Chinese and Japanese Art.
To many the curios from China and Japan are more familiar than those from India and British Asiatic possessions. The pottery and porcelain of China have long been used in this country, and during recent years other objects of a curious and antiquarian nature have been imported in large quantities from both these ancient countries. In shops and bazaars the metallic wares of China and Japan have been much popularized too. That China has a great past and possessed a civilization hundreds of years before similar conditions appertained in Europe is well known. Collectors of the antique go back in their search after specimens of bronze and other metals to those produced by the artists of China in the Han Dynasty, which dates from B.C. 216. In records of that period, concurrent with accounts of pottery, there are well authenticated details of the metal cooking vessels then in common use. There were utilitarian bronzes and many beautiful vases, some of almost the same designs as the concurrent pottery. There were cooking utensils not at all unlike the mediæval bronze pots of modern Europe; their handles, however, were more decorative, often taking the form of a dragon's head. The feet of these ancient cooking-pots were often like lions' claws or eagles' talons. Among other relics of that period are quadrangular wine jars, some of the rarer types being decorated with fishes, in the drawing of which the Chinese artists of the Han Dynasty were very clever. They used such decorations appropriately, too for this was the ornament they chose on fish kettles.
A peculiarity of the metal-work of the Han period was the dark red copper which seems to have been used concurrently with bronze. When we note that some of the pottery was beautifully formed we can quite understand that the bronzes were equally well shaped, for the metal-workers would not be behind the potters in their craftmanship. Some of the rarer bronze tazzas are also well shaped and have been carefully moulded.
The chief curios coming into the hands of collectors are of a somewhat later date than the Han Dynasty; but China moves on slowly, and there does not appear to have been much advance or change for many centuries. The metal-work made during what we term mediæval days in Europe was often copied from familiar objects made of other materials. There is a bronze vase made in the Sung Dynasty, fashioned in imitation of an old jar tied up with rope, the ring handles being technically described as "conventional heads applique"; this vessel measures 14¼ in. diameter at the shoulder and stands 9½ in. high. It is difficult to trace where such pieces come from; it is, however, well known that many have been looted from the temples; others, probably imitating older examples, are mainly of nineteenth-century workmanship.
FIG. 68.—BRONZE FIGURE (ONE OF A PAIR) INLAID WITH SILVER AND GOLD.
(In the author's collection.)
The metal-work which comes from Japan has reached us in great variety. There has been no need for the traveller or collector to search the island for curios to bring over to this country, for the commercial instincts of a new race of Japanese merchants have poured out a wealth of antiques, collected from the native villages; with these and modern imitations they have gladly supplied the demand of the Western world. In this way attention has been called to the products of that country where craftsmen have gone on hammering copper and brass, and inlaying the metal in highly decorated patterns in silver and gold for so many years.