Page 468 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

292 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

continuation of the Milky Way. Chang Ch'ien is sometimes repre-

sented in Chinese art as floating on a log-raft on the Yellow River,

and carrying in his hand a shuttle given to him by the Spinning

Maiden.^ The poet Li T'ai-po is also figured in the same kind of

craft, but he is distinguished by a book in place of the shuttle.

Motives borrowed from the animal world are frequent on por-

celain, though they represent to a large extent mythical creatures,

Wefirst and foremost of which is the dragon. need not enter

into the conflicting theories as to the origin of the Chinese dragon.

Whether he sprang from some prehistoric monster whose remains

had come to light, or was evolved from the crocodile, he appears

in any case to have belonged to Nature- worship as the power of the

storm and the bringer of fertilising rain. There, are, however, various

— —kinds of dragons those of the air, the sea, the earth and the monster

takes many different forms in Chinese art. The archaic types

borrowed by the porcelain decorators from ancient bronzes and

jades are the k'uei lung ^fl or one-legged dragon, and the

chHh lung \% t|, the former a tapir- like creature which is said
to have been, like the Vao t'ieh, a warning against greed,^ the latter

a smooth, hornless reptile of lizard-like form with divided tail, who

is also described as a mang.

But the dragon {lung) par excellence is a formidable monster
with " bearded, scowling head, straight horns, a scaly, serpentine

body, with four feet armed with claws, a line of bristling dorsal

spines, and flames proceeding from the hips and shoulders." Such

is the creature painted by the great master of dragon painting,
Chang Seng-yu, of the sixth century, and as such he is the emblem

of Imperial power and the device of the Emperor. The Imperial

dragon in the art of the last two dynasties has been distinguished

by five claws on each of his four feet ^ ; the four-clawed dragon

was painted on wares destined for personages of lesser rank. The

dragons are usually depicted flying in clouds, and pursuing the

disc or pearl, which was discussed above, or rising from waves.

Nine dragons form a decoration specially reserved for the Emperor ;

1 See a rare silver cup depicting this legend, figured in the Burlington Magazine,

December, 1912.
2 See W. Perceval Yetts, Symbolism in Chinese Art, read before the China Societj',

January 8th, 1912, p. 3.
3 Hippisley (op. cit., p. 368), speaking of the various dragons, says that " the dis-

tinction is not at present rigidly maintained, and the five-clawed dragon is met with
embroidered on ofRcers' uniforms."