Page 39 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

EARLY WARES OF CHINA

to the pottery class, being without timbre and dis-

tinctly soft. The glaze is grass green, lustrous but

entirely without the depth and richness that char-

acterise subsequent productions of celebrated kilns.

The potter seems to have taken shapes and decorative

designs from ancient bronzes such as are depicted in

the pages of the Pok-ku Tou-lok (Illustrated Catalogue

of Antiquities). The technique is mediocre, indicat-

ing an art not yet enlisting earnest effort, and the

glaze shows a t"enfdleaknecyawtoaybl"istferr oimn the furnace and
to the pate. This
subsequently

ware is identified by Chinese connoisseurs as the Tueh-
Howyao of the Tang dynasty.
to reconcile the

actual qualities of such ware with the poetic eulogies

it evoked is a perplexing problem.

It seems improbable that the potter's art should

have progressed much during the five dynasties suc-

ceeding one another in rapid sequence after the fall

of the Tang. The period covered by the five was

only sixty years, and during the whole time the

country had no respite from internecine wars. To

this epoch, however, (i.e. the beginning of the tenth

century), is referred the Pi-seh-yao, or "secret-colour

ware." The peculiarity of this name has given rise

to some conjecture. M. du Sartel, for example, con-

cludes that the Pi-seh-yao was ptoerrcmela"inhidddeecnor"ateodr
with blue under the glaze, the

"secret" being used to denote that the glazing mate-

rial covered the colour of the decoration. This in-

genious conjecture seems inadmissible. The name

was used simply in the sense of " private," or " manu-
factured for special purposes." Whether the Pi-seh-
yao was only an improved variety of the Tueh-yao
mentioned above or whether it was a distinct pro-

VOL. IX. 2 IJ