THE PORCELAIN OF KOREA AND OF THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA
KOREA
The self-contained culture of the Middle Kingdom spread at an early time
to the less advanced and more or less tributary countries that
surrounded it: on the south to the confused complex of states that are
conveniently grouped together as Indo-China; on the north to Korea; and
on the east, or more accurately on the north-east, to Japan. To these
islands, however, the Chinese civilisation for the most part spread by
way of Korea, and as this was in a measure the route taken in the case
of the potter’s art, it may be well to deal first with the great
northern peninsula.
The Chinese claim to have conquered and even incorporated Korea as long
ago as the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), and even before that time the
country had been overrun by the Japanese. The latter people have at all
times presented themselves to the Koreans as ruthless conquerors and
pirates, and indeed they succeeded during their last great expedition at
the end of the sixteenth century in sweeping the country so bare that to
this day its poverty and the low state of its artistic culture is
generally attributed to this gigantic razzia from which the country
never recovered. And yet Korea has always taken a place in Japanese
estimation second only to China as a source of their artistic and
practical knowledge, if not of their literature and philosophy; and this
is especially the case with regard to the potter’s craft--the technical
part of it above all. Time and again do we hear of famous Korean
potters, or even of whole families and tribes, being brought over and
set to work by the local Japanese ruler either with the materials they
brought with them, or with the clays and glazes that their experience
enabled them to discover in their new homes.
We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that after the wonders of
Japan had been laid open to the admiration of the West, the greatest
hopes were entertained of finding artistic treasures at least as
valuable in the great peninsula to the west which still remained a
forbidden land. Failing direct evidence of this wealth, it became the
habit to attribute to Korea any Oriental ware, old or new, of which the
origin was unknown. This tendency was taken advantage of by more than
one enterprising dealer, and when at a later time the country was in a
measure thrown open, cases of gorgeously decorated Japanese ware,
brand-new from Yokohama or Nagasaki, were sent round by way of Chemulpo,
the port of the Korean capital, so that their Korean origin could be
guaranteed. Long before this, the home of an important group of Japanese
porcelain, that now generally known as ‘Kakiyemon,’ had been found by
Jacquemart in Korea. Now that of late years these various fallacies and
_supercheries_ have been exposed, and that the extreme poverty of the
land in artistic work of any kind has been demonstrated, we may perhaps
see a tendency to an undue depreciation of the artistic capabilities of
the country in former days. We must at any rate remember that the
Japanese experts, who are in the best position to know, have always
maintained that the Koreans in the sixteenth century were possessed of
the secret of enamelling in colour upon porcelain, or, at all events,
that they were acquainted with the coloured glazes of the _demi grand
feu_, and that so good an authority as Captain Brinkley has accepted, as
of Korean origin, specimens of enamelled ware still existing in Japanese
collections.
Meantime we must be contented with the scanty examples of pottery,
stoneware, and porcelain that have been actually brought home from
Korea, and among these pieces we must discriminate between the wares of
native manufacture and the porcelain that had been imported from China,
either overland by way of Niu-chuang or across the Gulf of Petchili from
the ports of Shantung. Of late years many specimens have been collected,
chiefly at Seoul, the capital, especially by members of the various
foreign legations, and some of these have found their way into European
museums.[109]
Apart from some small pieces of modern blue and white and enamelled
wares, undoubtedly of true porcelain, but very rough in execution and
poor in colour, which are said to be of local manufacture, we find:--
1. A plain white ware often showing signs of age, but apparently in no
way differing from the ivory-white ware of Fukien. Japanese experts,
however, claim to distinguish pieces of Korean origin. Such specimens
are much valued in Japan, and some are said to have been brought back
after the great expedition at the end of the sixteenth century. We find
also specimens of a heavy white ware, with decoration in a high relief,
which is undoubtedly of native origin. At Sèvres is a large white vase,
with dragons in relief, brought from Seoul.
2. Celadon porcelain, of many types. Of this ware there are many
specimens in our museums. At Sèvres we find two bowls of a fine rich
tint of olive green, presented by the King of Korea to the late
President Carnot ‘as the most valuable of the ancient productions of his
poor country.’ In the same collection may be seen a case full of
important specimens brought back in 1893 by M. de Plancy, the French
diplomatic agent at Seoul. Among them are some large rude celadon vases,
one with some attempts at blue decoration under the glaze. In the
British Museum are several celadon bowls, some with moulded floral
patterns in relief. Among some bowls of a greyish celadon from Korea, in
the Ethnographical Museum at Dresden, I noticed some with an unglazed
ring on the upper surface, pointing to a primitive method of support in
the furnace, perhaps similar to that formerly employed in Siam. Dr.
Bushell quotes from a Chinese work on Korea, written in the first half
of the twelfth century, an account of the elaborately moulded wine-cups
and vessels of all kinds made in that country. This ware is described as
of a kingfisher green, but it may probably be regarded as a
full-coloured variety of celadon. This interpretation is confirmed by a
later Chinese work (published 1387), which distinctly says--I quote from
Dr. Bushell’s translation--‘The ceramic objects produced in the ancient
Korean kilns were of a greyish green colour resembling the celadon ware
of Lung-chuan. There was one kind overlaid with white sprays of flowers,
but this was not valued so very highly’ (_Oriental Ceramic Art_, p.
681).
3. An important class of Korean ware is formed by the coarsely crackled
pieces of brownish or yellow colour, which in China would probably be
classed as Ko yao. These are often roughly decorated with daubs of blue
under the glaze, resembling in this some of the older pieces brought
from Borneo.
4. A greyish ware, inlaid with designs of white slip, on the principle
of our ‘encaustic tiles’ of the Middle Ages. This is perhaps the only
original type that we can connect with Korea, and it would seem that
this is the ware alluded to at the end of the quotation we have just
given from an old Chinese book. This inlaid ware appears to have been
greatly admired by the Japanese, for it was closely imitated in more
than one district. The well-known Yatsushiro pottery, first made in the
province of Higo in the seventeenth century, is distinctly a copy of
this Korean model. Among the specimens at Sèvres brought home by M. de
Plancy, there is a tall vase of this type cut down in the neck decorated
with flying cranes in white slip. This ware, however, is not a true
porcelain; at the best it is a kind of kaolinic stoneware, and the same
may be said of most of the old heavy pieces brought back from Korea.
There is not much in the way of decorative design to be found on any of
the varieties of Korean porcelain or stoneware that we have now
described, and we may look in vain among the few ornamental _motifs_ to
be found on these wares for any marked divergency from Chinese types.
SIAM AND THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA.
Under the somewhat vague heading of Indo-China we will collect a few
notes upon the specimens of porcelain that have been found in the
various states into which the great peninsula that stretches south
between the China Sea and the Bay of Bengal is divided.
In looking through the artistic productions of all these countries, we
find one marked characteristic; and that is the way in which Chinese
forms and Chinese decorative _motifs_ have pushed their way in and in
part replaced the old Buddhist and Brahmanistic styles.
As matters now stand, the most important for us of these states is Siam,
for here we are at once brought face to face with one of the places of
manufacture of the famous heavy celadon ware which in the Middle Ages
was carried by Arab and Chinese traders over all the seas of the then
known world. We shall have in a later chapter to come back to the
question of this trade, and then we shall be able to show that the
discussion as to the origin of this _martabani_ ware has been the means,
as is indeed often the case in such disputes, of throwing much light on
the early history of Chinese porcelain.
For the present we are only concerned with an important discovery quite
recently made not far from the frontier of Siam and Pegu. Many specimens
of celadon, some of the older type, have come in recent years from
various parts of Indo-China. In the museum at Sèvres are some pieces of
rough greyish ware, with a thick, irregularly crackled glaze, brought
back in 1893 by the _Mission Fournereux_ from Siam and Cambodia; among
these fragments of old celadon we find a pair of contorted bowls, fused
together in the kiln, in fact undoubted ‘wasters,’ such as could only be
found in the neighbourhood of the furnaces where they were fired. At the
instigation of Mr. C. H. Read of the British Museum, Mr. Lyle has lately
explored the remains of old potteries now hidden in deep jungle, at a
place called Sawankalok, not far from the western frontier of Siam.
These old kilns are situated some two hundred miles to the north of
Bangkok, and about the same distance from the port of Molmein (Malmen).
To show the importance of this discovery, we need only point out that
near to the latter town lies the old port of Martaban, which played so
important a part in the mediæval trade of the Arabs, and from which,
doubtless, the name of Martabani, by which celadon ware has always been
known in the Mohammedan East, is derived. Among the many fragments
brought back by Mr. Lyle are some which from their distinct
translucency, and from the whiteness and the conchoidal fracture of the
paste, may be unhesitatingly classed as true porcelain. The colour of
the glaze varies from a prevailing greyish green to a fine turquoise
tint in a few specimens. That the ware was made on the spot is proved
by the presence of many defective pieces--‘wasters’ that had been thrown
away--as well as by the numerous conical props (for the support of the
ware in the kiln) found mixed with the fragments. On these tall,
nozzle-shaped props the plates and bowls were supported in an inverted
position. It is by this unusual method of support that we may account
for the fact that the glaze covers the _whole_ of the lower surface--so
exceptional an occurrence in the case of porcelain--and at the same time
for the absence of the glaze from a ring-like portion of the upper
surface. We may note that a similar distribution of the glaze is found
occasionally on large plates of the old heavy ware brought from other
countries; of this there are notable examples in the museum at Gotha
(see p. 72). The ground in these Siamese specimens has assumed where
exposed, but there only, the deep red so admired by the Chinese in the
old Lung-chuan ware. The paste, in many of the examples, has been
moulded in low relief in the characteristic lotus-leaf pattern, while on
a few pieces there is a rough decoration in greenish black under the
glaze. All remembrance of these old kilns has completely passed away,
and at the present day the local market is supplied with a rough
stoneware brought overland from Yunnan.[110]
The porcelain now found in Siam, of which many specimens have been
lately brought to Europe, is of a very different character. This is the
highly decorated enamelled ware which may be classed with the _famille
rose_ from the prevalence of the _rouge d’or_ among the enamels. This
ware, none of which can be earlier than the middle of the eighteenth
century, is certainly made in China, but the presence in the decoration
of
[Illustration: _PLATE XXII._ CHINESE]
certain peculiar Buddhist types makes it rather difficult to believe
that the enamelling was in all cases executed in Canton. It is true that
in the colours, and in the general style of the decoration, we are often
reminded of the well-known Cantonese enamels on copper. The white
surface of the ground is, for the most part, entirely hidden by a floral
decoration; but amid this, on medallions surrounded by tongues of flame,
we find centaur-like monsters with human heads, above which rise
almond-shaped _nimbi_. From the top of the cover of the hemispherical
bowls--the commonest form--rises a knob in the shape of the Buddhist
jewel. The enamel of this ware appears to scale off readily, as if from
imperfect firing. The prevailing colours are a deep red for the ground,
and a bright green relieved with white and yellow for the design (PL.
XXII.). While the finer specimens, as we have already said, remind us of
the Canton enamels, others suggest rather, in the scheme of colour and
decoration, the painted and lacquered bowls of India and Ceylon. In the
Indian Museum at South Kensington may be seen an exceptionally fine
collection of this Sinico-Siamese porcelain, lent by Signor Cardu, and a
good opportunity is here provided for comparing its decoration with that
on the rough earthenware from Ceylon and various parts of India which is
exhibited in adjacent cases.
A coarse kind of porcelain is made in Annam. At Sèvres are some cups
presented by the envoy from that kingdom. The rude pattern of bamboos
painted in blue, _sous couverte_, on a greyish paste, does not give an
exalted idea of Annamese civilisation.
In Japan we sometimes find specimens of a somewhat rough but
picturesquely decorated ware, hardly a true porcelain, I think, which
from the country of its origin is known as Kochi. From the nature and
colour of its glaze it may be compared to some of the old Chinese wares
of the _demi grand feu_, and again, in certain points, to the earlier
types of the Japanese porcelain of Kaga and Imari. Kochi has been
identified with Cochin-China, but as the geographical ideas of the
Japanese as to foreign states were not very definite--derived as they
were from the Chinese geographers of the Ming period--we may perhaps be
justified in looking further north for the source of this ware, either
in Tonquin or in some part of Kuang-tung, the southernmost province of
China.[111]