PAIN riNd. The art of painting, in a large and complete sense, is known to have existed in very early times. It is evident from history and legend that the artistic painting of the epoch already al luded to as that of the Ilan Dymisty was descrip tive, emblematic, decorative in a large tray as well as in minute refinement. and the subject of great. admiration and care among the learned of the country. The stories about. the early paint ers bear a curious resemblance to the stories about the Greek painters of the great epoch. We have the paintings of a somewhat later time in great abundance, and their relation to the earlier ones is known to be close. _Native and Japanese engravings and woodcuts preserve for its the eompositions of Chinese pictures of the Eighth Century A.n., and prints from these are not in accessible. The saine extraordinary power of ex pressing with a few lines the important artistic facts of a landscape, of a flying bird or of a group of flowers, :uid the same inadequate draw ing of the human form and of the higher orders of quadrupeds that have become familiar to us in more recent .Japanese art, are noticeable in these ancient works. Change and the development of one style from another are as familiar in the far East as in Europe, and as easily noted by those who make a special study of them; but to the observer who is accustomed to European art alone the modifications are not very noticeable. All fine art is based upon a series of conventions; and to many Europeans who have grown familiar with the eonventions of Eastern art these seem even less fixed and absolute and are aeeepted more readily than those of Europe. Thus the erroneous idea that "the Chinese don't under stand perspective" is based upon an assumption that the perspective of European painting is actually correct. In like manner the absence of east shadows in Chinese painting's gives a false idea of the art to those persons who are unaware of the like avoidance of shadows in European art. There are none in book-illumination, none in the painted miniatures from the Eighth to the Fif teenth Century, :ind none in glass-painting even of the richest and most elaborate sort. Modern mural paintings are often so composed in form and color as to avoid the appearance of shadow.
Sell Ipture. in China, is identified with movable pieces, of decorative effect, more than with arehiteetural enrichment or with close represent at ion of nature. Wood-carving and elabo rately wrought in clay, which is after wards tired, and the surfaces painted and glazed, are carried to a refinement unknown in Europe. The earring of hard stones, like jade and rock crystal, and soft stones like opaque. veined tale and steatite, and of ivory, is an art especially identified with China. .lade carvings are of great elaboration, as where a single piece containing 25U cubic inches is wrought into two complete vases, side by side and separated from one an other, except as leaves and twigs, all cut out of the solid mass, connect them.
The bronze industry is closely connected with sculpture, for it is the extreme skill of the modeler which has made the Chinese bronzes famous. Vases are preserved which are undoubt edly two thousand years old; but the production of large and small pieces ha- never ceased. A
little figure four inches high, as of a priest or a worshiper. will be full of movement and energy, and of pathetic or humorous expression; and in like manner the basin of a fountain six feet across and half as deep will be a single casting, perfectly formed and flawless.
AremEo ARTS. In China the arts of molding and baking clay and of adorning the objects so made by painting is of unknown antiquity, but pieces exist which can with safety be dated several hundred years B.C. The famous and peculiarly Chinese discovery of porcelain (q.v.), which is nothing more than pottery made from a peculiar clay and with a peculiar glaze, although claimed by Chinese authori ties for an epoch many hundred years B.c., cannot be definitely fixed before A.D. 960, al though there is no doubt that it was known be fore that time. From that time on till the Four teenth Century it is thought that decoration in color was applied only in the glaze covering the whole surface or large parts of the surface: but, of course. no such assertion can be verified. During the Ming Dynasty, beginning in 136S, toe full glory of Chinese painted decoration on ceramic ware, and especially on porcelain, was reached. The method of decoration is briefly this: upon the partly baked or slightly baked body of the piece, painting is done in one of several shades of blue, that being the only color which will bear the heat of the furnace to which it is to he exposed. This being fired, the glaze is applied over the blue painting, and the piece may then be finished. It is, however, common to paint the piece again, upon the glaze, with enamel colors, that is to say, colors which will fuse at. a much lower heat than that of the original and the later firing already described, and which, moreover, are more or less translucent in their nature. Thus a fine Chinese bowl will have two systems of decoration eombined into one polychromatic design. the blue shows through the glaze and acts as the outline or skeleton of the design, and upon this and mingled with it is an elaborate pattern in red, green, yellow, each of several tints. This pattern is graded not only by the difference in the color, hut also by the amount of heat to which it has been exposed, and again, by the greater or less thickness of the coat or bed of semi-translucent color through which the bluish white surface of the glaze itself is seen. To persons who have studied other ceramic art: of great importance, and especially the art of Persia, the painted 'overglaze' decora tion of even the finest Chinese vases and tiles seems hard. The outlines are uncompromising; the flower is raised a little above the smooth sur face around it, and its edge leaves no doubt as to the place of Is-ginning of the colored surface which stands for a petal or leaf. This. in con trast with the exquisite clouded gradations of the finest Persian wares, seems cold and formal to many European students. The coarser potteries of China are free from this fault, but they have been little studied ill Europe.