CHAPTER XXXII
CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
THE art of the enameler throughout the ages has ever proved to be a subject of interest to connoisseurs and collectors. While learned monographs in many languages have been written on the fascinating subject of European enamels, less appears to have been written concerning those of Asia and particularly those of China and Japan. The real collector, as distinguished from the mere gatherer or hoarder of art objects, finds a great part of his pleasure in acquainting himself with the processes of manufacture as well as with the history of the things he collects. It is this acquaintanceship with the minutiæ of a subject that enables one to collect with judgment.
The basis of all enamels is the application of fusible silicate or glass, colored with metallic oxides, all upon a metal ground. The varieties of enamels have already been described at length in the chapter on European enamels, but it will be convenient to summarize the processes here as they apply to Oriental as well as to Occidental enamels.
In cloisonné enamel-work a metal base—of gold, silver, copper, or some other metal—has its design traced upon it by means of thin metal wires or strips soldered to the base and forming a number of divisions. These, when filled with the colored silicate (subjected to amalgamation by heat, and afterward polished) produce a beautiful patterned surface, the design of which appears traced in metal filaments. The Byzantine and the Greek enamelers executed their cloisonné enamels in gold, as likewise did the Anglo-Saxons, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Japanese in their finest work.
In the plique à jour enamels we find what is really a variety of cloisonné rather than a class, as the plique à jour is cloisonné unbacked by a metal ground but much like a leaded stained-glass window in miniature. That is, if one holds a piece of plique à jour work to the light he will find it allows the light to pass through, whence its name.
Champlevé enamel resembles cloisonné, but its pattern, instead of being traced by cloisons soldered on a metal base, is scooped out by a sort of deep engraving upon the metal base, these depressions being filled up with enamel, which is fired and then polished. The Celts, the Persians, and the enamelers of India worked in this manner.
Respoussé enamel is, one may say, a variety of champlevé, or at least so closely akin to it that it is seldom considered as composing a class by itself, though I think it should be. In such enamel-work the design is wrought upon the metal base, not with cloisons as in cloisonné, nor by scooping out by a graver, as in true champlevé. Instead, the design is worked upon the metal by hammering out—respoussé—the depressions to be filled with the enamel. This is then fired and polished, as all enamel of any class has to be. Some of the enamels of India are such fine examples of work of this sort that they have passed as true champlevé.
Finally, we come to the painted enamels, such as those of Limoges. In the earliest examples of the painted class one finds the design applied directly to the metal base, grain by grain and layer by layer, in such a manner that the various fusings and glazings produce the results one finds in the marvelous old Limoges enamels; while in later work the enamel is fused upon the metal base, the designs being painted (in some instances printed) on the enamel.
This brief survey of the characteristics of the different classes of old enamels will the better enable the collector to confine his attention for the moment to the subject of cloisonné enamels, and in particular to those of China and Japan. Of late years the cloisonné enamels of these countries have been extensively exported, more especially to America. Many of these modern examples are very beautiful, some of them very trashy, and none of them comparable in beauty with early Chinese work, though, from a technical point of view and an individuality of their own, I fancy some of the modern specimens would have made the seventeenth-century enamel-workers of China rub their eyes in wonderment. This great and difficult art is surely one of the glories of Chinese craftsmanship. One might not think that the outlook for collecting these old enamels in America very encouraging. Nevertheless it is a line of collecting that has not been overdone, and genuine old objects are to be found, here and there, by those who know them when they see them.
As color is the very soul of enamel, the rich, soft colors of the early Chinese work help to distinguish it. This is especially true of the varied and beautiful blues employed by the Chinese enamelers. Occasionally the Chinese employed both cloisonné and champlevé in the same piece as certain pieces of the Ch’ien Lung period (1736-1796) show. In genuine old pieces it often happens that corrosion has made its appearance around the cloisons. While the early history of Chinese cloisonné is lost to us, we know it to have been in favor in the early fifteenth century, as a vase in the Victoria and Albert Museum attests. Not only for its blues is Chinese cloisonné noted, but it possesses characteristic reds, lilacs, violets, pinks, greens, and orange as well. The Chinese enameler’s palette was medieval in its selection. The blues of turquoise and of lapis lazuli were great favorites likewise. A sang-de-bœuf and a sealing-wax red, opaque in quality, were further employed. In fact, the Chinese enamelers employed the colors of the early European cloisonné workers. Their whites, however, were always inferior and in early work exhibit air-hole pit marks.