Page 19 - Catalog Of Chinese Applied Art

The cases in Room IV contain a collection of specimens of hard-fired pottery that is

scarcely porcelain, and of true porcelains, the forms of which are exceedingly dignified and

severe, recalling either the shapes of still earlier bronzes or of vessels carved in stone. There
is an entire absence of the gay colour and painted decoration of later centuries, the artists
rel5nng for their effects on broad and massive outline relieved with modelled, carved or incised
ornament and finished with the softest glazes. The creamy tone of the white pieces or the

varied greyish green or bluish grey tints described by European collectors, under their French
titles of celadon and clair de lune, are at once distinguished and beautiful. These glazes are
in all shades of soft shimmering grey and cool, pale to dark, olive green, while in some of the
lighter pieces (as seen in Case B6) there are splashes of blood-red and peach-purple colour, which

probably mark the very beginnings of the later Flamhe or transmutation glazes. An art so

sober, so reticent and so dignified bespeaks a people possessing the utmost refinement and

delicacy of taste, though perhaps inclined to melancholy.

—The downfall of the peace-loving Sung D5masty was due to an incursion of Mongols under

their famed leader Genghis Khan a portion of the Mongolian exodus that even threatened the
existence of Western Europe at the same time. Mongohan rule (Yuan Dynasty, 1220-1367)
brought about an exchange of ideas and of craftsmen between the East and the West of Asia,
for it is only after this time that pottery painted with blue makes its appearance in China,
though such pieces had been common for a long time previously in Persia and Syria. The
Mongols were finally driven out, and a native Chinese Dynasty was restored about the 14th

century. This, the great Ming Dynasty, continued to rule until practically the middle of the

17th century (1367 a.d. to 1644 a.d.).

It is often difficult for us to distinguish between the Art of the Chinese in the later years

of the Sung, under the Yuan D5masty of Mongols, and during the early years of Ming rule, so

—that objects which are period from
some extent
I2th though one may
ittoisthceus1t4otmharcyenttourcyl,asassif"y many artistic referable to the the
qualify this to
Sung-Ming" by

the sub-division of "Sung-Yuan," or "Yuan-Ming," as they are obviously earlier or later in

techincal or artistic development. For this particular period the various kinds of pottery and

porcelain offer as rehable a guide as any, for porcelain, especially in its white and translucent

varieties, was then a new thing even in China, the land of its birth. It is a far cry, for instance,
from the vigorously modelled figures and animals of Han and T'ang times to the large Ming

figure which stands in the central case of Room IV, and all the pottery and porcelain in

that room practicdly comes in between, both in period and in style.

Perhaps the first sign of the influence of Persia is to be found in such pieces as those
numbered 756 and 771, where boldly or delicately painted black ornament on a cream ground
is found under a glaze of indescribable softness. But the full tide of the influence of the

WPersian potters in coloured glazes can only be understood by reference to the two Cases, and

X, in Room III, where are gathered together the large early Ming jars and figures lent by

Mr. R. H. Benson, Mr. G. B. Blair and Mr. G. Eumorfopoulos, which are a feast of rich and

entirely satisfactory, if somewhat barbaric colour.

The next development in the applied arts of China still shows the influence of the new
learning from the West, for, with the increased perfection of a white porcelain, we get the intro-

ducton of decoration painted in underglaze blue on a white ground, which the Chinese potters
of later centuries developed to such an amazing extent. The earliest specimens of blue and
white in this Exhibition are from the collection of Mr. G. Eumorfopoulos, and Nos. 454 and

457 are undoubtedly two of the earliest specimens of such Chinese work that are known in

Europe.

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