Page 18 - Catalog Of Chinese Applied Art

and though it is still believed that much of myth and tradition is inevitably mixed with the
oldest Chinese accounts of their incipient civilization, it is possible now to check, to some extent,
their written histories by contemporary objects recently disinterred from ancient graves in
various parts of the Empire and particularly in Western and Northern China and in Manchuria.

At the earliest period for which this kind of evidence is available, the Chinese appear
as a great, peaceful, pastoral and agricultural race inhabiting the northern part of what we now
know as China. They were already distinguished workers in stone and in bronze ; they had
made the first silken tissues known to history and their pottery presents certain distinctive
features of spirit and technique, though it naturally has a strong family likeness to the primitive

pottery of other early races.

The earliest specimen of Chinese Art in this Exhibition is the bronze vase, No. 858,

belonging to Mr. G. Eumorfopoulos, which may date from 1000 B.C., and some other very ancient

bronzes belonging to Mr. G. Eumorfopoulos and Mr. G. T. Veitch which belong to the period
when the Chou Dynasty held sway in China, with varying fortunes, from 1150 to 250 B.C. It is
interesting to note that the great Chinese sage Confucius hved during this age, 551-475 B.C.

The civilization of China, down almost to the Christian era, appears to have been mainly
of indigenous growth. Such spread of the original Northern influence as took place having
been quite as much by way of peaceful permeation as by military conquest. Before the
Christian era there are signs of overland traffic with India through the South West of what we
now call China, and from a stiU earlier period there had been contact with Babylonia, Persia,
Sjnia, and even the remote Greek lands, by way of Central Asia.

The official recognition of Buddhism took place in the year 67 A.D., while it is stated that

a Chinese Embassy was despatched to Rome in 97 a.d. but returned without reaching that city.

Between the fifth and sixth centuries of our era the government of China was divided
between Northern and Southern Dynasties, and under the great T'ang Dynasty (618-906 a.d.)

it reached its widest hmits. The Han and T'ang Dynasties, which practically ruled over China
from about the second century B.C. to the beginning of the tenth century a.d., mark the first
period that is known to moderns, beyond dispute, as an era of Chinese Classic Art. The Chinese

themselves consider this one of their greatest periods in art, literature and poetry, and recent
discoveries would seem to compel the most sceptical Western scholars to agree with this estimate.
Yet, even at this remote period, it is impossible to resist the feehng that the Chinese artists had

been influenced by Western ideals. We know that Alexander marched an army of Greeks and

Macedonians into the centre of Asia and that his lieutenants founded kingdoms there, and it

—seems impossible in regarding the modelled pottery figures lent by Mr. R. H. Benson and
—Mr. G. Eumorfopoulos (Room IV) to resist the conclusion that the artists who modelled the

horses and other animals and the figures had not been influenced by the sculptural conventions

of the Greeks.

Towards the close of the ninth century the irruption of an inferior, but more virile, race from
the interior of Asia led to a period of war and devastation with the interruption of peaceful
arts, but from about the middle of the tenth century the famous Sung Dynasty once more
reunited the greater part of China under a peaceful sway, when learning of every kind was
eagerly sought. Chinese Art and Literature developed and became, as it were, crystallised,
so that evolution rather than revolution marked all subsequent progress down to our own times.
The present Exhibition is particularly rich in bronzes, pottery and porcelain, sufficient in
quantity, and varied enough in accomplishment to give one a distinct idea of the masculine and
distinguished art of this period. Only a few years ago little was known in Europe of genuine
Sung pottery, though enthusiastic accounts of it existed in contemporary and later Chinese

books.

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