Page 216 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

130 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

Ming outlines, these are so faint as to be practically unobserved
and the colour is filled in, not in flat washes, as on the Ming blue
and white, but in graded depths of pulsating blue. This procedure
is clearly shown by two interesting bowls in the British Museum.
They are identical in form and were intended to match in pattern ;
but in one the design (the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup) is
completed, while on the other it remains in outline only, giving us
a wonderful illustration of the beautiful firm touch with which the
artists traced these faint outlines. The work of decoration was
systematically subdivided in the Chinese factory, and Pere d'Entre-
colles tells us that " one workman is solely occupied with the ring
which one sees on the border of the ware ; another outlines the
flowers, which a third paints ; one does the water and the mountains,
another the birds and animals. "^ Whatever the advantages and
disadvantages of this divided labour, the designs on the blue and
white were admirably chosen to show off the fine qualities of the
colour ; and it is to the blue that the collector looks first. The
distinction between the various qualities of blue hardly admit of
verbal definition. It can only be learnt by comparing the actual
specimens, and by training the eye to distinguish the best from
the second best.

The patterns are not always blue on a white ground. Many
of the most beautiful results were obtained by reserving the design

in white in a blue ground, and both styles are often combined on

the same piece. The second is fairly common on the K'ang Hsi

porcelains, being specially suited to the lambrequins, arabesques,
and formal patterns which were a favourite decoration at this time.

See Plates 89 and 91.
The choicest materials were lavished on the porcelains with

these formal designs, which consisted now of bands of ju-i shaped
lappets 2 filled with arabesque foliage, forming an upper and lower
border, between which are floral sprays, now of a belt of three or
four palmette-like designs, similarly ornamented, and linked together

round the centre of a vase or bottle ; of large, stiff, leaf-shaped
medallions borrowed, like the patterns which fill them, from ancient

1 See Bushell, T'ao sliuo, op. cit., p. 192. It is tolerably clear that d'EntrecoUes
in this passage is giving a verbatim rendering of a Chinese description. The " flowers "
is, no doubt, hua, and might be rendered " decoration " in the general sense, and the
" water and the mountains " is, no doubt, shan shui, the current phrase for " landscape,"

2 For the shape of the ju-i head, see vol. i., p. 227.