"There is considerable difficulty in distinguishing glazed vases of Chinese pottery from true porcelain, as the colored glaze in many cases conceals the material, and the thickness prevents their being translucent--a distinguishing quality of porcelain. The substance of many of the vases is coarse, sometimes gray or even red, and such as would, in European fabriques, be termed stone-ware. By Chinese writers, however, no distinction seems to be made, and even enamels on copper are included in the term they use for porcelain. It has, therefore, been thought best to class together glazed Chinese pottery and porcelain, though some of the specimens are undoubtedly stone-ware." The key to Oriental decoration may be expressed by the word _individualism_. The artist did draw from the "depths of his moral consciousness," and did not copy blindly. He seems to have expressed what he _felt_, rather than what he saw. His perception and arrangement of color seem to have been inspired, not learned. He is daring; he does not hesitate to hang his ladies in a balcony up in the air above the procession passing beneath, as may be seen in a very ancient vase belonging to Mrs. Gridley Bryant, of Boston; he does not fear to put blue leaves to his trees, or to make a green horse; his butterfly is as large as a man, if he wishes to show a figure or a mass of color; his boats are smaller than the passenger, if that suits his fancy; he attempts little perspective, and it is, we may say, impossible on a china bowl; symmetry he abhors; pairs do not exist. What is the result? We see it in the porcelain of China and Japan, the shawls and carpets of India, the pottery of the Persians and the Moors, the architecture of Karnak and the Alhambra, all of which are satisfying to the eye and to the taste. I believe they had no schools of art; they were not _taught_ to do what some one else had done, to copy a master or to copy Nature, or to think symmetry beauty, or the circle the perfect line. The artist was, as he ought to be, a law to himself; he saw what _he_ saw, and felt what _he_ felt, and he expressed these in his own way; not in Titian's way, or Rembrandt's way, or Giorgione's way. There is, therefore, a freedom, a freshness, an _abandon_ about this work that we find nowhere else, and a charm which never tires. We are intellectualists rather than artists; and, moreover, we are ruined by cheap and incompetent criticism, the whole gospel of which is, "Always condemn, never praise." Too much writing _about_ art and too little doing it, is the fashion of to-day; and he who does least finds most fault with him who creates. The artist is the creator, the critic the destroyer; and yet the last values himself most! The "third estate" did not rule in China. If _we_ are to have a true and high artistic expression, our artists, must dare; and we must allow them to dare; we must encourage rather than discourage.