BOOKS.
A GOSSIP ABOUT CHINA.*
WiT11 a new book about china on our table, we feel at once on the holiday side of life. What is more delightful than to have a mania, and what is more attractive than a china mania ? At once wo are absorbed. Every faculty is in use. Our love of science is gratified by the definition of its paste and glaze, our love of beauty by its form and colour, while possibilities of spending money and surpassing our neighbours add zest to the pursuit. What is it in china that gives its lovers such keen delight P Perhaps it is the hope of defining the pleasure that inclines us to welcome The Ceramic Art, by Jennie J. Young. it is written by an American lady, and the preface tells us that the author has attempted to condense the leading points of her subject into a comprehensive history in one volume. It is an ambitious attempt, and the success has not been great. Those who are familiar with Marryat's History of Pottery and Porcelain will find little that is new in it. Page after page is almost a transcript of the .earlier work, until we are tempted to ask whether it was by Mr. Marryat's leave that the present book was compiled. At the same time, the author leaves out much that Mr. Marryat puts in The book is singularly poor, for example, upon many branches of the art that possess groat interest; notably English and German ware, including the large field of Delft. No doubt Miss Young is chiefly interested in what appeals to the American taste, but to write a comprehensive history of china, it is necessary to take a more scientific and cosmopolitan view of the subject. The parts of the book that are clearly the author's own, we generally differ from. The aims she puts before the Ceramic Art are quite oat of place. She would hope, apparently, to make it the ultimate medium of all painting. China is per- manent in form and colour; therefore, a picture ou china is preferable to one on canvas or fresco. Mr. Ruskin is quoted in support of this view, but we cannot think Mr. Ruskin really desired that china should be made the medium of painting of the class of Turner's. It is perhaps impossible to prove why china should be content with a less ambitious aim, and Della Robbia ware might be cited as an instance of how much has been attained in the line of figure-painting and modelling on a large scale. But beautiful as this ware is, it does not appear to us so satisfactory as less ambitious at- tempts. Probably the reason lies a good deal in the fact of the glaze, but china without glaze becomes, to all practical intents, the same as plaster or canvas, and loses the distinctive mark of china.
Without, however, dwelling on the ultimate possibilities of the ceramic art, china has a place in the lives of human beings of the most varied and permanent kind. In our lowest as well as our highest pleasures we find ourselves un- able to do without china. From the sung of childhood, fresh from Ramsgate or Margate, to the &Isms or Chelsea vase, that fetches its thousands at Christie's, and gives the latest orna- ment to the collection Painting the virtuoso, china meets our most
varied requirements. Painting on fresco and canvas may bring the actual artists, in their highest imagination and realisation of human interest, more vividly before us ; but we i may fail to catch the inspiration, or understand the meaning. China, with its vivid colours, its delicate paste, its perfect
forms, insinuates itself into our daily life, and refines and cultivates without our being aware. The delicious smooth- ness of the fine glaze, the delicate transparency of the thin paste, the quaint designs of natural or conventional colouring, teach without preaching. The uses to which. most china was put carry us back to the home-life of the past. What is more gently stimulating than this ? The possibilities of a future lie in a tea-cup. The asithetic colouring of a whole life-time has been given before now front the chance vision of a lovely tea-service. The old cabinet containing the china of our grandmothers has fostered the love of home and all its possible adornments. Life is made happy
Tim Ceramic Art. By Jennie J. Young. Loader: 7.'aulpaou Low and Co. 1879.
by small joys and small ambitions, and we have known some years of a hard-worked life enlivened by a successful effort to collect two-handled cups. It is a sad day when a hobby dies, and if that hobby is china, it has a better chance of living than many, for its possibilities are endless. All tastes can be met. The man of science and research can go in for specimens of paste and enamels, the antiquarian may collect the moulded history of our ancestors, the lovers of beauty can revel in form and colour, and even the aspirants after originality and ugliness will find the gratification of their taste a comparatively easy task. Surely china may rest con- tent with such a varied field, without trying to compete with the higher arts. In many ways it is more fit to compare the ceramic art with that of needlework or lace-making. Both are essentially humble arts. In both it is well not to attempt to copy nature too closely. It is the comparative conventionality of Chinese and Japanese painting that gives its lasting charm to those particular wares. Nothing can be more detestable in taste than the lilies and roses that adorned the cushions and chairs of a generation hardly gone by. They aimed at looking as if they were picked from the garden, and the nearer to a resemblance to nature they arrived, the more hideous they became. When will people remember that certain effects can only lie produced in certain mediums P Nature is too complex to do more than caricature herself, when copied too closely upon a vase or a curtain. This is most amusingly illus- trated by some of the china now made under American patron- age. We hope that it is only an indiscriminating admiration of her country's efforts that has led Miss Young to commend some of this work so highly. One of the specimens is a plate adorned with a marriage-picture, which she describes as " an appropriate wedding-gift to an artist's daughter." The dis- tance toward which the happy pair are walking "is rose-hued, and the church-spire and foliage partake of the effect. Roses are strewn along the path. A heavy, knotted white sash forms a curtain, and encloses the scene. Above, in a lunette of dark blue bordered with white pearls, is a golden-haired Cupid, holding a box of wedding-cake, with the names of the lady and gentleman on the lid,"—One of which, by the way, is the appro- priate name of Baker. Miss Young sums up the description by saying that "the plate is remarkable, both as a work of art, and for the delicate manner in which, as a gift, it conveys the congratulations and good-wishes of the giver." We knew we lived in an age that is very jealous of any gracious illu- sion, however small, but we did not think it necessary for the cause of positive truth that a bridegroom, when represented on a plate, should wear a chimney-pot hat. The lady, too, carries a parasol, which is strictly consistent with the glare of colour that must meet her eyes in the distance, but is any- thing but a graceful object in the middle of a plate; and if the proportions of the rest of the picture be considered, the box of wedding-cake can only be described as a trunkful, supported iu the arms of a very small cherub. If there is to be no limit to what can be legitimately painted on china, and we have in the future to eat off realistic plates, let us at once reconsider the whole question of our dress, or else return humbly to the wisdom of the ancients, and confine ourselves to mere form and geometrical lines in our ceramic art. There is an energetic movement going on, both in England and America, in the direction of pottery and porcelain manu- facture, but if a specimen like the one described is con- sidered a successful effort, the art is going altogether on wrong Miss Young devotes a good deal of her book to modern work, but most of the china of the present day lacks the dis- tinctive characteristics which make the china of one age in- teresting to the age that comes after. It is not beautiful, and it has ceased to be associated with individual industry. A great deal of it is merely a vulgar imitation of what can never he copied too closely if it is to look well on china, and we do not associate the work with painstaking artists.
The legitimate taste for china-collecting should spring either from a love for representative china, or for china that satisfies the sense of beauty in the mind of the col- lector. What makes representative china so keenly inter- esting is the sense of personal work in the making of each piece. The potters of the past were generally men of small origin, who led hard lives, and created their work piece by piece, in the face of adverse circumstances and under great difficulties of construction. Knowing little of geology or chemistry, they fought their way from the sun-dried clay to the complicated substance of the finest porcelain. Only a few of them came to fame, but like so much of the art of bygone days, their work has the stamp of individuality upon it, and it is this individuality that gives to each delicate cup and vase its in- trinsic interest. All questions of collection, however, are in a great measure a matter of fashion, and the last few years have seen a marked decline iu china-collecting. Nothing has taken its exact place. Much of the late mania for china was part of a sort of spurious renaissance for everything belonging to the eighteenth century ; all taste was at a low ebb, and the power to improve that taste partook of the want of vitality which was beginning to show itself. Disgust was felt at the dullness and ugliness of our surroundings, but the power of producing original and lovely forms in art seemed gone from us, Naturally people fell back upon the past. A bond of sym. pathy, in many ways, linked us on to the eighteenth cen• tury. Much of the thought of the present day is a natural outcome of seed sown at the end of the last century. The tastes also of that century might become our own. To find interests ready to hand suited a generation that can de• stray but not create, can admire, but lacks the energy and enthusiasm that leads men to strike out fresh lines of taste for themselves. Like all renaissance which is merely revival, it is bound to die, and the real enthusiasm of the present generation shows itself in lawn-tennis. To work hard with mind and body is a good preventive of reflection on what mind and body are tending to. Cau we wonder that the present generation finds in a game which can be played for seven hours at a stretch a perfect menus to kill that time which over-wrought brains and saddened hearts might otherwise fill with questionings to which the answers are anything but pleasant? To be a true lover of china, requires the love of repose, of gentle memories, of humble but steclfast aspiration,—three things that are eminently lacking in the present day.
We began by saying that a book on china suggested a holi- day. Like many holidays, it has been unduly long. It may fitly end with a word of thanks to Miss Young for the concise form in which she has arranged her chapters on construction, and for the numerous and excellent engravings that illustrate the volume.
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