Page 118 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

48 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

French writer has expressed it. Its richness, thickness, lustre,

translucency, and its colour and crackle are the main criteria of

the wares in the eyes of Chinese connoisseurs. Tzu jun (rich and

unctuous), hsi ni (fine and glossy), jung (lustrous), t'ung jung (lustrous

throughout or transparent) are among the phrases most con-

Astantly met in their appreciations. word, too, is usually added

on colour of the body material, which in many cases would appear

to have been of a red or brown tint, iron-coloured or copper-coloured.

Not that it is necessary to infer that in every instance the ware

was red or brown throughout. It is a matter of observation that

in many of the early wares the exposed places (usually confined

to the edge of the foot rim or the unglazed base) have assumed

a rusty red colour in the firing, while a flake broken from the glaze

elsewhere reveals a white or greyish white porcelain body within.

This will often explain the seeming inconsistency of the Chinese

descriptions in which the word porcelain is applied to an appar-

ently dark-coloured material. At the same time, it is well to

remember that the Chinese words which we translate as porcelain

were far more comprehensive than our own term.

Our speculations on the nature of the Ch'ai ware in a previous

chapter brought us face to face with two main types of glaze, the

thick opalescent glaze of pale lavender or turquoise tint, and the

smooth translucent celadon glaze in which green is the dominant

colour. These types are prominent on the Sung wares, and almost

—all the varieties of coloured Sung glazes with such obvious
—exceptions as black and chocolate brown have more or less affinity

to these two. So that if we place the old turquoise ^ glaze at one

end of the series and the green celadon at the other, the rest will

find an intermediate place, with leanings, of course, towards one

or other of the extremes. One of the puzzling features in the study

of the Sung wares is the interrelation of the various makes, such

as the Ju, Kuan, Ko, Lung-ch'iian, Tung ch'ing and Chiin, which

all appear to have had points of mutual resemblance, although

the descriptions of individual specimens differ over a wide range.

If, however, it can be assumed that the same fundamental prin-

ciples of manufacture were observed in all these factories, and

that the divergences in the wares arose from local conditions,

such as variety of clays, different conditions of firing and slight

^ This colour is quite distinct from the turquoise of the demi-grand feu, a more lightly
fired colour familiar on the later porcelains.