This month's Arts of Asia magazine (May-June 2010) includes an interesting article on late Ming porcelain, entitled Hovering between orthodoxy and secularity: Ming Imperial ceramic wares of the Jiajing and Wanli periods, by Joan Y.H. Ho. The article is in connection with an exhibition at the University Museum in Hong Kong, curated by Ms Ho, which runs until May 23rd.
I will miss the exhibition unfortunately, not having any trips planned to Hong Kong before the 23rd, but this well-illustrated article makes up for this.
In her article Ms Ho discusses blue and white porcelain from the period in question, and also Wucai and monochrome ceramics from the same period. Wucai ("five color") enameled porcelain from this period is quite well-known to collectors, monochrome pieces perhaps less so. Ms Ho traces the evolution of late Ming designs and links the painted designs on blue and white ceramics to woodblock prints from the same period. Her juxtapositions of prints and painted ceramic designs are striking and convincing. Textile designs are also (correctly) cited as a source for blue and white porcelain patterns of this period.
Despite the outstanding items on display in the article (and in the exhibition), Ms Ho is strangely unenthusiastic about the decorated pieces that she is curating. She compares Jiajing and Wanli porcelain unfavorably with early Ming blue and white, which she regards as the high point for blue and white assigning to it "supremacy in artistic and technical achievement". On the achievements of the Jiajing and Wanli reigns she is rather unkind, describing the influence of the newly wealthy Chinese merchant class in the following terms :
Facing the impact of mercantilism in the late Ming period, the search for lofty objects of the spirit degenerated into the pursuit for mere material enjoyment. She goes on to accuse the late-Ming Chinese of extravagance, greed, pretension, the tendency to flaunt and wordly inclination. Strong stuff indeed. I had to check twice to confirm that she was talking about the late Ming and not Wall Street pre-2008, or Shanghai circa 2010. For the porcelain itself she has some equally tough words: arbitrary and stiff lines drawn in an exorbitant and complex manner on the wucai porcelain wares. Ouch.
Fortunately the ceramics illustrated in the Arts of Asia article tell a quite different story. They are charming. The decoration on these pieces is a cross-section of Chinese life and lore from the late Ming, including domestic scenes, boys at play, gardens, rocks, sages and scholars. All beautifully drawn in a lively and informal manner. I have reproduced two of my favorite pieces from the article here: the first picture is of a Jiajing period plate with a wonderfully restrained design of birds and a persimmon tree. The second is a detail from a large Wanli jar with the auspicous theme of 100 boys at play.
Ms Ho's views on the development of art and design during the Ming period are not uncommon, in fact they are conventional amongst many scholars. The central dogma can be summarized as follows:
Incidentally, If you substitute "Qing" for Ming in the above and "Kangxi" for Yongle/Xuande you will obtain a similar conventional view for the artistic production of the Qing dynasty.
These views on late Ming porcelain and art in general are not shared by all. I hope from the couple of pieces I have shown here that it will be apparent that the decoration on this porcelain is anything but stiff. It is true that the late Ming saw a large increase in blue and white porcelain production, much of it for non-Imperial clients, and with this increase came a wider range of quality and painting skills, including cheaper items for the aspiring merchant classes. But the best late Ming pieces hold a candle to any from earlier times. Painting skills were actually improved (in my view) by pieces being produced in greater numbers, since porcelain artists became increasingly fluent with repetition, something that is particularly important with Chinese brushwork skills.
Japanese collectors in particular "got it" many centuries ago, avidly collecting the blue and white from the late Ming and early Qing which they termed "ko sometsuke". They valued this porcelain precisely for its informality and liveliness. Wucai from the same period was collected in Japan for the same reason, and inspired potters in Kyoto to produce ware they called akai-e ("red ware"). Both types of ceramic were used extensively in the Japanese tea ceremony and are still produced and collected today, something that can come as a surprise to Westerners who are more familiar with the wabi-sabi tea ceremony aesthetic. These styles are a direct legacy of the late Ming, which was far more influential on Japanese ceramic designs than anything produced in the Yongle or Xuande reigns.
Returning to Ms Ho's article, she praises the simple and unpretentious style of the floral scroll pattern and Arabic patterns found on porcelain before the Jiajing and Wanli periods. In my view "pretentious" is not a word that I would apply to much porcelain, but if we are going to use it we would be more justified in labeling early Ming pieces as "pretentious", since these designs self-consciously imitate a non-Chinese (Arabic) style. Some of the strangest designs from this period even attempt to imitate Arabic calligraphy (badly). The Jiajing and Wanli decorative styles in contrast are the products of native Chinese artistic imagination, freed from the constraints of foreign forms and designs. They depict Chinese life and legend, and they are made by and for the people, albeit the newly wealthy merchant classes of the day. This is arguably more worthy of celebration than the adaptation of Middle Eastern designs.
Don't let any of my criticism put you off though ... both the article in Arts of Asia magazine and the exhibition are worthy of the attention of anyone with interest in Chinese ceramics, art or history.
Details of the exhibition are on The University of Hong Kong Museum website
I will miss the exhibition unfortunately, not having any trips planned to Hong Kong before the 23rd, but this well-illustrated article makes up for this.
In her article Ms Ho discusses blue and white porcelain from the period in question, and also Wucai and monochrome ceramics from the same period. Wucai ("five color") enameled porcelain from this period is quite well-known to collectors, monochrome pieces perhaps less so. Ms Ho traces the evolution of late Ming designs and links the painted designs on blue and white ceramics to woodblock prints from the same period. Her juxtapositions of prints and painted ceramic designs are striking and convincing. Textile designs are also (correctly) cited as a source for blue and white porcelain patterns of this period.
Despite the outstanding items on display in the article (and in the exhibition), Ms Ho is strangely unenthusiastic about the decorated pieces that she is curating. She compares Jiajing and Wanli porcelain unfavorably with early Ming blue and white, which she regards as the high point for blue and white assigning to it "supremacy in artistic and technical achievement". On the achievements of the Jiajing and Wanli reigns she is rather unkind, describing the influence of the newly wealthy Chinese merchant class in the following terms :
Facing the impact of mercantilism in the late Ming period, the search for lofty objects of the spirit degenerated into the pursuit for mere material enjoyment. She goes on to accuse the late-Ming Chinese of extravagance, greed, pretension, the tendency to flaunt and wordly inclination. Strong stuff indeed. I had to check twice to confirm that she was talking about the late Ming and not Wall Street pre-2008, or Shanghai circa 2010. For the porcelain itself she has some equally tough words: arbitrary and stiff lines drawn in an exorbitant and complex manner on the wucai porcelain wares. Ouch.
Fortunately the ceramics illustrated in the Arts of Asia article tell a quite different story. They are charming. The decoration on these pieces is a cross-section of Chinese life and lore from the late Ming, including domestic scenes, boys at play, gardens, rocks, sages and scholars. All beautifully drawn in a lively and informal manner. I have reproduced two of my favorite pieces from the article here: the first picture is of a Jiajing period plate with a wonderfully restrained design of birds and a persimmon tree. The second is a detail from a large Wanli jar with the auspicous theme of 100 boys at play.Ms Ho's views on the development of art and design during the Ming period are not uncommon, in fact they are conventional amongst many scholars. The central dogma can be summarized as follows:
- the peak of Ming blue and white porcelain, and much other art besides, occurred during the Yongle (1403-1424) and Xuande (1426-1435) reigns
- the best items were made for the Emperor and his court
- during the late Ming lots of commoners were able to buy luxury goods like porcelain too. They had money and questionable taste and so artistic production increased in volume but went down in quality.
Incidentally, If you substitute "Qing" for Ming in the above and "Kangxi" for Yongle/Xuande you will obtain a similar conventional view for the artistic production of the Qing dynasty.
These views on late Ming porcelain and art in general are not shared by all. I hope from the couple of pieces I have shown here that it will be apparent that the decoration on this porcelain is anything but stiff. It is true that the late Ming saw a large increase in blue and white porcelain production, much of it for non-Imperial clients, and with this increase came a wider range of quality and painting skills, including cheaper items for the aspiring merchant classes. But the best late Ming pieces hold a candle to any from earlier times. Painting skills were actually improved (in my view) by pieces being produced in greater numbers, since porcelain artists became increasingly fluent with repetition, something that is particularly important with Chinese brushwork skills.
Japanese collectors in particular "got it" many centuries ago, avidly collecting the blue and white from the late Ming and early Qing which they termed "ko sometsuke". They valued this porcelain precisely for its informality and liveliness. Wucai from the same period was collected in Japan for the same reason, and inspired potters in Kyoto to produce ware they called akai-e ("red ware"). Both types of ceramic were used extensively in the Japanese tea ceremony and are still produced and collected today, something that can come as a surprise to Westerners who are more familiar with the wabi-sabi tea ceremony aesthetic. These styles are a direct legacy of the late Ming, which was far more influential on Japanese ceramic designs than anything produced in the Yongle or Xuande reigns.
Returning to Ms Ho's article, she praises the simple and unpretentious style of the floral scroll pattern and Arabic patterns found on porcelain before the Jiajing and Wanli periods. In my view "pretentious" is not a word that I would apply to much porcelain, but if we are going to use it we would be more justified in labeling early Ming pieces as "pretentious", since these designs self-consciously imitate a non-Chinese (Arabic) style. Some of the strangest designs from this period even attempt to imitate Arabic calligraphy (badly). The Jiajing and Wanli decorative styles in contrast are the products of native Chinese artistic imagination, freed from the constraints of foreign forms and designs. They depict Chinese life and legend, and they are made by and for the people, albeit the newly wealthy merchant classes of the day. This is arguably more worthy of celebration than the adaptation of Middle Eastern designs.
Don't let any of my criticism put you off though ... both the article in Arts of Asia magazine and the exhibition are worthy of the attention of anyone with interest in Chinese ceramics, art or history.
Details of the exhibition are on The University of Hong Kong Museum website
