20 Introduction. 



analytic method, Chinese archaeology and art -history is not so easy 

 as it may appear to the outsider from some popular books and light 

 essays to which the public has been treated in recent years by authors 

 who, light-minded, take everything in a storm, because they are unable 

 to recognize the complexity and weight of a problem. "To sit on 

 the bottom of a well, and to say that Heaven is small," curtly remarks 

 a Chinese proverb. I utterly fail to see of what avail it is to us to 

 build the roof before the ground-pillars, of what advantage all these 

 discussions on subjective evolutions of motives, on analysis of style 

 and esthetics of Chinese art will be in the long run, as long as we do 

 not know the solid basis, the meaning and history of these motives, 

 and as long as such phantoms will be easily destroyed by every serious 

 investigation. For certainly not by intuition or opinions derived 

 from a general or vague knowledge of art can we hope to reach the goal, 

 but only by the most absorbed method of research consulting the views, 

 traditions and sentiments of those people who created the monuments 

 which we desire to understand. 



First of all, we must understand the works of Chinese art, before 

 we can judge them, and that is the most difficult side of the question. 

 Certainly, I am not an advocate of seclusion or monopolization. A 

 sound open-door policy in this field carried out in a fair-minded spirit 

 of sympathetic cooperation would be a desirable and refreshing pro- 

 gram which may lead to fruitful results. The field is new and wide, 

 and there is room for many platforms. A sane and whole-hearted 

 exposition of any Chinese subject through an experienced art-student 

 will always be welcome; a fair and impartial criticism or suggestion 

 of an outsider or newcomer to this branch of science may prove as a 

 stimulus to greater efforts. We are all inquirers and seekers for the 

 truth, and everybody has to learn, and everybody is liable to commit 

 errors where the field is virgin. But dictatorial positiveness of judg- 

 ment based on insufficient material and facts is surely detrimental 

 to the good cause. 



In this paper, antique objects of jade are dealt with in so far as 

 they are living realities, being represented by palpable specimens in 

 Chinese collections or in our own. Numerous jade objects are men- 

 tioned in the ancient texts, none of which, however, have survived. 

 These should be taken up, whenever necessity arises and such objects 

 will actually be discovered. Thus, we hear e. g. of jade and other 

 stone mirrors 1 and screens, and even of jade shoes discovered in ancient 



1 Stone mirrors were known in ancient Peru, but no specimen exists in any 

 museum. In Yuan y Ulloa's Voyages (Vol. I, p. 482) the following is on record: 

 "Stone mirrors are of two sorts. One of the ' Ynca stone,' the other of the gallinazo 

 stone. The former is not transparent, of a lead color, but soft. They are generally 



