Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/125

 thirteenth century, or fully two hundred years before the dilettanteism from which they subsequently derived their value had begun to be largely developed. Thus, from every point of view, there is reason to believe that they are genuine representatives of what the Sung and Yuan potters were able to accomplish in the way of decorating with blue under the glaze. It was not a notable accomplishment, either techni-cally or artistically. The earlier pieces are known in Japan as Tai-so-yaki, "Tai-so" being the Japanese method of pronouncing the ideographs "Ta-Sung" (the great Sung dynasty). They are stone-ware; the pâte hard, fine, and well manipulated, but genererally too thick and solid to suggest any great skill of manufacture. The designs are bold, but roughly executed, and the blue is evidently of very inferior quality, its tone being muddy and unsatisfactory. Working with such a pigment, the keramists of those early days had little to encourage elaborate or artistic effort. They seem also to have been more or less inexperienced or careless in the management of white, translucid glazes; for the surface of their pieces, especially at salient points, is often disfigured by defects doubtless due originally to blisters in the glaze. Blemishes of this peculiar nature are regarded as marks of authenticity by the Japanese, who call them muhsi-kui, or "insect erosions;" a term that aptly describes their appearance. Not until the latter days of the Yuan dynasty—i.e. the beginning of the fourteenth century—does this ware begin to show signs of skilled manufacture. The pâte then ceases to be stone-ware and becomes porcelain; the glaze is whiter and more even; and the blue has a much purer, though still inferior, tone. To this