Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/172

 precision; for when an artist's choice of design is limited to flowers, foliage, diapers, frets, and occasionally a Howo, Kirin, or Shishi, he is constrained to pay attention to details which in a more ambitious subject become points of secondary importance. The whole matter, indeed, resolves itself into this: the methods of past days were entirely decorative, while those of the present frequently aim at pictorial effect. There can be little doubt which is the more truly artistic, having regard to the object in view.

Enough has probably been said on the subject of quality of pâte and glaze, fineness of crackle, and the use of enamels, to enable the amateur to distinguish with tolerable certainty between new and old Satsuma wares. As to colours it may be added that the modern decorator generally employs a lighter and more washy red than the opaque Indian red of his predecessors. This red was the only pigment in the palette of former times, all the other colours, gold and silver of course excepted, being enamels. They were green, blue, purple, black, and yellow. The last three are seldom employed now, and if used at all, are more likely to appear as pigments than as enamels. The green enamel of the present day is not inferior to that of the early potters, but the blue is distinctly impure,—a dull, muddy tone. Modern decorators have also added a half-colour, pink, the presence of which indicates a period not older than the Tempō era (1830–1843), and may usually be taken as showing a much more modern date. But while noting these distinctions, it has to be again observed that when the modern decorator finds sufficient inducement to put forth his full strength—as, for example, when his object is to produce a faithful