Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/37

 to the pottery class, being without timbre and distinctly soft. The glaze is grass green, lustrous but entirely without the depth and richness that characterise subsequent productions of celebrated kilns. The potter seems to have taken shapes and decorative designs from ancient bronzes such as are depicted in the pages of the Pok-ku Tou-lok (Illustrated Catalogue of Antiquities). The technique is mediocre, indicating an art not yet enlisting earnest effort, and the glaze shows a tendency to blister in the furnace and subsequently to "flake away" from the pâte. This ware is identified by Chinese connoisseurs as the Yueh-yao of the Tang dynasty. How to reconcile the actual qualities of such ware with the poetic eulogies it evoked is a perplexing problem.

It seems improbable that the potter's art should have progressed much during the five dynasties succeeding one another in rapid sequence after the fall of the Tang. The period covered by the five was only sixty years, and during the whole time the country had no respite from internecine wars. To this epoch, however, (i.e. the beginning of the tenth century), is referred the Pi-seh-yao, or "secret-colour ware." The peculiarity of this name has given rise to some conjecture. M. du Sartel, for example, concludes that the Pi-seh-yao was porcelain decorated with blue under the glaze, the term "hidden" or "seeretsecret [sic]" being used to denote that the glazing material covered the colour of the decoration. This ingenious conjecture seems inadmissible. The name was used simply in the sense of "private," or "manufactured for special purposes." Whether the Pi-seh-yao was only an improved variety of the Yueh-yao—mentioned above—or whether it was a distinct pro-