The Chinese have ideas of painting peculiar to themselves. They have little regard for perspective, and in ancient times had none whatever. Even so late as the seventeenth century perspective was at direct variance with the rules guiding their art. We can, for example, see vases--particularly those of the Ming Dynasty--in which the personages in a scene appear to be piled directly one above another, or mount stairs, like upright ladders, in order to reach other personages evidently some distance off, but as much in the foreground of the picture as those nearer at hand. Coming down less than half a century later, there is a change. In the Kien-long vase before given the view recedes, and the far-off hills are partially shrouded in shadowy vapor, which adds to the dimness of distance. The perspective is perfect. The change is, no doubt, due to European intercourse. We may, therefore, in cases of doubt derive from this feature a hint of the age of certain pieces. But how account for the older usage? It is said that, when shown the effect of perspective, the Chinese argued against it. There is not, and cannot be, distance on a flat surface, they said; therefore perspective is contrary to nature. They did not see that their art should take cognizance of the delusions of vision, and represent things as they _appear_, not as they _are_. To explain this farther, we have only to look at the Chinese practice in decorating porcelain. The painting is regarded as a purely mechanical process, and the same piece may pass through seventy or eighty different hands, each artist contributing his specialty to the general result, and knowing little or nothing of the subject as a whole. Can we wonder, then, that he did not learn to appreciate perspective, if he painted his figures without any idea of their relation to each other or to the rest of the composition? The most remarkable feature of the case is, that in this prejudice against perspective, and supposed constancy to nature, the Chinese artists take up an attitude altogether different from that in which they usually appear. Everywhere they give a free rein to fancy. They are perfectly unconscious of anomaly, or incongruity in, for instance, painting a stag yellow or a horse green. They paint birds, butterflies, flowers, in hues which nature never wore. Their taste for that harmony of tints which is the perfection of surface decoration demands the abnormal colors, and they never hesitate about using them. Their variety is as wonderful as the wealth of their resources. One may turn from a vase, representing the exercise of the most fearless and riotous fancy, to another in which the details are as realistic as the lizards of Palissy. Or, again, a vase which looks as though it might have been cut out of a precious stone, with no decoration but its inimitable color, may stand side by side with another covered with flowers so tenderly treated and delicately colored, that one is inclined to pronounce the