THE T´ANG [Chinese] DYNASTY, 618-906 A.D.
THE Chinese Empire, reunited by the Sui emperors, reached the zenith of
its power under the world-famed dynasty of the T´ang (618-906 A.D.).
A Chinese general penetrated into Central India and took the capital,
Magadha, in 648. Chinese junks sailed into the Persian Gulf, and the
northern boundaries of the empire extended into Turkestan, where traces of
a flourishing civilisation have been discovered in the sand-buried cities
in the regions of Turfan and Khotan, recently explored by Sir Aurel Stein
and by a German expedition under Professor Grünwedel. In return, we read
of Arab settlers in Yunnan and in Canton and the coast towns, and the last
of the Sassanids appealed to China for help. A host of foreign influences
must have penetrated the Middle Kingdom at this time, including those of
the Indian, Persian, and Byzantine arts. Proof of this, if proof were
needed, is seen in the wonderful treasures preserved in the Shoso-in at
Nara in Japan, a temple museum stocked in the eighth century chiefly with
the personal belongings of the Emperor Shomu, most of which had been sent
over from China. Indeed, the Nara treasure is, in many respects, the most
comprehensive exhibition of T´ang craftsmanship which exists to-day.
The long period of prosperity enjoyed by China under the T´ang is famed in
history as the golden age of literature and art. The age which produced
the poet Li Po, the painter Wu Tao-tzŭ, and the poet-painter Wang Wei,
whose "poems were pictures and his pictures poems," was indeed an age of
giants. It is certain that the potter's art shared in no small measure
the progress of the period, though at this distance of time we can hardly
expect that many monuments of this fragile art should have survived.
Indeed, it has been the custom of writers in the past to dismiss the
T´ang pottery in a few words, or to disregard it entirely as an unknown
quantity Here, however, we have again been well served by the ancient
burial customs of the Chinese, which still held good for part, at least,
of the T´ang period.
The T´ang mortuary wares are similar in intention to those of the Han,
but bespeak a much maturer art. The modelling of the tomb figures, which
have been aptly compared with the Tanagra statuettes of ancient Greece,
displays greater skill, spirit, and delicacy, and the materials used are
more refined and varied. The body of the ware, which is usually fine as
pipeclay, varies in hardness from soft earthenware, easily scratchable
with a knife, to a hard porcellanous stoneware, and in colour from
light grey and pale rosy buff to white, like plaster-of-Paris. The
usual covering is a thin, finely crackled glaze of pale straw colour or
light transparent green, and sometimes the surface has a wash of white
clay between the body and the glaze. Some of the figures, however, are
more richly coated in amber brown and leaf green glazes with occasional
splashes of blue, while on others are found traces of unfired red and
black pigments.
But as the mortuary pottery[41] comprises the largest and most important
group of T´ang wares at present identified, we cannot do better than
consider it first and as a separate class, setting forth at once the
reasons for assigning it to this particular period. As will be seen in
the note to the previous chapter (p. 17), earthenware appears to have
been to a great extent superseded by wood as the fashionable material for
sepulchral furniture towards the end of the T´ang period. This in itself
is strong _primâ facie_ evidence that the tombs furnished throughout with
pottery are not later than the T´ang dynasty. Another argument of an
ethnographical nature is supplied by the figures of ladies with feet of
normal size. The fashion of cramping the feet, though it may have begun
before the T´ang period, was certainly not universal until the end of this
long dynasty.[42]
But there are other cogent reasons which will appeal more directly to
the student of ceramics. Among the few specimens of pottery in the Nara
Collection,[43] there are several bowls and a dish, accorded in the
official catalogue the meagre description "China ware," which have a
peculiar glaze of creamy yellow with large, green mottling, and there is
besides a drum-shaped vase, "green with yellowish patches." This type of
glaze is found on many of the tomb wares, some of which have amber brown
and violet blue splashes in addition. From these data it is possible to
identify a series of T´ang glazes, including creamy white, straw yellow,
faint green, leaf green, amber and violet blue, all soft and more or less
transparent with minutely crackled texture and closely analogous to the
coloured lead glazes used on our own "Whieldon" pottery of Staffordshire
in the eighteenth century. Three years ago a Parisian dealer was offering
for sale the contents of an important tomb. For once in a way, the chief
articles of the find had been kept together; at least so it was positively
asserted, and there was nothing improbable in the circumstance. They
included two splendidly modelled figures and a saddled horse in the
typical T´ang ware, with bold washes of green and brown glazes, and with
them was a stone slab engraved with an inscription. I was able to examine
a photograph and a rubbing of this stone, in which excellent judges could
find no sign of spurious work. The inscription was long and difficult
to translate, but the main facts were clear. It commemorated a princely
personage of the name of Wên, whose style was Shou-ch´êng, a man of
Lo-yang in Honan, who died at Ho-yang Hsien on the 16th day of the first
month of the second year of Yung Shun, viz. 683 A.D.
Among the T´ang figurines the horse is conspicuous not only in its
comparative frequency, but for the spirit and character with which it
is portrayed. The men of T´ang were clearly great horse lovers. Their
pictorial artists excelled in painting the noble beast, and the "Hundred
Colts" by the celebrated painter Han Kan is a classic of horse painting.
Among the precious fragments of T´ang pictures on silk which Sir Aurel
Stein brought back from his first expedition in the Taklamakan Desert
there were several with scenes in which horsemen figured. I have compared
these with the tomb figures and found them to tally with wonderful
exactitude, not only in pose and style and in the characteristic
rendering of the head and neck, but also in the details of the harness,
the saddle with high arched front and shelving back support, the square
stirrups, bridle and bit and tassel-like pendant under the mouth.
A complete set of grave goods from a tomb opened by the Lao-tung railway
near Lao Yang in the Honan Fu have been acquired by the British Museum
through a railway engineer on the spot. They may be taken as a typical
and, I believe, quite reliable, example of the grave furniture of a
T'ang personage of importance. They include six covered jars of graceful
oval form, made of hard white ware and coated with thin glaze of pale
yellowish or faint green tint, which ends in the characteristic T'ang
fashion in a wavy line several inches above the base. They measure about
thirteen inches in height. These are presumed to have held the six kinds
of grain. Next comes a graceful vase, probably for wine, with ovoid body,
tall, slender neck, with two horizontal bands, a cup-shaped mouth, and
two high, elegantly carved handles with serpent heads which bite on to
the rim (Plate 14, Fig. 2). The only other vessels were a circular tray,
on which stood a small, squat vase, with trilobe sides, small mouth, and
three rudimentary feet, surrounded by seven shallow cups. Like the wine
vase and covered jars, these have flat bases, in most cases carefully
smoothed and lightly bevelled at the edge.[44] The retinue consisted of a
charming figure of a lady on a horse, eight other ladies (probably of the
harem) with high, peaked head-dress, low-necked dresses with high waists,
and a shawl over the shoulders and falling down from the arms like two
long sleeves; natural feet are indicated in every case. With these were
two figures of priestly appearance, with long cloaks and hoods, three
other men in distinctive costumes, eleven retainers in civil costume with
peaked head-gear, long coats with lappets open at the neck, waist belts,
and high boots, their right hands held across the breast and their left
at the side. One of these figures is remarkable for his foreign features,
with exaggerated and pointed nose, suggesting a Western Asiatic origin.
There are, besides, four men, apparently in armour, and two tall figures
who seem to wear cap helmets with camail falling down the neck and
breast armour, recalling in many ways our own mediæval men-at-arms. The
supernatural element is represented by two strange, squatting quadrupeds
with legs like a bull, human heads with large ears and a single horn
which are called by the Chinese _t'u kuai_ or "earth-spirits." Finally,
in addition to man and super-man, the animal world was represented by
two saddled horses, two dromedaries, two pigs, two sheep, a beautifully
modelled dog, and a goose. What more could a man desire in the underworld?
All these figures are of the usual white plaster-like body, with the
pale, straw-coloured or greenish glazes which long burial has dissolved
into iridescence where it has not actually caused it to flake away. Some
of them stand on flat, plain bases; others on their own feet and robes.
The latter kind are all hollow beneath, and the quadrupeds have a large
cavity under the belly, a feature common to the T'ang and Han animals,
and one which I have noticed on bronzes of the same periods. Needless
to add, these figures were made in moulds, the seams of which are still
visible.[45]
[Illustration: Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3
Plate 5.--T'ang Sepulchral Figures. _In the Benson Collection._
Fig. 1.--A Lokapala or Guardian of one of the Quarters, unglazed.
Fig. 2.--A Horse, with coloured glazes. Height 27 inches.
Fig. 3.--An Actor, unglazed.]
[Illustration: Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Plate 6.--T'ang Sepulchral Figures, unglazed.
Figs. 1, 2 and 4.--Female Musicians.
Fig. 3.--Attendant with dish of food. Height 9½ inches.
_Eumorfopoulos Collection._]
[Illustration: Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Plate 7.--T'ang Sepulchral Pottery.
Fig. 1.--Figure of a Lady in elaborate costume, unglazed. Height 14½
inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._
Fig. 2.--Vase, white pottery with traces of blue mottling: the glaze has
perished. Height 8½ inches. _Breuer Collection._
Fig. 3.--Sphinx-like Monster, green and yellow glazes. Height 25 inches.
_Eumorfopoulos Collection._]
A few examples of the tomb figures are illustrated in the adjoining
plates. The tall, slender figure on Plate 7, Fig. 1, seems to represent a
lady of distinction. The elaborate head-dress and costume, the necklace
and pendant and the belt are all carefully modelled; and the Elizabethan
appearance of the collar is curious and interesting. The ware is soft
and white like pipeclay, though still caked with the reddish loess clay
from which it was exhumed. The style of this figure with its slender
proportions is analogous to that of the graceful stone sculptures of the
Northern Wei period. The genial monster in white clay and splashed green
and yellow glazes illustrated on Plate 7 is one of the many sphinx-like
creatures found in the tombs over which they were supposed to exercise
a beneficial influence. Sometimes they have human heads on the bull
body, and they are then described as _t'u kuai_ or earth-spirits. In the
present example we have a form which strongly resembles certain Persian or
Sassanian monsters in bronze; and it is highly probable that the idea of
this creature came from a western Asiatic source.
Plate 5 shows a fine example of a horse in coloured glazes, a fierce
figure in warrior's guise, who is, no doubt, one of the Lokapalas or
Guardians of the Four Quarters in the Buddhist theogony, and a figure of
an actor. The amusements, as well as the serious occupations of the dead,
were provided for in the furniture of the tombs. A whole troop of mimes
in quaint costumes and dramatic poses is shown in the Field Museum at
Chicago, and Plate 6 illustrates three seated figures of musicians as well
as a standing figure holding a dish of fruit.
A study of the salient features of these and other authenticated specimens
leads naturally to the identification of fresh types, and so the series
grows. For instance, the type of wine vase with serpent handles is found
in glazes of various colours, till of the mottled T'ang kind, and with
slight additions, such as the palmette-like ornaments in applied relief
on a large example in the British Museum. These ornaments in their turn
appear on bowls and incense vases often of globular form, like the
well-known Buddhist begging bowl, but fitted with three legs. Splashed,
streaked and mottled glazes further declare these to be T'ang, and the
varying colour and hardness of their body material give us a deeper
insight into the T'ang ware. All of these show the marks of the wheel, and
many are neatly finished with simple wheel-made lines and ridges; stamped
ornaments in applied relief are their commonest form of decoration.
A fine specimen in the British Museum will serve to illustrate this
type of bowl. It has a hard, white body, of typical globular form, with
slightly constricted mouth, three legs with strongly modelled lion masks
on the upper part, and between them pads of applied relief with lion mask
ornaments. The glaze is not of the mottled kind, but is rather streaked;
it is deep, cucumber green and minutely crackled, and has run down into
drops under the bowl. This fluidity is also the cause of the streakiness
of the colour, which was evidently a characteristic feature of the T'ang
pottery, for it appears unmistakably indicated in a T'ang painting figured
by Sir Aurel Stein.[46] This painting, a silk banner of the T'ang period,
was found in a walled-up library at Tun-huang, and depicts a standing
Buddhist figure carrying a begging bowl with boldly streaked exterior.
[Illustration: PLATE 8.
Three examples of T'ang ware with coloured glazes: in the Eumorfopoulos
Collection.
Fig. 1.--Tripod Incense Vase with ribbed sides; white pottery with deep
blue glaze outside encrusted with iridescence. Height 4⅝ inches.
Fig. 2.--Amphora of light coloured pottery with splashed glaze. Mark
incised _Ma Chên-shih tsao_ ("made by Ma Chên-shih"). Height 8¼ inches.
Fig. 3.--Ewer of hard white porcellanous ware with deep purple glaze.
Height 4¾ inches.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
]
In addition to the mottled glazes--which, by the way, are the forerunners
of the so-called "tiger-skin" porcelains of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries--and the single colours already mentioned, instances have been
identified on the principles already indicated of wares with a full yellow
glaze and a streaky, brownish yellow. An interesting piece (Plate 8) in
the Eumorfopoulos Collection is covered with a deep violet blue glaze on
a fine white body. Others, again, have a dark chocolate brown glaze on a
reddish buff body, and a rare ewer in the British Museum is distinguished
by a deep olive brown glaze flecked with tea green, which seems to
anticipate by a thousand years the "tea dust" glazes of the Ch'ien Lung
period.[47]
Another variety of T'ang glaze, of which I have seen one example, was an
olive brown with large splashes of a light colour, a greyish white, but
with surface so frosted over by decay that its original intention remained
in doubt. One might say that this was the father of the Japanese Takatori
glazes with deep brown under-colour and large patches of frothy white.
We may mention here three remarkable specimens found in a grave with a
T'ang mirror and described in _Man_ in 1901,[48] which are in the British
Museum. One is an oblate ovoid vase, with small neck and mouth, of hard,
light buff body, coated with a dull greenish black glaze with minute
specks of lighter colour. The others are tea bowls of hard buff ware with
dull brick-red glaze, not far removed in colour from the Samian ware of
Roman times. No exact Chinese parallel has yet been found to these three
pieces, though something approaching them is seen in certain bowls in the
Eumorfopoulos collection which have a reddish brown glaze breaking into
black, being apparently of the type associated with the name of Chien
yao,[49] and which are known in Japan as _kaki temmoku_. This early kind
of _temmoku_, which was probably made in Honan, has a hard whitish body,
and the glaze is sometimes flecked with tea green as well as with golden
brown. In some cases, too, a floral design or a leaf has been impressed
or stencilled on the black glaze and appears in the brown or green colour
(Plate 43, Fig. 1). It is said that a somewhat similar brown _temmoku_
ware was made in Corea as well.
The survival of the leaf green glaze of Han type has already been noted.
It occurs in Plates 12 and 13.
A pale bluish green glaze, somewhat akin to a later variety of celadon,
appears on a few small bowls and jars which have the characteristic
T'ang finish: I have seen several figures of lions with a crackled light
greenish brown glaze; and a considerable class of bowls and melon-shaped
vases have been found in Shansi with a hard buff stoneware body, coated
with white slip under a transparent and almost colourless glaze, the
combination producing a solid white or ivory colour (Plate 11, Fig. 3).
These bowls have been considered by some Chinese authorities to be a
production of the Ta Yi[50] kilns in Szechuan, but as there were factories
in Shansi,[51] where wares of this type are reputed to have been made in
T'ang times, it seems more probable that they are of local make. It should
be added that the brown, tea dust, black, celadon and white glazes are
high-fired and essentially different from the soft, crackled lead glazes
previously described.
Apart from modelling in the round, an art in which we have seen that the
T'ang potters excelled, the decorative ornament of the pottery hitherto
discussed has been confined to applied reliefs. The processes of carving
and engraving come early in the evolution of the potter's art in China,
and we should expect to find in the T'ang wares some indications of the
skill in these methods for which the Sung potters were so celebrated.
Plate 12, Fig. 2, illustrates the use of engraved ornament under a green
glaze, and the piece is remarkable not only for its elegant design, but
for the beautiful lines of its simple form. A few years ago I saw for
the first time one or two stands and boxes with patterns intricate as
brocade work, floral scrolls, and geometrical designs, engraved with a
point, and the spaces filled in with coloured glazes. They were reputed
to be of T'ang date, and though no further evidence existed to prove that
objects of such advanced technique and mature design really belonged to
this remote period the proposition did not seem an impossible one. The
textiles, inlaid woodwork, and painted lacquer in the Nara collections
have just such designs which at first sight fill one with amazement at
their modern feeling. A piece of brocade of undoubted T'ang origin,
figured by Sir Aurel Stein,[52] with floral scrolls worked in silk, looks
like a piece of late Persian embroidery. And is not the art of the T´ang
painters essentially modern in the directness of its appeal?
[Illustration: Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 1
Plate 9.--T'ang Pottery.
Fig. 1.--Ewer of Sassanian form with splashed glazes; panels of relief
ornament, in one a mounted archer. Height 13 inches. _Alexander
Collection._ Fig. 2.--Vase with mottled glaze, green and orange. Height
3⅝ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._ Fig. 3.--Ewer with dragon spout
and handle; wave and cloud reliefs; brownish yellow glaze streaked with
green. Height 11⅝ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._]
[Illustration: Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Plate 10.--T'ang Pottery. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._
Fig. 1.--Dish with mirror pattern incised and coloured blue, green, etc.;
inner border of _ju-i_ cloud scrolls on a mottled yellow ground, outer
border of mottled green; pale green glaze underneath and three tusk-shaped
feet. Diameter 15 inches. Fig. 2.--Ewer with serpent handle and trilobed
mouth; applied rosette ornaments and mottled glaze, green, yellow and
white. Height 10⅝ inches.]
[Illustration:
Fig. 2
Fig. 1
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Plate 11.--T´ang Wares.
Fig. 1.--Cup with bands of impressed circles, brownish yellow glaze
outside, green within. Height 2⅝ inches. _Seligmann Collection._
Fig. 2.--Cup of hard white ware with greenish white glaze. Height 2⅜
inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._ Fig. 3.--Melon-shaped Vase, greyish
stoneware with white slip and smooth ivory glaze. Height 4 inches.
_Breuer Collection._ Fig. 4.--Cup of porcellanous stoneware, white slip
and crackled creamy white glaze, spur marks inside. Height 3¼ inches.
_Breuer Collection._]
The truth is, our knowledge of T´ang pottery has only just begun, and
now that the ware is esteemed in Europe at its proper worth, the choicer
specimens which have been treasured in China are finding their way
westward. Every fresh arrival tells us something new and surprising,
and it only wanted such a piece as Fig. 1, Plate 10, to establish the
identity of the specimens whose T´ang origin we had before only ventured
to conjecture. Here we have a form of dish which is found among the tomb
wares of the T´ang period, made of the typical T´ang white-body and
finished in characteristic fashion and decorated with engraved designs
of the most advanced type, filled in with coloured glazes, in addition
to bands of mottling in green and white, and yellow and white. There
are, besides, other specimens of similar make but with simpler, though
scarcely less interesting, design of a mirror-shaped panel formed of
radiating lotus leaves engraved in the centre with a stork in white and
green, all in a deep violet blue ground. The coloured glazes used in the
T´ang polychrome pottery are light and translucent lead glazes of the
kind which reappears on the Ming and Ch´ing pottery and porcelain, and,
as on the later wares, they are covered with minute accidental crackle.
In their splashed and mottled varieties they have, as already noted, a
resemblance to the glazes of the eighteenth-century Whieldon ware of
Staffordshire, and it is interesting to note that the T´ang potters also
used another form of decoration which was much fancied in Staffordshire
about a thousand years later. This is the marbling of the ware, not merely
by mottling the glaze as in Fig. 2 of Plate 9, or by marbling the surface,
but by blending dark and light clays in the body as in the "solid agate"
ware of Staffordshire. It only remains to prove that painting with a brush
was practised by the T´ang potters, and though one is loath to accept such
a revolutionary idea without positive proof, there is very good reason
to think that such pieces[53] as Fig. 3, Plate 12, belong to the T´ang
period. They have a white pottery body, painted in bold floral scroll
designs in black under a beautiful green glaze. We are getting used to
surprises in connection with T´ang pottery, and probably in a year's time
painted T´ang wares, which are now only accepted with reserve, will be an
established fact which passes without comment.
Stamped patterns are not uncommon, and we often find small rings or
concentric circles, singly, as in Fig. 1 of Plate 11, or stamped in
clusters of five or seven, forming rosettes[54]; or, again, impressed key
fret, as in Fig. 1 of Plate 12, which has a deep leaf green glaze.
The influence of the Western Asiatic civilisations has been already
mentioned in casual hints, but it appears in concrete form in the peculiar
shape of the ewer on Plate 9. The bird-headed vessel is found in Persian
pottery of an early date, one example of which may be seen in the British
Museum. Another remarkable instance of this form was illustrated and
discussed by Dr. Martin in the _Burlington Magazine_, September, 1912.[55]
It had, in addition, applied relief ornaments of a kind which we have
already noticed, and Dr. Martin expressed his opinion that both the
form and the ornaments are nearly related to Sassanian metal work. The
fact that the last Sassanid king sought help from China[56] points to
intercourse between the two realms, and in any case the northern trade
route through Turkestan into Western Asia gave ample opportunity for the
traffic in Persian and Sassanian wares. But more remarkable still is the
classical spirit displayed in the piping boy and dancing girl[57] on a
wonderful flask in the Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate 18, Fig. 2). The
Græeco-Buddhist influence on early Chinese sculpture has already been
remarked, and several classical designs are commonly pointed out on the
T´ang metal mirrors; but here we have in pottery a figure which might have
been taken from a Herculaneum fresco, surrounded by scroll-work worthy of
the finest T´ang mirror. The body of the ware is whitish pottery, and
the beautifully moulded surface is covered with a brownish green glaze,
which, like that of Fig. 1, Plate 12, is clearly a survival of the Han
glaze. Other instances might be quoted of Græco-Roman influences reflected
in T´ang wares. There are obvious traces of the "egg and tongue" and
"honeysuckle" patterns in border designs, and the shapes of vases and
ewers often betray a feeling which is more Greek than Chinese.
Reverting to the engraved T´ang ornament, there is a little oblong box
in the Kunstgewerbe Museum at Berlin with incised rosettes of prunus
blossom form, glazed white and yellow in a green ground and finished
almost with the neatness of Ch´ien Lung porcelain, but of undoubtedly
T´ang origin. The same prunus design occurs on a typical T´ang bowl, in
the Eumorfopoulos Collection, stencilled white in a green ground. I have
postponed reference to these pieces because of the bearing of the latter
on the decoration of the wonderful figure illustrated in the frontispiece,
which will make a fitting climax to our series of T´ang specimens.
This figure, with its stand, measures 50 inches in height, and represents
one of sixteen Lohan or Arhats, the Buddhist apostles. Its provenance
has been kept discreetly concealed,[58] but we may infer that it was
taken from a temple or mausoleum, and we know that there were others
with it, two of which were exhibited at the Musée Cernuschi, in Paris,
in June, 1913. This one, however, has the advantage over the others of
being complete with its pottery stand. The ware is white and comparatively
hard; the colourless glaze on the fleshy parts has acquired a brown
stain from the dripping of the cave moisture, and developed a minute
crackle, both of which features are observable on some of the glazed
vases from T'ang tombs; the pupils of the eyes are black. The draperies,
of which the flowing folds are worthy of the finest classic sculpture,
are glazed with mottled green, the upper robe with brownish yellow, both
of T'ang type, and the latter is patched (in true Buddhist fashion) with
green-edged bands with white designs resembling divided prunus blossoms in
a yellow ground, in style recalling the decoration of the bowl previously
mentioned. The technique, then, is that of the T'ang wares, but instead of
being made in a mould like the grave statuettes, this monumental figure
is modelled in the round by an artist worthy to rank with the masters of
sculpture and painting who made the T'ang period famous.
When one looks at the powerful modelling of the head, the strong features
composed in deep contemplation, and the restful pose of the seated form,
one realises that here, at last, we have the great art which inspired the
early Buddhist sculptors of Japan. It is no conventional deity which sits
before us. The features are so human as to suggest an actual portrait,
but for the supernatural enlargement of the ears in Buddhist fashion. The
contracted brows bespeak deep concentration; the eyes, dreamy yet awake,
look through and past us into the infinite; the nostrils are dilated in
deep breathing; the lips compressed in firm yet compassionate lines. It
is the embodiment of the Buddhist idea of abstraction and aloofness;
yet it lives in every line, the personification of mental energy in
repose. But so rare are examples of this style, that, unless we turn to
painted pictures or frescoes such as have been brought back by the recent
expeditions in Turfan, we must look in the temples of Japan, not, indeed,
for similar Chinese work, but for the Japanese masterpieces in bronze,
wood and lacquer, of the same period, which avowedly followed the Chinese
art. The Yuima in the Hokkeji nunnery, ascribed to the middle of the
eighth century; the portrait figure of the priest Ryoben (✝ 773) in the
Todaiji monastery, and the portrait figure of Chisho Daishi (✝ 891) in
the Onjoji monastery,[59] are all conceived in the same grand style, and
bespeak a kindred art.
But high as this figure ranks as sculpture, it is far more remarkable as
pottery. To fire such a mass of material without subsidence or cracking
would tax the capabilities of the best equipped modern pottery, while
the skill displayed in the modelling is probably unequalled in any known
example of ceramic sculpture. The contemporary grave figures hold a high
place in ceramic modelling, but this statue is as far above the best
of them as Dwight's stoneware bust of Prince Rupert towers above the
Staffordshire figurines. Dwight's masterpiece has long been an object of
wonder and admiration in the ceramic ante-room in the British Museum,
and, with the help of the National Art Collections Fund and of several
munificent individuals, the British Museum has been able to acquire this
wonderful Chinese figure, which is now exhibited in the King Edward VII.
galleries.
It is too early yet to attempt seriously the classification of the T´ang
wares under their respective factories. Before this is possible the
meagre allusions in Chinese literature must be supplemented by far fuller
information. At present our knowledge of the T´ang factories is chiefly
drawn from casual references in Chinese poetry and in the Chinese Classic
on Tea, the _Ch´a Ching_, written by Lu Yü in the middle of the eighth
century. From this we gather that the Yüeh Chou[60] kilns enjoyed a high
reputation. An early allusion to this factory in reference to the "bowls
of Eastern Ou" in the Chin dynasty has already been recorded.[61] The
author of the Tea Classic tells us that among tea-drinkers the Yüeh bowls
were considered the best, though there were some who ranked those of Hsing
Chou[62] above them. Lu Yü, however, thought the judgment of the latter
connoisseurs was wrong, because the Hsing Chou bowls resembled silver
while the Yüeh bowls were like jade, because the Hsing bowls were like
snow, the Yüeh like ice, and because the Hsing ware, being white, made
the tea appear red, while the Yüeh ware, being green (_ch´ing_), imparted
a green (_lü_) tint to the tea. The T´ang poet, Lu Kuei-mêng, further
tells us that the Yüeh bowls "despoiled the thousand peaks of their blue
green[63] colour." Yüeh Chou is the modern Shao-hsing Fu in the province
of Chêkiang. It was celebrated in the tenth century for a special ware
made exclusively for the princes of Wu and Yüeh, of the Ch´ien family,
who reigned at Hung Chou from 907 to 976. This was the _pi sê_ or "secret
colour" ware which was made at Yüeh Chou until the Southern Sung period
(1127-1279), when the manufacture was removed to Yü-yao.[64] The _pi
sê_[65] ware has caused endless mystification among writers on Chinese
porcelain. The name--which means literally "secret colour"--has been taken
by some to imply that the colour was produced by a secret process (the
most natural but not the generally accepted meaning), and by others that
it was a forbidden colour, i.e. only permitted to be used by the princely
patrons of the house of Ch´ien.[66] The author of the _Ching-tê Chen t´ao
lu_[67] states that "it resembled the Yüeh ware in form, but surpassed
it in purity and brilliance." This is, however, only the opinion of a
nineteenth-century writer who does not claim to have seen a specimen of
either. A tenth-century writer[68] makes use of the vague expression, "the
secret colour preserves the note of the green (_ch´ing_) ware (_tz´ŭ_),"
which apparently means that the secret-colour glaze did not rob the ware
of the musical quality of usual _ch´ing_ ware, implying a difference of
some kind between the _pi sê_ and the _ch´ing_ glaze.
Literary references of this kind are open to so many inferences that their
value is slight without some tangible specimen to help us to realise their
import. This difficulty is greatly increased in dealing with Chinese
descriptions because of the ambiguity of Chinese colour words, which is
discussed elsewhere. But in the case of Yüeh Chou ware, or at any rate
of one kind of it, we have an important clue in another Chinese work.
Hsü Ching, who accompanied the Chinese Ambassador to Corea in 1125, in a
description of the Corean wares, makes the remark that "the rest of them
have a general likeness to the old _pi sê_ ware of Yüeh Chou and the new
Ju Chou ware."[69] Fortunately, we can speak with considerable confidence
of the Corean wares of this time, many examples of which have been taken
from the tombs of the period. The British Museum has a fair number of
examples, quite enough to show the typical Corean glaze, a soft grey green
celadon of decidedly bluish tint, a thick smooth glaze often of great
delicacy and beauty of tone.
In view of this the colour of the Yüeh bowls, the blue-green of the hills,
is easily visualised. But China boasts so many makes of celadon[70] that
he would be a bold man who would single out any one piece and say this
is Yüeh ware. Among the numerous specimens of celadon which have reached
Europe from various sources it is far from improbable that some were baked
in the Yüeh kilns, but at present, alas, we are impotent to identify them.
The author of the _Ching-tê Chên t´ao lu_[71] places the Hsing Chou
factory at the modern Hsing-t´ai Hsien, a dependency of Shun-tê Fu, in
Chihli. Little else is recorded about the white Hsing ware beyond a
general statement in the annals of the T´ang dynasty[72] that the "white
ware (_tz´ŭ_) cups of Nei Ch´iu were used by rich and poor throughout the
empire." Nei Ch´iu, it should be explained, is identified as a township
in the Hsing Chou. We may add that the ware of both Yüeh Chou and Hsing
Chou was used for "musical cups" by Kuo Tao-yüan.[73] One of the criteria
which the Chinese recognise in distinguishing ordinary pottery from the
finer wares of a porcellanous nature is the note emitted by the ware when
smartly tapped with the finger, and we may fairly infer that any bowls
which were suitable for use as musical chimes would be of a sonorous, hard
fired material if not actually porcelain.
The _Ch´a Ching_ enumerates five other T´ang factories which supplied
tea bowls, all of them inferior in reputation to the Yüeh Chou kilns.
Ting Chou [Chinese] in the Hsi-an Fu,[74] in Shensi; Wu Chou [Chinese]
in the Chin-hua Fu, in Chêkiang; Yo Chou [Chinese] in Hunan; Shou Chou
[Chinese] in Kiangnan; and Hung Chou [Chinese], the modern Nan-ch´ang Fu,
in Kiangsi, the district in which is Ching-tê Chên, afterwards the ceramic
metropolis of China. Of these wares we have only the meagre information
that the Yo Chou ware was of green (_ch´ing_) colour; the Shou Chou ware,
yellow; and that the Hung Chou ware was a brownish colour,[75] and made
the tea appear black. The Hung Chou factory is also named in the _Ko ku
yao lun_,[76] which tells us that "vessels made at Hung Chou in Kiangsi
are yellowish black in colour." A sixth factory, apparently of some
reputation though not mentioned in the _Ch´a Ching_, is named in a poem
by Tu Fu, president of the Board of Works,[77] in the T´ang dynasty, who
says: "The ware (_tz´ŭ_) baked at Ta-yi is light but strong. It gives out,
when struck, a sound like the plaintive note of the Chin-ch´êng jade. The
white bowls of your Excellency surpass the frost and snow. In pity hasten
to send one to the pavilion of my studies." Ta-yi was in the department of
Ch´iung Chou, in Szechuan.
The five brief dynasties which fill the interval between the T´ang and
Sung periods are only known to ceramic history for two wares, the identity
of which remains a matter of conjecture. The first is the _pi sê_ ware
of Yüeh Chou, which has already been discussed; and the second is the
celebrated but intangible Ch´ai ware. Chinese writers wax poetical over
the Ch´ai ware. "Men of old," says a late Ming writer,[78] "described
Ch´ai ware as blue like the sky, brilliant like a mirror, thin like paper,
and resonant like a musical stone." An earlier and less hyperbolical
description of it given in the _Ko ku yao lun_[79] states that it was
made at Chêng Chou, in Honan, and named _ch´ai_ by Shin Tsung (of the
Posterior Chou dynasty, who reigned for five years from 954 to 959); that
its colour was sky blue; that it was "rich, refined, and unctuous," and
had fine crackle-lines; that in many cases there was coarse yellow clay on
the foot of the wares; and that it was rarely seen in the writer's time.
Elsewhere[80] we read that, according to tradition, Shih Tsung, on being
asked what kind of ware he would require for palace use, commanded that
its colour for the future should be "the blue of the sky after rain as
seen in the rifts of the clouds."[81] As early as the sixteenth century
the Ch´ai ware had virtually ceased to exist, and a writer[82] of that
time tells us "Ch´ai ware is no longer to be found. I once saw a fragment
of a broken piece mounted in a girdle-buckle. Its colour was brilliant,
and answered to the usual description of the ware, but the ware itself was
thick." A century afterwards the ware was nothing more than a tradition,
and later it developed a legendary character. Fragments of it were said
to dazzle the eyes, and when worn on armour to turn aside missiles in
battle.[83]
[Illustration:
Fig. 2
Fig. 1
Fig. 3
Plate 12.--T´ang Pottery with green glaze.
Fig. 1.--Bottle with impressed key-fret. Height 7½ inches.
_Eumorfopoulos Collection._
Fig. 2.--Ewer with incised foliage scrolls. Height 4¼ inches.
_Alexander Collection._
Fig. 3.--Vase with foliage scrolls, painted in black under the glaze,
incised border on the shoulder. Height 4¼ inches. _Eumorfopoulos
Collection._]
[Illustration:
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Plate 13.--T´ang Pottery.
Fig. 1.--Pilgrim Bottle with lily palmette and raised rosettes, green
glaze. Height 7½ inches. _Koechlin Collection._
Fig. 2.--Pilgrim Bottle (neck wanting), Hellenistic figures of piping boy
and dancing girl in relief among floral scrolls, brownish green glaze.
Height 8½ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._]
[Illustration:
Fig. 1
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 2
Plate 14.--T´ang Wares.
Fig. 1.--Incense Vase, lotus-shaped, with lion on the cover, hexagonal
stand with moulded ornament; green, yellow and brown glazes. Height 19¾
inches. _Rothenstein Collection._
Fig. 2.--Sepulchral Amphora, hard white ware with greenish white glaze,
serpent handles. Height 19¼ inches. _Schneider Collection._
Fig. 3.--Ewer with large foliage and lotus border in carved relief, green
glaze. Height 6½ inches. _Koechlin Collection._
Fig. 4.--Sepulchral Vase, grey stoneware with opaque greenish grey glaze.
Incised scrolls on the body, applied reliefs of dragons, figures, etc., on
neck and shoulder. (?) T´ang. Height 20 inches. _Benson Collection._]
Chinese writers have been troubled by the apparent inconsistency of the
descriptions, "thin as paper" and "having coarse yellow clay on the foot."
The latter may, however, merely refer to patches of coarse clay or sand
which had served to support the ware in the kiln, and which had partially
adhered to the base, a thing not uncommon in the earlier manufactures. The
expression has, however, led some later writers[84] to identify the Ch´ai
ware with a fairly well-known type of comparatively soft buff pottery,
coated with a luscious turquoise or pale lavender blue glaze, which we
shall have occasion to discuss later.[85] Needless to say, there is no
probability of this type being the real Ch´ai. Its comparative commonness
alone puts the supposition out of court, but the suggestion serves to show
that some Chinese thinkers, at any rate, see the Ch´ai colour in just such
glazes as the pale lavender blue of Plate 88, Fig. 2, which undoubtedly
satisfies in many respects the description "blue of the sky after rain."
On the other hand, the celebrated Ju Chou ware of the Sung dynasty,
which aspired to equal the Ch´ai in colour, was evidently of the grey
green celadon type, with perhaps a tinge of blue like the early Corean
wares.[86] We have, then, two theories on the nature of the Ch´ai glaze:
(1) that it was an opalescent, turquoise glaze, such as is seen on the
Chün type of wares; and (2) that it belonged to the smooth grey green
celadon class, with the bluish tint strongly developed. There may be other
theories[87] besides, but it matters little, as no authentic specimen is
known to exist. In fact, the discussion under the circumstances would have
but little interest were it not for its bearing on some of the Sung wares,
which will be discussed in the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 41: No doubt this mortuary pottery was made locally to supply
local needs, and there is no occasion to refer it to any of the better
known pottery centres, though we do find mention of an imperial order for
sepulchral ware sent to the potters at Hsin-p´ing (the old name for the
district town of Ching-tê Chên) in the T´ang dynasty. See _T´ao lu_, bk.
viii., fol. 2, quoting from the _Hsiang ling ming huan chih_.]
[Footnote 42: See _A Glossary of Reference on Subjects Connected with the
Far East_, by H.A. Giles, Shanghai, 1900. "The practice among Chinese
women of cramping the feet is said by some to have originated about 970
A.D. with Yao Niang, concubine of the pretender Li Yü. The lady wished to
make her feet like the new moon. Others say that it was introduced by Pan
Fei, the favourite of the last monarch of the Ch´i dynasty, 501 A.D."]
[Footnote 43: See the _Toyei Shuko_ (Illustrated Catalogue of the ancient
Imperial Treasure called Shoso-in, by Omura Seigai, Tokyo, 1910), Nos.
154, 155 and 156.]
[Footnote 44: Another common characteristic of the T'ang base is a central
ring, or one or two concentric circles incised on the wheel.]
[Footnote 45: Laufer (_Jade_, p. 247) sounds a note of warning about the
reconstruction of many of the T'ang figures. They were very frequently
broken in the course of excavation, and when a head was missing its place
was commonly supplied from another find. Another and more serious warning
is given by F. Perzynski in the _Ostasiatischer Zeitschrift_, January to
April, 1914, p. 464, in an article describing forgeries of coloured T'ang
figures, and vases and ewers with mottled green and yellow glazes, in
Honan Fu.]
[Footnote 46: _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, vol. ii., p, 195. Similarly bowls
with spotted glaze are indicated in several of the silk pictures found by
Sir Aurel Stein at Tun-huang, which are temporarily exhibited in the King
Edward VII. galleries in the British Museum.]
[Footnote 47: Fragments of similarly glazed ware were discovered by Sir
Aurel Stein on sites in Turfan, which were supposed to be of T'ang date
(see p. 134).]
[Footnote 48: In a paper by Sir C. Hercules Read in the fifteenth number
of _Man_, a publication of the Anthropological Institute.]
[Footnote 49: See p. 130.]
[Footnote 50: See A.W. Bahr, _Old Chinese Porcelain and Works of Art in
China_, Plate IV.]
[Footnote 51: At P'ing-yang Fu, at Ho Chou, and elsewhere (see p. 97).]
[Footnote 52: _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, vol. 11., fig. 197.]
[Footnote 53: Mr. C.L. Freer has in his collection in Detroit a vase of
hard reddish ware with a freely drawn lotus design in brown under a pale
green glaze, with parts of the flower in dry reddish brown slip or pigment
over the glaze. It has the characteristic T´ang base and appears to belong
to that period.]
[Footnote 54: The small rosettes which commonly occur In the inlaid Corean
designs recall these stamped T´ang patterns. Indeed the analogy between
the Corean patterns in general and those found on T´ang pottery is most
significant.]
[Footnote 55: It is now in the collection of Mrs. Potter Palmer.]
[Footnote 56: Yesdijird III., after his overthrow by the Arabs In 641,
fled to Merv, and there appealed for aid to the Chinese Emperor. He
does not appear to have fled for refuge to China, as has been sometimes
asserted.]
[Footnote 57: The classical prototype is seen in a vase In the Fourth Vase
Room (Case C) in the British Museum, on which we find two similar figures
in relief surrounded by a grape vine scroll.]
[Footnote 58: Since writing the above note my attention has been drawn
to a delightful article in the _Neue Rundschau_ (Oct., 1913, p. 1427) by
F. Perzynski, entitled _Jagd auf Götter_. Mr. Perzynski describes his
hazardous journey to an almost inaccessible cave temple on a mountain
top near Ichou in Chihli, and there is little doubt that this is the
place from which our wonderful figure came. He speaks of the hill as the
Acthlohanberg, implying a tradition of eight of these figures of Lohan,
which had apparently been concealed in this and other caverns for safety
during a period of iconoclasm, such as occurred in the ninth and the
thirteenth centuries, when thousands of Buddhist shrines were wrecked. He
found the shrine bare of the Lohan, except for a few fragments. The rest
had been pillaged, and several of the figures had evidently been broken in
the attempt to remove them through the narrow aperture of the caves, or to
conceal them afterwards. Parts of them, and a sadly damaged Lohan, were
actually shown to him in the neighbourhood; and he afterwards succeeded in
obtaining a complete figure and a torso, which were exhibited by him in
Berlin. On the altar of the shrine he found an incense burner of glazed
ware, which he attributed to the Yüan dynasty, and there was a tablet
recording the restoration of the altar in the reign of Chêng Tê (early
sixteenth century). It is interesting to note that Mr. Perzynski assumed
at once that these figures are of T´ang date. Incidentally, he mentions
a visit to a hill which he calls the Kuanyinberg, where a cavern temple
exists containing the remains of a colossal statue of Kuanyin. It is now
broken, but Mr. Perzynski saw it standing in its enormous stature of three
metres high, to which must be added a stand a metre high and two in width.
This figure was originally in glazed pottery, possibly also of the T´ang
period, but a great part of it had been restored in wood and plaster in
the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 59: See _Japanese Temples and their Treasures_, by
Shiba-junrokuro, with translations by Mr. Langdon Warner, Tokyo, Shimbi
Shoin, 1910, vol. ii., nos. 238, 268, and 300.]
[Footnote 60: [Chinese].]
[Footnote 61: See p. 17.]
[Footnote 62: [Chinese], sometimes written [Chinese].]
[Footnote 63: [Chinese] ts´ui sê. Ts´ui is the colour of "a bird with
blue-green feathers: a kingfisher" (Giles), and it seems to have been used
indifferently to express a bluish green colour and greenish blue like
turquoise. In Lu Kuei-mêng's poem it suggests the colour of distant hills.
A passage in a seventeenth-century work, the _Ch´i sung t´ang shih hsiao
lu_ (quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 8), seems to imply that there
were lustrous reflections in the glaze of some of the Yüeh wares. It runs,
"Yüeh yao cups with small feet are of the light green (_ch´ing_) of the
chestnut husk; when turned sideways they are the colour of emerald green
jade (_fei ts´ui_)."]
[Footnote 64: See Julien, op. cit., p. 10.]
[Footnote 65: [Chinese]]
[Footnote 66: See T´ao shuo, bk. ii., fol. 5 recto, quoting the Sung
work, _Kao chai man lu_, and _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 9, quoting a
twelfth-century work, the _Ch´ing pi tsa chih_, "The _pi sê_ vessels were
originally the wares offered daily to the house of Ch´ien when it ruled
over the country. No subject was allowed to have them. That is why they
were called _pi sê_."]
[Footnote 67: Bk. v., fol. 4 recto.]
[Footnote 68: See _T´ao shuo_, bk. ii., fol. 5 verso.]
[Footnote 69: For further reference to this important passage, see p. 54.]
[Footnote 70: See ch. vi.]
[Footnote 71: Bk. vii., fol. 13 recto.]
[Footnote 72: _T´ang kuo shih pu_, quoted in the _T´ao shuo_; see
Bushell's translation (_Chinese Pottery and Porcelain_), p. 36. It is
worthy of note that Hsing Chou was in the same district as Tz´ŭ Chou,
which has long been celebrated for its pottery. See p. 101.]
[Footnote 73: As stated in _Yo fu tsa lu_, a tenth-century work on music,
quoted in the _T´ao shuo_, bk. ii., fol. 4 recto. Twelve cups were used,
and they were sometimes marked with numerals.]
[Footnote 74: Not to be confused with the more celebrated Ting Chou
[Chinese] in Chihli.]
[Footnote 75: _ho_ [Chinese], a coarse cloth or serge, used to suggest a
brownish tint; cf. _sê ho ju t´ung_ = colour _ho_ like copper.]
[Footnote 76: As quoted in the _T´ao lu_ (see Julien, p. 5). The reference
does not appear in the British Museum copy of the _Ko ku yao lun_.]
[Footnote 77: Quoted in the _T´ao shuo_, bk. ii., fol. 5 recto, and bk.
v., fol. 3 recto.]
[Footnote 78: Ku Ying-t´ai in the _Po wu yao lan_, published in the T´ien
Ch´i period (1621-1627).]
[Footnote 79: By Ts´ao-chao in 1387; republished in a revised and enlarged
edition by Wang-tso in 1459.]
[Footnote 80: In the _T´ao shuo_, bk. ii., fol. 5 verso.]
[Footnote 81: [Chinese] _yü kuo t´ien ch´ing yün p´o ch´u chê_. It will be
observed that the colour word used is _ch´ing_, which has the meaning of
blue or green, indifferently.]
[Footnote 82: Chang Ying-wên, in the _Ch´ing pi tsang_, written at the end
of the sixteenth century.]
[Footnote 83: In the _Ju shih we wên_, quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix.,
fol. 19, where we are told that "merchants bring fragments of Ch´ai ware
to sell for 100 ounces of silver. They say that if inlaid in the helmet at
the approach of battle, they are able to turn aside the fire implements
(_huo ch´i_)."]
[Footnote 84: For example, in the _Li t´a k´an k´ao ku ou pien_, a modern
work, we find: "As to what they call at present Yüan and Chün wares,
these in material, colour, sound, and brilliancy are similar to Ch´ai
yao, but they differ in thickness, and are perhaps the common folk's
imitation wares, and not the Imperial Shih Tsung ware. But we are not yet
able to say. If the ware has sky blue colour, clear and brilliant on a
coarse yellow brick-earth body, and rings like bronze, it must be Ch´ai
ware. As to Chün ware ... the specimens have in every case red colour and
variegated surface...."]
[Footnote 85: See p. 48.]
[Footnote 86: See pp. 39 and 54.]
[Footnote 87: I have seen, for instance, a remarkable ware of white
porcellanous type, with a transparent glaze of a faint bluish tinge, to
which the name Ch´ai was boldly given. It was certainly an early type,
perhaps as early as the Sung dynasty, but it belonged to a class of
porcelain which is almost certainly Corean. The only specimen I have seen
with a mark of the Posterior Chou period is not a blue-glazed piece but a
large vase with wonderful purplish black glaze of the Chien-yao type in
the Eumorfopoulos collection. The mark, however, has been cut at some time
subsequent to the manufacture, and can only be regarded as reflecting some
unknown person's opinion as to the date of the piece.]