The Oriental leads us away out of the region of the real and the commonplace, into a state of ideal and spiritual-sensuous art. He is never without body, the real part, the base of all life and art; but he has glorified it by a display of the fine and subtile essence which may be called its soul.
This is not always so. Often he is most clumsy and rude in form, and common in decoration; but, when he is an artist, he is the finest we know of.
It is probable that the Chinese had some blue equivalent to cobalt
Fig. 107.—From Mrs. Burlingame’s Collection.
from an early day, but the real cobalt blue was introduced into China from Europe during the Ming period (about 1500). They at once seized it, and from it was produced that charming variety known as the “heavenly” or “celestial” blue; the glaze, the clay, and the color, are all perfect; and it certainly deserves its name of heavenly. A mania for it has existed, and continues to exist, in Europe. One of the finest collections in England—that of Mr. Rossetti, the poet—was recently sold. In America, Mr. Avery and Mr. Hoe, of New York, Mr. Wales, of Boston, and Mrs. Burlingame, of Cambridge, have many beautiful examples. Fine pieces of this blue sell for from twenty-five to