Page 39 - Studio International - October1973

illustrate specific points of ceramic history, and (Opposite page) Jade funeral suit of the Princess Tou
Wan, found in 1968 in her tomb at Man-ch'eng,
these will not come amiss to the ceramically-
Hopei. Late 2nd century sc. Length 172 cm. The
minded British public. It was recently shown plaques of jade are attached at the corners by gold
that the earliest high-fired (feldspathic) glaze, wire, or fastened with silk piping.
previously thought to date at earliest to the
(Left) Pottery figure of a muscular mounted
late Shang period, in fact goes back beyond huntsman, from the tomb of the Princess Yung T'ai in
140o BC. An intact jar excavated at Cheng-chou Ch'ien-hsien, Shensi. AD 706. Height 30.5 cm
is covered with the thin lemon-coloured glaze
(Below) Bronze figure of a flying horse, excavated in
that represents the most remarkable single 1969 at Wu-wei, Kansu. 2nd century AD. Height 34.5
advance made in the art. Improving on the cm
Egyptians, whose alkaline glaze could not be
made to adhere properly to a clay body, the
Chinese had discovered a glaze so akin in
constituents to the clay itself, that it formed an
indissoluble bond with it on firing. But as
happened with Chinese invention in other
fields, the discovery of feldspathic glaze was not
exploited, and before the Han period no attempt
was made to apply it to vessels of the better
kind. But thereafter, in the Kiangsu-Chekiang
region around the Yangtze mouth, stoneware
and its glaze was gradually improved towards
true porcelain.
From the Northern Ch'i dynasty (AD 549-
577) come two similar jars, one of which has a
feldspathic glaze while the other aims at the
same effect using a low-fired glaze fluxed with
lead. The latter marks a first experiment with
soft glaze in the style which was destined to be
so much elaborated in the T'ang period. But if
glazes were largely developed in the south,
north China can claim the discovery of the white
clay body from which the fabric of Sung
porcelain was standardized. A magnificent
spittoon in T'ang white porcelain, made in a
Hopei kiln, introduces a series of vessels (a
bottle, a tripod censer, a Buddhist 'pure water
vase') excavated in 1969 in Ting-hsien, which
are of superlative quality, and will surprise even
viewers familiar with the large collection of
Ting wares contained in the Percival David
Foundation of the University of London.
Among the blue-and-white porcelains are
large vases of the fourteenth century of a kind
not previously seen in this country. Much
intact porcelain was found in excavations carried
out in Peking itself. As parts of the Ming
and Ch'ing walls of the city were demolished
the opportunity was seized to begin a task which
had always seemed hopeless : the recovery of the palace must be sombre. the slave-owning state at 475 BC. Thereafter
ground-plan of the original palace built by The study of the artistic material produced society is denoted fuedal until the revolution of
Kublai Khan when he occupied the capital in in twenty years of remarkably rational field work 1912. In a country so rich in material remains of
1271; for Yung Lo's rebuilding of the palace in does not seem to have led in China to surpassing quality, where the relations of court
the early fifteenth century on virtually the same theoretical formulations comparable to those and province, mainstream native and national
foundations had removed nearly every trace of reached in some branches of pre-historic and minorities, commerce and craft, are so vividly
the original work. It is found that the Yuan early archaeology. We are instructed to see recorded through millennia of cultural history,
palace precinct extended farther north, and in works of art as illustrating both the luxury of an it is not conceivable that interpretative studies
this area a gateway and the foundations of some exploiting class and the skills of workers which should be neglected. Outside China, if we are
adjacent residential buildings (Hou-ying-fang — it exploited. The possibilities which suggest given such opportunities as this exhibition,
the Residence of Later Blossom) were cleared. themselves of interpreting artistic incentives in interest in these questions will certainly continue
These are some of the few remaining and terms of changes in class relations (for example, to grow.
accessible fragments of the palace which Marco the evident connection between realism and a WILLIAM WATSON
Polo and his party saw. When the excavators rising official class in the Han period) receive no
speak of an unusual amount of polychrome detailed comment. The currently professed
glazed pottery and glass found on the site, the periodization still leaves a place for the THE CHINESE EXHIBITION IS AT BURLINGTON
Polos' astonishment at all the gay colour is more archaeologically unattested Hsia dynasty at the HOUSE, PICCADILLY, LONDON, 29 SEPTEMBER —
understandable. By comparison the existing beginning of the Bronze Age, and terminates 23 JANUARY 1974

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