Page 235 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

seurs have been disposed to find evidence of the origin
of decoration over the glaze, but their inference,

whether correct or not, is evidently unwarranted.

The Chinese themselves do not affect to pronounce a

decided verdict. It has never been their habit to

attach much importance to historical specimens of a

ware. They did not value it until its qualities, tech-
nical or artistic, became really attractive, and from

this point of view they are unanimous in attributing
the first noteworthy use of vitrifiable enamels to the

early eras of the Ming dynasty. Japanese traditions
give some aid. Highly prized by the Tea Clubs of
Japan is a stone-ware of medium quality, decorated with

diapers and conventional flowers in red and gold with

green in a subordinate role. The designs are of an ar-

chaic character, and the method of applying the pig-

ments and enamels indicates imperfect technique. The

white body-glaze, on the contrary, is lustrous, of fine

texture, and in choice specimens possesses an ivory tint

of much beauty and softness. Such ware is precisely

what the Yuan potters would have produced on the

hypothesis that, despite their highly developed skill
in the manipulation of glazing materials, they were

still inexperienced in the application of vitrifiable

enamels. By Japanese connoisseurs the ware is unani-

mously ascribed to the Yuan dynasty. They call it
"
Gosu Aka-e or Gosu." This word Gosu
y red-picture

is written with ideographs which in China would be

read Wu-shuan, a name identifiable as that of an an-

cient division the most easterly of the province

of Chekiang. Now it is known that Hang-chow,

in Chekiang, was one of the principal starting points
of China's export trade during the Sung and Yuan

dynasties, and that at Ch'iiah-chou-fu, in the neigh-

181