Chapter V: China (2)

Green was the imperial color under the Ming Dynasty (1368), and the greater portion of the ornamentation of this family has either a religious or a political significance. The bright copper-green lies perfectly transparent upon the pure white paste. We have already seen the eight immortals riding upon clouds, in a piece of blue-and-white, and the design is repeatedly met upon pieces of the Green family. It is here, in short, that we have the best opportunity of studying the religious system and symbols of China. Dragons are represented with diabolical ferocity; cranes, kylins, fong-hoangs, are intermingled with floral designs, in which are asters and other flowers, and insects. On the sacrificial cups of this family, dragons with forked tails climb the handles, or hang head downward from the lip, while a hideous dragon-head is introduced in the sides. From these grotesque and terrible figures we turn to the pieces of a historical character. The scenes depicted are chiefly taken from the early history of China, which was as prolific a source of ideas to the Chinese artist as classical history and legend to the poets of Europe. Vases of this character are also deserving of study, as illustrating to a farther extent than was done in the Introduction that aspect of the potter’s art in which it appears as the handmaid and illuminator of history. The Chinese artist is rarely seen to better advantage than when painting vases of this family. With a rich palette comprising the prevailing green, blues of every shade, violet, red, yellow, gold, and black, he produces effects of the most charming beauty. When green is used as a ground color, as in the case of the Kien-long vase referred to (Fig. 93), either it covers the entire surface, or reserves are left for the landscape or trees. In the former case the fruit, flowers, and leaves lie upon the bright-green enamel. To the pieces in which green is mingled with yellow and blue upon a white ground, producing the effect of variegated marble, the Chinese give the name of Ouan-lou-hoang.

The Rose family (Fig. 97) is distinguished by the prevalence of the color to which it owes its name--a pale red applied over the glaze. It comprises what may most emphatically be called the decorative porcelain of China. The body is the perfection of Chinese paste, and the decoration partakes to the full of the vast wealth of Chinese color. With regard to form, this family represents the most perfect pieces in the art of China. With the exception of the old white and the modern decorated with blue, the Tho-tai-khi, “porcelain without embryo,” or egg-shell, belongs almost exclusively to this family, which is admirably represented in Mr. W. L. Andrews’s collection. In such pieces we fully apprehend the beauty of the “rose-back” decoration. The ruby color is laid upon the back of the edge or rim of plates and saucers, and shines through the thin paste with the softness of the pink lining of a shell. It would be impossible to specify all the methods of decorating the egg-shell belonging to the Rose family. We see borders of pink and raised white enamel, others traced as delicately as the finest lace, and still others with reservations filled with bouquets. The decoration sometimes takes the form of exquisite paintings of birds, insects, and flowers; and when scenes with figures are introduced, they are of a totally different character from the religious and historical subjects found in the Green family. They are drawn in part from literature, and in part from the home life of the people. There is in Mr. Avery’s collection at the Metropolitan Museum, a plate having a rose border with raised flowers, and other objects in reserved sections. In the centre is a young girl surprised, as she walks the garden at night, by her lover, who, having thrown his shoes in advance, is mounting the wall. M. Jacquemart informs us that the incident is taken from the “Si-siang-ki,” or, History of the Pavilion of the West, a lyric drama composed by Wang-chi-fou about A.D. 1110. A frequent design is a home scene, in which a lady sits near a table attended by two children, and with one or two vases standing round. These glimpses of domestic life afford some little insight into the usages of the people, the courtesies of society, and the occupation and pastimes of the young. When the pieces are larger in size, the subjects are taken from court life, and very rarely from religion. When strong contrasts are resorted to--as by coloring the inside green and the outside rose--the effect is no less pleasing. The combinations are almost confusing in their multiplicity, and in the essential differences of their character. One piece may have flowers and various household articles (Fig. 99) upon a white ground, or rose may mingle with turquoise and maroon in the border. Nothing is too bold for the Chinese artist, and no effect appears to be unattainable or untried. He is equally at home painting on white enamel a delicate border, or rivalling the rich hues of a gaudy butterfly in a life-like imitation of the fluttering insect.

Before leaving the Rose family, let us glance at a few of the pieces ascribed to Japan, and which ought to be restored to China. To illustrate the difficulty of assigning them, with positive certainty, to either country, the plate given on page 143 may be referred to (Fig. 100). Mr. Andrews considers his piece Japanese, and his opinion is supported by the fact that other specimens, also claimed for Japan, have the same subject painted in the centre. When a photograph of the piece was submitted to the Hon. Jushie Yoshida Kiyonari, the Japanese Minister at Washington, he replied: “It seems to me certain that the subject, as well as the style of the painting, are strictly Chinese; and this much I would say, if I had the piece in my possession, I could not but consider it as a _good Chinese specimen_.”

When Jacquemart tries to find an origin for the Chinese Rose family, he says: “Does it issue from the accidental discovery of the red of Cassius? Is it contemporary with other porcelains? Does it come from a particular centre? We think its creation is to be attributed to the wish of imitating the admirable porcelain of Japan.” The same writer, in treating of what he calls “artistic” porcelain of the Japanese Rose family, says: “If we required to seek the cause of these modifications and of the particular style of artistic porcelain, we should find it in a desire of rivalling the Chinese porcelain of the Rose family.” In other words, the Japanese Rose suggested the Chinese Rose, and the Chinese Rose suggested the Japanese Rose--a stage at which the discussion becomes neither lucid nor satisfactory.

The circumstances leading to the confounding of Chinese and Japanese porcelain arose chiefly from trade. The Japanese are said to have gone to King-teh-chin, even in early times, to buy porcelain. According to Duhalde, the Chinese repaid the compliment by loading their vessels with Japanese porcelain on returning from that country. This is corroborated by the missionaries at Pekin, who state that the people there highly prized the Japanese porcelain, which was, in consequence, both rare and dear. They even used it in preference to their own in making presents to the emperor and grandees. De Pere states that when the Emperor wished to send a present of porcelain to Peter the Great, he chose that of Japan, where, says the writer, the people surpass those of China in all the arts and industries. We know, moreover, that the Japanese import Chinese egg-shell for decoration, that the Chinese have borrowed the designs of the Japanese, and that the Japanese have borrowed those of China. The most skilful imitators in the world, living next door to each other, complimented each other’s skill by mutual imitation.

There are two chronological points that may help us to throw some light into this confusion, which writers have succeeded in making twice confounded.

There can be no doubt that the porcelain of the Rose family was at its best about the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth. Jacquemart, therefore, argues that the Japanese imitations would date from the first half of the sixteenth century, and the vitreous enamelled pieces would go back, at least, to the fifteenth. He labors under a very serious mistake, which evidently takes its rise in the assumption that the ware made by the Japanese in the seventh century was translucent pottery, or that Kato-siro-ouye-mon, in the thirteenth century, had acquired the art of making porcelain. We shall handle this subject more in detail when treating of Japan; but meanwhile let it be noted that the Japanese themselves call the thirteenth century ware stone-ware, and that there is no reason for believing that porcelain was made in Japan until near the middle of the sixteenth century, or about the date assigned by Jacquemart to the so-called Japanese imitations of the Rose family of China.

If this be admitted, it must be supposed that Japan began by imitating some of the choicest works of China, and those presenting the greatest difficulty to a beginner not perfectly sure of his practice. The necessary result of this, so far as M. Jacquemart is concerned, would be to transfer what he calls artistic porcelain to China. In any event, it is clear that all representatives of that family which can be ascribed to a date earlier than the latter part of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century are Chinese. Many years must have elapsed before the Japanese could, with Shonsui’s assistance, attain to such perfection in working a new material that their ware could be mistaken for that of their teachers.

The difficulties of collectors are thus restricted to pieces which are comparatively modern. Nothing is more natural than that, when the manufacture was temporarily paralyzed in China by the disturbances attending the change from the Ming to the Tartar dynasty, for several years prior to 1662 the Japanese should have bestirred themselves to supply the demand created by the regular trade in China. It is of this period, and down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, that the missionaries write when they speak of the demand for Japanese porcelain. It must have been early in the eighteenth century, also, that the imperial present of Japanese porcelain was sent to Russia. Japanese art was rising as that of China declined; and so far from suggesting the Rose decoration to China, the Japanese Rose was merely striving to take its place, when the original was passing away. The Japanese found the Chinese patronage valuable, and therefore they tried to please their customers by perpetuating the styles of decoration with which they were familiar. Their imitative skill makes the task of distinguishing the two fabrics one of considerable difficulty, even with the limitations in point of time to which we have alluded. The distinctive characteristics of Japanese porcelain will be referred to in their proper place under Japan; but, in the mean time, it is evident that many of the supposed Japanese pieces, with domestic scenes, or with fan-shaped reservations in wide borders of geometrical patterns, and containing brilliantly feathered birds, are Chinese.

We have now glanced at the three leading families, even while disposed to call in question the utility of the arrangement. A classification of the above kind has the one great objection, that the exceptions are so numerous as to leave the rule inapplicable to a vast number of the most interesting specimens. And, further, no perfect arrangement is practicable. The Chinese have always been imitators. The potters and artists of the thirteenth century imitated those of the tenth; those of the fourteenth imitated their predecessors of the thirteenth, and so on. Any attempt at a chronological arrangement, with any pretensions to absolute truth, is, for this and other reasons, out of the question. The classification by families, besides its necessary deficiencies, gives no assistance to one studying and trying to master the principles of Chinese art. To such an one, therefore, the only course is to take every specimen at its artistic worth. He may find a large proportion of table-ware of the Chrysanthemo-pæonian family, but he will also find much that is not of that family. He may find much of the Green family, especially under the Ming Dynasty, with a political or a religious significance, but he will also fail in discovering any such meaning in many of its representatives. He will find chrysanthemums on members of the Green family, and pæonies on members of the Rose. In short, the better plan is, as we have said, to admire what is admirable, and to be too curious neither about chronology nor the relationship of color. Otherwise, in the latter case, he will come upon incongruities. The weak and the beautiful will be placed side by side, as in the human family a dwarf may be full brother to an Adonis.

From what has been said it will be inferred that the Chinese held in the highest admiration the beauty to be found in color alone. In producing it, they stand at the head of the ceramic artists of the world. The old white porcelain--that is, porcelain decorated with white, and not the undecorated ware--is by some considered the most ancient quality, and is most carefully preserved by the Chinese. It was decorated with designs either graved in the paste or painted in relief, or with figures inserted between two laminæ of paste. In the latter case the design remained invisible until the cup was filled with liquid. Others required to be held up to the light before the design revealed itself. The best white porcelain was made during the Song Dynasty (960-1278). Mention is made of white porcelain manufactured for the Emperor during the Wei Dynasty (A.D. 220-264), and we have already seen that white was the dynastic color of the Thang Dynasty (618-907), but little or nothing is directly known of these fabrics. That of the Song Dynasty was the Ting-yao, already referred to as one of the five great qualities of ancient porcelain. A cup (Fig. 101) of great beauty, very thin and transparent, in the collection of Mr. J. C. Runkle, gives a good idea of the old white. Its purity and brilliancy give a fine effect to the decoration in relief. The latter consists of small sprays of blossoms delicately moulded or carved, and showing through the clear glaze the finest touches of the modeller or carver. This is one of the methods followed in decorating the Ting porcelain with flowers, which were either graved in the paste, applied in relief, or painted. The white of the Yong-lo period (1403-1424) of the Ming Dynasty was also decorated with engravings in the paste. Toward the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, about 1380, a peculiar quality of white was made upon the same principle as the egg-shell, _i. e._, by grinding down the paste, by which means the piece assumed an unctuous, shining appearance.

With the white there naturally falls to be considered the porcelain compared by writers and by the Chinese themselves with jade, the most precious of stones in the eyes of the Orientals. It is likened in the Li-ki, or Book of Rites, to the rainbow solidified and turned into stone; and in another work occurs the passage, “When I meditate on that wise man, his thoughts appear to me like the jade.” This applies to the discourse of Confucius. The philosopher’s language is quaint and figurative: “It is not,” he says, “because the jade is rare that it is valued, but because from all time the sages have compared virtue to jade. In their eyes the polish and brilliant hues of jade represent virtue and humanity. Its perfect compactness and extreme hardness indicate exactness of statement; its angles or corners, which are not incisive, however sharp they seem, are emblematic of justice; the pearl-like jades suspended from the hat or the girdle, as if falling, represent ceremony and politeness; the pure sound which it emits when struck, and which suddenly stops, figures music; as it is impossible for the ugly shades of color to obscure the handsome ones, or for the fine colors to cover up the poor ones, so loyalty is prefigured; the cracks which exist in the interior of the stone, and can be seen from the outside, are figurative of sincerity; its iridescent lustre, similar to that of the rainbow, is symbolic of the permanent; its wonderful substance, extracted from mountains or from rivers, represents the earth; when cut as knei or chon, without other embellishment, it indicates virtue; and the high value attached to it by the whole world, without exception, is figurative of truth.” It is further used throughout Chinese literature as a simile for the highest qualities of virtue and purity.

The stone is called _yu_ by the Chinese, and is obtained from Tai-thong, in the province of Chenn-si, and in larger quantities from Khotan, where an entire mountain is said to be composed of it. It has been held in the highest estimation among the Chinese from ancient times, and notwithstanding its extreme hardness, it is made into the most beautiful and curious objects, such as vases, cups, incense-burners, flasks; and even instruments of music.

These facts will enable us to appreciate the comparison so often drawn between porcelain and jade. Thus, the Thang white made by Ho is said to have been “brilliant as jade,” and a contemporary was making vases of artificial jade. Again, in the Song Dynasty, a red porcelain was made at Ting-tcheou, decorated with flowers, graved, painted, or in relief, and said to resemble “sculptured red jade.” Coming down to the Siouen-te period of the Ming Dynasty (1426-1435), we again meet with cups “as white and brilliant as jade,” with their surfaces slightly punctured. These appear to have been imitated in the Wan-li period (1575-1619), when beautiful cups of the whiteness of jade figure in the altar services of the Emperor. The same description will apply to the porcelain of both periods. The glaze is likened to “a layer of congealed fat,” and has a pure ivory-like appearance and a soft unctuous touch, more nearly resembling that of French _pate tendre_ than any other modern ware. This feeling is heightened rather than diminished by the slight roughness, or rather, irregularity of the surface, such as might be caused by sinking minute grains in the glaze.

Let us now see how far these comparisons with jade are warranted by the stone itself. Let it first be noted that many travellers bring from Canton a green and dark-green quality of chalcedony, under the impression that the wily merchants have given them genuine jade. There are also certain kinds of felspar, called nephrite, which have been mistakenly called jade. The genuine _yu_ varies in color from an ivory white to a dark green. It is very hard, very heavy, and fine in grain. Even after it is polished it has the appearance of wax, and the impression made upon the eye is confirmed by the smooth, greasy touch. The exceptional colors are red, black, orange, citron yellow, turquoise and a deeper blue. The white variety called, _par excellence_, Oriental jade, reflects a pure milky light nearly resembling that of the opal. Japan and India supply a quality of white with the faintest possible tinge of green. Another very beautiful variety is the “imperial jade,” or emerald green, which is occasionally found mixed with white, like the colors in agate.

The value attached to jade was so great, that in China a special officer was appointed to take charge of the jade used in the personal decoration of the emperor, who wore several pieces attached to his girdle. Every description of jewel was made of jade, including those worn in the hair.

From these facts, and those previously narrated, it is evident that to compare porcelain with jade is to compliment it in terms beyond which Chinese language cannot go. Nothing higher or more laudatory can be said of it, and we can thus form some idea of the extreme beauty of the almost opalescent white porcelain of the Siouen-te and Wan-li periods. The admiration of the Chinese for this stone in colors now unknown may possibly also have inspired them to attempt its imitation in many of the finest colors which claim our admiration. The passage quoted from Confucius further suggests that even crackle may have originated in trying to reproduce in pottery and porcelain the cracked variety of jade.

Equal to the turquoise in purity is the violet obtained from the oxide of manganese. Two artists (father and daughter) named Chou, made very beautiful porcelain of this color during the Song Dynasty. Specimens are now very rare, their brilliancy and richness leading collectors to grasp with avidity at any opportunity of becoming possessors of a good example.

The aubergine, or purple egg-plant violet, was also made under the Song, and is one of the celebrated productions of Kiun, in the province of Ho-nan. This is, however, inferior in beauty to the manganese violet. There is a third tint, of great softness and beauty. The violet is often used in conjunction with turquoise blue, as in a crackle teapot in the Avery collection in the shape of the peach of longevity, in which the body is violet, and the spout and decorating leaves, which are in relief, are in turquoise blue. The colors are also found intermingled in such groups as the Dogs of Fo sporting. Very curious effects are produced by shading the violet on either hand to blue and red. In pieces of this character the blue will be found on the base, and the color changes as it ascends, becoming a rich violet on the body and red on the top. The violet is treated in a manner precisely similar to the turquoise, the pieces being frequently decorated with incised designs.

The shaded violet specimens alluded to remind us of others, in a rich liver-red, where the color becomes paler as it ascends. Thus, in the five-fingered rosadon (Fig. 102) the base is a deep crimson, which turns to scarlet on the body, and finishes on the tips of the fingers in a cloudy white. This color, like the aubergine violet, and a bright red were found upon some of the works made at Kiun in the tenth century; nor must we forget the pieces like “red jade” made at Ting-tcheon about the same period. It does not appear to have been used at King-teh-chin until the Yong-lo period, early in the fifteenth century. The bright red was reproduced by Thang-kong, the artist already mentioned, in the eighteenth century. It is difficult to follow the Chinese in the handling of colors so nearly akin, and yet differently treated, and producing effects so varied. The liver-red often appears as a true _céladon_ upon pieces closely resembling in paste the hard opaque body of the old sea-green. These have rarely any decoration, and resemble in this respect many small objects, such as narrow-necked bottles, to which a bright red lends a color that in vivid brilliancy and clearness involuntarily recalls the comparison of the Ting porcelain with red jade.

Of the yellow called “Imperial,” from its being the color adopted by the Tai-thsing Dynasty, little is known. The shades vary from a deep orange to a light straw color, but that called Imperial is said to be the citron yellow. Mr. Marryat says that he has seen genuine specimens in only two collections--the late Mr. Beckford’s and the Japan palace at Dresden. He adds, that imitations have been made at Canton and exported. Mr. S. P. Avery, of New York, has a number of pieces of different tints--chrome, citron, lemon, pale and deep yellow, some of which are very curious in both form and decoration. The different shades are also well illustrated in Mr. W. T. Walters’s collection.

The Chinese have ideas of painting peculiar to themselves. They have little regard for perspective, and in ancient times had none whatever. Even so late as the seventeenth century perspective was at direct variance with the rules guiding their art. We can, for example, see vases--particularly those of the Ming Dynasty--in which the personages in a scene appear to be piled directly one above another, or mount stairs, like upright ladders, in order to reach other personages evidently some distance off, but as much in the foreground of the picture as those nearer at hand. Coming down less than half a century later, there is a change. In the Kien-long vase before given the view recedes, and the far-off hills are partially shrouded in shadowy vapor, which adds to the dimness of distance. The perspective is perfect. The change is, no doubt, due to European intercourse. We may, therefore, in cases of doubt derive from this feature a hint of the age of certain pieces. But how account for the older usage? It is said that, when shown the effect of perspective, the Chinese argued against it. There is not, and cannot be, distance on a flat surface, they said; therefore perspective is contrary to nature. They did not see that their art should take cognizance of the delusions of vision, and represent things as they _appear_, not as they _are_. To explain this farther, we have only to look at the Chinese practice in decorating porcelain. The painting is regarded as a purely mechanical process, and the same piece may pass through seventy or eighty different hands, each artist contributing his specialty to the general result, and knowing little or nothing of the subject as a whole. Can we wonder, then, that he did not learn to appreciate perspective, if he painted his figures without any idea of their relation to each other or to the rest of the composition? The most remarkable feature of the case is, that in this prejudice against perspective, and supposed constancy to nature, the Chinese artists take up an attitude altogether different from that in which they usually appear. Everywhere they give a free rein to fancy. They are perfectly unconscious of anomaly, or incongruity in, for instance, painting a stag yellow or a horse green. They paint birds, butterflies, flowers, in hues which nature never wore. Their taste for that harmony of tints which is the perfection of surface decoration demands the abnormal colors, and they never hesitate about using them. Their variety is as wonderful as the wealth of their resources. One may turn from a vase, representing the exercise of the most fearless and riotous fancy, to another in which the details are as realistic as the lizards of Palissy. Or, again, a vase which looks as though it might have been cut out of a precious stone, with no decoration but its inimitable color, may stand side by side with another covered with flowers so tenderly treated and delicately colored, that one is inclined to pronounce the painstaking Celestial the prince of artists.

Conceits in shape or design and victory over technical difficulties are his delight. The _soufflé_ decoration is characteristic. The color is inserted in a tube having one end covered with fine gauze, and when blown upon the piece to be decorated, falls in minute air-bells, which break into little circles. Red and blue are thus applied upon a pale grayish-blue, and the effect is beautiful and entirely unique. When, as frequently happens, the bubbles do not break, the result is hardly less attractive, the color running into the ground and giving it the appearance of jasper.

Another method of decorating porcelain, is that called “grains of rice work” (Fig. 104), and is of Persian origin. The design is cut through the thin paste, and on the piece being dipped in the glaze, the latter fills up or covers over the interstices, leaving the design distinctly traceable and perfectly transparent.

Among the curiosities of workmanship the most notable are the reticulated and articulated vases and the “surprise hydraulique,” or Cup of Tantalus. The outside of the reticulated vase (Fig. 105) is perforated in different patterns and covers the inner vase without touching it, except at the neck and possibly also the bottom. Ornaments are often attached to the outside of the open-work. More wonderful than the vases are the services of the same kind, in which the outer and inner parts come so closely together as to render the baking of the pieces extremely difficult and uncertain.

The articulated, or jointed, vases represent a similar victory over the difficulties of workmanship. The vase is cut into two sections, which, although separate, cannot be taken apart.

The “Cup of Tantalus” is so constructed that when raised to the lips the expectant drinker finds himself deluged with the contents. It is a Chinese practical joke, played by means of a syphon concealed in the interior of the vessel. Our enumeration may conclude with this specimen of manual dexterity.

To an American or European taking a wide view of the ceramics of the Chinese, while it is evident that they have produced a vast amount of very beautiful work, the question will no doubt present itself, whether they do not sometimes confound ingenuity with genius, and value the mechanical more highly than the artistic. That they were skilful and rejoiced in exercising their skill is evident; but no one can look without admiration upon their exquisite coloring and flower decoration. If one could find anywhere a _complete_ collection of Chinese pottery, stone-ware, and porcelain, it would be found to contain nearly everything admirable in ceramics, although occasionally hard to appreciate or understand. It would be found to illustrate the entire art history of a people patient, laborious, keen to observe, and swift to imitate, and whom, curiously enough, many of us would rather hear from through the china merchant or collector, than meet in more direct intercourse.