Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/23

 It was natural, in view of this appreciative mood of French amateurs, that the first researches into the subject of Chinese keramics should be made by French authors. M. Stanilas Julien led the way with his translation of the Ching-tê-chên Tao-lu, or "History of Ching-tê-chên Keramics." This work was published in 1856, and has remained since then an authoritative text-book. But M. Julien laboured under a very great disadvantage. He possessed no knowledge of the processes described in the Chinese volume. He was simply a student of languages, competent to render the meaning of an ideograph, but without either the experience of a connoisseur or the education of an artist. Nothing could have been more extravagant than to expect that his interpretation of the Tao-lu would be free from error. The book itself, apart from the special attainments its subject demanded, was not calculated to facilitate a translator's task. Compiled, for the most part, in the early years of the present century, that is to say, when Chinese potters were already beginning to lose their ancient dexterity, its author relied upon tradition for the bulk of his materials; and, to crown all, died before the volume was completed. The compilation and publication of the information he had collected devolved upon his pupil, Ching Ting-kwei, who, judged by the account he gives of himself, had little knowledge of keramic processes. One valuable work the author of the Tao-lu was able to consult, namely, the Tao-shu, or "Keramic Annals," written nearly half a century previously during the reign of the celebrated Chien-lung. But neither the Tao-shu nor the Tao-lu aimed at furnishing such information as a Western student desires. The object of both