their production fetched prices that compare favourably with the “fancy” prices given to-day.
To the Japanese also in great measure the same tribute is due. Although beginning later as disciples and scarcely getting so far as their masters, their more limited range of colour and form is set off by their restrained and even more tasteful decoration. The unique collection in the Boston Museum is an amplification of this bald statement. They were often more concerned with the touch and texture of the pot than the more obvious appeal of decoration. Esoteric as it is to most occidentals it is rich in a pure æstheticism and a deep and beautiful symbolism that is slowly but surely having an influence on western art, just when it seems in some danger of dying out in Japan. The hermit kingdom of Korea, despite its midway position, produced pottery that is strangely beautiful and distinctive and worth much more than a passing notice.
In China the art decadence of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, coupled with internal revolutions, has sadly dimmed her plots, dispersed her potters, and all but destroyed her priceless traditions.
For the further development of pottery in Europe and America and Asia the student has many excellent books to consult. From the seventeenth century the ramifications are rapid and all-embracing, giving, however, more joy to the collector than to the artist.
Modern work has made an enormous advance in the science of the craft. Since the “Eighties” it shows signs of a renaissance in æsthetics. Lustres of all shades, crystalline, star, and crackle glazes with safe methods of oxidizing and reducing in the fire, have been brought to perfection. Yet, with some few exceptions, commerce seems writ large upon them all and their very perfection of finish damns them in the eyes of an artist. Whichever way he looks, he must return again and again to refresh his eyes with the inspiring examples of the best that has survived from the near and far East.
Only an antiquarian humbug would wish to go back to ancient conditions even to produce old pots. But it is only by seeing in so far as we may in museums and books the works of these ancient yet ever modern potters; by tracing their development, appreciating their qualities and attempting to work as they worked, honestly and unaffectedly, that we shall begin to approach the excellence and originality of their art. This study should not of course obey the direction it all too frequently follows. The slavish measuring by module and fraction of classic styles, the stark geometric analysis of Moorish ornament or the laborious copying of Chinese pattern is at best only art in cold storage. It should be self-evident that where an alien style is consciously imitated the result is sterility for the imitator.
In others, it is apt to produce a powerful reaction that results in Futurism or some such self-conscious affectation. “The Greeks did not draw from casts nor did the Persians haunt museums,” says the harried student. No. But better than that, they were surrounded, if not by beauty, at least by nature naked and unashamed. They lived not easily maybe, but surely more gracefully, untrammelled by fashion, cult, or craze.
“The earth his sober Inn
And quiet pilgrimage.”
Their best work seems ever fresh, spontaneous, and untired. It must have been done with a spirit and real joy impossible to anyone but a true craftsman tremendously interested in his work, we might also add, his environment.
Naturally, present-day conditions must modify the struggle for existence. They may mar our best aim at times. Yet some few have worked wonders even in this age. To mention but two instances, W. De Morgan and the Martin brothers, is to tell of high endeavour and great achievement. But we must not expect to get rich that way.