148 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
POPPIES CONVENTIONALLY TREATED 
FEW realize what beautiful effects can be obtained by treat- 
ing flowers in a conventional manner. Look at a cloi- 
sonne vase for instance, decorated with Fleur-de-lis. The 
body of the vase will be a solid color, a green grey or a blue 
grey, or may be white or fawn color. The flower grows up 
from the base in a perfectly natural manner, but treated in flat 
tones with shading in simple masses, perhaps only one flower 
and bud and a few leaves on one side of the vase, the rest just 
a simple, beautiful color. There is nothing more restful and 
satisfying. Now here are two ways of seeing Poppies. The 
simple, natural drawing of the single flower by M. Verneuil, 
and the fantastic but graceful double Poppy of Habert Dys. 
M. Verneuil's drawing adapts itself perfectly to the Japanese 
treatment of a vase. Take a brown ground shading to fawn 
color, or a solid color if preferred, use two shades of green on 
leaves, stems, and buds, and for the Poppies, a pink, red or 
crimson, as preferred, or make your Poppy yellow or mahogany 
or blue if you want to. You do not have to confine yourself 
to nature entirely in a conventional treatment as long as you 
get a pleasing and not incongruous effect. You would not 
make a green flower, for as a rule green is confined to foliage, 
but if you are treating the design in monochrome you can use 
any color in the universe. In this manner of treatment you 
will need outlines. Gold will give a cloisonne effect, but 
black or any harmonizing color will be almost more interesting, 
especially if you treat the design in lustres instead of china 
colors. The Poppies by Habert Dys would make a fine border 
for a punch bowl by simply continuing the design and repeating 
it. If you wish to try them in lustres a most gorgeous effect 
can be obtained by painting the Poppies with Rose and Ruby 
for the first fire and going over them with Orange in the 
second. The Rose will then be mahogany and the Ruby 
scarlet. With these put in a few yellow and orange Poppies 
for variety and because the bit of different color rests the eye. 
Try a few different flowers in a conventional way, and we are 
sure you will be delighted with the result. 
"ARTISTIC JAPAN" 
Ph. Burty in " Artistic Japan. " 
THAT the Japanese have the true love of art, and are col- 
lectors and connoisseurs as well, is shown from a book 
describing ceremonies of the tcka-jins. These ceremonies are 
especially interesting in the volumes devoted to vases of Japa- 
nese earth, to designs of forty-seven tea-pots, to old and new 
porcelain, to Chinese cups of the tem-inoker epoch, to Sou-take 
porcelain, to iron kettles for the tclia-no-yu. 
It may be imagined of what an interest, historical, tech- 
nological, etc., a translation would be. In a partial transla- 
tion of the chapter of the forty-seven tea-pots, we read that 
the isoiin-nason (and many of them) belonged to His Majesty 
the Shogoun. A tsJioji-boro is preserved in the temples of 
Nara. The dimensions are given as well as the color and the 
thickness of the enamels. The smallest manufactures are 
indicated. 
A prince desires a piece so beautiful, so unique, that the 
dealer thinks he will keep it for his own collection. Two 
years go by; the prince returns, obtains it at the price of 
gold and sends it to a friend, etc. This partially shows to 
what an incredible degree the love of the curious prevailed 
with this aristocracy. 
Now about the tclia-no-yu itself. The primitive regula- 
