Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/83

 had, of course, come across the sea, but so rarely that they never obtained popular recognition. Even to this day, ninety-nine out of every hundred Japanese experts believe that the representative enamelled porcelain of the Middle Kingdom is the Banreki Aka-e, or red (aka) pictured (e) ware of Ban-reki (Wan-li). There can scarcely be any question that the models which Kakiemon and his comrades had before them were of the Ban-reki Aka-ye class. But they did not imitate them. The art instinct of Japan asserted itself from the outset, and led to the manufacture of a less profusely decorated porcelain.

Instead of loading their pieces with diapers and archaic designs in red and green enamels, the Arita artists made enamelled brilliancy a subordinate feature, and sought, by careful painting and refined motives, to compensate for what was lost in richness of effect. The conception and execution of the ware were excellent. The pâte was fine and pure, having a clear bell-like timbre. The milk-white glaze, soft, yet not lacking in lustre, formed a ground harmonising well with the ornamentation, which was simple sometimes to severity. The enamels were clear and rich in tone, but of few colours: lustreless red, frequently showing an orange tint, grass-green, and lilac-blue (over the glaze) constituted nearly the whole palette. Of the decorative subjects, floral medallions were, perhaps, most common, but the dragon, the phœnix, the bamboo, the plum, the pine, birds fluttering about a sheaf of corn, other naturalistic subjects together with various kinds of diapers, were constantly depicted. The characteristics of this ware are not only the sparseness, but also the distribution of the decoration: instead of being spread over the surface,