CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
The art of the enameler throughout the ages has ever proved to be a
subject of interest to connoisseurs and collectors. While learned
monographs in many languages have been written on the fascinating
subject of European enamels, less appears to have been written
concerning those of Asia and particularly those of China and Japan. The
real collector, as distinguished from the mere gatherer or hoarder of
art objects, finds a great part of his pleasure in acquainting himself
with the processes of manufacture as well as with the history of the
things he collects. It is this acquaintanceship with the minutiæ of a
subject that enables one to collect with judgment.
The basis of all enamels is the application of fusible silicate or
glass, colored with metallic oxides, all upon a metal ground. The
varieties of enamels have already been described at length in the
chapter on European enamels, but it will be convenient to summarize the
processes here as they apply to Oriental as well as to Occidental
enamels.
In cloisonné enamel-work a metal base--of gold, silver, copper, or some
other metal--has its design traced upon it by means of thin metal wires
or strips soldered to the base and forming a number of divisions. These,
when filled with the colored silicate (subjected to amalgamation by
heat, and afterward polished) produce a beautiful patterned surface, the
design of which appears traced in metal filaments. The Byzantine and the
Greek enamelers executed their cloisonné enamels in gold, as likewise
did the Anglo-Saxons, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Japanese in
their finest work.
In the plique à jour enamels we find what is really a variety of
cloisonné rather than a class, as the plique à jour is cloisonné
unbacked by a metal ground but much like a leaded stained-glass window
in miniature. That is, if one holds a piece of plique à jour work to the
light he will find it allows the light to pass through, whence its name.
Champlevé enamel resembles cloisonné, but its pattern, instead of being
traced by cloisons soldered on a metal base, is scooped out by a sort of
deep engraving upon the metal base, these depressions being filled up
with enamel, which is fired and then polished. The Celts, the Persians,
and the enamelers of India worked in this manner.
Respoussé enamel is, one may say, a variety of champlevé, or at least so
closely akin to it that it is seldom considered as composing a class by
itself, though I think it should be. In such enamel-work the design is
wrought upon the metal base, not with cloisons as in cloisonné, nor by
scooping out by a graver, as in true champlevé. Instead, the design is
worked upon the metal by hammering out--respoussé--the depressions to be
filled with the enamel. This is then fired and polished, as all enamel
of any class has to be. Some of the enamels of India are such fine
examples of work of this sort that they have passed as true champlevé.
Finally, we come to the _painted_ enamels, such as those of Limoges. In
the earliest examples of the painted class one finds the design applied
directly to the metal base, grain by grain and layer by layer, in such a
manner that the various fusings and glazings produce the results one
finds in the marvelous old Limoges enamels; while in later work the
enamel is fused upon the metal base, the designs being painted (in some
instances printed) on the enamel.
This brief survey of the characteristics of the different classes of old
enamels will the better enable the collector to confine his attention
for the moment to the subject of cloisonné enamels, and in particular to
those of China and Japan. Of late years the cloisonné enamels of these
countries have been extensively exported, more especially to America.
Many of these modern examples are very beautiful, some of them very
trashy, and none of them comparable in beauty with early Chinese work,
though, from a technical point of view and an individuality of their
own, I fancy some of the modern specimens would have made the
seventeenth-century enamel-workers of China rub their eyes in
wonderment. This great and difficult art is surely one of the glories of
Chinese craftsmanship. One might not think that the outlook for
collecting these old enamels in America very encouraging. Nevertheless
it is a line of collecting that has not been overdone, and genuine old
objects are to be found, here and there, by those who know them when
they see them.
As color is the very soul of enamel, the rich, soft colors of the early
Chinese work help to distinguish it. This is especially true of the
varied and beautiful blues employed by the Chinese enamelers.
Occasionally the Chinese employed both cloisonné and champlevé in the
same piece as certain pieces of the Ch’ien Lung period (1736-1796) show.
In genuine old pieces it often happens that corrosion has made its
appearance around the cloisons. While the early history of Chinese
cloisonné is lost to us, we know it to have been in favor in the early
fifteenth century, as a vase in the Victoria and Albert Museum attests.
Not only for its blues is Chinese cloisonné noted, but it possesses
characteristic reds, lilacs, violets, pinks, greens, and orange as well.
The Chinese enameler’s palette was medieval in its selection. The blues
of turquoise and of lapis lazuli were great favorites likewise. A
sang-de-bœuf and a sealing-wax red, opaque in quality, were further
employed. In fact, the Chinese enamelers employed the colors of the
early European cloisonné workers. Their whites, however, were always
inferior and in early work exhibit air-hole pit marks.
The collector will understand from this how necessary it is for him to
give careful attention to the subject of color in determining the early
enamels. The metals employed by the cloisonné-workers should also be
studied. Where gold was used it had to be fine gold, as alloys would not
withstand the heat of the enameler’s furnace. Enamel does not hold so
well to silver as to gold or copper. Then there is the distinctive
polish of the earlier enamels. These were polished by hand, in
consequence of which their surfaces did not present the mirror-like
polish which modern contemporary cloisonné enamels exhibit. The surfaces
of the old pieces is more like that of an egg-shell. Again, few of the
antique cloisonné enamels show any transparency, a fact probably due to
the oxide of tin in the solder. In recent work the cloisons have, in
many instances, been fastened to the metal bases by means of a paste
instead of by the soldering method--surely a shifty mode, and one
marking the decline of the true excellence of the ancient art.
Rudyard Kipling’s “From Sea to Sea” gives us a careful account of the
art of enameling as he saw it practised by the _minakari_ or enamelers
of Kyōto. This account is worth looking up. While the work described by
Kipling was that of the modern Japanese craftsmen of some thirty years
ago, the process was the same as practised in earlier times not only in
Japan but likewise in China, and everywhere that cloisonné enamel has
been made. The process in use to-day follows the same tradition.
The Koreans probably acquired the art of cloisonné from the Chinese, and
the Japanese from the Koreans (perhaps not before the fifteenth
century). Captain Brinkley says: “One thing is certain, that until the
nineteenth century enamels were employed by Japanese decorators for
accessory purposes only on wood and porcelain as well as on metal. No
such things as vases, plaques or bowls having their surface covered with
enamel in either style.” This at once enables the collector to
understand at how late a period, comparatively, cloisonné enamel became
popular in Japan. It is believed that early in the nineteenth century a
Japanese craftsman, Kaji Tsunekechi, produced the first vessel covered
completely with cloisonné in Japan. This was at Nagoya. It won him great
fame and many pupils. The earlier pieces of Japanese cloisonné followed
in pattern, to a great extent, the Chinese enamels, and though they are
somewhat less fine in color, they often excel in technique. Until 1890
the cloisons of Japanese work were soldered to the metal. Since that
date a vegetable gum has often been employed for the purpose. In some
modern work there appears to be no evidence of cloisons whatsoever, but
some of these pieces have hidden cloisons. The Japanese cloisonné
objects are usually enameled on the back or on the inside with blue
enamel Tōkyō, Yokohama, and Kyōto are the main sources of the modern
product.
Thirty years ago Louis Gonse, a French authority, wrote that the
Japanese had done little in cloisonné,
[Illustration: _Courtesy Brooklyn Museum of Art_
Chinese Cloissonné Palace Censer, Chia Ching Period, 1552-1567]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Japanese Armour of the Feudal Period, showing Swords with their Sword-Guards
(_Tsuba_)]
but since that time its production has increased enormously. While much
of this modern work is inferior in quality, that which is truly _fine_
is well worth the collector’s attention. With the rapidly changing
conditions, both in China and Japan, such objects will greatly enhance
in value in a few years hence and come to be properly esteemed.