Page 271 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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Porcelain and its Beginnings 143

it is clear that no theory on the origin of porcelain can be based
merely on the occurrence of any of these words in early Chinese
texts. Still less can any such theory be constructed from the very
promiscuous use of the word " porcelain " in European translations,
and it is a thousand pities that both Julien and Bushell were not
more discriminating in this matter, or that they did not always
(as Julien sometimes and Professor Hirth usually did) give the
Chinese character in parentheses when any reasonable doubt could

exist. Had this been done we should have been spared misleading
references to " two porcelain cups of the Han dynasty," i and such
loose writing 2 as "In the Wei dynasty (221-264 a.d.) which suc-
ceeded the Han we read of a glazed celadon ware made at Lo Yang

for the use of the palace, and in the Chin dynasty (265-419) we

have the first mention of blue porcelain produced at Wen-chou,
in the province of Chehkiang, the progenitor of the sky-blue glazes
tinted with cobalt, which afterwards became so famous." The

" glazed celadon," needless to say, is purely conjectural, pottery

{fao) vessels being all that is specified in the passage on which
the statement is obviously based ; and the " blue porcelain " is

evidently no other than the p'iao iz^il (mentioned by the poet

P'an Yo and discussed on p. 16), Avhich is better rendered "green

ware." ^

The same kind of criticism applies to all the other references
in early writers until we reach the Sui dynasty (581-617 a.d.). In

the annals of this period there is a much discussed passage in w^hich
it is stated that the art of making a substance known as liu-li *
had been lost in China, and that the workmen did not dare to ex-

periment, but that one Ho Ch'ou ISJI^, a connoisseur in pictures

and antiquities, succeeded in making it with green ware {lil tz'u),
and that his imitations were not distinguishable from the original

substance.

To understand the full import of this passage it is necessary
to explain the nature of liu-li, and this is fortunately made quite
clear by the author of the T^ao shuo in a commentary so interesting

that I give it in full

" I find that liu-li comes from the countries of Huang-chih,

^ T'ao shuo, translated by Bushell, op. cit., p. 95.

2 Bushell, Chinese Art, vol. ii., p. 18.

3 See T'ao shuo (Bushell, op. cit., pp. 97 and 99). See also bk. ix., fol. 1 verso,
where the passage from the Annals of the Sui Dynasty is quoted.

* ^i%- See T'ao shuo, bk. iv., fol. 17 recto and verso.