Page 121 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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The Sung Dynasty, 960-1279 a.d. 49

variations in the composition of the glaze, a formula is established

which will cover most of our difficulties. I am assured by no less

an authority on glazes than Mr. W. Burton ^ that this assumption

is perfectly justifiable, and that one and the same glaze might
emerge from the kiln as a celadon green, a grey green, dove grey,
lavender grey, or lavender turquoise under slightly varying con-
ditions of firing, and according to the presence or absence of an
infinitesimal proportion of iron or copper oxide in the body or
glaze. Even with their empirical methods the old Chinese potters
must have soon discovered the conditions which favoured certain
results, but in the meantime quite a number of apparently different
wares would have emerged from the same factory, and yet, in
spite of local peculiarities, a general relationship might be observed
in productions of different districts. So that when one Chinese

^vriter compares the Ju ware to the Ch'ai, another the Kuan to
the Ju, another the Ko to the Kuan, and another the Lung-eh'tian

to the Ko, it is not necessary to assume that these porcelains were

all grass-green celadons because we happen to know that that colour
was the prevailing tint of the Lung-ch'iian ware. The Ch'ai and

the Lung-ch'Uan may have been as far apart as lavender and celadon

green, and the chain of relationship linked up by the Chinese Avriters

still hold firm.

No one but an experienced potter can speak with confidence of

the methods by which the varying colour effects in the Sung glazes
were obtained, but it is quite certain that the Sung potters were

not ignorant of the value of such colouring agents as the oxides
of iron, copper, cobalt, and perhaps even of antimony. Green,

blue, yellow, and brown glazes, which owed their tint to these
minerals, had appeared some centuries before on the T'ang wares.

But to what extent the men of Sung made deliberate use of these

oxides is another question. It is certain, for instance, that the

green celadon owed its colour to the presence of iron oxide, but
whether that was a natural element in the clay of certain districts,
or whether it was introduced in the glaze by the admixture of

ferruginous clay, is not always clear. Again, those bursts of con-
trasting colour, usually red, which enrich the opalescent grey and

lavender glazes, are most readily explained by the local presence

1 Mr. Burton's practical experiments and the beautiful results obtained by follow-

ing out his conceptions of Chinese methods are well known to all admirers of the

Lancastrian pottery.

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