I should add that the author of the T´ao shuo, after accepting the earlier references to the art, inconsistently concludes: "I humbly suggest that the origin of pottery should strictly be placed in the reign of Yü Ti Shun, and its completion in the Chou dynasty" (1122–256 B. C.).
Unfortunately, none of the writers can throw any light on the first use of the potter's wheel in China. It is true that, like several other nations, the Chinese claim for themselves the invention of that essential implement, but there is no real evidence to illuminate the question, and even if the wheel was independently discovered in China, the priority of invention undoubtedly rests with the Near Eastern nations. Palpable evidence of its use can be seen on Minoan pottery found in Crete and dating about 3000 B. C., and on Egyptian pottery of the twelfth dynasty (about 2200 B. C.); while it is practically certain that it was used in the making of the Egyptian pottery of the fourth dynasty (about 3200 B. C.).
So far, the Chinese have nothing tangible to oppose to these facts earlier than the Chou writings, in which workers with the wheel (t´ao jên) are distinguished from workers with moulds (fang jên), the former making cauldrons, basins, colanders, boilers, and vessels (yü), and the latter moulding the sacrificial vessels named kuei and tou. We learn that at this time the Chinese potters also used the compasses and the polishing wheel or lathe. With this outfit they were able, according to the T´ao shuo, to effect the "completion" of pottery.
Whatever the truth of this pious statement may be, reflecting as it does the true Chinese veneration of antiquity, it is certain, at any rate, that the potter was not without honour at this time: for we read in the Tso Chuan[8] that "O–fu of Yü was the best potter at the beginning of the Chou dynasty. Wu Wang relied on his skill for the vessels which he used. He wedded him to a descendant of his imperial ancestors, and appointed him feudal prince of Ch´ên."
Examples of these early potteries have been unearthed from ancient burials from time to time, and the T´ao shuo describes numerous types from literary sources. But neither the originals, as far as we know them, nor the verbal descriptions of them, have anything but an antiquarian interest.
The art of the Chou dynasty, as expressed in bronze and jade, is fairly well known from illustrated Chinese and Western works. It reflects a priestly culture in its hieratic forms and symbolical ornament. It is majestic and stern, severely disdainful of sentiment and sensuous appeal. Of the pottery we know little, but that little shows us a purely utilitarian ware of simple form, unglazed and almost devoid of ornament.
On Plate 1 are two types which may perhaps be regarded as favourable examples of Chou pottery. A tripod vessel, almost exactly similar to Fig. 1, was published by Berthold Laufer,[9] who shows by analogy with bronzes of the period good reasons for its Chou attribution, which he states is confirmed by Chinese antiquarians. His example was of hard "gray clay, which on the surface has assumed a black colour," and it had the surface ornamented with a hatched pattern similar to that of our illustration. It has been assumed that this hatched pattern is a sure sign of Chou origin, and I have no doubt that it was a common decoration at the time. But its use continued after the Chou period, and it is found on pottery from a Han tomb in Szechuan, which is now in the British Museum. It is, in fact, practically the same as the "mat marking" on the Japanese and Corean pottery taken from the dolmens which were built over a long period extending from the second century B. C. to the eighth century A. D.
The taste of the time is reflected in a sentence which occurs in the Kuan–tzŭ, a work of the fifth century B. C.: "Ornamentation detracts from the merit of pottery."[10] The words used for ornamentation are wên ts´ai
