“What people of our time find the hardest to
achieve is liveliness. Liveliness is like the
colours of a mountain, or the taste in water, or
the light on flowers, or the way a beautiful
woman looks. Even the master of discourse
cannot put down a single word about it; only
those with intuitive grasp can understand
it….”
Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610) in “On Chen Zheng-fu’s Collected Works, ‘Intuitive Grasp’”, trans. Stephen Owen (1)
The Wanli reign, 1573-1619, was a reign of extremes. At 47 years, it stood at that time as the second longest reign after that of the Emperor Wu Di of the Western Han. China’s population had doubled since the early years of the Ming. An economic boom was in progress. Luxuries from China were in demand all over the world, and the merchants who purveyed them grew wealthy and well able to indulge their own expensive tastes. This rich middle class could also educate itself well, and enjoyed among other things, the blossoming of a popular literature in the vernacular language.
One thing would mar this success. It would be from the political sphere that failure would come, to mark out the Wanli reign as the beginning of the end for the Ming dynasty.
The Wanli emperor ascended the throne when he was ten years old. A disciplined and astute minister, Zhang Zhuzheng, aided by the new Emperor’s mother, kept the dynasty on the straight and narrow during the boy’s minority. But after the death of this minister, Wanli found himself indifferent to the arduous demands of state, and withdrew, leaving matters largely in the hands of corrupt, vicious and extremely unpopular eunuchs, and bringing China’s famed administrative system practically to a halt. Wanli meanwhile devoted himself to luxury and fine living, spending lavishly on clothes and building projects and in support of his vast royal household. The size of the imperial orders for porcelain alone were staggering. To fulfil these orders, quality must have been sacrificed for quantity, if only for the sake of speed. And yet, pleasing results were certainly achieved, as in this small porcelain dish of yellow and aubergine enamels on a green background. Perhaps something of the spontaneity of the popular literature movement, supported by the scholar and poet Yuan Hongdao and his circle as a much needed antidote to the dead and dried-out classical literary tradition, was making itself manifest among the overworked artisans at Jingdezhen.
The dish’s central medallion depicts a vase containing two sprays of flowering tree-peony (mudan). Gone is the careful accuracy of Yongle period flower portraiture, and of the later Zhengde period which revived the style – blue and white scroll patterns carrying botanically correct blooms with not a petal out of place, so beloved by the Middle East. Here, the peonies and their leaves have been swept down by a production-line craftsman, into a crooked vase of doubtful perspective with lion-mask handles barely delineated. And yet the whole design falls into a graceful balance suggestive of pliant movement.
There is nothing static, either, in the vigorous twisting and flapping of the aubergine ribbons as they highlight the eight lucky symbols around the cavetto. When taken in conjunction with the six sprays of lingzhi fungus around the back of the dish (no aubergine here), the good fortune implied is almost palpable. The peony, known as ‘the king of flowers’ since Tang times, signifies wealth (fu) and honour (gui), and when combined with a vase, forms the rebus FU GUI PING AN – wealth, honour and peace.
These designs, and the Wanli reign mark upon the base, would have been first incised into the unfired clay, and the piece high-fired before the colours were added one at a time and the dish fired again; a technique experimental in the early Ming and now perfected. Two saucer dishes of this size (one 14.2 cm and the other 14.3 cm in diameter) and pattern, though with slightly less exuberant foliage and a more clearly defined fourth peony flower, are in the Baur Collection, and are illustrated by John Ayers (2).
A larger dish – about twice the diameter at 29.3 cm – of the same pattern is in the Percival David Collection at the British Museum, no. 755 (3). With more room available, we have been given an intricate and altogether leafier design. Three sprays of tree peony, each with a bloom, stand in a more home-grown altar-type vase with long neck, short globular body and lappet-shaped foot. Details such as bands of decoration, handles on either side of the mouth, and ruyi or lingzhi heads on the points of the lappet feet are visible. All around, delicate sprays of leaves curl and twine. Among the trefoil leaves of the tree peony one notices a different leaf, with a narrow or elliptical shape, and these can be traced back to branches with small, five-petalled flowers – the prunus.
On the sides, the long aubergine ribbons meander sinuously behind their lucky symbols, and on the reverse are eight large and detailed sprays of yellow lingzhi fungus – though in both cases the colours have slipped somewhat on this steep rim.
Prunus flowers add in the promise of longevity to the good luck messages. Emperor Wanli may have had a long reign, wealth a-plenty, and the honour due to his station; but peace was not to be his. His unpopular enforcers, the eunuchs, caused more and more civil unrest, and by 1620 the Manchus had occupied the far northeast of China – a sinister foretaste of what was to come.
Porcelain saucer dish; incised and enamelled.
Base with six character mark of Wanli (1573 - 1619 A.D.)
Diameter: 13.2cm.
Exhibited: Art Institute of Chicago, 1974;
Anthony Carter, London, 2000.
NOTES
(1): see Stephen Owen An Anthology of Chinese Literature, Beginnings to 1911 London/New York: W W Norton and Company 1996 p. 811
(2): see John Ayers The Baur Collection, Geneva 1969, vol. II nos. A206 and A207, each with six sprays of lingzhi fungus around the base.
(3): see Margaret Medley Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Polychrome Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art London: University of London 1966 p 14 and Plate V
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND FURTHER READING
Ann Paludan Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors London: Thames and Hudson 1998/2001
Jessica Harrison-Hall Ming Ceramics in the British Museum London: Trustees of the British Museum 2001
Jonathan Chaves Yuan Hung-tao, Pilgrim of the Clouds; poems and essays from Ming China New York/Tokyo: Weatherhill 1978
Stephen Owen An Anthology of Chinese Literature, Beginnings to 1911 London/New York: W W Norton and Company 1996