Page 460 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

284 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

of Kuan Ti. It is reasonable to suppose that most of the numerous

statuettes of this popular deity were made after the latter date.
He is usually represented as a dignified personage with flowing

beard seated in full armour with right hand raised in a speaking

attitude ; but he figures also on horseback or beside his charger,

—and with his faithful squires Chou Ts'ang, who carries a halberd,

and Kuan P'ing, his own son. Occasionally he is seen seated with

a book in his hand, in which case he is regarded as a literary rather

than a military power.

The gods of Literature have a very large following in China,

where scholarship has been the key to office for upwards of two

thousand years, the chief deity of the cult being Wen Ch'ang, or in

Wenfull. Ch'ang ti chiin. He is the star god who resides in one

of the groups of the Great Bear, a dignified bearded figure in mandarin

Adress seated with folded hands or mounted on a mule. lesser but

more popular divinity is the demon-faced K'uei Hsing, who was

canonised in the fourteenth century. Originally a scholar, who

though successful in the examinations was refused office on the

ground of his preternatural ugliness, he threw himself in despair

into the Yangtze and was carried up to heaven on a fish-dragon.

He is easily recognised as a demon-like person, poised with one foot

on the head of a fish-dragon (yii lung) which is emerging from waves.

He brandishes triumphantly in his hands a pencil brush and a cake

of ink.^ The fish-dragon is itself a symbol of literary aspiration,

from the legend that when the salmon come every year up the river

to the famous falls of Lung-men (the dragon gate), those which

succeed in leaping up the falls are transformed into fish-dragons.

This metamorphosis of the fish as it emerges from the water into the

dragon is a favourite motive for porcelain decoration.

Buddhism, which was officially recognised in China by the Em-

peror Ming Ti in 67 a.d., had a far-reaching influence over the arts

of sculpture and painting, and the revolution which it worked in

the greater arts was naturally reflected in the lesser handicrafts.

Buddhistic motives appear early in the Chinese pottery, and in the

period with which we are at present concerned, the Buddhist religion

supplied a great number of motives for the porcelain painter and the

figure modeller. Sakyamuni himself is depicted or sculptured in

various poses : (1) As an infant standing on the lotus and proclaiming

^ Chang Kuo Lao, the Taoist Immortal, is also regarded as one of the gods of

Literature ; see p. 287.