Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/82

 Up to this point Japan had sat at the feet of China and Korea in matters relating to the keramic industry. Alike in faience and in porcelain she owed practically the whole of her technical knowledge to her two neighbours. Naturally, therefore, one expects to find that when she first began to manufacture enamelled ware, she followed with more or less fidelity the decorative methods of China, her preceptor and only available model in this line. The Ming dynasty was drawing to its close in the days of Kakiemon, and the imperial factories at Ching-tê-chên were comparatively idle. But numerous specimens of their enamelled porcelains had already reached Japan. These specimens may be divided into two varieties, namely, those of the Cheng-hwa (1465–1425) and earlier Ming eras, and those of the Lung-ching (1567–1572) and Wang-li (1573–1619) eras. In the former the enamels may be said to have played a subordinate rôle. They were used to assist the modelling of a piece; as when a vase takes the shape of a melon with a stalk in brown enamel and leaves and tendrils in green; or they were employed, sparsely and delicately, to enhance the beauty of a cup which owed not less of its effect to the excellence of its pâte and glaze. In the latter—the Lung-ching and Wang-li productions—the enamelled decoration is everything: the quality of the ware itself becomes a secondary consideration. Brilliant colours, in which green and red predominate, and elaborate designs, seldom relieved by any trace of artistic instinct, cover the surface of porcelain that has little to recommend it apart from this profusion of ornament. It was with the latter class of wares that Japan was chiefly familiar in the days of Kakiemon and Tokuemon. Examples of the former