Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/39

 rated as this eulogy would seem from a modern point of view, the ware unquestionably attracted great admiration at the time of its manufacture; such admiration that, according to a competent connoisseur of six centuries later, the Chai dynasty was the first to become celebrated for its keramic productions, and fragments of Chai-yao were eagerly sought for by subsequent generations. No specimen survived intact. Probably the manufacture was conducted on a very small scale, and the only representative pieces—those supplied for use at the Imperial Court—were destroyed in the wars that interrupted their production at the fall of the Chou dynasty. In fact, of all the keramic achievements prior to the commencement of the Sung dynasty (960) little is known beyond what may be learned from very meagre records and from a few scarcely identifiable specimens. The details here given about them have practical interest chiefly for the sake of the general conclusion they lead to, namely, that up to the middle of the tenth century the choicest keramic manufacture of China was stone-ware, or semi-porcelain, having two principal varieties of glaze—céladon and white. An ancient Japanese writer, summing up the most celebrated early wares of the Middle Kingdom, says that they may be classified under four heads; namely, "grass-green" ware of the Tsin dynasty (265-419); "green of the thousand hills" of the Tang dynasty (618-907); "greenish cerulean of the sky after rain," and "secret-colour ware" of the Chou dynasty (954-960), and Ju ware of the Sung dynasty (960-1260). The term "green of the thousand hills" is explained by another renowned Japanese dilettante who describes the colour as "the tint given by the breezes