Page 270 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

142 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

an assumption which is not only quite unwarranted but in any

case begs the whole question.

The Chinese words used at the present day for porcelain are

iz'u, fao, and yao, all of considerable antiquity, though their forms

have undergone various changes and their meaning has been

modified from time to time to keep pace with the evolution of the

ware. The word tz'u ^, as we have seen, was defined in the Han

dictionary as merely " pottery ware." Its modern definition is

a hard, fine-grained variety of t'ao, and if we add to this the quality

— —of resonance i.e. of emitting a musical note when struck we

have all the requirements of porcelain according to the Chinese

^definition. The synonym ^, containing the radical shih (a

stone), which is also pronounced tz'ii, has come in the last two

centuries to be used interchangeably with the older word ^, in

spite of the protests of eighteenth-century purists.^

^The word Vao is a term even more comprehensive than our

word "china." In the Han dictionary it appeared in the form Wi

Vao or yao (previously pronounced /oit), composed of -^ fou (earthen-

Oware) and the radical pcio (to wrap), and its meaning was kiln,

and by extension the products of the kiln. At that time the word
in its modern form was only used as a proper name.

The third character yao (the Japanese yaki) is precisel}' synony-

mous with t'ao, meaning first a kiln and then wares of any kind.

^In its form it occurs in the Han dictionary ; another form is ^,

which, according to a Sung writer,- dates from the T'ang period,

^and a third form is current in modern dictionaries.

In short, the Chinese terms are all of a general and compre-

hensive kind, capable of embracing pottery, stoneware, and porce-

lain impartially, and there is no single Chinese word which corre-

sponds to our precise term "porcelain." Under these circumstances

1 Thus the author of the T'ang shih ssu k'ao (quoted in the T'ao lu, bk. viii., fol. 9
verso) : " The characters ?^ and -^ are not interchangeable. Tlie latter is a hard and
fine kind of t'ao. The material from which it is made is clay. The former {^, on
the other hand, is the name of a real stone which comes from the ancient Han-tan,
which is the modern Tz'u Chou. This department has potteries in which they use
the tz'u stone for the body of the ware. Hence the name Tz'u ch'i (Tz'u wares), not

that the ware from the potteries of this place is all porcelain. I hear that at Ching-te

Chen the common usage is to employ the character 6^ for porcelain in writing and
speaking. I have consulted friends whom I meet, and many use the two terms inter-

changeably. Truly this is altogether ridiculous. Tz'u Chou is still making pottery
at the present day." For the Tz'u Chou pottery, see ch. viii.

* Yeh chlh, quoted in the T'ao lu, ])k. ix., fol. 13 recto.