CHINESE PORCELAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 174, 25 July 1932, Page 3

CHINESE PORCELAIN.

SYMBOLICAL DECORATION. Much interest was shown in the lecture on "Chinese Pottery and Porcelains," given at the Auckland War Memorial Museum yesterday afternoon by Captain Humphries-Davies. It was one of the series arranged in connection with the exhibition of Chinese and Japanese ceramic art that is being held in the Museum. The collection of rare pieces of Oriental pottery and porcelain has long been a hobby in Europe, and sometimes astonishing prices arc given for choice specimens. The lecturer instanced a Chinese ginger jar in London that brought £8000. Explaining the decorations on Chinese porcelain, the lecturer pointed out that many of the subjects were taken from the three chief religions of the country, and until the industry became commercialised all the decoration used was symbolic. Many of the designs that appear merely conventional to the Occidental have a hidden and often charming meaning to the Oriental. The lines on a blue ground meant the breaking of the ice with the advent of spring, and the flowering hawthorn, also a popular subject in jar decoration, was another symbol of the springtime. The peach was symbolic of immortality. The pine tree, the bamboo and the plum tree symbolised enduring friendship—the pine because it was always green, the bamboo because it sprang up immediately it was cut down and the plum because it blossomed in winter. A significant feature of the work of the great ceramic artists in China was that it was all anonymous, the artist working for the honour of the dynasty and not for personal fame.