Page 35 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Introduction xxiii

at one factory at least in the Sung period/ and we may now con-

sider it practically certain that the first essays in painting both
under and over the glaze go back several centuries earlier than
was previously supposed. Blue and white and polychrome porce-

lain chiefly occupied the energies of the Imperial potters at Ching-

te Chen in the Ming dynasty, and the classic periods for these types
fall in the fifteenth century. The vogue of the Sung glazes scarcely
survived the brief intermediate dynasty of the Yiian, and we are
told by a Chinese writer - that " on the advent of the Ming dynasty
the pi se^ began to disappear." Pictorial ornament and painted
brocade patterns were in favour on the Ming wares ; and it will

be observed that as compared with those of the later porcelains
the Ming designs are painted with more freedom and individuality.
In the Ch'ing dynasty the appetite of the Ching-te Chen potters
was omnivorous and their skill was supreme. They are not only
noted for certain specialities, such as the K'ang Hsi blue and white
and famille verie, the sang de bceitf and peach-bloom reds, and for

the development of the famille rose palette, but for the revival of
all the celebrated types of the classic periods of the Sung and Ming ;

and when they had exhausted the possibilities of these they tiu-ned
to other materials and copied with magical exactitude the ornaments

—in metal, carved stone, lacquer, wood, shell, glass in a word, every

artistic substance, whether natural or artificial.

The mastery of such a large and complex subject as Oriental
ceramics requires not a little study of history and technique, in
books and in collections. The theory and practice should be taken

simultaneously, for neither can be of much use without the other.

The possession of a few specimens which can be freely handled
and closely studied is an immense advantage. They need not be

costly pieces. In fact, broken fragments will give as much of the

all-important information on paste and glaze as complete specimens,

» See p. 99.

* In the Ai jih fang ch'ao, quoted in the Tao lu, bk. ix., fol. 18 verso.

' The pi si, or " secret colour," is used as a general term for glazes of the celadon
type, among which the writer in question includes all the celebrated wares of antiquity
from the T'ang " green (ts'ui) of a thousand hills," the Yueh ware, the Ch'ai " blue
(ch'ing) of the sky after rain," to the Sung Ju, Kuan, Ko, Tung-ch'ing, and Lung-ch'iian

wares.

1—d