CHINESE AND
JAPANESE
ORNAMENT.
The early bronzes, enamels, porcelain and textile fabrics of China are indicative of the perfection and luxuriance of the decorative arts of that ancient Empire. This perfection is shown by a Splendid technic and a fine appreciation of colour and ornamentation, differentiated from the western nations by myths, traditions, and the remarkable persistency of a few typical forms through many centuries, doubtless owing to the profound ancestral worship and veneration for the past. The Dragon was represented under many aspects, frequently forming vigorous lines of composition (fig. 3, 4). The beautiful flora of the country largely influenced Chinese art. The peony and chrysanthemum (frequently highly conventionalized), are typical examples, forming the elements of decorative design. Geometric forms, such as the hexagon, octagon, and the circle, enriched with flowers or the fret, are largely used. The many splendid examples of bells, gongs, and incense-burners in bronze and iron:—the carvings in wood, ivory, and jade:—the beautiful woven silks and embroidered fabrics, and the richness and purity of their porcelain, all testify to the versatility and vitality of the Chinese decorative arts in the past. Their architecture was usually of wood, distinguished by complexity and quaintness of form rather than beauty of proportion and detail, but their pagodas or temples were of brick encased with glazed tiles, the most remarkable of these erections being the Nankin Pagoda of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1412-31), with its imperial yellow tiles.
The arts of Japan, though doubtless owing their origin to China, are differentiated by a keener observation of nature and a more literal treatment of landscape, bird and animal life, and the beautiful flora of the country—the “kiki” or chrysanthemum, the “botan” or peony, the “kosai” or iris, the “yuri” or lily, the “kiri” or paulawina imperialis (somewhat resembling our horse chestnut), the “ume” or plum, the “matsi” or fir, and the “taki” or bamboo,—likewise the peacock, the crane, the duck, the pheasant and many smaller beautiful birds, together with reptiles, insects, and fishes; all are elements in the decorative arts, being rendered with remarkable fidelity and delicacy of touch, united with a fine feeling for composition of line. It is this literal treatment of natural types, the marvellous technic and especially the significance of the forms chosen that constitutes the charm of the earlier Japanese art. It is singular that the materials used by the Japanese should be of little intrinsic value. Having no jewellery, they use little of the precious metals; iron, bronze, enamels, wood and lac, being the chief materials utilised in the decorative arts of Japan.
IVORIES. [Plate 25.]
IVORY,
doubtless owing to its beautiful texture, colour and adaptability for delicate carving, has been in use from a remote period. Egypt, Assyria, and India have each contributed many beautiful examples of fine craftsmanship, indicative of the artistic culture of the centuries preceding the Christian Era. Of Solomon we read in I Kings, 18, x: “Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with the best gold.” This traditional use of ivory was most probably derived from Egypt, the source of so many of the decorative arts.
In the Periclean age of Greece, ivory was used for the figure of Athene Parthenos by Pheidias, placed inside the Parthenon. This statue of the standing goddess, 40 feet high, was of gold and ivory (called chryselephantine sculpture), the drapery being of beaten gold and the exposed parts of the figure of carefully-fitted pieces of ivory. A seated chryselephantine figure of Jupiter, about 58 feet high, in the temple of Olympia, was also by Pheidias. Pausanias the Roman traveller enumerates some ten chryselephantine statues which he saw in his travels, A.D. 140.