Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/659

Rh JAPANESE.] POTTERY 635 richness of effect is often given by the over-glaze colours, added by a second firing. Many other varieties might be mentioned, but the student must be referred for further information to the list of works on this subject given below. Both pottery and porcelain have been used on a large scale for architectural purposes in China. The so-called &quot;porcelain tower&quot; of Nanking was the most prominent example. It was a very ela borate structure (see NANKING), mostly constructed of pottery covered with enamels of different colours. The usual name is misleading, as only the white portions were of real porcelain. The Jermyii Street and British Museums have specimens of its bricks and elaborate architectural features. Japanese Pottery and Porcelain. In the main the technical methods used in Japan and the styles of painted ornament were introduced from China, and also to a less extent from the adjacent peninsula of Corea. Glazed pottery was first made at Seto about 1230 A.D. by a potter who had visited China. Porcelain manufacture was introduced in a similar way into the province of Japanese Hizen about 1513. On the whole the Japanese are more pottery, remarkable for their skill and almost endless methods in the production of pottery than of porcelain. No people ever approached them for marvellous fertility of invention and skill in the manipulation of all sorts of clay, pastes, enamels, and pigments. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Japanese pottery is its wonderful success in the imitation of all kinds of materials and texture of surface, one great object apparently being to make it re semble anything rather than what it really is. Wood, with its varying colours and delicate grain, ivory, bronze, lac, marble, basket-work, fruits, and countless other substances are imitated in Japanese pottery with the most perfectly de ceptive effects. The utmost amount of labour and patience is often spent with this one object, any notions of real artistic beauty being apparently never even considered. A great deal of Japanese ceramic ware is simply copied from Chinese porcelain, and often has forged Chinese marks. It is very difficult to find out what notions the Japanese themselves really have as to what is admirable in pottery. A purely archaeological interest in old sorts of ware appears to affect them strongly, and they often put the highest value on what appears a very ordinary and rudely-made kind of pottery. As Mr A. W. Franks has pointed out in his introduction to a native report on Japanese pottery, published by the Science and Art Depart ment, 1880, the high value which they put on rude speci mens of glazed pottery is partly kept up by the existence of certain curious old tea -drinking ceremonies, solemnly performed as if they were religious rites. Everything used and every detail of the performance were strictly prescribed by rule. The bowl or cup out of which the tea was drunk by the guests was to be an archaeological curiosity remark able for its age, not for any intrinsic merit. Some of these cups which have been brought to Europe are of coarse clay, ill-formed, thick, highly glazed, and quite without orna ment. One in the Sevres Museum, said to be Seto ware of the 14th century, is made of mottled yellowish brown clay, with a thick vitreous glaze. It looks quite worthless, but has evidently been highly valued by its Japanese owner, for it has a beautifully made ivory lid, and is protected by three cases, first, fine white silk with gold cord ; second, a box of polished bamboo ; and, outside of all, a case of figured linen lined with silk. Others of these precious tea- bowls are red, purple, black, or grey, all very thick and coarse, but highly glazed, and carefully fitted into silk cases. Some of the Japanese methods for the decoration of pottery are simple and effective, especially a ware made of grey clay with incised patterns birds, flowers, and the like filled in with white paste, and the whole glazed, similar in method to the 16th-century Oiron ware. Satsuma The most magnificent sort of pottery is the Satsuma are - ware, originally introduced from Corea. It was at first manufactured in a private factory belonging to the prince of Satsuma, but afterwards produced for public sale. The most highly-decorated kinds with many colours were not made till the end of the 18th century. In minute richness it is probably the most elaborate ware ever produced. The body is a fine ivory-white clay, covered with a minutely crackled glaze. Over this, miniature -like paintings of human figures or flowers are executed in brilliant enamel colours, some of which stand out like jewelled reliefs. It is further decorated with delicately moulded patterns in gold, and, though very weak in real decorative effect, is a marvel of rich workmanship. Most of the so-called Satsuma now sold is a poor imitation of A the ware, and is made in great quantities at Awata and Ota. It should be observed that nearly all the very elaborate Decora- and magnificent methods of ceramic decoration now so tion - much employed by the Japanese are of quite modern origin ; before the present century the simpler methods of China were almost exclusively followed in Japan. During the last century great quantities of porcelain, chiefly deco rated in gold, green, and a rich red, were made expressly for export, and largely brought into Europe, where they were frequently copied, especially in the porcelain works of Dresden and the early china manufactories of England. The Japanese have little or no sense of the best kind of decorative art ; their paintings of flowers or birds, beautiful as they are, are mostly, as it were, flung across the vessel they are meant to ornament without any regard to its shape or the space to be occupied. Like the Chinese, they have no feeling for the beauty of the human form, or even of some of the nobler animals, such as the horse. The figures most frequently represented on their ceramic wares the seven gods of good fortune are all grotesquely hideous ; and downright ugliness of the most repulsive sort is often selected and treated with wonderful ingenuity. Many of the paintings have a symbolical meaning; emblems of longevity (considered by the Japanese the chief of all blessings) are perhaps the favourite, such as the sacred tortoise, the crane, or the combination of three trees the fir, the plum, and the bamboo all of which have this special meaning. Within the present century a new and elaborate method of decorating porcelain has been practised in Japan, the chief object of which seems to be to make a porcelain vessel look like a metal one. Brass cloisonne enamel is applied to the outer surface of porcelain vases or bowls ; the strips of brass set on edge which form the outline of the design, instead of being soldered to a metal plate, are fixed in some almost incomprehensible fashion to the surface of the porce lain, and then the compartments are filled in with coloured enamels and fired in the usual way, a marvel of technical skill and wasted ingenuity. Collections of Chinese and Japanese Porcelain. The Dresden Collec- collection is the most important historically, having been formed tions. chiefly between 1694 and 1705. The British Museum is rich through the recent munificence of Mr A. &quot;W. Franks, who has presented to it the whole of his fine collection. The South Kensing ton Museum and the museums at Leyden, The Hague, and Sevres are rich in these wares, as are also those at Vienna, Berlin, and St Petersburg. Literature. for Chinese and Japanese porcelain, see Jacquemart and Le Blant, Histoire de la Porcelaine, 1801-62 ; Jaequemart, Histoire de la Ceramique, 1873 ; Audsley and Bowes, Keramic Art ofJa^xm, 1875-80 ; Du Sartel, La Porce laine de Chine, 1881 ; Graesse, Catalog der k. Porzellan- und Gefdss-Sammlung zu Dresden, 1873 ; Stanilas Julien, Histoire de la Porcelaine de Chine, 185C ; Franks, Cat. of Coll. of Oriental Porcelain, 1878, and &quot;Japanese Pottery,&quot; in South Kensington Museum Handbook, 1880. SECTION XVII. PORCELAIN IN EUROPE. Early Development. In various places in Europe, especially in Italy and France, attempts to produce translucent porcelain like that produced by the Chinese were almost continually being made from the end of the 15th centurv down to the