mandarins in their lacquer-work, carved wood or ivories, vases, bronzes, hard or soft stones; no authentic nien-hao piece has depicted anything besides the heroes of ancient times and the subjects of ancient history. It was left to neighboring nations, at the same time inquisitive and commercial, to multiply upon the vases this execrated costume, imposed only after a time by force.
enlarge-image
Fig. 94.—Chinese Ming Vases. White Ground. In medallions, green and brown characters and figures. Darker part red and white, with green flowers. (Geo. R. Hall Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Fig. 94.—Chinese Ming Vases. White Ground. In medallions, green and brown characters and figures. Darker part red and white, with green flowers. (Geo. R. Hall Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
This appears rather a slight reason for giving the entire group to Japan. Let us look back to history. From the Wan-li period of the Ming (1619) to the final fall of the dynasty in 1647, or from the irruption of the Tartars in 1616 down to 1662, the Khang-hi period of the Tai-thsings, we know of no porcelain having been made; but in that period, as we have seen, the industry revived. It is then that we again find a director at King-teh-chin, and seventy years later Thang-kong was reviving the bright red and devising the gold ornamentation on black which we find on the mandarin vases. Jacquemart suggests “some years” after 1616 as the date when the Tartar costume was applied to vases. It is probable that it was at least from fifty to seventy years after that date, and that the best specimens belong to the Kien-long period, which began in 1736. After 1662 the imperial factory was apparently as much under the Emperor’s control as it had been under the Mings; in which case he could, it is presumed, order such paintings and figures in such costumes as he pleased. We know, further, that in 1698 two foreign artists—an Italian and a Frenchman—
Fig. 95.—Ming Vase. Historical Subject. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
Fig. 95.—Ming Vase. Historical Subject. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
An apparently fanciful grouping of Chinese porcelain originated with Albert Jacquemart and Edmond Le Blant. They divide it into four families, the Archaic, the Chrysanthemo-PÆonian, the Green, and the Rose: CÉladon, Crackle, White, Blue, Turquoise-blue, Violet, Bronze, and Lacquer are classed as exceptional. The Chrysanthemo-PÆonian is so called from the prevalence of chrysanthemums and pÆonies on the ground, and the Green and Rose from the predominating colors. A large proportion of the household ornaments of China, garden vases, and table-wares belong to the first of these classes. Blues, red, and gold mingle with each other, and are relieved by green, and sometimes black. Red and blue grounds will be found with designs in white, green, and yellow; or a rich gold will be overspread with green, pale buff, and white; or the ground itself will be white, on which are designs in black, filled with gorgeous flowers. These are the works of artists whose skill and ingenuity are almost as limitless as their fancy. There is no law but the harmony demanded by a florid taste, no aim but effect.
Fig. 96.—Green Family. Ming Dynasty. (F. Robinson Coll.)
Fig. 96.—Green Family. Ming Dynasty. (F. Robinson Coll.)
Green was the imperial color under the Ming Dynasty (1368), and the greater portion of the ornamentation of this family has either a religious or a political significance. The bright copper-green lies perfectly transparent upon the pure white paste. We have already seen the eight immortals riding upon clouds, in a piece of blue-and-white, and the design is repeatedly met upon pieces of the Green family. It is here, in short, that we have the best opportunity of studying the religious system and symbols of China. Dragons are represented with diabolical ferocity; cranes, kylins, fong-hoangs, are intermingled with floral designs, in which are asters and other flowers, and insects. On the sacrificial cups of this family, dragons with forked tails climb the handles, or hang head downward from the lip, while a hideous dragon-head is introduced in the sides. From these grotesque and terrible figures we turn to the pieces of a historical character. The scenes depicted are chiefly taken from the early history of China, which was as prolific a source of ideas to the Chinese artist as classical history and legend to the poets of Europe. Vases of this character are also deserving of study, as illustrating to a farther extent than was done in the Introduction that aspect of the potter’s art in which it appears as the handmaid and illuminator of history. The Chinese artist is rarely seen to better advantage than when painting vases of this family. With a rich palette comprising the prevailing green, blues of every shade, violet, red, yellow, gold, and black, he produces effects of the most charming beauty. When green is used as a ground color, as in the case of the Kien-long vase referred to (Fig. 93), either it covers the entire surface, or reserves are left for the landscape or trees. In the former case the fruit, flowers, and leaves lie upon the bright-green enamel. To the pieces in which green is mingled with yellow and blue upon a white ground, producing the effect of variegated marble, the Chinese give the name of Ouan-lou-hoang.
Fig. 97.—Chinese Plate. Rose Family. Sixteenth Century (?). (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 97.—Chinese Plate. Rose Family. Sixteenth Century (?). (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
The Rose family (Fig. 97) is distinguished by the prevalence of the color to which it owes its name—a pale red applied over the glaze. It comprises what may most emphatically be called the decorative porcelain of China. The body is the perfection of Chinese paste, and the decoration partakes to the full of the vast wealth of Chinese color. With regard to form, this family represents the most perfect pieces in the art of China. With the exception of the old white and the modern decorated with blue, the Tho-tai-khi, “porcelain without embryo,” or egg-shell, belongs almost exclusively to this family, which is admirably represented in Mr. W. L. Andrews’s collection. In such pieces we fully apprehend the beauty of the “rose-back” decoration. The ruby color is laid upon the back of the edge or rim of plates and saucers, and shines through the thin paste with the softness of the pink lining of a shell. It would be impossible to specify all the methods of decorating the egg-shell belonging to the Rose family. We see borders of pink and raised white enamel, others traced as delicately as the finest lace, and still others with reservations filled with bouquets. The decoration sometimes takes the form of exquisite paintings of birds, insects, and flowers; and when scenes with figures are introduced, they are of a totally different character from the religious and historical subjects found in the Green family. They are drawn in part from literature, and in part from the home life of the people. There is in Mr. Avery’s collection at the Metropolitan Museum, a plate having a rose border with raised flowers, and other objects in reserved sections. In the centre is a young girl surprised, as she walks the garden at night, by her lover, who, having thrown his shoes in advance, is mounting the wall. M. Jacquemart informs us that the incident is taken from the “Si-siang-ki,” or, History of the Pavilion of the West, a lyric drama composed by Wang-chi-fou about
Fig. 98.—Chinese Rose Family. (Robert Hoe, Jr., Coll.)
Fig. 98.—Chinese Rose Family. (Robert Hoe, Jr., Coll.)
Before leaving the Rose family, let us glance at a few of the pieces ascribed to Japan, and which ought to be restored to China. To illustrate the difficulty of assigning them, with positive certainty, to either country, the plate given on page 143 may be referred to (Fig. 100). Mr. Andrews considers his piece Japanese, and his opinion is supported by the fact that other specimens, also claimed for Japan, have the same subject painted in the centre. When a photograph of the piece was submitted to the Hon. Jushie Yoshida Kiyonari, the Japanese Minister at Washington, he replied: “It seems to me certain that the subject, as well as the style of the
enlarge-image
Fig. 99.—Chinese Bowl. Rich Decoration, chiefly Yellow and Rose. Height, 11 in.; circumference, 5 ft. 8 in. (Mrs. John V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 99.—Chinese Bowl. Rich Decoration, chiefly Yellow and Rose. Height, 11 in.; circumference, 5 ft. 8 in. (Mrs. John V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
When Jacquemart tries to find an origin for the Chinese Rose family, he says: “Does it issue from the accidental discovery of the red of Cassius? Is it contemporary with other porcelains? Does it come from a particular centre? We think its creation is to be attributed to the wish of imitating the admirable porcelain of Japan.” The same writer, in treating of what he calls “artistic” porcelain of the Japanese Rose family, says: “If we required to seek the cause of these modifications and of the particular style of artistic porcelain, we should find it in a desire of rivalling the Chinese porcelain of the Rose family.” In other words, the Japanese Rose suggested the Chinese Rose, and the Chinese Rose suggested the Japanese Rose—a stage at which the discussion becomes neither lucid nor satisfactory.
The circumstances leading to the confounding of Chinese and Japanese porcelain arose chiefly from trade. The Japanese are said to have gone to King-teh-chin, even in early times, to buy porcelain. According to Duhalde, the Chinese repaid the compliment by loading their vessels with Japanese porcelain on returning from that country. This is corroborated by the missionaries at Pekin, who state that the people there highly prized the Japanese porcelain, which was, in consequence, both rare and dear. They even used it in preference to
There are two chronological points that may help us to throw some light into this confusion, which writers have succeeded in making twice confounded.
enlarge-image
Fig. 100.—Rose-back Egg-shell. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 100.—Rose-back Egg-shell. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
There can be no doubt that the porcelain of the Rose family was at its best about the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth. Jacquemart, therefore, argues that the Japanese imitations would date from the first half of the sixteenth century, and the vitreous enamelled pieces would go back, at least, to the fifteenth. He labors under a very serious mistake, which evidently takes its
If this be admitted, it must be supposed that Japan began by imitating some of the choicest works of China, and those presenting the greatest difficulty to a beginner not perfectly sure of his practice. The necessary result of this, so far as M. Jacquemart is concerned, would be to transfer what he calls artistic porcelain to China. In any event, it is clear that all representatives of that family which can be ascribed to a date earlier than the latter part of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century are Chinese. Many years must have elapsed before the Japanese could, with Shonsui’s assistance, attain to such perfection in working a new material that their ware could be mistaken for that of their teachers.
The difficulties of collectors are thus restricted to pieces which are comparatively modern. Nothing is more natural than that, when the manufacture was temporarily paralyzed in China by the disturbances attending the change from the Ming to the Tartar dynasty, for several years prior to 1662 the Japanese should have bestirred themselves to supply the demand created by the regular trade in China. It is of this period, and down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, that the missionaries write when they speak of the demand for Japanese porcelain. It must have been early in the eighteenth century, also, that the imperial present of Japanese porcelain was sent to Russia. Japanese art was rising as that of China declined; and so far from suggesting the Rose decoration to China, the Japanese Rose was merely striving to take its place, when the original was passing away. The Japanese found the Chinese patronage valuable, and therefore they tried to please their customers by perpetuating the styles of decoration with which they were familiar. Their imitative skill makes the task of distinguishing the two fabrics one of considerable
We have now glanced at the three leading families, even while disposed to call in question the utility of the arrangement. A classification of the above kind has the one great objection, that the exceptions are so numerous as to leave the rule inapplicable to a vast number of the most interesting specimens. And, further, no perfect arrangement is practicable. The Chinese have always been imitators. The potters and artists of the thirteenth century imitated those of the tenth; those of the fourteenth imitated their predecessors of the thirteenth, and so on. Any attempt at a chronological arrangement, with any pretensions to absolute truth, is, for this and other reasons, out of the question. The classification by families, besides its necessary deficiencies, gives no assistance to one studying and trying to master the principles of Chinese art. To such an one, therefore, the only course is to take every specimen at its artistic worth. He may find a large proportion of table-ware of the Chrysanthemo-pÆonian family, but he will also find much that is not of that family. He may find much of the Green family, especially under the Ming Dynasty, with a political or a religious significance, but he will also fail in discovering any such meaning in many of its representatives. He will find chrysanthemums on members of the Green family, and pÆonies on members of the Rose. In short, the better plan is, as we have said, to admire what is admirable, and to be too curious neither about chronology nor the relationship of color. Otherwise, in the latter case, he will come upon incongruities. The weak and the beautiful will be placed side by side, as in the human family a dwarf may be full brother to an Adonis.
From what has been said it will be inferred that the Chinese held in the highest admiration the beauty to be found in color alone. In producing it, they stand at the head of the ceramic artists of the world. The old white porcelain—that is, porcelain decorated with white, and not the undecorated ware—is by some considered the most
Fig. 101.—White Chinese Porcelain, with Blossom in Relief. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
Fig. 101.—White Chinese Porcelain, with Blossom in Relief. (J. C. Runkle Coll.)
With the white there naturally falls to be considered the porcelain compared by writers and by the Chinese themselves with jade, the most precious of stones in the eyes of the Orientals. It is likened in the Li-ki, or Book of Rites, to the rainbow solidified and turned into stone; and in another work occurs the passage, “When I meditate on that wise man, his thoughts appear to me like the jade.” This applies to the discourse of Confucius. The philosopher’s language is quaint
The stone is called yu by the Chinese, and is obtained from Tai-thong, in the province of Chenn-si, and in larger quantities from Khotan, where an entire mountain is said to be composed of it. It has been held in the highest estimation among the Chinese from ancient times, and notwithstanding its extreme hardness, it is made into the most beautiful and curious objects, such as vases, cups, incense-burners, flasks; and even instruments of music.
These facts will enable us to appreciate the comparison so often drawn between porcelain and jade. Thus, the Thang white made by Ho is said to have been “brilliant as jade,” and a contemporary was making vases of artificial jade. Again, in the Song Dynasty, a red porcelain was made at Ting-tcheou, decorated with flowers, graved, painted, or in relief, and said to resemble “sculptured red jade.” Coming down to the Siouen-te period of the Ming Dynasty (1426-1435), we again meet with cups “as white and brilliant as jade,” with their surfaces slightly punctured. These appear to have been imitated in the Wan-li period (1575-1619), when beautiful cups of the whiteness of jade figure in the altar services of the Emperor. The
Let us now see how far these comparisons with jade are warranted by the stone itself. Let it first be noted that many travellers bring from Canton a green and dark-green quality of chalcedony, under the impression that the wily merchants have given them genuine jade. There are also certain kinds of felspar, called nephrite, which have been mistakenly called jade. The genuine yu varies in color from an ivory white to a dark green. It is very hard, very heavy, and fine in grain. Even after it is polished it has the appearance of wax, and the impression made upon the eye is confirmed by the smooth, greasy touch. The exceptional colors are red, black, orange, citron yellow, turquoise and a deeper blue. The white variety called, par excellence, Oriental jade, reflects a pure milky light nearly resembling that of the opal. Japan and India supply a quality of white with the faintest possible tinge of green. Another very beautiful variety is the “imperial jade,” or emerald green, which is occasionally found mixed with white, like the colors in agate.
The value attached to jade was so great, that in China a special officer was appointed to take charge of the jade used in the personal decoration of the emperor, who wore several pieces attached to his girdle. Every description of jewel was made of jade, including those worn in the hair.
From these facts, and those previously narrated, it is evident that to compare porcelain with jade is to compliment it in terms beyond which Chinese language cannot go. Nothing higher or more laudatory can be said of it, and we can thus form some idea of the extreme beauty of the almost opalescent white porcelain of the Siouen-te and Wan-li periods. The admiration of the Chinese for this stone in colors now unknown may possibly also have inspired them to attempt its imitation in many of the finest colors which claim our admiration. The passage quoted from Confucius further suggests that even crackle may
Equal to the turquoise in purity is the violet obtained from the oxide of manganese. Two artists (father and daughter) named Chou, made very beautiful porcelain of this color during the Song Dynasty. Specimens are now very rare, their brilliancy and richness leading collectors to grasp with avidity at any opportunity of becoming possessors of a good example.
Fig. 102.—Chinese Five-fingered Rosadon. Blood color, shading from crimson to scarlet. Upper rim, cloudy white. (G. W. Wales Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Fig. 102.—Chinese Five-fingered Rosadon. Blood color, shading from crimson to scarlet. Upper rim, cloudy white. (G. W. Wales Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
The aubergine, or purple egg-plant violet, was also made under the Song, and is one of the celebrated productions of Kiun, in the province of Ho-nan. This is, however, inferior in beauty to the manganese violet. There is a third tint, of great softness and beauty. The violet is often used in conjunction with turquoise blue, as in a crackle teapot in the Avery collection in the shape of the peach of longevity, in which the body is violet, and the spout and decorating leaves, which are in relief, are in turquoise blue. The colors are also found intermingled in such groups as the Dogs of Fo sporting. Very curious effects are produced by shading the violet on either hand to blue and red. In pieces of this character the blue will be found on the base, and the color changes as it ascends, becoming a rich violet on the body and red on the top. The violet is treated in a manner precisely similar to the turquoise, the pieces being frequently decorated with incised designs.
The shaded violet specimens alluded to remind us of others, in a rich liver-red, where the color becomes paler as it ascends. Thus, in the five-fingered rosadon (Fig. 102) the base is a deep crimson, which turns to scarlet on the body, and finishes on the tips of the fingers in a cloudy white. This color, like the aubergine violet, and a bright red were found upon some of the works made at Kiun in the tenth century; nor must we forget the pieces like “red jade” made at Ting-tcheon
Of the yellow called “Imperial,” from its being the color adopted by the Tai-thsing Dynasty, little is known. The shades vary from a deep orange to a light straw color, but that called Imperial is said to be the citron yellow. Mr. Marryat says that he has seen genuine specimens in only two collections—the late Mr. Beckford’s and the Japan palace at Dresden. He adds, that imitations have been made at Canton and exported. Mr. S. P. Avery, of New York, has a number of pieces of different tints—chrome, citron, lemon, pale and deep yellow, some of which are very curious in both form and decoration. The different shades are also well illustrated in Mr. W. T. Walters’s collection.
Fig. 104.—Grains of Rice. (S. P. Avery Coll.)
Fig. 104.—Grains of Rice. (S. P. Avery Coll.)
The Chinese have ideas of painting peculiar to themselves. They have little regard for perspective, and in ancient times had none whatever. Even so late as the seventeenth century perspective was at direct variance with the rules guiding their art. We can, for example, see vases—particularly those of the Ming Dynasty—in which the personages in a scene appear to be piled directly one above another, or mount stairs, like upright ladders, in order to reach other personages evidently some distance off, but as much in the foreground of the picture as those nearer at hand. Coming down less than half a century
Fig. 105.—Chinese Reticulated Vase. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)
Fig. 105.—Chinese Reticulated Vase. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)
Conceits in shape or design and victory over technical difficulties are his delight. The soufflÉ decoration is characteristic. The color is inserted in a tube having one end covered with fine gauze, and when blown upon the piece to be decorated, falls in minute air-bells, which break into little circles. Red and blue are thus applied upon a pale grayish-blue, and the effect is beautiful and entirely unique. When, as frequently happens, the bubbles do not break, the result is hardly less attractive, the color running into the ground and giving it the appearance of jasper.
Another method of decorating porcelain, is that called “grains of rice work” (Fig. 104), and is of Persian origin. The design is cut through the thin paste, and on the piece being dipped in the glaze, the latter fills up or covers over the interstices, leaving the design distinctly traceable and perfectly transparent.
Among the curiosities of workmanship the most notable are the reticulated and articulated vases and the “surprise hydraulique,” or Cup of Tantalus. The outside of the reticulated vase (Fig. 105) is perforated in different patterns and covers the inner vase without touching it, except at the neck and possibly also the bottom. Ornaments are often attached to the outside of the open-work. More wonderful than the vases are the services of the same kind, in which the outer and inner parts come so closely together as to render the baking of the pieces extremely difficult and uncertain.
The articulated, or jointed, vases represent a similar victory over the difficulties of workmanship. The vase is cut into two sections, which, although separate, cannot be taken apart.
The “Cup of Tantalus” is so constructed that when raised to the lips the expectant drinker finds himself deluged with the contents. It is a Chinese practical joke, played by means of a syphon concealed in the interior of the vessel. Our enumeration may conclude with this specimen of manual dexterity.
Fig. 106.—Oriental Porcelain. Brought to Albany by Captain Dean about 1777. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 106.—Oriental Porcelain. Brought to Albany by Captain Dean about 1777. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
To an American or European taking a wide view of the ceramics of the Chinese, while it is evident that they have produced a vast amount of very beautiful work, the question will no doubt present itself, whether they do not sometimes confound ingenuity with genius, and value the mechanical more highly than the artistic. That they were skilful and rejoiced in exercising their skill is evident; but no one can look without admiration upon their exquisite coloring and flower decoration. If one could find anywhere a complete collection of Chinese pottery, stone-ware, and porcelain, it would be found to contain nearly everything admirable in ceramics, although occasionally hard to appreciate or understand. It would be found to illustrate the entire art history of a people patient, laborious, keen to observe, and swift to imitate, and whom, curiously enough, many of us would rather hear from through the china merchant or collector, than meet in more direct intercourse.
COREA.
Geographical Position.—Successive Conquests.—Its Independent Art.—Confused Opinions regarding it.—Its Porcelain.—Decoration.
Fig. 107.—Old Corean Earthen-ware Five-handled Jar. Yellow on Green. (A. A. Vautine & Co.)
Fig. 107.—Old Corean Earthen-ware Five-handled Jar. Yellow on Green. (A. A. Vautine & Co.)
To the north-east of China, across the Yellow Sea, and adjoining the Chinese province of Shengking, lies the peninsula of Corea. Situated between China and Japan, it was alternately under the domination of its more powerful neighbors, and has given, in its ceramic productions, abundant evidences of their sway. At first its works were attributed to Japan, from which country they were carried to Europe. Further inquiry led to the discovery that Corea had an independent artistic existence, and that, while borrowing from either side of it, it imparted to both China and Japan the secrets it had mastered in the art of painting porcelain. The confusion regarding Corean ceramics is entirely due to the commercial intercourse between it and its neighbors, whose styles it adopted and occasionally mingled. Its wares were also sent into their markets. It long ago ceased to produce any kind of porcelain.
Describing some specimens of Corean porcelain, Julliot, a dealer of the last century, speaks of “the fine grain of its beautiful white paste, the attractive lightness and softness of its dead red, the velvet of its bright-green and dark sky-blue colors.” The decoration consists
enlarge-image
Fig. 108.—Corean Porcelain. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 108.—Corean Porcelain. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 109.—Corean Porcelain; Persian Decoration.
Fig. 109.—Corean Porcelain; Persian Decoration.
enlarge-image
Yebis. Shiou-ro. Bis-jamon. Benten. Tossi-toku. Daikoku. Hotei. Fig. 110.—Picnic of the Household Gods of Japan.
Yebis. Shiou-ro. Bis-jamon.
Benten. Tossi-toku. Daikoku. Hotei.
Fig. 110.—Picnic of the Household Gods of Japan.
JAPAN.
How to Study Japanese Art: Its Origin.—Its Revived Independence.—Nomino-Soukoune.—Shirozayemon.—Raku.—When Porcelain was First Made.—Shonsui.—Form of Government.—The Gods.—Symbols.—“Land of Great Peace.”—Foreign Relations.—General Features of Art.—Chinese and Japanese Porcelains.
ON coming to the land of Nippon, “source of the sun,” known to the outside world as Japan, we must still keep in mind the warning with which we entered China. Japanese art is of Chinese origin, but was modified as it developed. It adapted itself to Japanese tastes,
To begin with the rise of the art in Japan, although legend would carry us back to the era of Oanamuchi-no-mikoto, and the inventor Oosei-tsumi, long before history begins, we may content ourselves with a less hoary antiquity. It is said that in the sixth century before Christ certain kinds of pottery were ordered by the Emperor Jinmu for religious purposes. The next five hundred years give no additional knowledge, but in B.C. 29 we learn that in the province of Id-soumi there lived a certain worker in stone and pottery called Nomino-Soukoune. The custom at that time was for slaves to be buried with their dead masters, presumably that the latter might have some one to wait upon them in the next world. When Nomino-Soukoune heard of the death of the Empress, he quickly made some images of stone or earthen-ware, and, taking them to the Emperor, induced him to bury them with the Empress as substitutes for her favorite attendants. The cruel rite was thereafter abolished, and the potter and sculptor, as a reward and distinction, was allowed to take for his surname Haji, the artist in clay. Two years later, B.C. 27, a Corean
After the above date the accounts open to us become slightly contradictory. A maker of tiles is said to have come from Corea, about the year 590, to Japan, to teach his business; that about sixty years later the experiment of tiling a temple roof was first tried, and that the pagoda of a temple in Yamato was built of brick. These assertions point to a relatively backward state of ceramic art in Japan as compared with China; and if tiles and bricks were still novelties in the former country, we are quite prepared to hear that it was only in the year 724 that the monk or priest Giyoki introduced the potters’ wheel. This same individual apparently figures in another account, under the name Gyoguy, as a Corean priest of Buddha, who spread the knowledge of making “porcelain.” In the ninth century the number of factories had greatly increased; but native skill does not appear to have developed to any great extent, although an imperial official superintended the trade. Toward the earlier part of the thirteenth century, Kato Shirozayemon, not being content with the rude works he was turning out, called Koutsi fakata, pieces with worn orifice, undertook the journey to China, in the company of a priest named Fogen, to acquire, if possible, additional skill. In this he was successful, and on his return settled at Seto, in the province of Owari, now celebrated for its porcelain. Several authors speak of the earlier wares of Japan as porcelain; and Jacquemart says that Kato Shirozayemon returned with all the secrets of the art. The question occurs, Is it likely, that, if Japan was at the beginning of our era acquainted to any extent with making porcelain, it would, after experimenting for twelve centuries, be so dependent upon Chinese teaching as to make Kato Shiro’s journey necessary? The probability is the other way. More than that, even the last named traveller cannot, without question,
Fig. 111.—Raku Bowl; Green and Gold. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Fig. 111.—Raku Bowl; Green and Gold. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
It may, further, be pointed out that the existing samples of the ware made by Giyoki, or Gyoguy, in the seventh or eighth century, and now in the temple of Todaiji, Yamato, are said to be earthen-ware. Upon the whole, it is most probable that the secrets acquired by Kato Shirozayemon did not carry him farther than the making of stone-ware, and that real porcelain was not made in Japan until between the years 1530 and 1540, or about fifty years prior to the date of the discovery of artificial porcelain in Europe. About that time Goro-dayu Shonsui, a native of Ise, went to China, and, on returning from a lengthened investigation, settled in Hizen, and instituted the manufacture of porcelain. So thoroughly had he mastered the processes of
It is unnecessary for our purpose to enter fully into an examination of the government of Japan. The central power is the Mikado, descendant of the gods, political and ecclesiastical head of the government. The Tycoon was the executive head, but was expelled a few years ago. What is here to be chiefly observed is, that in the Mikado centres the loyalty of his people, a loyalty based upon tradition and sanctified by religion. The Mikado’s arms are twofold, the (Fig. 112) Kiri-mon—official, and the (Fig. 113) Guik-mon—personal, the former being the flower and leaves of the Paullownia imperialis, the latter that of the chrysanthemum. The Tycoon’s arms (Fig. 114) consisted of three mallow leaves.
The religion of Japan, apart from its symbolism, has little appreciable influence upon its pottery, possibly on account of the comparatively late and rapid growth of the ceramic art. The original religion was Kamism or Shintoism, the worship of ancestors. This is the religion upheld by the Mikados. Upon it Buddhism was in-grafted, and supported by the Tycoons. The two harmonized well, thanks to Japanese toleration, but their combination presents many a curious puzzle. The Japanese cosmogony is simple. Heaven and earth were evolved out of chaos, and then the presence of controlling power being necessary, the gods came. At
Fig. 115.—Japanese Porcelain Bowl. Diameter, 3 ft. 7 in. (Corcoran Art Gallery.)
Fig. 115.—Japanese Porcelain Bowl. Diameter, 3 ft. 7 in.
(Corcoran Art Gallery.)
The symbols of Japan are nearly all taken from China. The imperial dragon, though having only three claws, is closely allied to the four and five clawed dragons of China. The Ky-lin and Dog of Fo both reappear, and the Fong-hoang, or Foo, again presents itself with added elegance of form and supreme beauty of plumage. Another bird, resembling an eagle, deserves its title of imperial from its majesty of gait and expression, and seems in perfect keeping with its accompanying noble emblems. The sacred tortoise has a long feathery and fan-like tail, and appears in numberless compositions. The crane, turtle, pine, and bamboo are the emblems of longevity.
In view of all that Japan owes to China and Corea—a great part of its religion, its knowledge of art processes, and its symbols, one would expect to find little that is original in its ceramics. There is, on the other hand, often visible a decided individuality and independence. Japan absorbed and transmuted, while apparently engrossed in copying. The process of assimilation, of bringing the foreign suggestion into subjection to native principles, took time; but even while Japan was in its pupilage, its national character was asserting itself. Its history and position show alike the favorable conditions under which its art grew up. After the aboriginal Ainos had been once subdued by their Asiatic conquerors, history substantiates the claim of Japan to the title of “The Land of Great Peace.” It is true that revolution has of late years changed the form of government by the removal of the Tycoon; but from the beginning of the historical period, B.C. 660, to the civil wars which preceded the establishment of the Tycoons nearly three hundred years ago, there was no war of any consequence. After that event, and down to the return of the executive authority into the hands of the Mikado, there was another long peace. The Japanese, be it again observed, cared little for their god of glory, Bis-ja-mon. Isolation and freedom from the disturbing consequences of war gave the Japanese an opportunity of cultivating the arts of peace with a constantly increasing show of independence, even when the art was based upon a foreign foundation.
In viewing their earliest ceramic productions, there is some difficulty in distinguishing them from those of China and Corea, and this difficulty is increased when we find upon their vases scenes from the court life of China, and a great deal of borrowed ornamentation. In
Specimens of “Christian” porcelain, made apparently by the Chinese for the persecuted of Japan, are still in existence, and may be seen in many American collections. After the Portuguese came the Dutch. Had the latter restricted themselves to trading in porcelain, it would have been better for Japanese art. Instead of doing so, they tried to imitate the native wares, and, which was far worse, commissioned the native artists to adopt European styles and to attempt to gratify the whims of European taste and fashion. We cannot wonder that art declined, but are rather led to be surprised that the decline was not more speedy and permanent.
The points of difference between the porcelain of China and Japan may be briefly stated after the general features of Japanese art have been examined. It is to the American a peculiar art. It does not touch our admiration like the Greek for the truthful working out of its ideal forms, nor for the ideals themselves. It does not imbue us with a sense of the mysterious like that of Egypt. We can all admire its wonderful coloring and its perfection of finish; but besides these there is a fascination in the exuberant fancy, richness of invention, and happy blending of tints. The Japanese are true to nature, far more so than the Chinese; but they do not copy nature in every detail. In their best work we will often find that, with a peculiar delicacy, the artist merely indicates what an American or European artist would feel it incumbent upon him to represent. The former holds our attention by leaving it to the imagination to make his work complete. This will suggest what is actually the case—that, as a rule, form is secondary to color.
Japanese porcelain and pottery differ from those of China in the following general respects: perspective is permissible in painting; as a rule, there is greater simplicity of design, and the ornamentation is more chaste and less profuse; and, as already noticed, nature is more closely followed. To explain the greater purity and refinement of Japanese art, there are three points to be noticed. While the Chinese degraded art by degrading the artists, the best and noblest Japanese were themselves artists. Princes are said to have engaged in lacquer-work. The Chinese lowered ceramic art into a merely mechanical pursuit, by dividing the different parts of the ornamentation among several workmen. Artistic conception was almost lost sight of where mechanical finish was thus painfully sought. The Japanese give us the creations of individual men, who bring their own marvellous industrial skill to the expression of their own ideas. The third advantage which they possessed was that already incidentally referred to, viz., the prevalence of hereditary occupations. It has been seen that descendants, of the eleventh generation, of Coreans who settled in Japan as workers in stone-ware are now engaged in the same pursuit. The transmission of technical knowledge was thus amply provided for.
Possessing such advantages and tendencies, the Japanese surpassed the Chinese in several respects. That they do so to-day, the Centennial Exhibition, even making a due allowance for the superior organization of the Japanese section as a government representation, placed beyond all question or cavil. This truth is one to which ceramists, undeceived by the exaltation of China and the treatment of Japan as a mere offshoot, should not be strangers. In lacquer-work the Japanese have always been superior, and at the Exhibition one of the best specimens in the Chinese section was from Japan. The lacquer was so laid on that the ornamentation on the underlying porcelain disclosed itself, and animal forms in red and gold decorated the lacquer. Similar acknowledgments of the excellence of Japanese porcelain have been otherwise made. The Chinese sometimes copy Japanese decoration. Further evidence is not wanting, and has been referred to under China, of the rarity and high value of Japanese porcelain in China.
In any event, the time for servile imitation has passed with all that was worth imitating. Instead of devoting themselves, as the Chinese
POTTERY.
Geographical Distribution.—Classification.—Satsuma.—Difficult Ware.—Saki Cups.—Imitations of Satsuma.—Kioto.—Awata.—Awadji.—Banko.—Kiusiu.—Karatsu.—Suma.
Fig. 116.—Satsuma Vase. Dragon in Red and Gold. Height, 16½ in. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Fig. 116.—Satsuma Vase. Dragon in Red and Gold. Height, 16½ in. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
The ceramic industry of Japan is chiefly, if not entirely, confined to the southern half of the empire. A line drawn from Tokio (Yeddo) to Kaga is its northern limit, and between that line and Satsuma, one of the two most southerly provinces of the island of Kiusiu, the manufacture is pretty evenly distributed. The great centres are Kiusiu, in which are Hizen and Satsuma; Kioto, round which are clustered the prominent names of Awadji, Hiogo, Idsumi, and Nara; Owari and Mino; Kaga, including Kutani, Yamashiro, and in the adjoining province of Echizen, the village of Ota; and, lastly, Tokio, including Yokohama. From these five centres come nearly all the wares which have of late years become so familiar in the American markets. These wares are now known exclusively by the name of the place of manufacture or the inventor. Whatever rule may have been followed in the past, it is now therefore evident, that hereafter Japanese pottery and porcelain must be treated after a method precisely similar to that followed in discussing the wares of France or of England, where, instead of families, we have SÈvres, Limoges, Palissy, Worcester, Derby, and Wedgwood.
The Japanese have an endless variety of earthen-ware made for household use. Of this class some pieces are left unglazed, and others have a very fusible plumbeous glaze, under which painted decorations are sometimes to be seen. Of their semi-porcellaneous, highly refractory potteries, the two best known in America are the Satsuma and Awata. The former (Fig. 116) is so called from the province of that name, in the south of the island of Kiusiu, where it has been made at or near Kagoshima for nearly three hundred years. The latter is made in one of the suburbs of Kioto, in Central Japan. The clay is kaolinic, and the glaze felspathic, but not of the purity of porcelain; and, as a consequence, they do not fuse to the same extent. The body and glaze not being perfectly homogeneous, the latter presents a fine net-work of cracks. The beautiful and soft buff color of the Satsuma ware is its first characteristic. The ornamentation generally consists of birds and flowers delicately outlined and colored. The chrysanthemum, the pÆonia, pheasants, and peacocks are especially abundant. This ware is extensively used in the making of tea-sets, charming alike in form and color. So light are the pieces that it is difficult to persuade one’s self that they are not porcelain. The shapes are quaint, and suggestive of flower-cups and leaves. One style of decoration may be taken as typical. The delicious creamy buff paste, covered with crackle glaze, is sprinkled with gold, after a manner in which the Japanese have no equals. On this rich but delicate ground are many-colored flowers, birds, or insects, which harmonize admirably with the shape of the cups. In America so much beauty could be possessed only by the rich. In Japan almost any one may be its owner. A feature distinctive of
Fig. 118.—Satsuma Vase. Very Fine Crackle. Decoration: leaves brown, veined with gold. Height, 15 in. (R. H. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 118.—Satsuma Vase. Very Fine Crackle. Decoration: leaves brown, veined with gold. Height, 15 in. (R. H. Pruyn Coll.)
Another product of Satsuma is called “difficult ware,” from the extreme nicety of the operation performed in making it. In this the body is coarser than in that last mentioned. The ground is similarly prepared, and upon it are laid in relief flowers and birds of fine porcellaneous paste. The technical difficulties attending the production of such ware are obvious. By what ingenuity does the Japanese artist overcome the difference between decorating material and body? A precisely similar style of decoration is employed on many household vessels of earthen-ware or majolica. In these very fine effects are secured by the choice of a sombre ground, from which the porcelain flowers and animals stand out in clear and bold relief. The best Satsuma ware and crackle are perfect marvels of color. The decoration bears a general resemblance to that already described, but is finer. The cracks are scarcely visible, the gold is more cloud-like and fleeting, and the floral ornamentation is more tropically luxuriant. In the higher qualities of crackle, the paste and glaze differ widely in composition, in order that deeper and more distinct cracks may be produced; and tangled in the web are wreaths of green, purple, crimson, and blue flowers mingled with gold. A totally different style of decoration is seen on many cylindrical vases, and shows that the Japanese artists have a clear perception of the subtle harmony existing between form and ornament. In these, to be in sympathy with the simple shape, the designs are bolder, and the colors are laid on with a freer hand.
Fig. 119.—Satsuma Vase. Height, 7½ in. (J. W. Paige Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Fig. 119.—Satsuma Vase. Height, 7½ in. (J. W. Paige Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
The Satsuma paste varies in tint from buff to a cold and dark shade of brown; but the decoration of the latter is, as a rule, decidedly inferior. The shapes are manifold, and are generally characterized by simplicity and elegance. When the potter turns to intricate designs, his skill in manipulating the clay seems almost boundless. This feature is more remarkable in the older pieces than in those of more recent date, and is well illustrated in the vase on page 167 (Fig. 117), where a series of thin loose rings gives the piece an appearance altogether unique. The vase from Mr. Robert H. Pruyn’s collection (Fig. 118) is presumably from the Prince’s workshop, and is an excellent example of the refinement of Japanese taste. Full effect is given to the admirable workmanship displayed in the basket-work moulding, which is relieved, but not concealed, by the ivy decoration. A more prevalent style is exemplified by the vase (Fig. 119) in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The flowers appear to grow from the base to the neck, where a single flower and a few green leaves are left to finish the bouquet. The piece is a rare specimen both in regard to fineness of paste and the delicate treatment of the flower decoration. It belongs to the large class which is illustrative of the Japanese preference of flowers before figures, and of the careful fidelity with which the former are treated. They lead one to think that in the Japanese workshop the “Feast of Flowers” knew no end.
A singular example of Satsuma ware—so singular both in body and ornamentation as almost inevitably to suggest a doubt of its coming from the same workshop—is the Sutton vase (Fig. 120). The decoration is in high relief, and stands out strongly against the brown ground. There are many fine examples of designs executed in relief. These assume the forms of turtles, fishes, frogs, lizards, and crabs, carefully modelled and truthfully colored. On pieces of a religious character the gods of the Japanese pantheon
Fig. 120.—Satsuma Faience. Buff and Gold; Decoration in Relief. (J. F. Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 120.—Satsuma Faience. Buff and Gold; Decoration in Relief. (J. F. Sutton Coll.)
The religious vessels are very often elaborately decorated. Incense jars have figures of the gods; the turtle, symbolical of longevity; and medallions of flowers surrounded by borders of green, crimson, and gold; or we may find the gods Shiou-ro and Tossi-toku, of longevity and wisdom, in a landscape; or combats between gods and demons; or a mixed assemblage of priests and gods. When the figures of the gods are painted on the inside, the value of the piece may be estimated by the delicacy of the figure-painting. Hotei, the god of contentment, and Yebis, are thus figured on the inside of bowls; and sometimes there are priests and women; or gods and dragons may be seen on the inside and priests on the outside. Satsuma ware is also found in round, oval, or leaf-like plaques, on which are religious and other subjects.
More frequently in Kaga or Kutani porcelain, but sometimes also in Satsuma ware, will be found what are called “Saki” cups. Saki, or Sake, is the chief alcoholic drink of Japan, and is made from rice. It is drunk hot at meals from the cups known by its name. The size of these pieces precludes excessive decoration, and the artist concentrates his efforts upon fineness of execution and finish.
Satsuma ware is imitated at Kioto, Yokohama, and elsewhere; and there is little doubt that pieces from these and other centres make their appearance in America under the adopted and better known name. There are no safeguards against deception but the character of the dealer and the good taste and judgment of the collector.
The Kioto pottery is scarcely inferior to the Satsuma. In the specimen given below (Fig. 122) the creamy ground is covered with a kaleidoscopic mingling of colors—yellow and purple chrysanthemums and cloudy masses of gold—and in the foreground is a cock with brilliant plumage. Other specimens are seen in Figs. 121 and 123.
Awata ware is made at Kioto, and is of more recent origin than the Satsuma, from which it differs chiefly in the more pronounced tint of its prevailing yellow color. From the latter characteristic it has been called “egg pottery.” In the older pieces the style of decoration is entirely different from the Satsuma. The colors used were few in number and neutral in tone. More recently the artists of Kioto have resorted to imitations of Satsuma and porcelain decorations, and of European styles.
Fig. 122.—Kioto Vase. Very Brilliant Colors. Height, 18 in. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Fig. 122.—Kioto Vase. Very Brilliant Colors. Height, 18 in. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Awadji, an island lying between Shikoku and Hiogo on the main-land, produces a ware closely allied to the Satsuma. The glaze is similar, and the kaolinic paste is made from ground granite found on the island. The body-tint is an extremely soft yellow, the cracks are usually fine, and the painting, outlined in black, is decided in character. From the same place comes a strong stone-ware, either with a glaze containing oxide of copper or covered with a slip. The cracks are few in number, and the prevailing colors are green and russet.
The above names, it will be observed, are taken from the places of manufacture. The Banko-yaki is so called from the inventor,
Fig. 123.—Kioto Faience. Brown, Red, and Green on Buff. (J. F. Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 123.—Kioto Faience. Brown, Red, and Green on Buff. (J. F. Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 124.—Kiusiu Earthen-ware. Blue on Purple. Height, 15 in. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Fig. 124.—Kiusiu Earthen-ware. Blue on Purple. Height, 15 in. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
The ware called “Kiusiu” takes its name from the island already mentioned, but the exact place of its manufacture is not more specifically stated. The illustration (Fig. 124) exemplifies a large division of this pottery, which has designs more or less intricate graved in the paste, and painted purple or plum and turquoise blue. Some of the finer pieces have floral and emblematic incisions, and upon the mingled blue and plum are chrysanthemums and vines in lacquer.
Karatsu is a town in the province of Hizen, and gives its name to a buff ware, somewhat resembling in appearance the darker qualities of Satsuma. It is finely crackled, and the designs are exceedingly varied. The tenacity of the fine paste is exemplified in the reticulated vase (Fig. 125), in which frequent changes in the pattern lighten, by variety, the sombre character of the piece. It will be observed that the inner surface is also decorated, and we are thus
Fig. 125.—Karatsu Vase. Reticulated Buff Crackle. (J. F. Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 125.—Karatsu Vase. Reticulated Buff Crackle. (J. F. Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 126.—Suma Earthen-ware. Blue Slate Color; Black, Red, and Reddish-brown Decoration. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Fig. 126.—Suma Earthen-ware. Blue Slate Color; Black, Red, and Reddish-brown Decoration. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
It is unnecessary to do more than enumerate the wares of Suma, or Soma, Nara, Ota, Idsumi, and Kaga, or Kutani, some of which approach translucent porcelain so nearly as to be entitled to be classed with it. The specimen (Fig. 126) is chosen for illustration for a very simple reason. The body is a common coarse earthen-ware, manipulated with very moderate skill, and the color is in no respect remarkable. But in the disposal of the grape-vine decoration, and the drawing and attitude of the bird, there is nothing more simple and tasteful to be seen on the finest Hizen porcelain. In spite of the humble material, the artist compels our admiration. It is the same wherever we turn. Art is for all, the lowly as well as the rich, and embellishes every object, the humble as well as the most costly.
There are simple vessels, teapots, and cups of clay, thin as Banko ware, and left unglazed, which for very oddity and perfection of workmanship are worthy of a place in any collection. Mr. Sutton has two pieces of this character. One is a
Fig. 127.—Satsuma Vase. Decoration, Green and Red. Height, 13 in. (Robert H. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 127.—Satsuma Vase. Decoration, Green and Red. Height, 13 in. (Robert H. Pruyn Coll.)
PORCELAIN.
Leading Differences between Japanese and Chinese.—Sometsuki Blue.—Ware for Export.—Gosai, or Nishikide.—Arita, or Hizen.—Families.—Decoration.—Modern Hizen.—Seidji.—Kioto.—Eraku.—Kaga.—Portraiture.—Owari.—Lacquer.—CloisonnÉ.—Rose Family.—Early Styles: Indian: Dutch Designs.—General Characteristics of Japanese Art.
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.
enlarge-image
Fig. 128.—Japanese Porcelain Plaque. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
Fig. 128.—Japanese Porcelain Plaque. (W. L. Andrews Coll.)
The leading differences between the porcelains of the two countries are that the Japanese is of a purer white and finer quality, that
The place of manufacture of many of the pieces belonging to the first of these families is authenticated by the peculiar Japanese symbols, such as the Imperial bird, the guikmon, the Imperial three-clawed dragon, the crane, bamboo, and other emblems of longevity; and also occasionally by the pieces being decorated with legendary subjects. One of the latter is decorated in part with a water-fall, and a carp leaping upward. The latter is a symbol borrowed from China. Mr. Griffis says of it: “The koi (carp) leaping the water-fall is a symbol of aspiration and ambition, and an augury of renown. The origin of the symbol is Chinese. In an old book it is said that the sturgeon of the Yellow River make an ascent of the stream in the third moon of each year, when those which succeed in passing above the rapids
Fig. 129.—Old Imari Porcelain. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Fig. 129.—Old Imari Porcelain. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Fig. 130.—Japanese Dish. Ground, Red and Blue; Figures, Green and Gold. Diameter, 11 in. (Robert H. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 130.—Japanese Dish. Ground, Red and Blue; Figures, Green and Gold. Diameter, 11 in. (Robert H. Pruyn Coll.)
The paste and glaze of the older examples of Hizen are inferior to the Chinese, the former being thick and comparatively coarse, as we find it in the accompanying specimen (Fig. 129). Such are the early vases of the Chrysanthemo-PÆonian family. They represent, apparently, the struggles of workmen attempting to apply recently acquired knowledge to native material: a further proof that when the Dutch opened their trade with Japan the porcelain industry was still in its infancy. That the manufacture improved with great rapidity is evident from such examples as the dish (Fig. 130), an admirable specimen of early Gosai, or Nishikide. Only five colors were employed in its decoration: black for the outlines; red, green, gold, and blue, as we find them on Mr. Pruyn’s dish, where the design in green and gold is laid upon a ground of red and blue.
In modern times the porcelain of Hizen includes some of the best coming from Japan. To it we owe those exquisite specimens of a double art, trays and vessels of porcelain, decorated with flowers and birds in raised enamels, encased in a cover of bamboo wicker-work.
The rich beauty of the coloring of Hizen porcelain is indescribable. One vase has birds and flowers freely disposed over its surface; another has reserved panels with birds and chrysanthemums in relief, and a third has birds and flowers on a ground of gold, and set in an open border. The desire to imitate
Fig. 131.—Hizen Vase. Blue Ground; White Decoration. Height, 13½ in. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 131.—Hizen Vase. Blue Ground; White Decoration. Height, 13½ in. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 132.—Japanese Porcelain Vase. (H. C. Gibson Coll.)
Fig. 132.—Japanese Porcelain Vase. (H. C. Gibson Coll.)
Another piece, about which nothing certain is known, is the vase (Fig. 132) from Mr. Gibson’s collection. It is a marvel of patient and skilful labor, and tells its story, no doubt, if the means of reading it were only within reach. The lattice of gold hangs as fine as gossamer over the figures, with sufficient transparency to leave the inside scene distinctly visible.
To return to the modern pieces known to be Hizen, the bowls above mentioned are supplemented by others shaped like pomegranates, and profusely decorated, sometimes both inside and outside, with flowers, insignia, and the imperial bird, or with vines and flowers in gold and crimson. All
The ware called Seidji is the Japanese cÉladon, and is decorated after the style seen in China, i. e., with designs graved in the paste. It has been made in Hizen ever since Shonsui settled in that province (A.D. 1580).
Leaving Arita, in the mean time, there are several other centres demanding notice. The blue Sometsuki is also made in Owari and Kioto. With the latter is associated a distinctive ware called Eraku, from its inventor, in which gold decoration is laid upon a red ground. When Indian-ink and the colors of the Nishikide are found on Kioto porcelain, it resembles very closely that of Hizen. Green, blue, and gold are frequently mingled. As in other Japanese centres, the tendency to seek nature, either for suggestion or imitation, manifests itself at Kioto. Vases with crabs and shells, moulded and painted from nature, remind us of the “Palissy pottery, with raised fishes and fruit,” of which Sir R. Alcock speaks.
Fig. 133.—Kaga Ware. Decoration, Red and Gold. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Fig. 133.—Kaga Ware. Decoration, Red and Gold. (A. A. Vantine & Co.)
Somewhat similar to Eraku is the porcelain of Kaga. One quality (Fig. 133) of the latter has gold decorations on red or black grounds, mingled with flowers or birds traced either in red or black, according to the ground. On another quality the painting outlined in black is executed in enamel colors, resembling those already described as in use at Arita. The result is exceedingly rich. One specimen is described by Mr. Jarves (“Art of Japan”), and is in the possession of Mr. Sutton, of New York. On the outside are two men holding a
Another cup, also in Mr. Sutton’s collection, of a somewhat similar shape, i. e., narrow and high, has the inside almost entirely covered with these minute characters. It is well-nigh impossible to trace with the eye those near the bottom, and an estimate can thus be made of the difficulty of forming them with the brush.
The decoration particularly characteristic of Kaga porcelain is the multiplication of portraits. Occasionally we find medallions of flowers set in colored borders, or fishes on the inside of both vessel and cover, and vines and flowers on the outside; but the style most intimately associated with Kaga is the marvellously minute and highly finished painting of a crowd of faces. We have seen whole tea-sets thus covered with what were said to be portraits of the poets of the Mikado’s empire, executed with the most perfect finish upon a ground of pure gold. On the inside of one shallow dish there were no fewer than sixty-five portraits, on a ground of gold, and on the outside was a landscape set in flowers. A plaque of the same ware had eighty
Fig. 134.—Owari Porcelain, decorated at Yeddo. (Yoshida Kiyonari Coll.)
Fig. 134.—Owari Porcelain, decorated at Yeddo. (Yoshida Kiyonari Coll.)
At Owari, the favorite colors would appear to be deep-blue and white, the former being generally used as a ground, the latter for ornamentation. The seat of the manufacture is Seto, a village near Nagoya, the chief town of the province of Owari. Many of the heavy vessels now manufactured at Seto have no artistic quality to recommend them, but smaller specimens of great beauty may occasionally be met with. A small vase, for example, has the base of deep blue, the body of a paler shade, and the upper part deepening into a purplish tint. In some cases the white decoration is in relief.
The porcelain and pottery reaching us from Yeddo (Fig. 134), or Tokio, is largely composed of the different provincial products. They are taken to that city to be decorated, and it is almost impossible in the great majority of cases to specify the place of manufacture.
Two remarkable methods of decorating porcelain bring us to lacquer-work and cloisonnÉ enamel. Lacquer is a sap or gum drawn by tapping from the Rhus vernicifera, a tree cultivated for this special purpose throughout the entire southern half of Japan. After settling, the lacquer is mixed with certain coloring and hardening powders, and strained. The black quality is made by exposing the viscous gum for a few days to the open air, and then diluting it with water which has been for some time mixed with iron filings. The greater part of the water is then allowed to evaporate, and the process having been completed, the lacquer is ready for use. The ornamentation consists either of mother-of-pearl, ivory, or metal
Fig. 135.—Lacquer on Arita Porcelain. Height, 8 ft. 8 in. (Corcoran Art Gallery.)
Fig. 135.—Lacquer on Arita Porcelain. Height, 8 ft. 8 in. (Corcoran Art Gallery.)
Fig. 136.—Tokio CloisonnÉ Enamel. (Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 136.—Tokio CloisonnÉ Enamel. (Sutton Coll.)
The system of classification which has hitherto been followed has been adopted mainly in view of the modern manufactures of Japan. In looking at its more ancient wares, the place of manufacture being, us a rule, unknown, the method of assortment usually adopted is that based upon general characteristics and marked features of resemblance.
Following the Chinese parallel, there are, as we have said, Chrysanthemo-PÆonian and Rose families, but no Green. The symbols, whether consisting of flowers or animals, are the best and safest indications of the origin of the piece. Many of the finest specimens belong to the Rose family, and it may as well be stated at the outset that, in spite of the most careful examination, it is sometimes impossible to ascribe its representatives to a certain
Fig. 137.—Owari CloisonnÉ Enamel. (Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 137.—Owari CloisonnÉ Enamel. (Sutton Coll.)
Fig. 138.—Japanese Vase. White, Red, Rose, and Green. Blossoms on Left; White Enamel Raised. Height, 6½ in. (Robert H. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 138.—Japanese Vase. White, Red, Rose, and Green. Blossoms on Left; White Enamel Raised. Height, 6½ in. (Robert H. Pruyn Coll.)
Jacquemart classes all the fine porcelain of Japan under the Rose family, to which would, therefore, belong the vase (Fig. 138) with white enamel decoration in relief. The subdivision of the family into vitreous and artistic porcelain, leads us to examine the grounds upon which it is made. The distinction between the two classes is based upon the styles of decoration. In both qualities the paste is very translucent, and the colors are pure and clear. The decoration of the vitreous is sparing, and of most careful execution, as though the artist were desirous of giving full effect to the natural beauty of the ware in its unadorned purity. Decorations of this kind gradually merge into more elaborate designs, in which flowers are strewn in careless grace over the opalescent paste, or animals are represented in gold and red. In the artistic porcelain the decoration partakes more of the Chinese intricacy and richness of color. Red, blue, green, yellow, and black mingle in scenes in which appear birds, figures, and flowers surrounded by deep and delicately shaded borders. It is inferred, from the gradually increasing elaboration of
By reason of his faulty chronology, M. Jacquemart’s inference is open to question, although in the present case he appears to have reached a partial truth. The condition of both China and Japan, as it can be gleaned from history, detracts somewhat from the probability of the assumptions of the author mentioned. Europeans first landed in Japan in 1542—almost contemporaneously with the earliest manufacture of porcelain—and, in 1549, the first missionaries followed. In about thirty years (1581) one hundred and fifty thousand converts had been made, and, in 1583, an embassy was sent to the Pope by the daimios of Kiusiu. This is the Japanese embassy referred to by Mr. Marryat, as having taken place in 1584, on which occasion statuettes of the Virgin and Child, made by the Chinese for the Japanese Christians, were sent to Europe. But foreign intrigue and sectarianism soon culminated, and, in 1587, Hideyoshi banished all foreign missionaries. The work of proselytism was still carried on in private by the Jesuits, and, in 1596, a number of missionaries and converts were crucified at Nagasaki, in Hizen. The history of the next forty years is a narrative of desperate contention between the missionaries and converts on the one side, and the government on the other. The drama may be said to close with the massacre already referred to, which took place in 1637, when thousands of Christians were put to the sword, and thousands more were drowned in the harbor of Nagasaki.
Mr. Marryat says that the interference of the missionaries with the decoration of porcelain, by substituting scriptural subjects for the “ancient orthodox native patterns which had existed from time immemorial,” is supposed to have contributed to the massacre. In connection with this subject the same author quotes from D’Entrecolles, who states that a plate with a biblical subject was brought to him, and that he was told this porcelain was formerly carried to Japan, but that none had been made for sixteen or seventeen years; that apparently the Christians of Japan had made use of this manufacture during the persecution, but that discovery led to a stoppage of the traffic, and that, in consequence, these works had been discontinued at King-tehchin.
While the religious troubles above detailed were keeping Japan in a continual ferment, China was disturbed by the incursion of the Tartars and the usurpation of the Tai-thsing Dynasty.
In Japan we have, therefore, an undisturbed period of not more than fifty years (1540-1587) favorable to the development of that originality which, according to Jacquemart, preceded the imitations of Chinese work. Some singular evidence, which may be read, in one sense, to the same general effect, has been brought together by Mr. B. Phillips, in the Art Journal, in an article devoted to the Medicean porcelain in the Castellani collection. He says that two Japanese experts examined the specimen engraved (Fig. 223), and pronounced the decoration Japanese. The style they attributed to Shonsui, and said that it was in use toward the middle and close of the sixteenth century. A piece made by Shonsui bore out the statement, it having similar decorations, even to the flutings, which had been shaded after the same method. If the Medicean bowl be examined,
It may, therefore, be accepted as an incontestable fact, that there was an essentially Japanese style of decoration, in the sixteenth century, applied to the blue Sometsuki, the porcelain destined for the home market. This leaves the question of precedence between the vitreous and artistic porcelains of the Rose family practically unaffected. The probabilities are all against M. Jacquemart’s, or any other unqualified, theory of chronological sequence. The natural course is to proceed from copying to originality. Japan had acquired the ceramic art from China. Was it not likely to occupy its attention first with copying the simpler styles of its experienced neighbor, while feeling after an equally simple originality, such as the Italians copied in their turn? From the first it may have had foreign taste to contend with, although very little is said of a Portuguese trade in porcelain. Then came religious troubles to delay the development of a national art, and, before they were over, the dynastic war in China, causing a suspension of production in that country, offered an inducement to supply a new market, and thus again delayed the national development. One historical fact remains to be added: In the “Ambassades MÉmorables,” published at Amsterdam in 1680, we find allusion made to porcelain sent from the Dutch trading-post at Deshima, which did not sell well, because it had not flowers enough upon it. This clearly cannot refer to the “artistic” porcelain of Jacquemart, with its rich borders and crowded flowers. The only inference from all that can be said and legitimately assumed is, that the Hizen porcelain of the beginning of the seventeenth century is that which most nearly resembles the Chinese. To that period, therefore, may chiefly be assigned those rich pieces of Japanese Rose which have been confounded with the Chinese. When, afterward, the native taste for simplicity was striving to reassert itself, it was again obstructed by the demands of Dutch trade, and the requirements of such connoisseurs as Wagenaar, who objected to a paucity of flowers. It follows that many specimens of the vitreous class must have been subsequent to the artistic. From the beginning of the history of Japanese porcelain external influences were at war with native taste, and, in determining
The porcelain long called “Indian” belongs to the same period of Japanese art, and was taken home in ship-loads by the Dutch monopolists of the seventeenth century. The foreigners, not content with compelling, by the influence of trade, a bending of Japanese styles to their taste, supplied special designs. These were reproduced by the Japanese artists with the most exact and faithful precision.
A story is told by Captain French, of New York, that when in China some years ago, he saw fit to increase his wardrobe to the extent of a new coat. He had some difficulty with the native artist of the shears, and ultimately decided to send him an old coat as a pattern. In due time the new garment was finished, and so closely had the pattern been followed, that the sleeves were adorned with a couple of patches which had been applied to the old coat to prolong its natural term of service to the end of a protracted voyage. The Japanese artists were equally unreasoning in their adherence to designs supplied from Holland. They laid them upon the porcelain in all their crudity and roughness, and treated imperfections as the tailor did the patches—reproduced them with the most serious and unwavering fidelity to their model. Contact with foreign nations has never had any other than a bad effect upon Japanese art, excepting, of course, its early intercourse with China. The genius of the people has been diverted from its natural channel. Art has been in a manner subjugated by commerce. Hence came gloomy forebodings and threatened ruin. Whenever it had an opportunity of seeking free expression it changed its character. Instead, therefore, of classifying Japanese porcelain according to the families above mentioned, a better method might be to divide it into two great groups, the national and the commercial. A great part of the so-called artistic porcelain of the Rose family will belong to the latter class. It can only be distinguished from the Chinese by observing the points already noticed: the paste, the glaze, the greater purity of the enamel colors, the insignia, symbols, and flowers. Even these will fail at times, as the Chinese, led away by the improvements effected by the Japanese in imitating
Apart from these doubtful pieces, we can see, in both the old and modern porcelain of Japan, national characteristics struggling with many difficulties to reach artistic expression. We find technical skill handling the finest material, shaping it into graceful form, and decorating it with carefully compounded colors of the greatest beauty. The true history of Japanese art is the history of the art we have called national; all else is but the prostitution of individual genius to commerce. In the former we find simplicity and piety mingled with a humor often quaintly clothed in clay. There is abundant material for research, for study and close examination. The art of Japan has many peculiarities, and will give an observer ideas of artistic beauty and Æsthetic taste which an American or European education would never suggest. In it we find, above all things, a deep love and admiration of nature. All this is contained in the lines of the Laureate of the Potter, which are charged with the very essence of Japanese art:
Ripple of waves on rock or sand,
The snow on Fusiyama’s cone,
The midnight heaven, so thickly sown
With constellations of bright stars,
The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make
A whisper by each stream and lake,
The saffron dawn, the sunset red,
Are painted on these lovely jars.
Again the skylark sings, again
The stork, the heron, and the crane
Float through the azure overhead,
The counterfeit and counterpart
Of nature reproduced in art.”
PERSIA.
Persia, and its Influence.—History.—Conquests.—Religious Revolutions.—Zoroaster.—Mohammed.—Geographical Position.—General View of Influences bearing upon Art.—Decoration.—Flowers and Symbols.—Conventional Styles.—Whence came the Monsters Appearing upon Wares.—Metallic Lustre.
enlarge-image
Fig. 139.—Persian Faience Plaque. (Robert Hoe, Jr., Coll.)
Fig. 139.—Persian Faience Plaque. (Robert Hoe, Jr., Coll.)
IT is unfortunate, considering the great importance of Persia in the history of ceramic art, that it should have been a debatable ground to travellers and ceramists. Of the extended influence of Persia upon neighboring countries there can be no doubt. The Arabs acquired from that people much of the knowledge which they subsequently brought to Europe, and which will be treated of more fully as Saracenic and Mauresque. Persia gave a language to the Mussulmans of
The two great religious revolutions were occasioned by the adoption of the doctrines of Zoroaster and Mohammed. The first of these appears to have suddenly emerged from the comparative obscurity of the court of Bactria—a country situated upon the eastern confines of ancient Persia—and to have led the Persians to renounce their gross idolatry. The leading tenets of his creed were the existence of a supreme being, eternity, and the contending principles Ormuzd and Ahriman, good symbolized by light and evil by darkness. The never-ceasing contention between these two opposite principles is often represented by a bull and a lion in conflict. The cypress was Zoroaster’s emblem. This religion took a deep hold upon the Persians, and the first serious shock which it sustained was from the religion founded
Coming next to the geographical position of Persia, it intercepted, in its ancient extent, all communication between East and West. The vast extent of territory owning its sway, stretching nearly three thousand miles east and west, and two thousand miles north and south, must needs be traversed by travellers between Europe and the extreme East. Long before navigators had found the ocean highway round the Cape, Persia received all the traffic from India, China, and Japan passing through the Persian Gulf to Europe.
Let us now take in all that has here been stated, at one glance, and we shall see clearly why Persian ceramic art has been viewed with doubt. Overrun successively by Greeks, Parthians, Arabs, Moguls, and Turks; widening and contracting its boundaries as the tide of conquest ebbed and flowed; lending to India, and probably borrowing from it; taking part, at one time, in the Zoroastrian worship of fire, and, at another, in the Mohammedan praise of Allah; connected, through trade, with the far East on the one hand and with Europe on the other, Persia was pre-eminently a country to confuse the investigator by the mingled types, symbols, and ideas which it derived alike from conqueror and trader. One fact of peculiar interest remains to be added. When, in the middle of the thirteenth century, Hulaku Khan came to Persia, he brought among his Mogul followers a number of Chinese artisans. The Mogul territory touched the western boundaries of China, so that it is quite possible, that to the specimens of Chinese porcelain brought to Persia by sea may have been added a number of Chinese artists and potters arriving with the Moguls by land. In view of these facts it is not difficult to account for the prevalence in Persia of imitations of the Chinese, nor is it altogether incomprehensible that a question should have been raised whether what is called Persian porcelain is not in reality Chinese.
Persian decoration is rich in flowers (Fig. 140), for which that people entertained a liking amounting almost to a passion. The tulip meant love. Of the other symbolical forms found on pottery, the lion and bull and the cypress have already been explained. The sun was the Zoroastrian emblem of divinity, and the royal arms consisted of the lion couchant, with its head turned toward the rising sun.
Fig. 141.—Persian Plaque. Central Section, Blue; Side Section, Green; Scroll-work, Brown. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
Fig. 141.—Persian Plaque. Central Section, Blue; Side Section, Green; Scroll-work, Brown. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
The various styles of decoration may all be qualified by one word—conventional. Although on the earlier pieces the human figure is found, with the Mussulman sway it disappears, to make way for hybrid monsters resembling the half-human beings of mythology—compounds of women and birds, men with horns and tails, like the satyrs of Greece, and numberless other supernatural monsters illustrative of the artists’ compromise with the Mohammedan behest forbidding the representation of the human form or of living beings. Even the greatly loved flowers suffer in both tint and form from the artists of Persia. Colors were used in a precisely similar spirit. Nature was sought for suggestion, not for imitation. The question of color was decided solely with an eye to effect; and if a violet horse should harmonize with its surroundings better than a black, gray, sorrel, or bay, the fact that in
Before proceeding to the usual divisions hitherto observed, there is one point demanding special attention, viz., the Persian reflet mÉtallique, or metallic lustre. The use of metallic-lustre pigments was, as has been already stated, known in the Balearic Islands, and gave the original majolica its distinctive appearance. Long before that date the process was known to the Persians in connection with silicious glaze. The metallic lustre has also been found on Arabian specimens. It is in Persia, however, that we must, in all likelihood, look for its origin. The date of its invention cannot be fixed with even an approximation to precision. The probability is that it was never very extensively used, and the specimens obtained are mostly fragmentary. Many of these are from the ruins of Rhages, a city which stood about seventy miles south of the Caspian Sea. Earthquake and conquest successively laid this city in ruins, and each time that it was rebuilt its limits became more contracted. It was finally destroyed during the Mogul irruption under Hulaku Khan, in 1250, and it is from the ruins beyond the city of that era that the above mentioned fragments have been taken. In fixing the origin, therefore, of metallic lustre, the latest date would be six hundred and twenty-seven years ago, the most remote perhaps over two thousand. The metallic-lustre pigments were made use of as late as the time of Shah Abbas, who reigned from 1555 to 1628, and whom Jacquemart calls the “Louis XIV. of Iran.
POTTERY.
Composition.—Caution in Looking at Specimens.—Wall-Tiles and their Decoration.—Vases.
Fig. 142.—Shrine of Imam Hussein, at Kerbela. Showing the Use of Tiles in Persian Architecture.
Fig. 142.—Shrine of Imam Hussein, at Kerbela. Showing the Use of Tiles in Persian Architecture.
Chemical experiments have shown that in one kind of Persian paste there is a large preponderance of silex, that when fired for a certain time the result is a faience, and that a continued exposure to the kiln reduces it to a partially translucent body resembling porcelain. Some of the tiles show silica ranging about ninety per cent., and the remaining fraction consisting of alumina and iron, lime, magnesia, and potash. By comparison with the porcelain standard adopted in the table (Book I., Chapter iii.), it will be seen that this paste differs in the greater proportion of silica and in the presence of iron. It differs from earthen-ware, on the other hand, by its containing magnesia and potash. The faience of Persia must, therefore, be treated with extreme caution; and the authorities must be consulted with care, since what one calls pottery, another treats of as soft porcelain. Of that coming most nearly to what we understand by the word “faience”—that is, a perfectly opaque ware—some of the specimens are glazed, and others are covered with only a thin lustre or varnish. Very fine examples are found in the wall-tiles taken from the different mosques. The same style of ornament was applied
PORCELAIN.
Had Persia a True Porcelain?—Classification, and the Difficulties Attending It.—Decoration.—Classes Formed by Prevailing Color.
Although the discussion was long maintained, whether or not Persia produced a true kaolinic porcelain, there seems to be no real ground for doubting that such was the case. That India produced porcelain we have already seen, and it becomes a question whether the art was not practised elsewhere in Central Asia. The evidence bearing upon
By reason of the qualities of the paste already noted, the classification of Persian porcelain is a matter of some difficulty. The analysis which could alone decide the class to which the specimens belong is in a great measure wanting. It may be inferred that two pieces, apparently distinct in composition, may be really identical, and representative merely of the successive changes effected by firing upon the silicious paste. The most ancient kind is not older than the Mussulman incursion. When subjected to a great heat it melts like glass.
Fig. 143.—Persian Porcelain Wine Bottle. Decoration in Blue. (Jacquemart Coll.)
Fig. 143.—Persian Porcelain Wine Bottle. Decoration in Blue. (Jacquemart Coll.)
What is called “soft porcelain” is not, properly speaking, a distinct variety. It differs from the others in decoration, but not to any perceptible extent in composition. The paste is very translucent, and the glaze even. The external decoration is frequently blue or a tint of mixed brown and yellow, upon which appear flowers and arabesques (Fig. 143). Cups and basins are the shapes most frequently occurring, and the first decorative feature is that the outside and inside are seldom alike. The latter may
Persian natural porcelain, about which writers have disputed, and called by the Persians tchini, is closely related to the Chinese. An entire class is characterized by its decoration of incised lines and blue painting under the glaze. The paste is somewhat coarse, and lacks cohesion. As to the antiquity of this quality, all that can be said is that it was produced a long time prior to the fifteenth century. Red and gold are seldom employed with blue, but rather characterize a distinct class. Green was much more indiscriminately employed, as, for example, with blue, brown, red, and gold. The cÉladons are to be distinguished from the Chinese, not by the color—for they show the beautiful old green of their Chinese counterparts—but by the design and form. All that remains to be added is, that, like every other people to whom the higher secrets of ceramic art were open, the Persians attached a very great value to the best works in both porcelain and pottery. The former is, in their literature, constantly associated with gold and other precious materials.
