Page 382 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

232 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

by cloisons. It is a pity that Bushell has confused the issue by

rendering this particular passage " painting in the style of cloisonne
enamel " in his Oriental Ceramic Art.^

But, it will be objected, the painting in foreign colours has
been already shown to have been in full swing some years before
T'ang's appointment at Ching-te Chen. The inconsistency is only
apparent, however, for it is only claimed that T'ang introduced

—this style of painting on the Imperial porcelain, and it may and
—indeed must have been practised in the enamelling establishments

at Canton and elsewhere for some time before. Indeed, when one
comes to consider the list of T'ang innovations which we have
discussed so far, they are mainly concerned with the adaptation
of various foreign colours and of processes already in use in the

previous reign.

Of those which remain, the iHen Ian or sky blue may perhaps

be identified with a light blue verging on the tint of turquoise, a
liigh-fired glaze found occasionally in the Ch'ien Lung monochromes.
But probably the greatest of T'ang's achievements was the mastery
of the yao pien or furnace transmutation glazes, which were a matter
of chance as late as the end of the K'ang Hsi period. These are
the variegated or flambe glazes in which a deep red of sang de bceuf
tint is transformed into a mass of streaks and mottlings in which
blue, grey, crimson, brown and green seem to be struggling together
for pre-eminence. All these tints spring from one colouring agent

— —copper oxide and they are called into being by a sudden change

of the atmosphere of the kiln, caused by the admission of wood
smoke at the critical moment and the consequent consumption of
the oxygen. Without the transformation the glaze would be a
sang de hoeuf red, and in many cases the change is only partial,
and large areas of the deep red remain. Fig. 1 of Plate 123 illus-
trates a small but characteristic specimen of the Ch'ien Lung
flambe. It will be found that in contrast with the K'ang Hsi
sang de hceuf these later glazes are more fluescent, and the excess
of glaze overrunning the base has been removed by grinding.

Another development of the yao pien at this time is the use
of a separate " transmutation " glaze which could be added in
large or small patches over another glaze, and which assumed,

when fired, the usual flambi appearance. When judiciously applied

the effect of this superadded flambe was very effective, but it is

1 p. 397.