EARLY WARES
tury, when the potters of the island empire once more turned their eyes towards the Middle Kingdom.
From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the choicest wares produced in China owed their beauties to technical processes which a specialist only could hope to employ. Céladon was the prince of these wares, and of all keramic productions it may be said that céladon pre-eminently derives its charm from delicacy of colour and lustrous softness of surface, which at once remove it to an infinite distance beyond the range of the ordinary potter's skill. The tea-clubs were thoroughly familiar with the excellence of this peculiarly æsthetic ware. A choice vase of seiji ("green ware") constituted their beau-ideal as an alcove ornament, and in the rich lacquer boxes that contained elaborate apparatus for cutting and burning incense, no censer better became its wrapper of antique brocade than a little cylindrical vessel of the indescribable bluish-green stone-ware known in China as Lung-chuan-yao. Shukō, art instructor of the ex-Regent Yoshimasa, indicated a variety of céladon the peculiar tint of which reached, according to him, the very acme of restfulness and sobriety. The Taikō possessed a céladon censer which was credited with miraculous properties, and even the practical Ieyasu thought that a choice vase of this ware represented fair security for a loan of several thousand dollars. Early Japanese potters knew of no materials that could be used to manufacture such masterpieces. The very attempt to reproduce them would probably have been deemed preposterous in the then condition of Japanese keramic ability. So too of the Ting-yao, the Chun-yao, the Chien-yao. The curious glazes, reddish purple, creamy-white, clair de lune, and silver-streaked
19
