CHINA
Chapter XII
CHINESE POTTERY
FROM what has been written in preceding chapters, it will be gathered that the distinction between pottery and porcelain in Chinese wares is not always so clearly marked as the amateur might anticipate. Between the extremes of hard-paste translucid porcelain and genuine pottery there are many varieties of soft-paste and stone-ware. In fact the keramist varied the composition of his pâte to suit the glaze he desired to apply to it. Even at an epoch when the processes of manufacturing hard-paste porcelain were thoroughly familiar to him, he preferred soft pâte, and sometimes stone-ware, as a ground for his choicest glazes or most delicate decoration. But though translucency and timbre were not points of special excellence in his estimation, he regarded pottery proper as a decidedly inferior product. Dr. Bushell writes thus:—"Tsu is defined in the older dictionaries as a fine, compact tao, pottery. It is distinguished from earthenware (wa) by the clear musical tone it gives when struck sharply with the finger nail. The term pottery, as with us, includes porcelain and earthenware, both glazed (liu—li-wa) and plain. Prince Kung, one day, admired a glazed Buddha from the
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