Page 41 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

EARLY WARES OF CHINA

rated as this eulogy would seem from a modern point

of view, the ware unquestionably attracted great

admiration at the time of its manufacture such
;

admiration that, according to a competent connoisseur

of six centuries later, the Chai dynasty was the first to

become celebrated for its keramic productions, and

fragments of Chai-yao were eagerly sought for by

subsequent generations. No specimen survived intact.

Probably the manufacture was conducted on a very

small scale, and the only representative pieces

those supplied for use at the Imperial Court were

destroyed in the wars that interrupted their produc-

tion at the fall of the Chou dynasty. In fact, of all

the keramic achievements prior to the commence-
ment of the Sung dynasty (960) little is known be-
yond what may be learned from very meagre records
and from a few scarcely identifiable specimens. The
details here given about them have practical interest

chiefly for the sake of the general conclusion they

lead to, namely, that up to the middle of the tenth

century the choicest keramic manufacture of China

was stone-ware, or semi-porcelain, having two princi-

pal varieties of glaze celadon and white. An ancient

Japanese writer, summing up the most celebrated

early wares of the Middle Kingdom, says that they
"
may be classified under four heads namely,
" ware of the Tsin ; grass-

green dynasty (265419) ; "
green

of the thousand hills" of the Tang dynasty (618
"
907) ; greenish cerulean of the sky after rain," and

"secret-colour ware" of the Chou dynasty (954

960), and j"fgurweaenreofofthtehethSouunsganddynhailsltsy" (9601260).

The term is explained

by another renowned Japanese dilettante who de-
scribes the colour as " the tint given by the breezes

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