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 in Man in 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 as kaki temmoku. This early kind of temmoku, 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 brown temmoku ware 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?
Plate 9.—T'ang Pottery.
Fig. 1.—Ewer of Sassanian form with splashed glazes; panels of relief ornament, in one a mounted archer. Height 13 inches. Alexander Collection. Fig. 2.—Vase with mottled glaze, green and orange. Height 3 5/8 inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection. Fig. 3.—Ewer with dragon spout and handle; wave and cloud reliefs; brownish yellow glaze streaked with green. Height 11 5/8 inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection.
