Page 159 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

kilns near Ching-te-chen, and at Chi-chou, both in Kiangsi.
Yueh-type celadons were being manufactured near Changsha in
Hunan, and in Hsiang-yin-hsicn north of the city, where some of
the earliest experiments in underglaze and enamel painting in
China were undertaken. A hard grey stoneware, ancestor of the
famous splashed Chun wares of the Sung Dynasty, was made in
kilns at Huang-tao in Chia-hsien, not far from Chiin-chou. The
full, massive shapes covered with a rich brown or black felspathic
glaze are often made even more striking by bluish-white phos-
phatic splashes.
172 Jar. Huang-tao ware. Stoneware
covered with a brownish-black glaze
with phmphatic splashes. T'ang
Dynasty.

The fact that most of the T'ang wares we enjoy today were
made, not for the collector's pleasure, not even for domestic use,
but simply as cheap grave goods probably accounts for their un-
sophisticated charm and vigour. These qualities are most apparent
in the great numbers of figurines placed in the tombs, which give
a vivid picture of daily life in T'ang times. They vary in size from
animals and toys a few inches high to gigantic horses, Bactrian
camels, armed men, and fantastic squatting guardian creatures
popularly called ch'i-t'ou or pi-hsieh. They include a fascinating ar-
ray of officials, servants, dancing girls, and musicians; indeed,
among them women predominate. Women rode horseback with
the men and even played polo. A passage in the "Treatise on Car-
riages and Dress" in the Chiu T'ang-shu (Old T'ang History) re- 1 7j Camel carrying a band of
cords that "at the beginning of the K'ai-yiian period [71 3-742] the musician*. Earthenware painted and
polychrome-glazed. From a tomb at
palace ladies who rode behind the carriages all wore central Asian Sian. Shensi. T'ang Dynasty.
139
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