Page 234 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

where they were incorporated into the vestments of the cathedrals
in Danzig, Vienna, Perugia, and Regensburg, while splendid ex-
amples have also been found in Egypt. Hung-wu, the spartan and
ferocious first emperor of the Ming, forbade its manufacture, but
it was revived early in the fifteenth century under Hsiian-te.
Little Sung k'o-ssu has survived until today, but wc may get an
impression of the splendour of the weaver's art from the court
robes of the Ming Dynasty. These include both the ceremonial
robes made for the imperial sacrifices and decorated with the
"twelve emblems"—sacred symbols which go back to hallowed
antiquity and are described in the early Chou Classic of History
(Shu-ching)—and the so-called dragon robes, a term used to describe
a long scmiformal robe worn by courtiers and officials from Ming
2 S9 Imperial dragon rube. Woven Mlk times onward, embroidered with a number of motifs of which the
tapestry. Ch'ing Dynasty'.
chief, and most conspicuous, is the dragon. If we are to judge
from surviving paintings, dragons with three claws had been a
principal motif on T'ang robes and became an established institu-
tion under the Yuan. Strict sumptuary laws introduced in the
fourteenth century permitted a robe with four-clawed dragons
(mang-p'ao) to lesser nobles and officials, while restricting to the
emperor and royal princes dragons with five claws. The Ming
emperors wore robes decorated with both the dragons and the
twelve symbols. Dragon robes became extremely popular under
the Ch'ing, when the regulations of 1759 confined the twelve
symbols, at least in theory, to the emperor's personal use.
The Ming and Ch'ing official robes were further embellished
with "Mandarin squares," badges of rank which had already been
used decorativcly in the Yuan Dynasty and were first prescribed
for official dress in the sumptuary laws of 1 391 The Ming squares
.
were broad and made in one piece, generally from k'o-ssu tapestry.
The Manchus, who were content with embroidery, used them in
pairs back and front, splitting the front panel down the centre to fit
the open riding jacket. Official regulations prescribed bird motifs
(symbolising literary elegance) for civilian officials, animals (sug-
gesting fierce courage) for the military; the emblems were pre-
cisely graded from the fabulous monster ch'i-lin (for dukes, mar-
quesses, and imperial sons-in-law), through white crane or
golden pheasant (for civil officials of the first and second ranks),
down to the silver pheasant for the fifth to ninth. Military ranks
had a corresponding animal scale. Though these woven and em-
broidered robes vanished from the official world with the passing
of the Manchus in 191 2, they may still be seen today lending their
glitter and pageantry to the traditional theatre.
LACQUER Lacquer, as we have seen, was already a highly developed craft in
the Warring States and Han. At that time, decoration was re-
stricted to painting on a ground of solid colour or incising
through one colour to expose another beneath it. In the T'ang Dy-
nasty there started the practice of applying lacquer in many lay-
ers—to mirror backs, for example—and then, before it had com-
pletely hardened, inlaying it with mother-of-pearl. Sung taste