Page 52 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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i8 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

quoise, yellow, ^ and a colourless glaze or a white slip which served
as white colour, though at times the white was represented merely
by leaving the unglazed body or biscuit to appear. These coloured
glazes differ from the on-glaze painted enamels in that they are
applied direct to the body of the ware, and are fired at a relatively
high temperature in the cooler parts of the great kiln, a circum-
stance expressed by the French in the concise phrase, couleurs de

demi-grand feu."
The central ornament consisted chiefly of figures of sages or

deities in rocky landscape, or seated under pine trees amid clouds,
dragons in clouds, or beautiful lotus designs ; and these were con-
tained by various borders, such as floral scrolls, gadroons, ju-i head
patterns, fungus scrolls, and symbols hanging in jewelled pendants.
As a rule, the larger areas of these vases are invested with a ground
colour and the design filled in with contrasting tints. Sometimes
the scheme of decoration includes several bands of ornament, and

— —in this case as on Plate 62 more than one ground colour is used.

The Po wu yao Ian speaks of green (ch'ing) and dark blue (Ian)
grounds, and existing specimens indicate that the dark violet blue
was the commonest ground colour. Next to this, turquoise blue

is the most frequently seen ; but besides these there is a dark variety
of the violet which is almost black, and another which is dark
brown, both of which colours are based on cobaltiferous oxide
of manganese. It has already been observed that this type of
decoration was frequently used on a pottery body as well as on

porcelain.

The question of the antiquity of the above method of poly-
chrome decoration is complicated by the contradictory accounts
which Dr. Bushell has given of a very celebrated example, the
statuette of the goddess Kuan-yin in the temple named Pao kuo
ssii at Peking. The following reference to this image occurs in
the Thing ya, published in the reign of Ch'ung Cheng (1625-1643)
" The Chiin Chou transmutation wares {yao pien) are not uncommon
to-day. The Kuan-yin in the Pao kuo ssii is a yao fien.^' Dr.

* The yellow of this group is usually of a dull, impure tint, but there is a small

jar in the Peters Collection in New York on which the yellow is exceptionally pure

and brilliant, and almost of lemon colour.
* In these cases the porcelain would be first fired without glaze and the colours added

when it was in what is called the " biscuit " state. In the blue and white ware, on
the other hand, and the bulk of Chinese glazed porcelain, body and glaze were baked
together in one firing.