Ru, not Jun

On my frequent visits to London I have established an unshakable ritual of paying at least one restorative visit to the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies at the British Museum (Room 95), now home of the Sir Percival David Collection—a room of incomparable beauty and intelligent display. There is always something new and fascinating to learn there, but last week I was struck by the extreme dangers of overzealous connoisseurship.

My old friend the Qianlong Emperor (1736–1795) was a passionate collector of Chinese antiquities and objets d’art, and, like many connoisseurs before and since, regarded his taste and knowledge as rather more unassailable than they actually were. For example, the Emperor treasured this superb bowl, a masterpiece of so-called Ru ware from Qingliangsi, Baofeng county, Henan province, a product of the marvelous Northern Song dynasty, ca. 1086–1125. Ru has long been prized as the unrivaled apogee of the long tradition of Chinese porcelain manufacture. These stonewares, of which not even fifty examples have survived outside the kiln sites (the majority in England), emanated from a small handful of kilns near the Northern Song capital of Kaifeng that were exclusively devoted to the production of objects for the Imperial court. The master potters who worked there, unknown artists of real genius, produced slightly underfired (1,200–1,250 degrees Centigrade) pale grey stoneware forms of incomparable sophistication, to which were applied comparatively thick Celadon glazes of flawless consistency ranging in color from nearly white to a deep robin’s egg greenish-blue, which, when re-fired, produced a fine and miraculously consistent craquelure. If you want to torture a Chinese porcelain specialist, express much admiration for Ru ware but then ask them what can be done to fix all the little cracks.

The Qianlong Emperor’s instinct for quality was right on the mark, but unfortunately he concluded that his bowl was an exemplum not of Ru but of Jun ware. (Although Jun ware was also produced for the Northern Song court, the Emperor should have known it looked quite different from Ru, being covered with rather less subtle turquoise and purple glazes, at times so thick and unctuous that they seem held in the process of melting away from the golden–brown underglazes.) In any event, Qianlong wrote a poem in praise of the quality of Jun ware, and had it skillfully (and indelibly) incised on the inside of the bottom of his Ru bowl—it is definitely there, but unfortunately not visible in my inferior photograph. I fancy he had the gold rim added too. (Qianlong had a soft spot for gold, indeed basically anything flamboyant.) The characters translate thus:

Jun wares were all produced at the Xiuneisi [Palace Maintenance Office]. Many dishes have survived but bowls are difficult to find. In the palace alone are stored well-nigh a hundred dishes. Yet bowls are as rare as stars in the morning. What is there, forsooth, for which a cause cannot be found? Large bowls are difficult to preserve, small dishes easy. In this I find a moral and a warning. The greater the object, the heavier the task of its care. Composed by Qianlong in the cyclical year bingwu [the equivalent of AD 1786], and inscribed by imperial order.

All of this is true, but sadly not of the bowl in question. Which, I suppose, just goes to show you that it is far better not to carve your opinions into something that might some day turn out not to be what you were for whatever reason convinced it was. Wall labels and catalogue entries are far safer, and more easily corrected.

Sir Percival David at the British Museum

Upon much reflection it seems to me that among the hardest aesthetic qualities to describe in words are the instinctive judgment of shape, feeling for pure form, and exactness of proportion that characterize the very greatest Chinese ceramics—much harder still because of the unique combination of overall simplicity of design, the complexity and exactness of decoration (actually indivisible from the form), and to some degree a paucity of absolute points of reference, other than neck, shoulder, body, and foot. By what miraculous process of learning and practical synthesis, for example, did the anonymous Qing dynasty artists of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province attain the astonishing result you see here? Look at the total assurance of that slightly upward swell in the body, the exquisite lines of the profile, so perfectly matched with the volume, and the daring contrapuntal harmonies of angled spout and slightly tapering handle in relation to the whole—not the slightest hint of any awkwardness or discontinuity at the joins. Look at that unctuous underglaze in the palest, almost imperceptible blue, not too glassy, not too dull, and fired with absolute evenness and consistency. Look at that brilliant crowning flourish of the shapely little handle on the perfectly sunken lid, with its intriguing hint, moreover, toward organic asymmetry at the joins. See how the maker and decorator work hand in glove to produce a seamless elision of shape and motif, ground and surface, branch and void. Those overglazed trees (rendered in doucai, the “interlocking colors” of sage green, eggplant, and brown) are the suihan sanyou, the “Three Friends of Winter,” in other words a pine, some stems of bamboo, and branches of prunus picked out so exactly in flecks of red enamel—the auspicious plum, the first blossoms to arrive after the Chinese new year. See the confidence with which those nervy clusters of lines, the principal decorative motifs, and the bold composition cleave not merely to each other with such effortless felicity, but to the defining shape of the finished vessel—a ewer, for domestic use, less than five and half inches tall. Lesser wares tossed to the export market in this period were by comparison skinny, lumpy, fussy, wobbly, crusty, or fat. This is the real thing, made expressly for someone who knew exactly how great it ought to be. If you had to define the highest achievements of human culture and civilization you could do far worse than to allow this little object to do all the talking. And the newly refurbished galleries in which you can see this and many other masterpieces of Chinese ceramic art from the collection of Sir Percival David in the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies at the British Museum are among the most thoughtfully arranged, and, incidentally, beautiful that I have seen for many years. Two weeks afterwards the small hairs on the back of my neck are still standing on end, and refuse to stop tingling. There is a wholly intriguing remark at the beginning of the second sentence of Regina Krahl’s essay in the museum’s elegant new “highlights” publication. About the original scholar–collector Sir Percival David, second baronet, a member of the wealthy Sassoon banking family, who died in 1964, she writes: “Little is known about his personal or professional life.” Given the scale and quality of his achievement, and that of his partner and amanuensis, Lady David, I wonder how on earth this is possible?