rendering of natural objects, the Chinese artist has succeeded in doing what has never been accomplished by any European painter on porcelain.
In decoration of this kind, however, only the very best work pleases; in anything below this we get at once to what is vulgar and trite; and the larger palette now at the painter’s command only makes it easier for him to produce the unpleasant combinations of colours so frequent in the wares exported from China after the end of the eighteenth century. On the other hand, the older painters, confined to their three or at most five colours, seldom fail to produce an agreeable effect, however roughly their colours are daubed on.
In the _genre_ scenes, as in the case of the flower pieces, a realistic tendency is prominent. We have no longer the Taoist saints or the hunting and battle pieces of earlier times, but delicately executed interiors with graceful figures of girls arranging flowers or painting fans, or again, landscapes with men travelling by road or by river. There is a refinement of colour and a charm of drawing and composition in the better specimens of this somewhat effeminate school that appeals to every one. It is difficult for us to find any marked European influence in the designs of this time, and yet these pictures are classed by the Chinese as European in style; and it is not quite clear whether this refers only to the enamel colours employed or to the manner of drawing as well. Most of the work of this kind was doubtless made for the European market and painted at Canton. But is this the case with the finest examples? Kien-lung himself was, it would seem, no despiser of this carefully decorated ware. A poem of his composition, signed with the vermilion seal, is often found on this egg-shell porcelain.
On some of the most highly finished of the little cups and plates we find an elaborate scroll decoration in gold and sometimes in silver; and in these designs we may perhaps trace the influence of the baroque style in vogue at this time in Europe.
Nien resigned his post when his master in the year 1735 had ‘flown up to heaven like a dragon,’ and the new emperor, Kien-lung, appointed in his place Tang-ying, who had long served under him. The new director was no less an enthusiast than his predecessor. He tells us in his memoirs--for he was a man of literary taste like his master, Kien-lung--that he served his apprenticeship with the workmen, sharing his meals and his sleeping-room with them, following in this the proverb which says ‘the farmer may learn something from his bondman, and the weaver from the handmaid who holds the thread for her mistress.’