Page 43 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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CHINESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN

CHAPTER I

THE PRIMITIVE PERIODS

POTTERY, as one of the first necessities of mankind, is among

the earhest of human inventions. In a rude form it is found

with the implements of the late Stone Age, before there is
any evidence of the use of metals, and all attempts to reconstruct
the first stages of its discovery are based on conjecture alone.

We have no knowledge of a Stone Age in China, but it may

be safely assumed that pottery there, as elsewhere, goes back far
into prehistoric times. Its invention is ascribed to the mythical

Shen-nung, the Triptolemus of China, who is supposed to have

initiated the people in the cultivation of the soil and other neces-

sary arts of life. Huang Ti, the semi-legendary yellow emperor,

in whose reign the cyclical system of chronology began (2697 B.C.),
is said to have appointed " a superintendent of pottery, K'un-wu,

who made potterj%" and it was a commonplace in the oldest Chinese
literature 1 that the great and good emperor Yii Ti Shun (2317-

2208 B.C.) " highly esteemed pottery." Indeed, the Han historian

Ssu-ma Ch'ien (163-85 B.C.) assures us that Shun himself, before

ascending the throne, " fashioned pottery at Ilo-pin," and, need-

less to say, the vessels made at Ho-pin were " without flaw."

According to the description given in the T^io shuo, the evolution

of the potter's art in China took the usual course. The first articles
made were cooking vessels ; then, " coming to the time of Yii (i.e. Yii
Ti Shun), the different kinds of wine vessels are distinguished by
name, and the sacrificial vessels are gradually becoming complete." ^

^ e;g, the K'ao Kung chi, a relic of the Chou dynasty (1122-256 B.C.).
Tao* &Jmo, bk. ii., fol. 1. Sec S. W. Bushell, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, being
a translation of the Tao shuo, Oxford, 1910, p. 31.

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