Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/300

* PORCELAIN. 254 PORCELAIN. from China. Its decoration shows the .artistic spirit of the time; but so very little of the ware was m<ide that it never intiuenced the later de- velopment of the manufacture in Europe. The next attempt at nmking the ware in Europe was by experiments, each separate establishment pro- ducinfr a fine white ware made of some mixture of ingredients peculiar to the establishment in question and often kept secret. These wares re- sulted in the manufacture of what is known as soft porcelain, false porcelain, artificial porce- lain, and by similar names. In these the copying of the Chinese ware was avowed and some of the announcements were to the effect that at length the true Oriental secret had been dis- covered. The ware was. however, more nearly a glass than a true ceramic ware. The date of the first manufacture of porcelain in China is not fixed. The earliest piece that can be dated dates from the Sung dynasty be- tween 91)0 and 1308 ; but all Chinese history and traditii>n point to a much earlier date even than 960 for the first making of a real porcelain. Vitreous glazes of the surface and the partial vitrification of the whole mass as descrilied below need not of necessity have characterized the very early wares which are now assumed to have been porceUinous. The characteristic of Chinese porcelain which has always caused the greatest admiration and the most minute study in Euro])e, the decoration I)y means of under-glaze and over-glaze painting, seems not to have been introduced until a time late in the Ming dynasty. Before the fifteenth century decora- tion was carried out very largely in relief or in intaglio, this relief varying from minute pat- terns raised by modeling upon the surface while soft to boldly projecting figures, masks, flowers, and the like, molded separately and applied, the adhesive paste causing them to keep their posi- tions xuitil fired. The patterns in intaglio are sometimes very elaborate, and use is made of the color of the glaze filling up these recessed lines and scrolls more deeply than it covers the bodj' of the piece, so that these incised or impressed patterns show in a different color, from the rest of the surface. These methods of decoration are not limited to the period in question, but have been kept constantly in use. During these earlier years ( Sung dvnasty and the first reigns of the Ming d.vnasty) decoration bv 'solid color' as it is now called, was greatly respected ; the forms of vases and platters were as graceful or as vigor- ous and significant as at any subsequent time, and vessels of these refined shapes were invested with color, especiall.v a splendid green which has been hard to procure in later wares — the green which is the true and proper tint, after- wards described in Fi-ance as celadon. Other colors existed, especially yellow, which has always been the Imperial color, though 0])inions differ as to the proper hue; but. as has been stated by the latest and most accurate European writers, the vears before 13f>7 may lie said with- out impropriety to constitute the celadon period. Of course these dates and attributions are still open to revision. The reign of the Emperor Wnns-T.i. which is generallv given as from 1,573 to IGIO A. M.. is ac- cepteil as tlie period of the earliest pieces painted in tirillinnt colors and existing in Europe in any considerable number. In these the painting is of two kinds: in pure blue on the unbaked body before the glaze has been applied, and in enameled colors applied to the finished and fired piece upon the glaze and fixed by a second firing at a rela- tively low temperature. Such pieces are of extreme softness and delicacy; the blue shows through tlie glaze in an elaborate scheme of outline, much as the etched line in a Liber .S7u(iJor«ni (q.v.) print shows through the mezzotint which was ajjplied afterwards. The more brilliant colors, usually green, yellow, and red, though black is also used in certain pieces, are applied upon and within the.se outlined spaces and the slight in-egiilarities and imperfections, where the outline is at one moment ])artly obscured b.v the enamel color and again left more clearly separated from it. add greatly to the charm of the piece. The fault often found with the richly decorated Chinese porcelain, namelv. that the patterns are hard and too strongly relieved from the nearly white ground, is hardly true of these pieces, which are among the most attractive known. This peculiar system has not been abandoned, but even during the eighteenth century it was followed with great success, and it is possible that some of the pieces so painted are of the nineteenth century. Pieces in pure blue and white are, however, the especial production of flic ^ling epoch. Nearly all the important bluc-and-white 'pieces which bring enormous prices in Europe, and especially in England, where 'blue china' was the jiarlicular fad of the years between 1870 and 1890, are as- sumed to be of the iling dynasty, although it is quite well understood by more careful students that but few of such early pieces exist in Europe, and that those few are generally so placed and so held that they can never come into the market. Such are not merely the pieces in national col- lections, but also .some in private hands and identified during man.v years by their having been mounted in European silver or silver-gilt, with feet, covers, tips to spouts, and the like, the plate marks on the silver fixing the date of this work beyond any question. Xine-tcnths of the beautiful wares existing in Europe, brought thence to the United States, arc of the Ching or Tsing d.vnasty, that is to sav. the d.vnasty of the Tatar conquerors of China, be- ginning with 1644, and still holding the throne. The Tsing pieces are of all sorts; pure white with or without delicate incised patterns, or in grotesque forms of dragon and the like, or in carefully modeled and delii^ately formed statu- ettes; white painted with pure blue under the glaze; white covered externally with pure strong color, blood-red (sanp de hwiif) or maroon, tur- quoise blue or deep blue, yellow, and other hues; pieces of which the pattern is 'reserved' in white on a ground filled in with dark blue or black, or, pieces of which the pattern is 'reserved' in white pieces adorned with very elal)orate painting in many colors, the subject being often flowers, flowering plants, bushes, bamboo thickets, and the like, and as often including human figures treated with great dexterity and a vcr.y sufficient knowl- edge of drawing, but made decorative rather than realistic. The history of real porcelain in Europe is very brief: for the Florentine ware above named has no connection with the development of the art. That development began in Saxonv, at the 5Ieis- sen factory near Dresden, under the direction of