Plate 3.—Han Pottery.Fig. 1.—"Hill Jar" with brown glaze. Height 91/2inches inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.Fig. 2.—Box, green glazed. Height 51/2inches inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.Fig. 3.—"Lotus Censer" green glazed. Height 101/2inches inches.Rothenstein Collection.
Plate 3.—Han Pottery.Fig. 1.—"Hill Jar" with brown glaze. Height 91/2inches inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.Fig. 2.—Box, green glazed. Height 51/2inches inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.Fig. 3.—"Lotus Censer" green glazed. Height 101/2inches inches.Rothenstein Collection.
Plate 3.—Han Pottery.
Fig. 1.—"Hill Jar" with brown glaze. Height 91/2inches inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 2.—Box, green glazed. Height 51/2inches inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 3.—"Lotus Censer" green glazed. Height 101/2inches inches.Rothenstein Collection.
Two little Chinese cottages depicted on top of each other with tiny characters, steeped on a saucer basePlate 4.—Model of a "Fowling Tower."Han pottery with iridescent green glaze. Height 30 inches.Freer Collection.
Plate 4.—Model of a "Fowling Tower."Han pottery with iridescent green glaze. Height 30 inches.Freer Collection.
Plate 4.—Model of a "Fowling Tower."
Han pottery with iridescent green glaze. Height 30 inches.
Freer Collection.
Plate 4 illustrates a remarkable structure which seems to represent a fowling tower. Models of houses and shrines have been found frequently in Han tombs, showing most of the elements which are combined in this complex ornament. The structure of wooden beams and galleries and the roofs with their tubular tile–ridges, the formal ox–heads supporting the angles of the lower gallery, the ornamentation of combed lines, are all features which occur in architectural tomb ornaments of the Han period. Here we have apparently a sporting tower, with persons engaged in shooting with crossbows at the pigeons which tamely perch on the roof. The dead birds have fallen into the saucer–like stand below. This rare and curious specimen is made of green–glazed pottery, and measures about 30 inches in height.
As already indicated, our knowledge of Han pottery is mainly derived from the articles disinterred from the tombs of the period, and this will explain the curious fact that Han pottery was almost unknown until quite recent times, and that information on the subject in Chinese ceramic literature is of the most meagre and least satisfying description. The ancestor–worshipping Chinese have always been averse to the systematic exploration of graves. Whatever their practice may have been when the opportunity occurred of rifling a grave unobserved, this at any rate has been the avowed principle. The result is that though China must be honeycombed with graves and tombs, they have not been overtly disturbed in any numbers until recent years, when extensive railway cuttings have opened up the ground. To the progress of railway engineering the sudden appearance of considerable quantities of mortuary pottery is chiefly due.
On the other hand, one of our most interesting finds was made away from the railway in Szechuan. Here, in the neighbourhood of Ch´êng–tu and along the banks of the Min, the soft sandstone hills which line the river had in ancient times been extensively tunnelled with elaborate chambers protected by small entrance doors. Whether these were ever used as dwellings is uncertain, but they certainly became eventually the tenements of the dead. The deposits of ages have covered over the entrances to these tombs, but from time to time torrential rain or some other cause exposed their approaches to the country folk, who invariably pillaged them for coins and smashed and scattered their less marketable contents. The Rev. Thomas Torrance, when stationed at Ch´êng–tu, had theopportunity of exploring some of these caverns, and even succeeded in discovering some unrifled tombs, part of the contents of which he brought over and presented to the British Museum. The funeral furniture of these tombs varied according to the wealth and status of the owner. In the poor man's tomb were unprotected skeletons, small images in a niche, an iron cooking pot, and a few coins. In the rich man's were terra cotta coffins, encased in ornamented slabs, images apparently of the members of his household, a quantity of crockery, and a perfect menagerie of domestic animals and birds. To quote Mr. Torrance's own words:[23]"Standing with your reflector in the midst of a large cave, it seems verily an imitation Noah's Ark."
The practice of burying with the dead the objects which surrounded him in life has never entirely ceased in any country. Among primitive peoples it has taken the revolting form of immolating, or even burying alive, the household of a dead chieftain. Instances of this practice in China occur as late as the third century b.c., and voluntary acts of sacrifice at the tomb are recorded much later in China as in India. When humaner counsels prevailed figures of wood, straw and clay were substituted, straw images being suggested for the purpose by Confucius himself. In the Han dynasty the tomb of the well–to–do was furnished with models of his house, his shrine, his farmyard, threshing floor, rice–pounder, his cattle, sheep, dogs, and poultry, besides his retainers and certain half–human creatures which may have been his guardian spirits; it was provided with vases for wine and grain, models of the stove and kitchen range with cooking pots and implements—the last merely indicated in low relief on the kitchen range—besides the more stately sacrificial vessels for wine and incense.[24]All these were modelled in pottery, and must have fostered a flourishing potter's trade, and given a tremendous impetus to the growth of modelling and design. The underlying idea of all this was, no doubt, to provide the spirit of the dead with the means of pursuing the habits of his lifetime, and the modern practice of supplying his needs by means of paper models which are transmitted to thespirit world through the medium of fire serves the same purpose in a more economical fashion. But a fuller note on the grave furniture of the Han and T´ang periods will be given in the next chapter.
Little or nothing is at present known of the potteries in which the Han wares were made, but we may fairly assume that the manufacture was very general and that local potteries supplied local demands. An incidental reference in theT´ao lugives us one solitary name, Nan Shan, where the potteries of the Emperor Wu Ti (140–85B. C.) were situated;[25]and there is a mention of potteries in Kiangsi in the place which was afterwards the site of the celebrated porcelain centre, Ching–tê Chên.
The interval between the Han and T´ang periods, from 221 to 618A. D., is marked by a rapid succession of short–lived dynasties, an age of conflict and division, in which China was again split up into warring states. The conditions were not favourable to the steady development of the ceramic industry, and little is known of the pottery of this period. From the few references in Chinese literature, however, we infer that new kinds of pottery appeared from time to time, and it is certain that the evolution which culminated in porcelain made sensible advances. This latter fact is proved by the scientific analysis of some vases obtained by Dr. Laufer near Hsi–an Fu in Shensi. There is a similar vase in the British Museum with ovoid body strongly marked with wheel–ridges, short neck and wide cup–shaped mouth, and loop handles on the shoulders. The ware is in appearance a reddish stoneware, and the glaze which covers the upper part is translucent greenish brown with signs of crackle. Dr. Laufer's vases are in the Field Museum at Chicago, where the body and glaze have been analysed by Mr. Nicholls, the results showing that the body is composed of a kaolin–like material (probably a kind of decomposed pegmatite) and is, in fact, an incipient porcelain, lacking a sufficient grinding of the material. The glaze is composed of the same material softened with powdered limestone and coloured with iron oxide. An iron cooking stove found with these vases has an inscription indicating by its style a date in the Han dynasty or shortly after it; and the nature of the pottery, in spite of its coarse grain and dark colour, which is probably due in part to the presence of iron in the clay, seems to show that the manufacture of porcelain was not far distant.
Meanwhile, there is little doubt that the Han traditions were kept alive, and the discovery of green glazed ware of Han type in the ruins of Bazaklik, in Turfan,[26]a site which from other indications appears to belong to the T´ang civilisation, shows that this type, at any rate, was long–lived. Two vases from a grave on the Black Rock Hill in Fu Chou, and now in the British Museum, which are proved to belong to a period anterior to the seventh century, seem to combine Han and T´ang characteristics. They are of dark grey stoneware with a mottled greenish brown glaze, ending considerably above the base in a wavy line, which is a common feature of T´ang wares.
It is highly probable that some of the tomb pottery discussed in the next chapter belongs to the later part of this intermediate period. Indeed among the pottery figures of this class there are specimens with slender, graceful bodies and elaborate details of costume (see Plate 7) which closely resemble the stone statues of the Northern Wei and the Sui dynasties; but with our present imperfect information on the tomb finds, it will be more convenient to treat these nearly related figures as one group.
Turning to Chinese literature, in default of other and more tangible evidence, we read in theT´ao shuo[27]of pottery dishes and wine vessels in the Wei dynasty (220–264A. D.), and in theT´ao luof pottery made at Kuan Chung, in the district of Hsi–an Fu, and at Lo–yang for Imperial use. The poet P´an Yo, of the Chin dynasty (265–419A. D.), speaks of "cups of green ware." The actual words used arep´iao tz´ŭ,[28]of which the former is elsewhere used to describe "the bright tint of distant, well–wooded mountains," and as a synonym forlü(green), though, like the common colour wordch´ing, it is capable of meaning both blue and green. The ceramic glaze which most closely corresponds to the descriptionp´iaois the bluish green celadon best known from Corean wares, but we have not yet sufficient grounds for assuming the existence of this particular type at such an early date.
Another poet[29]of the same period bids his countrymen, whenselecting cups for tea–drinking, to choose the ware of Eastern Ou, a place in the Yüeh territory, and apparently in the neighbourhood of, if not identical with, the Yüeh Chou, which was celebrated for its wares in the T´ang dynasty. The period of the "Northern and Southern Dynasties" provides but two references, to a kind of wine vessel known as "crane cups" but otherwise unexplained, and tochün–ch´ihof fine and coarse ware,[30]which appear to have been Buddhist water vases for ceremonial washing, orKundikâ, which the Chinese have transcribed in the formChün–ch´ih–ka.
Buddhism was making great strides in China at this time. It was proclaimed the state religion of the Toba Tartars or Northern Wei, who ruled the north from 386 to 549A. D., and Buddhist thought and the canons of Buddhist art were now firmly imposed upon the Chinese. The rock sculptures of this period visited and photographed by Chavannes show unmistakable traces of the Græco–Buddhist art of Gandhara; and in one remarkable instance among the figures which were sculptured round the entrance of a Buddhist grotto were deities with a thyrsus like that of Dionysus and a trident like Poseidon's.
In the annals of the brief Sui dynasty (581–617A. D.), we find that a man named Ho Ch´ou succeeded in exactly imitating a glassy material calledliu liby means of green ware. The exact meaning of this interesting passage is discussed elsewhere (p. 144), but it is difficult to imagine any but a porcellanous ware which could satisfy the conditions implied. Under the circumstance it is not surprising if theorists see in this green ware (lü tz´ŭ) something in the nature of the later celadon porcelain.
NOTEONTHEEARLYCHINESETOMBWARES
With reference to the figures of men and animals and the other objects which were placed in the ancient tombs of China, much information will be found in Dr. J.J.M. de Groot'sReligious System of China. The fundamental idea underlying these burial practices seems to have been that the soul of the dead was the actual tenant of the grave; but it is not clear in every case whether the sepulchral furniture was provided in expectation of a bodily resurrection, or in the belief that it would minister to the wants of thedead in his spiritual existence. Both ideas appear to have obtained in early times, though it is certain that the second alone explains the more modern custom of burning either the objects themselves or paper counterfeits of them at the tomb, and thus transmitting them through the medium of fire direct to the spirit world.
The older custom of burying with the dead all that was necessary for the continuation of the pursuits of his lifetime, dates back to the farthest limits of history, so that we read without surprise that in the Chou dynasty (1122–255B. C.) there were placed in the tomb "three earthen pots with pickled meat, preserved meat, and sliced food; two earthen jars with must and spirits,"[31]besides "clothes, mirrors, weapons, jade and food pots." It became customary to hold a preliminary exhibition of the funeral articles at the dead man's house before removing them to the tomb, and this, as we may well imagine in a country of ancestor–worshippers, led to ostentation and extravagance which legislators of various periods vainly endeavoured to curtail.
The magnificent burials of the Chin and early Han emperors, the vast mausolea built by forced labour and stocked with costly furniture and treasure, chariots and live animals, and even human victims, must have been an intolerable burden to the community. There is no lack of instances of the immolation, voluntary or otherwise, of relatives and retainers at the tombs of great personages in ancient China, though the practice never seems to have been general, and was strongly reprobated by Confucius (551–479B. C.). The sage even went so far as to condemn the substitution of wooden puppets, "for was there not a danger of their leading to the use of living victims?"[32]Images of straw were all that he would permit.
When humaner influences prevailed, the ladies of the harem, and the military guards, instead of following their Imperial master to the spirit world, were condemned to reside within the precincts of the mausoleum; and doubtless the clay figures of women and warriors placed in the graves of more enlightened times were intended to relieve their human prototypes of this irksome duty. The earliest recorded allusion[33]to clay substitutes appears to be the words of Kuang Wu (in the first centuryA. D.), that "anciently,at every burial of an emperor or king, human images of stoneware (t´ao jên), implements of earthenware (wa ch´i), wooden cars, and straw horses were used."
De Groot[34]quotes a long list of objects supplied for an Imperial burial of the Later Han (25–220A. D.), including "eight hampers of various grains and pease; three earthen pots of three pints, holding respectively pickled meat, preserved meat, and sliced food; two earthen liquor jars of three pints, filled with must and spirits; ... one candlestick of earthenware; ... eight goblets, tureens, pots, square baskets, wine jars; one wash–basin with a ewer; bells, ... musical instruments, ... arms; nine carriages, and thirty–six straw images of men and horses; two cooking stoves, two kettles, one rice strainer, and twelve caldrons of five pints, all of earthenware; ... ten rice dishes of earthenware, two wine pots of earthenware holding five pints." The use of earthenware substitutes for the actual belongings of the dead was due in part to the spirit of economy preached by certain rulers at this time, and in part to the feeling that graves containing valueless objects would be safe from the desecration of the robber.
In addition to the general precepts of economy, we learn that definite regulations were issued prescribing the number and even the nature of the articles to be used by the various ranks of the nobility and by the proletariat. Thus in 682A. D.Kao Tsung rebuked the competitive extravagance of the people in burial equipments, which even the ravages of famine had failed to diminish; and in the K´ai Yüan period an Imperial decree[35]of the year 741A. D.reduced the number of implements allowed to the various ranks in burial, officers of the first, second, and third classes of nobility being allowed seventy, forty, and twenty implements in place of ninety, seventy, and forty respectively; while for the common people fifteen only were permitted. Moreover, all such implements were to be of plain earthenware (ssŭ wa), wood, gold, silver, copper, and tin being forbidden.
It is clear that at an early date wood was regarded as preferable to pottery as a material for sepulchral furniture, for theYin–yang tsa tsu,[36]written in the eighth century, states that "houses and sheds, cars and horses, male and female slaves, horned cattle, and so forth, are made of wood." Indeed, the decree of 741 notwithstanding, wood seems to have become the standard materialfor grave implements from this time onward. Thus, Chu Hsi of the Sung dynasty taught in his Ritual of Family Life "the custom of burying the dead with a good manywoodenservants, followers, and female attendants, all holding in their hands articles for use and food"; and the contents of the Ming graves included "a furnace–kettle and a furnace, both ofwood, saucer with stand, pot, or vase, an earthen wine–pot, a spittoon, a water basin, an incense burner, two candlesticks, an incense box, a tea–cup, a tea–saucer, two chopsticks, two spoons, etc., twowoodenbowls, twelvewoodenplatters, various articles of furniture, including bed, screen, chest, and couch, all of wood; sixteen musicians, twenty–four armed lifeguards, six bearers, ten female attendants; the spirits known as the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Red Bird, and the Black Warrior; the two Spirits of the Doorway and ten warriors—allmade of woodand one foot high." These were among the implements permitted in the tombs of grandees; the regulations of 1372 allowed only one kind of implement in the tombs of the common folk.
From the foregoing passages it may be inferred that wood superseded pottery to a very great extent in the funeral furniture of the Sung and Ming periods, and consequently that the tombs in which a full pottery equipment has been found are most probably not later than the first half of the T´ang dynasty. Needless to say, the wooden paraphernalia rapidly perished under the ground, and while the pottery implements have preserved their original form and appearance, the wooden objects have mostly disintegrated.
An amusing fragment of folklore, translated by de Groot[37]from theKuang i chi, "a work probably written in the tenth century," will form a fitting conclusion to this note, revealing as it does the thought of the Chinese of this period with regard to the burial customs which we have discussed:—
"During one of the last generations there lived a man, who used to travel the country as an itinerant trader in the environs of the place where his family was settled. Having been accompanied on one of his excursions for several days by a certain man, the latter unexpectedly said, 'I am a ghost. Every day and every night I am obliged to fight and quarrel with the objects buried in my tomb for the use of my manes, because they oppose my will.I hope you will not refuse to speak a few words for me, to help me out of this calamitous state of disorder. What will you do in this case?' 'If a good result be attainable,' replied the trader, 'I dare undertake anything.' About twilight they came to a large tomb, located on the left side of the road. Pointing to it, the ghost said: 'This is my grave. Stand in front of it and exclaim, "By Imperial Order, behead thy gold and silver subjects, and all will be over." Hereupon the ghost entered the grave. The pedlar shouted out the order, and during some moments he heard a noise like that produced by an executioner's sword. After a while the ghost came forth from the tomb, his hands filled with several decapitated men and horses of gold and silver. 'Accept these things,' he said; 'they will sufficiently ensure your felicity for the whole of your life; take them as a reward for what you have done for me.' When our pedlar reached the Western metropolis he was denounced to the prefect of the district by a detective from Ch´ang–ngan city, who held that such antique objects could only have been obtained from a grave broken open. The man gave the prefect a veracious account of what had happened, and this magistrate reported the matter to the higher authorities, who sent it on to the Throne. Some persons were dispatched to the grave with the pedlar. They opened the grave, and found therein hundreds of gold and silver images of men and horses with their heads severed from their bodies."
In the present day[38]at important sacrifices to ancestors (and presumably at the funeral itself), it is customary to burn counterfeits of all kinds of furniture and objects which might be useful in the spirit–world. In general these counterfeits take the form of small square sheets of cheap paper adorned with pictures, stamped with a rudely carved wooden die, and representing houses, chairs, implements for cooking, writing and the toilette, carts and horses, sedan chairs, attendants and servants, slaves (male and female), cattle, etc. It is not clear when this custom first came into being, but it evidently replaced an earlier practice of burning real furniture, clothing, etc., at the tomb; and de Groot implies, at any rate, that the two practices existed side by side in the eleventh century. "Bonfires of genuine articles," he says,[39]"and valuables continued for a long time to hold a place side by side with bonfires of counterfeits. We read e.g. that at the demise of the EmperorShêng Tsung of the Liao dynasty (1030A. D.) the departure of the cortège of death from the palace was marked by a sacrifice, at which they took clothes, bows and arrows, saddles, bridles, pictures of horses, of camels, lifeguards, and similar things, which were all committed to the flames." Marco Polo,[40]in describing the city of Kinsai, relates that the inhabitants burnt their dead, and "threw into the flames many pieces of cotton paper upon which were painted representations of male and female servants, horses, camels, silk wrought with gold, as well as gold and silver money."
THE T´ANGChinese characterDYNASTY, 618–906A. D.
THE Chinese Empire, reunited by the Sui emperors, reached the zenith of its power under the world–famed dynasty of the T´ang (618-906A. D.). A Chinese general penetrated into Central India and took the capital, Magadha, in 648. Chinese junks sailed into the Persian Gulf, and the northern boundaries of the empire extended into Turkestan, where traces of a flourishing civilisation have been discovered in the sand–buried cities in the regions of Turfan and Khotan, recently explored by Sir Aurel Stein and by a German expedition under Professor Grünwedel. In return, we read of Arab settlers in Yunnan and in Canton and the coast towns, and the last of the Sassanids appealed to China for help. A host of foreign influences must have penetrated the Middle Kingdom at this time, including those of the Indian, Persian, and Byzantine arts. Proof of this, if proof were needed, is seen in the wonderful treasures preserved in the Shoso–in at Nara in Japan, a temple museum stocked in the eighth century chiefly with the personal belongings of the Emperor Shomu, most of which had been sent over from China. Indeed, the Nara treasure is, in many respects, the most comprehensive exhibition of T´ang craftsmanship which exists to-day.
The long period of prosperity enjoyed by China under the T´ang is famed in history as the golden age of literature and art. The age which produced the poet Li Po, the painter Wu Tao–tzŭ, and the poet–painter Wang Wei, whose "poems were pictures and his pictures poems," was indeed an age of giants. It is certain that the potter's art shared in no small measure the progress of the period, though at this distance of time we can hardly expect that many monuments of this fragile art should have survived. Indeed, it has been the custom of writers in the past to dismiss the T´ang pottery in a few words, or to disregard it entirely as an unknownquantity Here, however, we have again been well served by the ancient burial customs of the Chinese, which still held good for part, at least, of the T´ang period.
The T´ang mortuary wares are similar in intention to those of the Han, but bespeak a much maturer art. The modelling of the tomb figures, which have been aptly compared with the Tanagra statuettes of ancient Greece, displays greater skill, spirit, and delicacy, and the materials used are more refined and varied. The body of the ware, which is usually fine as pipeclay, varies in hardness from soft earthenware, easily scratchable with a knife, to a hard porcellanous stoneware, and in colour from light grey and pale rosy buff to white, like plaster–of–Paris. The usual covering is a thin, finely crackled glaze of pale straw colour or light transparent green, and sometimes the surface has a wash of white clay between the body and the glaze. Some of the figures, however, are more richly coated in amber brown and leaf green glazes with occasional splashes of blue, while on others are found traces of unfired red and black pigments.
But as the mortuary pottery[41]comprises the largest and most important group of T´ang wares at present identified, we cannot do better than consider it first and as a separate class, setting forth at once the reasons for assigning it to this particular period. As will be seen in the note to the previous chapter (p. 17), earthenware appears to have been to a great extent superseded by wood as the fashionable material for sepulchral furniture towards the end of the T´ang period. This in itself is strongprimâ facieevidence that the tombs furnished throughout with pottery are not later than the T´ang dynasty. Another argument of an ethnographical nature is supplied by the figures of ladies with feet of normal size. The fashion of cramping the feet, though it may have begun before the T´ang period, was certainly not universal until the end of this long dynasty.[42]
But there are other cogent reasons which will appeal more directly to the student of ceramics. Among the few specimens of pottery in the Nara Collection,[43]there are several bowls and a dish, accorded in the official catalogue the meagre description "China ware," which have a peculiar glaze of creamy yellow with large, green mottling, and there is besides a drum–shaped vase, "green with yellowish patches." This type of glaze is found on many of the tomb wares, some of which have amber brown and violet blue splashes in addition. From these data it is possible to identify a series of T´ang glazes, including creamy white, straw yellow, faint green, leaf green, amber and violet blue, all soft and more or less transparent with minutely crackled texture and closely analogous to the coloured lead glazes used on our own "Whieldon" pottery of Staffordshire in the eighteenth century. Three years ago a Parisian dealer was offering for sale the contents of an important tomb. For once in a way, the chief articles of the find had been kept together; at least so it was positively asserted, and there was nothing improbable in the circumstance. They included two splendidly modelled figures and a saddled horse in the typical T´ang ware, with bold washes of green and brown glazes, and with them was a stone slab engraved with an inscription. I was able to examine a photograph and a rubbing of this stone, in which excellent judges could find no sign of spurious work. The inscription was long and difficult to translate, but the main facts were clear. It commemorated a princely personage of the name of Wên, whose style was Shou–ch´êng, a man of Lo–yang in Honan, who died at Ho–yang Hsien on the 16th day of the first month of the second year of Yung Shun, viz. 683A. D.
Among the T´ang figurines the horse is conspicuous not only in its comparative frequency, but for the spirit and character with which it is portrayed. The men of T´ang were clearly great horse lovers. Their pictorial artists excelled in painting the noble beast, and the "Hundred Colts" by the celebrated painter Han Kan is a classic of horse painting. Among the precious fragments of T´ang pictures on silk which Sir Aurel Stein brought back from his first expedition in the Taklamakan Desert there were several with scenes in which horsemen figured. I have compared these with the tomb figures and found them to tally with wonderful exactitude,not only in pose and style and in the characteristic rendering of the head and neck, but also in the details of the harness, the saddle with high arched front and shelving back support, the square stirrups, bridle and bit and tassel–like pendant under the mouth.
A complete set of grave goods from a tomb opened by the Lao–tung railway near Lao Yang in the Honan Fu have been acquired by the British Museum through a railway engineer on the spot. They may be taken as a typical and, I believe, quite reliable, example of the grave furniture of a T'ang personage of importance. They include six covered jars of graceful oval form, made of hard white ware and coated with thin glaze of pale yellowish or faint green tint, which ends in the characteristic T'ang fashion in a wavy line several inches above the base. They measure about thirteen inches in height. These are presumed to have held the six kinds of grain. Next comes a graceful vase, probably for wine, with ovoid body, tall, slender neck, with two horizontal bands, a cup–shaped mouth, and two high, elegantly carved handles with serpent heads which bite on to the rim (Plate 14, Fig. 2). The only other vessels were a circular tray, on which stood a small, squat vase, with trilobe sides, small mouth, and three rudimentary feet, surrounded by seven shallow cups. Like the wine vase and covered jars, these have flat bases, in most cases carefully smoothed and lightly bevelled at the edge.[44]The retinue consisted of a charming figure of a lady on a horse, eight other ladies (probably of the harem) with high, peaked head–dress, low–necked dresses with high waists, and a shawl over the shoulders and falling down from the arms like two long sleeves; natural feet are indicated in every case. With these were two figures of priestly appearance, with long cloaks and hoods, three other men in distinctive costumes, eleven retainers in civil costume with peaked head–gear, long coats with lappets open at the neck, waist belts, and high boots, their right hands held across the breast and their left at the side. One of these figures is remarkable for his foreign features, with exaggerated and pointed nose, suggesting a Western Asiatic origin. There are, besides, four men, apparently in armour, and two tall figures who seem to wear cap helmets with camail falling down the neck and breast armour, recalling in many ways our own mediæval men–at–arms. The supernatural element is represented by two strange, squatting quadrupeds with legs like a bull, human heads with large ears and a single horn which are called by the Chineset'u kuaior "earth–spirits." Finally, in addition to man and super–man, the animal world was represented by two saddled horses, two dromedaries, two pigs, two sheep, a beautifully modelled dog, and a goose. What more could a man desire in the underworld? All these figures are of the usual white plaster–like body, with the pale, straw–coloured or greenish glazes which long burial has dissolved into iridescence where it has not actually caused it to flake away. Some of them stand on flat, plain bases; others on their own feet and robes. The latter kind are all hollow beneath, and the quadrupeds have a large cavity under the belly, a feature common to the T'ang and Han animals, and one which I have noticed on bronzes of the same periods. Needless to add, these figures were made in moulds, the seams of which are still visible.[45]
The guardian is lifting his left knee as in running and looking right. The horse is riderless, in full ceremonial dressage. The actor is bowing to the right, arms outstretched with left palm facing forwardPlate 5.—T'ang Sepulchral Figures.In the Benson Collection.Fig. 1.—A Lokapala or Guardian of one of the Quarters, unglazed.Fig. 2.—A Horse, with coloured glazes. Height 27 inches.Fig. 3.—An Actor, unglazed.
Plate 5.—T'ang Sepulchral Figures.In the Benson Collection.Fig. 1.—A Lokapala or Guardian of one of the Quarters, unglazed.Fig. 2.—A Horse, with coloured glazes. Height 27 inches.Fig. 3.—An Actor, unglazed.
Plate 5.—T'ang Sepulchral Figures.In the Benson Collection.
Fig. 1.—A Lokapala or Guardian of one of the Quarters, unglazed.
Fig. 2.—A Horse, with coloured glazes. Height 27 inches.
Fig. 3.—An Actor, unglazed.
Three musicians are kneeling, one with instrument the other two with hands indicating singing. The attendant is standing holding his dish at naval levelPlate 6.—T'ang Sepulchral Figures, unglazed.Figs. 1, 2 and 4.—Female Musicians.Fig. 3.—Attendant with dish of food. Height 91/2inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Plate 6.—T'ang Sepulchral Figures, unglazed.Figs. 1, 2 and 4.—Female Musicians.Fig. 3.—Attendant with dish of food. Height 91/2inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Plate 6.—T'ang Sepulchral Figures, unglazed.
Figs. 1, 2 and 4.—Female Musicians.
Fig. 3.—Attendant with dish of food. Height 91/2inches.
Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 2 had is a round pot with separate tapered base, a long stem with three-quarter tapered lipPlate 7.—T'ang Sepulchral Pottery.Fig. 1.—Figure of a Lady in elaborate costume, unglazed. Height 141/2.Eumorfopoulos Collection.Fig. 2.—Vase, white pottery with traces of blue mottling: the glaze has perished. Height 81/2inches.Breuer Collection.Fig. 3.—Sphinx–like Monster, green and yellow glazes. Height 25 inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Plate 7.—T'ang Sepulchral Pottery.Fig. 1.—Figure of a Lady in elaborate costume, unglazed. Height 141/2.Eumorfopoulos Collection.Fig. 2.—Vase, white pottery with traces of blue mottling: the glaze has perished. Height 81/2inches.Breuer Collection.Fig. 3.—Sphinx–like Monster, green and yellow glazes. Height 25 inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Plate 7.—T'ang Sepulchral Pottery.
Fig. 1.—Figure of a Lady in elaborate costume, unglazed. Height 141/2.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 2.—Vase, white pottery with traces of blue mottling: the glaze has perished. Height 81/2inches.Breuer Collection.
Fig. 3.—Sphinx–like Monster, green and yellow glazes. Height 25 inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
A few examples of the tomb figures are illustrated in the adjoining plates. The tall, slender figure on Plate 7, Fig. 1, seems to represent a lady of distinction. The elaborate head–dress and costume, the necklace and pendant and the belt are all carefully modelled; and the Elizabethan appearance of the collar is curious and interesting. The ware is soft and white like pipeclay, though still caked with the reddish loess clay from which it was exhumed. The style of this figure with its slender proportions is analogous to that of the graceful stone sculptures of the Northern Wei period. The genial monster in white clay and splashed green and yellow glazes illustrated on Plate 7 is one of the many sphinx–like creatures found in the tombs over which they were supposed to exercise a beneficial influence. Sometimes they have human heads on the bull body, and they are then described ast'u kuaior earth–spirits. In the present example we have a form which strongly resembles certain Persian or Sassanian monsters in bronze; and it is highly probable that the idea of this creature came from a western Asiatic source.
Plate 5 shows a fine example of a horse in coloured glazes, a fierce figure in warrior's guise, who is, no doubt, one of the Lokapalasor Guardians of the Four Quarters in the Buddhist theogony, and a figure of an actor. The amusements, as well as the serious occupations of the dead, were provided for in the furniture of the tombs. A whole troop of mimes in quaint costumes and dramatic poses is shown in the Field Museum at Chicago, and Plate 6 illustrates three seated figures of musicians as well as a standing figure holding a dish of fruit.
A study of the salient features of these and other authenticated specimens leads naturally to the identification of fresh types, and so the series grows. For instance, the type of wine vase with serpent handles is found in glazes of various colours, till of the mottled T'ang kind, and with slight additions, such as the palmette–like ornaments in applied relief on a large example in the British Museum. These ornaments in their turn appear on bowls and incense vases often of globular form, like the well–known Buddhist begging bowl, but fitted with three legs. Splashed, streaked and mottled glazes further declare these to be T'ang, and the varying colour and hardness of their body material give us a deeper insight into the T'ang ware. All of these show the marks of the wheel, and many are neatly finished with simple wheel–made lines and ridges; stamped ornaments in applied relief are their commonest form of decoration.
A fine specimen in the British Museum will serve to illustrate this type of bowl. It has a hard, white body, of typical globular form, with slightly constricted mouth, three legs with strongly modelled lion masks on the upper part, and between them pads of applied relief with lion mask ornaments. The glaze is not of the mottled kind, but is rather streaked; it is deep, cucumber green and minutely crackled, and has run down into drops under the bowl. This fluidity is also the cause of the streakiness of the colour, which was evidently a characteristic feature of the T'ang pottery, for it appears unmistakably indicated in a T'ang painting figured by Sir Aurel Stein.[46]This painting, a silk banner of the T'ang period, was found in a walled–up library at Tun–huang, and depicts a standing Buddhist figure carrying a begging bowl with boldly streaked exterior.
Three examples of T'ang ware with coloured glazes: in the Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 1.—Tripod Incense Vase with ribbed sides; white pottery with deep blue glaze outside encrusted with iridescence. Height 45/8inches.Fig. 2.—Amphora of light coloured pottery with splashed glaze. Mark incisedMa Chên–shih tsao("made by Ma Chên–shih"). Height 81/4inches.Fig. 3.—Ewer of hard white porcellanous ware with deep purple glaze. Height 43/4inches.
Fig. 1.—Tripod Incense Vase with ribbed sides; white pottery with deep blue glaze outside encrusted with iridescence. Height 45/8inches.
Fig. 2.—Amphora of light coloured pottery with splashed glaze. Mark incisedMa Chên–shih tsao("made by Ma Chên–shih"). Height 81/4inches.
Fig. 3.—Ewer of hard white porcellanous ware with deep purple glaze. Height 43/4inches.
Three rounded vases.Fig. 1 shaped like a water tank on decorated stumps. Fig. 2 is cylindrical and tapered at each end, has handles on each side of the rim. Fig. 3 is short and round with a short pourer near the top.
In addition to the mottled glazes—which, by the way, are the forerunners of the so–called "tiger–skin" porcelains of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—and the single colours already mentioned, instances have been identified on the principles already indicated of wares with a full yellow glaze and a streaky, brownish yellow. An interesting piece (Plate 8) in the Eumorfopoulos Collection is covered with a deep violet blue glaze on a fine white body. Others, again, have a dark chocolate brown glaze on a reddish buff body, and a rare ewer in the British Museum is distinguished by a deep olive brown glaze flecked with tea green, which seems to anticipate by a thousand years the "tea dust" glazes of the Ch'ien Lung period.[47]
Another variety of T'ang glaze, of which I have seen one example, was an olive brown with large splashes of a light colour, a greyish white, but with surface so frosted over by decay that its original intention remained in doubt. One might say that this was the father of the Japanese Takatori glazes with deep brown under–colour and large patches of frothy white. We may mention here three remarkable specimens found in a grave with a T'ang mirror and described inManin 1901,[48]which are in the British Museum. One is an oblate ovoid vase, with small neck and mouth, of hard, light buff body, coated with a dull greenish black glaze with minute specks of lighter colour. The others are tea bowls of hard buff ware with dull brick–red glaze, not far removed in colour from the Samian ware of Roman times. No exact Chinese parallel has yet been found to these three pieces, though something approaching them is seen in certain bowls in the Eumorfopoulos collection which have a reddish brown glaze breaking into black, being apparently of the type associated with the name of Chien yao,[49]and which are known in Japan askaki temmoku. This early kind oftemmoku, which was probably made in Honan, has a hard whitish body, and the glaze is sometimes flecked with tea green as well as with golden brown. In some cases, too, a floral design or a leaf has been impressed or stencilled on the black glaze and appears in the brown or green colour (Plate 43, Fig. 1). It is said that a somewhat similar browntemmokuware was made in Corea as well.
The survival of the leaf green glaze of Han type has already been noted. It occurs in Plates 12 and 13.
A pale bluish green glaze, somewhat akin to a later variety of celadon, appears on a few small bowls and jars which have the characteristic T'ang finish: I have seen several figures of lions with a crackled light greenish brown glaze; and a considerable class of bowls and melon–shaped vases have been found in Shansi with a hard buff stoneware body, coated with white slip under a transparent and almost colourless glaze, the combination producing a solid white or ivory colour (Plate 11, Fig. 3). These bowls have been considered by some Chinese authorities to be a production of the Ta Yi[50]kilns in Szechuan, but as there were factories in Shansi,[51]where wares of this type are reputed to have been made in T'ang times, it seems more probable that they are of local make. It should be added that the brown, tea dust, black, celadon and white glazes are high–fired and essentially different from the soft, crackled lead glazes previously described.
Apart from modelling in the round, an art in which we have seen that the T'ang potters excelled, the decorative ornament of the pottery hitherto discussed has been confined to applied reliefs. The processes of carving and engraving come early in the evolution of the potter's art in China, and we should expect to find in the T'ang wares some indications of the skill in these methods for which the Sung potters were so celebrated. Plate 12, Fig. 2, illustrates the use of engraved ornament under a green glaze, and the piece is remarkable not only for its elegant design, but for the beautiful lines of its simple form. A few years ago I saw for the first time one or two stands and boxes with patterns intricate as brocade work, floral scrolls, and geometrical designs, engraved with a point, and the spaces filled in with coloured glazes. They were reputed to be of T'ang date, and though no further evidence existed to prove that objects of such advanced technique and mature design really belonged to this remote period the proposition did not seem an impossible one. The textiles, inlaid woodwork, and painted lacquer in the Nara collections have just such designs which at first sight fill one with amazement at their modern feeling. A piece of brocade of undoubted T'ang origin, figured by Sir Aurel Stein,[52]with floral scrolls worked in silk, looks like a piece of late Persian embroidery. And is not the art of the T´ang painters essentially modern in the directness of its appeal?