In the Western judgment, however, which is unbiased by the associations of these antique forms, the true pottery shapes, made on the wheel, will appear far more attractive; for nothing can surpass the simple rounded forms which sprang to life beneath the deft fingers of the Chinese thrower. Their simplicity, grace, and perfect suitability for their intended uses have commended them as models to the Western potter far more congenial than the cold perfection of the Greek vases. Naturally they vary in quality with the skill and taste of the individual, but a high level of manual skill ruled among the Chinese potters, and their wheel-work rarely fails to please.
It would be useless to attempt to exhaust all the varieties of wheel-made forms. Many of them are due to slight alterations of line according to the caprice of the thrower. It will be enough to enumerate the principal types and to note a few of the more significant changes which came in at ascertained periods. By comparing the illustrations in different parts of this book, and better still, by comparing the specimens in some well classified collection, the reader will soon learn to notice the periodical changes of shape. To take the familiar bottle-shaped vases as an instance, there is probably no shape on which more numerous changes have been rung, nor one which is more susceptible to the individual touch; and yet the trained eye will generally distinguish the K’ang Hsi bottle from the later forms, though the distinction is often more subtle than that which separates the typical K’ang Hsi form (Plate [123], Fig. 2) from that with depressed body and straight wide neck (Plate [128], Fig. 3), which is characteristic of the Ch’ien Lung period.
The K’ang Hsi bottles vary in themselves in length and slenderness of neck, and in the form of the body, which may be globular, ovoid, barrel shaped or pear shaped. Again they are often of double or even triple gourd shape, or plain with a bulbous swelling on the upper part of the neck or actually at the mouth. The last variety are called “garlic-shaped” bottles by the Chinese. The normal types are used to hold a single spray or a flowering branch, but there are others with slender necks tapering to a point which are designed for sprinkling perfumes and are generally known as sprinklers.
Of flower vases there are numerous varieties: egg-shaped vases; baluster-shaped vases with spreading mouth; high-shouldered vases with small mouth, the mei p’ing of the Ming period; beakers (ku) with slender body, swelling belt in the middle and flaring mouth; the so-called yen yen vase with ovoid body and high neck with trumpet mouth,[486] which is used for some of the choicest K’ang Hsi decorations (Plate [101]); the Kuan yin[487] vase of ovoid form with short neck and spreading mouth; the cylindrical vase with short straight neck and spreading mouth (Plate [103]), called by the French rouleau and by the Chinese “paper-beater” (chih ch’ui p’ing), whence our name “club-shaped.” A smaller form of the same is known to the Chinese as yu ch’ui p’ing (oil-beater vase). . There is besides the wide oval jar or potiche with dome-shaped cover (tsun), and the more slender form known as t’an, which often has a lion or ch’i-lin on the cover serving as a knob; the tall cylinder to hold arrows and the low cylinder for brushes, and numerous pots and jars for various uses.
Most of these rounded forms have counterparts among the square and polygonal vases which are made in moulds or built up by the difficult process of joining together flat bats of clay. The square vases made by the latter method were a source of much trouble to the potters owing to the danger of imperfect jointing or of warping in the kiln. Fig. 1 of Plate [104] illustrates an effective type of the square vase with gracefully tapering body, the four sides of which are so often appropriately decorated with the flowers of the four seasons. Occasionally the angles are flattened, giving an irregular octagonal form. Another form selected for sumptuous decoration is the square vase with pendulous body and two dragon handles figured on Plate [97]; and another is the arrow stand and square tube with deeply socketed stand and railed border (Plate [118]).
The pilgrim bottle supplies an effective model with a flattened circular body, small neck and foot, and loops on the periphery to carry a cord. These loops tended to disappear when the form had lost its first significance and was only regarded as a vase.
The list of Imperial wares made in the reign of T’ung Chih includes vases for divining rods of square form with low round neck and base, ornamented with pa kua designs in relief; vases with apricot medallions and tubular handles like Fig. 1 of Plate [123]. Other familiar types are the bag-shaped vases with the mouth tied with silk, melon and gourd forms, and the vase shaped like a double fish erect on its tail or a single fish rising from waves.
To quote a few of the types named in the T’ao shuo[488]:—“For holding flowers there are vases from two or three inches to five or six feet high, round like a hu, round and swelling below like a gallbladder (tan), round and with spreading mouth and contracted below like a tsun, with flat sides and full angles like a ku, upright like bamboo joints, square like a corn measure (tou), with contracted mouth and flattened sides, with square and round flutings, and cut in halves with flat backs for hanging on walls.”
For pot-pourri and for fragrant flowers to perfume the rooms various covered jars were provided, hanging vases with reticulated sides (Plate [114]), and boxes with perforated covers. For growing plants there were deep flower pots and shallow bulb bowls, and the large and small fish bowls were used for growing water-lilies as well as for keeping gold-fish; and shallow bowls were apparently used as arenas for fighting crickets.[489] As for the vessels in which the crickets were kept, various suggestions have been made in reference to the “cricket pots” mentioned in Chinese books, and the name is sometimes given to reticulated vases and boxes; but we are told that the cricket prefers a damp dwelling, and that their pots were consequently made as a rule of absorbent earthenware. There is a snuff bottle decorated with crickets in the British Museum, and one is represented perched on an overturned pot from which he has apparently escaped, the lid having fallen off. This pot is of ordinary ovoid jar form apparently ornamented with incised fret pattern.
The apparatus of the library table is peculiarly Chinese; and as calligraphy and painting were regarded as among the highest accomplishments, so the potter lavished on the implements of the writer his most ingenious fancies and his most beautiful workmanship. There were porcelain handles for the pencil brush called pi kuan; a brush rest (pi ko) of many fanciful forms (see Fig. 3 of Plate [60]) of which a miniature range of hills was the commonest; a bed (pi ch’uang) for it to lie down on, and a cylindrical jar (pi t’ung) for it to stand up in; vessels called hsi to wash it in, usually of shallow bowl form or shaped like crinkled lotus leaves or in some such dainty design. There were rests for the writer’s wrist and paper weights of fantastic form. For the ink (mo), there is the pallet (mo yen) for rubbing (Plate [94], Fig. 2), and a bed for the ink-cake (mo ch’uang), a screen (yen p’ing) behind which it was rubbed, small water pots (shui ch’êng) in innumerable shapes and served by a tiny ladle, and water droppers (shui ti) of quaint and ingenious designs.[490] There were rollers for picture scrolls (hua chou) with porcelain ends, and stands for books in the form of small elegantly shaped tables with three or four legs often beautifully painted in enamels on the biscuit.