Ice and green clouds. Traditions of Chinese celadon. Exhibition held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and in other cities, Jan. 28, 1987-Mar. 27, 1988.

Einband leicht berieben. Kaschierung leicht defekt. - Chinese celadon wares have been admired by countless generations in many parts of the world. Their subtle green glazes evoke many images of natural beauty and challenge the skills of poets to describe them. The poet Xu Yin (active in the late ninth and early tenth centuries) refers to many of the elusive qualities of these wares in his verses on a bowl of so-called mise or "secret color" ware. "Secret color" is a name given to the finest products of the Yuc ware kilns in the ninth and tenth centuries to describe their pale bluish-green glaze. They represent the culmination of a long development of celadon wares in north-central Zhejiang province that had begun as early as the Eastern Zhou period. As Xu Yin notes, they can display at the same time the hard, brittle quality of thin ice and the soft depths of clouds and mist, and they also can seem as luminous as the moon. The subtle color can be associated both with great age-with ancient mosses and lichens, or the corrosion on archaic bronze mirrors-and with tender youth and life's renewal. Xu Yin also alludes to the resemblance to jade, which from remotest antiquity has been considered the most precious of stones, one associated with the essential elements of nature and the legitimacy of kings and emperors. ISBN 0936260173