Page 54 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

20 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

designs on the finished white glaze in vitrifiable enamels, which

—were subsequently fixed in the gentle heat of the muffle kiln (hi)

couleurs de petit feu, as the French have named them. No help
can be got from the phraseology of the Chinese, for they use wu
ts^ai or wu se (lit. five colours) indifferently for all kinds of poly-

chrome decoration, regardless of the number of colours involved
or the mode of application. There is, however, no room for doubt
that the delicate enamel painting, for which the reign of Ch'eng

Hua (1465-1487) was celebrated, was executed with the brush over

the fired glaze. It is inconceivable that the small, eggshell wine
cups with peony flowers and a hen and chicken " instinct with
life and movement " could have been limned by any other method.

If this is the case, then what could the Chinese writers mean when
they contrasted the "wu ts'ai ornament of the Hsiian Te and Ch'eng
Hua periods, but that the same process of painting was in use in
both reigns ? The Ch'eng Hua colours were more artistic because
they were thin and delicately graded, while the Hsiian Te zvu ts'ai
were too thickly applied.^ For this reason, if for no other, we
may rightly infer that painting in on-glaze enamels was practised
in the Hsiian Te period, if, indeed, it had not been long in use.^

There is another and an intermediate method of polychrome
decoration in which the low-fired enamels {de petit feu) are applied
direct to the biscuit, as in the case of the demi-grand feu colours,
but with the difference that they are fixed in the muffle kiln. This
method was much employed on the late Ming and early Ch'ing
porcelains, and it will be discussed later ; but it is mentioned here
because there are several apparent examples of it in Hsiang's
Album, one ^ of which is dated Hsiian Te. The example in ques-
tion is a model of the celebrated Nanking pagoda, and it is described
as wu is'ai, the structure being white, the roofs green, the rails
red, and the doors yellow, w^hile the date is painted in blue. I
have hesitated to assume that this is intended to represent an
on-glaze painted piece, though there is much in the description
to indicate such a conclusion ; but it is certainly either this or a

^ This is the verdict of the Po wu yao laix, and it is repeated in the T'ao lu, see

Bushell, op. cit., p. 60.

* Painted decoration is mentioned in Chiang's Memoir of the Yiian dj'nasty (see
vol. i, p. 160), but without any particulars ; and the Ko ku yao lun speaks of wu si
decoration of a coarse kind at the end of the Yiian period (see vol. i, p. 161). The
latter may, of course, refer to the use of coloured glazes.

» Op. cit., fig. 77.