Page 205 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

thus blessed by fortune and happy in opportunity

there remains an alternative not very much less satis-
Afactory, the collection of blue-and-white.
good

specimen of this charming ware never palls upon the

taste acquaintance only develops appreciation of its
;

qualities. As an article of ornamental furniture it is

always delightful. The virtuoso who is so fortunate

as to be able to decorate a room with blue-and-white

and blue-and-white only, has beside him a perpetual

source of aesthetic enjoyment. Other porcelains

need, as a rule, an appropriate environment but
;

blue-and-white adapts itself to every companionship,

and when its advantages in that respect come to be

more generally recognised, an over-mantel or a cabi-

net of ckjngkfwa specimens will probably find a place

in every artistically furnished house.

No detailed reference has thus far been made to

the subjects chiefly chosen by Chinese potters for the

decoration of porcelains. On a vast majority of

specimens the dragon (lung) figures in some form or
other. His shapes are numerous. Sometimes he is

found so thoroughly conventionalised as to be almost
unrecognisable ; sometimes, he assumes an altogether
realistic shape, and is limned performing a dance
intended to be terrible but usually only grotesque ;
sometimes he is depicted with skill such as could be

inspired only by a belief in his reality. But it must

be confessed that there is something distinctly weari-
some about this unceasing repetition of a fabulous
monster which cannot be rendered picturesque ex-
cept by methods of representation scarcely possible
on porcelain. Yet the Chinese decorator could
hardly give less prominence to a monster that oc-
cupies such an important place in the traditions and

'55