Page 360 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

not forget that "blandness" (ping dan) was an stones (nephrite, or yu, the original and quint- Ceramics
ideal quality in wen ren art, as a special kind of essential Chinese jade, is 6.5 on the Mohs Though recent by comparison with the five-
decorum was in wen ren life; Shen Zhou has scale) —impervious to the aggressions of normal thousand-year-old jade tradition, porcelaneous
ratified this portrait by inscribing it. One steel cutting tools —have amazed even the most ceramics had by 1492 been made for more than
should not let him deceive; one should go skeptical of critics. We are confronted, by the two thousand five hundred years, and white,
behind both inscriptions to the work of his last third millennium, with an accomplished tech- "pure," porcelain for some seven hundred. Until
twenty-five years. nology of hardstone working within a limited excavations at Zhengzhou, Henan Province, in
vocabulary of difficult and convoluted designs, the last twenty-five years, porcelaneous celadon
forming a tradition that continues for thousands wares (protoporcelains) were believed to have
of years with improved but not different means. originated only in the fourth century B.C. Now
The material itself—yu — comprised not one we know that protoporcelain was made at
APPLIED ARTS but a number of different hardstones that are Zhengzhou ( a Shang city that may well have
To most Westerners "art" now means painting, similar only in being appealing to sight and been the next-to-last Shang capital, Ao) about
sculpture, perhaps architecture. All other touch, capable of taking a high polish, and valu- 1600 B.C. The necessary technology seems to
endeavors, however skilled the maker, however able because rare; of these stones nephrite was have been developed as a by-product of bronze
beautiful the result, are only qualifiedly art, and the most highly regarded. Yu commanded casting, for which the Chinese used piece-molds
the qualification implies a derogation —thus veneration in Chinese society, its visual and made of clay rather than the lost wax process
"minor arts," "decorative arts," "crafts." Perhaps tactile qualities having been associated by none common to Near East and Mediterranean pro-
"applied art" is the least objectionable term, other than Confucius with the preeminent vir- duction. Kiln temperatures of about 1200° c
connoting objects applied to a purpose that tues of kindness, righteousness, courage, com- were necessary to produce these early Shang
includes contemplation as well as use. Thus a passion, eloquence, and restraint. Yu also glazed wares, whose discovery increases our
carved chair (cat. 346) is meant to be sat on but became the supreme metaphor for beauty and admiration for early Chinese technology and
also to evoke aesthetic appreciation. To mend a for a mystical purity that could hold at bay even artistry.
hole in the roof with an oil painting, however, the forces of decomposition —hence its imme- The celadon tradition struck deep roots in
seems clearly perverse, at least for certain oil morial association with longevity and its long China, and over two and one half millennia
paintings. and abundant use in aristocratic burials. This potters at many kilns throughout the country
Applied art is particularly subject to technol- paragon of stones, from earliest times into and continued to refine this gray-bodied, greenish-
ogy and to the development of effective means beyond the world of 1492, was reserved for glazed, relatively impermeable ware, much (if
to achieve practical ends —to pour tea, hold objects of ritual and ceremony and for secular not all) of which came by the Tang dynasty
wine, protect sweets. And technology affords a luxuries, including personal adornment. (618-907) to be called Yue ware. The tradition
credibly objective criterion by which to evaluate By 1492 the Chinese appetite for jade was climaxed in the splendid and exquisite celadons
the accomplishments of the artist: the effective- such that nephrite was being imported from of Northern (960-1127) and Southern (1127-
ness with which a seemingly unpromising and Central Asian riverbeds and mountain mines; 1279) Song. In beauty and utility (nonporosity)
certainly recalcitrant material — clay, quartz, the more brightly colored Burmese "jewel jade" Yue ware and other porcelaneous celadons far
metal, enamel, jade, the sap of the lac tree, the (also called yu but a different mineral, jadeite) surpassed the best that local potters outside
filament of the silkworm —is put to the artist's was still in the future. The materials available to China had achieved. They were everywhere
purpose. Most of these substances were con- carvers of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) were prized: excavations show that from the Tang
quered by the Chinese with patient skill and the same white, pale green, brown, and black dynasty they were exported eastward to Indone-
imaginative science and technology long before jades known from earliest times. None of the sia and the Philippines and westward to India,
they succumbed to late-developing science in "boulders" or pebbles and few of the mined Iraq (Samarra, 836-883), Iran (Nishapur and
the West. Western consumers could only blocks were of such size as to permit huge pieces Siraf), and Egypt (Fostat, before 1169).
wonder at the seemingly magical knowledge like the mountains, stupas, landscapes with fig- Ultimately even the porcelaneous celadons
and technique that permitted the Chinese to ures, or Buddhist figures so common among were displaced in esteem by white porcelain,
produce such exportable superfluities of porce- Qing dynasty (1644-1911) jade carvings. Early which had its beginnings during Tang but did
lain, silk, and lacquer. and middle Ming dynasty works were most not become the standard of excellence until the
often relatively small, especially those executed Yuan (1279-1368) and early Ming dynasties. By
in the rare and small stones of white "camphor" this time the hillside tunnel, or "dragon,"
Jade jade, the favorite material for the best works of kiln —a series of connected chambers dug along
The Chinese priority in the working of jade, the Song through Ming. the slope of a hill —had been developed and
firing of porcelain, the cultivation of silk, and Though the terms are often used, jade (neph- refined so that the draft induced by the sharp
the making of lacquer has been well docu- rite) cannot be "carved" or "incised." From the slope could bring the wood fire to very high
mented. Excavations of the last two decades, earliest Neolithic to the present, jade can only temperatures. The clear-glazed white porcelain
from Manchuria in the north to Shanghai in the be worked by abrasion; new abrasives and fired in these kilns at 1300° c or higher pro-
south, have not only moved the known begin- improved means of applying them have been vided a remarkable ground for decoration in two
nings of Neolithic jade working back to the developed, but the method has not changed. different techniques: the design might be
fourth millennium but have totally changed our The Ming repertory of techniques for abrasion painted in copper oxide red or cobalt oxide blue
estimates of the technical accomplishments pos- still required quartz in the form of sand as abra- directly on the unglazed vessel, which would
sible within a Neolithic culture. The complexity sive, water as medium, various drills and wheels then be clear-glazed and fired to porcelain hard-
of design and minuteness of detail achieved as implements, and infinite care and stubborn ness; or the undecorated vessel might be clear-
within the constraints of the most obdurate of patience as ultimate ingredients. glazed and fired to porcelain hardness, then

TOWARD CATHAY 359