National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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whether it is the object and its use, or only the ornament; or whether it is the object and the ornament that have been borrowed.

In order to set forth this series of questions, the documents must be classified in some way. In an attempt to do this, we shall group the different uses starting from the possibility of their origin. This distribution has always the advantage of being clear, but has the disadvantage of not taking into account the diversity of concordant forces. Thus, although the names seem to show that they owe their inspiration to a definite geographic locality, the subdivisions are oriented quite differently. In order to account for the definite intermixture of influences, we should repeat the same process of distribution for the ornamental motives alone, without reference to the object's use.

What I am attempting to do here, is to combine these two methods of considering the problem. In the following chapters we shall search not only for the Eurasiatic precurser of each type of utensil, and of each ornament from the north of China, but we believe it will be possible to point out along with the influences, the individual developments peculiar to the region. This neighbouring country took little if any part in the changes in Chinese style. For the famous " Asiatic retardation ", conditions could be no better except in those places where the inhabitants of the Steppes could turn towards a higher civilization, when at the same time a strange world was opening up for the Chinese that, compared to her, was poor in artistic form.

NOTES OF CHAPTER I

(i) Arne, z), p. 58. (z) Glück, p. 29.

3. Andersson, 4), p. 145.

4. Pelliot, 3), p. 18.