Page 116 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

46 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

for the writers of the past in an ancestor-worshipping people, whereas

our own shortcomings in this matter are due mainly to commercial
reasons. But if the Chinese manuals are often misleading and

—obscure, they are at least brief too brief, in many cases, and

assuming a power to read between the lines which no European

student can be expected to possess. The result is that where we

have no actual specimens to help us, there is unlimited scope for
conflicting theories on the meaning of the original text. However,
as our collections grow and guiding specimens arrive, more of
the Chinese descriptions are explained, and working back from the

known to the unknown we are able to penetrate farther into the

obscurities of the subject.

To take a single instance. The well-known celadon ware, with

strongly built greyish white body, and beautiful smooth, translucent
sea-green glaze, has been identified beyond all doubt with the

Lung-ch'iian ware of Chinese books. When we read of the green

porcelain {chHng tzu) bowls with fishes in relief inside or on the
bottom, our thoughts at once turn with confidence to such specimens

as Fig. 3, Plate 21, and we realise that for once we are certain of
the meaning of the elusive colour word ch'ing. In the same way
other phrases here and there can be run to earth ; and when we
meet the same descriptive words in other contexts, the key to
their meaning is already in our hands. In this way no little
profit can even now be got from the study of Chinese works, and it

tends to increase steadily, though, of course, one living example is
more instructive than a host of descriptions.

The Sung wares are true children of the potter's craft, made
as they are by the simplest processes, and in the main decorated
only by genuine potter methods. The adventitious aid of the

painter's brush was, it is true, invoked in a few cases, but even then
the pigments used were almost entirely of an earthy nature, and
it is very doubtful if painting in enamels had yet been thought

of. Two years ago enamel-painting on Sung porcelain would have

been denied in the most uncompromising terms. But the claims
of certain specimens of the Tz'ii Chnu type, with brick-red and leaf-
green enamel on the glaze, to belong to the Sung period have been
so persistently urged that they cannot be entirely ignored. At

present I am unconvinced of their Sung origin ; but our knowledge

of T'ang wares has developed with such surprising rapidity that

we must be prepared for similar surprises in connection with the