DOI Heft:
American section
DOI Artikel:Upson, Arthur: The art of Shippô Yaki: illustrated from the collection of Dr. Alfred Owre, Minneapolis
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28250#0444
Shippo Yaki
CHINESE BOWL
MIDDLE PERIOD, KEEN LUNG REIGN
presents to the eye nothing but the superimposed
crust of the decorated object.
In champleve, the thick, cast brass or copper
base is hollowed in places where it is desired to
flow the enamels. Upon the more massive pieces,
the cells are cast; upon the smaller, they are wholly
or in part the result of excavating. The partitions
thus created trace the outline of the artisan’s design,
as in cloisonne the applied metal ribbons (cloisons)
serve the same purpose. Cloisonne may well be
styled the happy and graceful nursling of cham-
pleve, and the latter likened to a strong, simple,
and often sombre foster-mother. Both forms are
native to China, but the lack of any treatise upon
them, in either Chinese or Japanese, leaves us in the
dark concerning their early hislory. We only know
that when the craftsmen of the Island Empire first
gave themselves to the process, they naturally
chose the form in which they could most fluently
express their art-ideals, quite regardless of technical
difficulties. As Mr. Percival Lowell has well said,
with the native of Japan art so permeates and
pervades his whole being as to be to him “not so
much a conscious matter of thought as an uncon-
scious mode of thinking.” We cannot imagine
those unexcelled metal-workers of the old regime,
DR. OWRE S
COLLECTION
with their unconscious taste
and immense technical ver-
satility, hesitating as to
which of the two forms
they should adopt.
The oldest cell enamels
from Chinese hands, so far
as we have reliable knowl-
edge of them, date from
the early Ming Dynasty.
This succession was estab-
lished some two hundred
and thirty-five years before
the Tokugawa Shogunate
in Japan, and lapped over
into it forty years, or until
1644. During the latter
part of this long period,
the Chinese workers put
forth excellent enamels.
Earlier, their results are
distinctly primitive; the de-
signs are coarse, the work-
manship inaccurate, the
bases heavy, and the enam-
els imperfectly distributed
and fired. The colours,
however, excepting results
of imperfect firing, are beautiful—chiefly very
dull, deep reds, turquoise blues emerging into
greens, and often yellows, and white and black.
The two rare
gourd-shaped «
altar vessels
shown in illus-
tration belong
to this early
period.
During the
Tsing Dynasty
(1645 to the
present), the
successor of the
Ming, m u c h
more refine-
ment has been
introduced i n
design and exe-
c u t i o n, and
colours have
become more
varied. In
many pieces of Chinese incense burner
this period, middle period champleve
lxiv
CHINESE BOWL
MIDDLE PERIOD, KEEN LUNG REIGN
presents to the eye nothing but the superimposed
crust of the decorated object.
In champleve, the thick, cast brass or copper
base is hollowed in places where it is desired to
flow the enamels. Upon the more massive pieces,
the cells are cast; upon the smaller, they are wholly
or in part the result of excavating. The partitions
thus created trace the outline of the artisan’s design,
as in cloisonne the applied metal ribbons (cloisons)
serve the same purpose. Cloisonne may well be
styled the happy and graceful nursling of cham-
pleve, and the latter likened to a strong, simple,
and often sombre foster-mother. Both forms are
native to China, but the lack of any treatise upon
them, in either Chinese or Japanese, leaves us in the
dark concerning their early hislory. We only know
that when the craftsmen of the Island Empire first
gave themselves to the process, they naturally
chose the form in which they could most fluently
express their art-ideals, quite regardless of technical
difficulties. As Mr. Percival Lowell has well said,
with the native of Japan art so permeates and
pervades his whole being as to be to him “not so
much a conscious matter of thought as an uncon-
scious mode of thinking.” We cannot imagine
those unexcelled metal-workers of the old regime,
DR. OWRE S
COLLECTION
with their unconscious taste
and immense technical ver-
satility, hesitating as to
which of the two forms
they should adopt.
The oldest cell enamels
from Chinese hands, so far
as we have reliable knowl-
edge of them, date from
the early Ming Dynasty.
This succession was estab-
lished some two hundred
and thirty-five years before
the Tokugawa Shogunate
in Japan, and lapped over
into it forty years, or until
1644. During the latter
part of this long period,
the Chinese workers put
forth excellent enamels.
Earlier, their results are
distinctly primitive; the de-
signs are coarse, the work-
manship inaccurate, the
bases heavy, and the enam-
els imperfectly distributed
and fired. The colours,
however, excepting results
of imperfect firing, are beautiful—chiefly very
dull, deep reds, turquoise blues emerging into
greens, and often yellows, and white and black.
The two rare
gourd-shaped «
altar vessels
shown in illus-
tration belong
to this early
period.
During the
Tsing Dynasty
(1645 to the
present), the
successor of the
Ming, m u c h
more refine-
ment has been
introduced i n
design and exe-
c u t i o n, and
colours have
become more
varied. In
many pieces of Chinese incense burner
this period, middle period champleve
lxiv