Page 139 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

technical skill. But a new decorative impulse was

needed to subordinate glaze to decoration. When

and how this impulse was imparted it is impossible to
say precisely. The meagre evidence available points,

however, to the close of the Sung era (circa 1200) as

the probable date of the new departure. Chinese

records, so far as they have hitherto been explored,
whose " Illustrated
are silent on the subject. H'siang,
compiled during the second half of
" was

Catalogue

the sixteenth century, describes eighty-two specimens

of the wares most valued by connoisseurs at that pe-

riod. Forty-three of these specimens are pieces

manufactured during the Sung and Yuan dynasties.

Among them there is not even one example of decora-
tion with blue under the glaze. The first specimen

of this sort mentioned by H'siang a virtuoso whose

reputation as a connoisseur obtained for him compli-

mentary notice in the great Bibliographical Cyclope-

dia of Chien-lung (17361795) belongs to the

reign of the Ming Emperor Hsuan-te (14261435).
Even though it stood alone, such an item of evidence

would suffice to show that, if porcelain decorated

with blue under the glaze was manufactured before

the Ming dynasty (1368), it did not succeed in estab-
lishing a title to be ranked among objets d' art. And

when to the negative information afforded by H'siang's

Catalogue is added the fact that the blue-and-white of

the Sung and Yuan dynasties is absolutely ignored by

other records, it seems impossible to avoid the conclu-

sion that this branch of the art was still in a tentative

and elementary condition.

Here the Japanese come to the student's aid.

These enigmatical people, side by side with keen
appreciation of the graceful and the beautiful, devel-

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