CHAPTER X

MIRABILIA

MANY strange things are recorded by the early Chinese writers in connection with pottery and porcelain, and the tales are solemnly repeated from book to book, though occasionally a less credulous author adds some such comment as "This may be true, or, on the other hand, it may not." It is difficult, however, entirely to discredit the serious and circumstantial account given by a provincial governor of a curious custom which prevailed in his district. Fan Ching-ta, who was appointed administrator in Kuang-si in 1172, tells[286] us that "the men of Nan (-ning Fu) practise nose-drinking. They have pottery vessels such as cups and bowls from the side of which stands up a small tube like the neck of a bottle. They apply the nose to this tube and draw up wine or hot fluids, and in the summer months they drink water. The vessels are called nose-drinking cups. They say that water taken through the nose and swallowed is indescribably delicious. The people of Yung Chou have already recorded the facts as I have done. They grow a special kind of gourd for the purpose." Another extract from the same writer's works alludes to "drums with contracted waist" made of pottery in the villages of Lin-kuei and Chih-t´ien. The village people made a speciality of the manufacture of this pottery (_yao_), and baked it to the correct musical tone. On the glaze, we are told, they painted red flower patterns by way of ornament. The allusion to painting in red on the glaze at this early period is interesting, but it is quite likely that the designs were only in some unfired pigment.

Some of the stories may be regarded merely as figurative descriptions of the superhuman skill of the artist in rendering "life-movement." Thus we are told[287] of "four old porcelain (_tz´ŭ_) bowls painted with coloured butterflies. When water was poured in, the butterflies floated on the surface of the water, fluttering about as if alive." It was an unnatural proceeding for butterflies in any case, and we can quite understand why "those who saw this, all maintained secrecy and did not divulge it."

A somewhat similar poetic licence is taken by the same author in another passage with reference to certain cups and bowls, apparently of the Sung dynasty, which were found in the K´ang Hsi period on the site of an old temple. "The bowls had a minute wave pattern which moved and undulated as in a picture by Wu Tao-tzŭ. As for the cups, when a little water was poured into them four fishes arose out of the sides and swam and dived."

But most curious of all were the Chinese views on the subject of "furnace transmutations" (_yao pien_) and the fables which sprang from them. At the present day the strange behaviour of metallic oxides, notably copper, under certain firing conditions, is well known and turned to good account. But in early times, when the unexpected happened, and a glaze which contained an infinitesimal quantity of copper oxide was accidentally subjected to an oxidising or reducing atmosphere in the kiln (by the admission of air or smoke at the critical moment), instead of coming out a uniform colour, was streaked and mottled all over with red, green and blue, or locally splashed with crimson or mixed colour, the potters saw in the phenomenon something supernatural. It was a terrifying portent, and on one occasion, we are told, they broke the wares immediately, and on another they even destroyed the kilns and fled to another place.

However, the irregular formation of the Chinese kilns greatly favoured these accidental effects, and in time they became comparatively common, so that these true "furnace transmutations" were taken for granted; and though they were not clearly understood before the end of the K´ang Hsi period, fairly rational explanations of them were offered by some of the late Ming writers. Thus the curious splashes of contrasting colour which appeared on the Kuan, Ko and Chün wares were attributed to the "fire's magical transmutation."

In these cases only a partial transmutation had taken place, affecting the glaze alone. But the idea of transmutation in the fire was carried farther in the Chinese imagination, and stories grew of cases in which "the vessel throughout was changed and became wonderful." Su Tung-p´o has, for instance, left a poem on a vase organ, in the preface of which it is related[288] that in the year 1100 A.D., "while they were drinking at a farewell banquet to Liu Chi-chung, they heard the sounds of an organ and flute," and that on investigation "it was discovered that the sounds came out of a pair of vases, and that they stopped when the meal was over." Another story of the Sung dynasty tells of a wonderful basin in which the moisture remaining after it had been emptied displayed, when frozen, a fresh pattern every day. At first it was a spray of peach blossom, then a branch of peony with two flowers, then a winter landscape, "with water and villages of bamboo houses, wild geese flying, and herons standing upon one leg."

The story of the "self-warming cups" told by an early Sung writer[289] evidently belongs to the realm of pure fiction: "In the treasury of T´ien Pao (742 A.D.) there were green (_ch´ing_) ware (_tz´ŭ_) wine cups with markings like tangled silk. They were thin as paper. When wine was poured into them it gradually grew warm. Then it had the appearance of steaming, and next of boiling. Hence the name 'self-warming cups.'"

Scarcely less marvellous is the incident recorded in the _Yü chang ta shih chi_, written about 1454.[290] "At the time when the temple of the god (of pottery) was in existence, an Imperial order was given to Ching-tê Chên to make a wind-screen; but it was not successful, and was changed in the kiln into a bed six feet long and one foot high. At the second attempt it was again changed and became a boat three feet long. Inside the boat were the various fittings all complete. The officials of the prefecture and district all saw it. But it was pounded to pieces with a pestle, for they did not dare to let it go to court." Another story[291] tells how Chia and I (John Doe and Richard Roe) when hunting were led in pursuit of a wounded hare into an ancient tomb in the mountains, where they found a large jar containing two white porcelain vases and an ink slab. Chia broke one of the vases, but I stopped any further vandalism and carried the other specimens home. He used the vase for flowers, but for several days he noticed "an, emanation from within issuing from the _Yin yün_ (generative power of nature) like a vapour of cloud." Being puzzled, he tried plucking the stalks of the flowers, and "found that they contained no moisture, and yet the plants did not wither. Moreover, the buds kept strong, as if they had rooted in the clay of the vase. So he began to be astonished at the vase, regarding it as a kind of _yao pien_. One day, during a great storm of wind and rain, suddenly there was a flash and a peal of thunder, and the vase was shaken to pieces. I was very much alarmed and distressed."

The _Yang hsien ming hu hsi_ speaks of instances in which the Yi-hsing teapots were affected in a peculiar way, the ware changing from drab to rosy red when filled with tea; and we have already seen that Hsiang Yüan-p'ien illustrates in his Album examples of this, which he solemnly assures us he would not have believed had he not seen it happen before his eyes. In all these cases the ware was supposed to have been completely changed in the kiln and to have acquired supernatural properties. "The magic of the god had entered into the ware in the firing and had not left it."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 286: In the _Kuei hai yü hêng chih_, quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 2 verso.]

[Footnote 287: In the _Ning chai ts´ung hua_, quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 4.]

[Footnote 288: See _T´ao shuo_, Bushell, op. cit., p. 47.]

[Footnote 289: In the _Yün* hsien tsa chi_, quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 1 verso.]

[Footnote 290: Quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. viii., fols. 12 and 13.]

[Footnote 291: From the _Erh shih lu_, quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 15.]