Bulletin Number Five 1984

An Interview with Professor William Watson Professor & Mrs. Watson outside the University 's A r t Gallery Q. As a Chinese art historian, have you always focused your interest on the art o f the Tang and Pre-Tang periods? A. Yes. When I was in the British Museum, my particular assignment in the Department of Oriental Antiquities was Chinese art, culture and archaeology up to the end of the Tang period. In the Museum, one has to be knowl edgeable up to a point about all aspects and all periods of Chinese art because people would come with questions. Eventually I developed a special interest in Tang art in addition to my interest in the history of Chinese art in general. Q. How many years were you with the British Museum? A. Nineteen years. I entered the Museum just after I left the army and I was already fired with the idea of specializing in the study of Chinese history, art and archaeology. I first went into the British Medieval Department to learn to be an archaeologist. I waited for about four years for my chance to transfer to the Department of Oriental Antiquities. One con dition for entering this Department was a degree in Chinese and I was given one or two hours a day to go to the University of London to take the course. My first degree was in modern and medieval European languages, taken in 1939 at Cambridge University. Q. Has your interest in Chinese art and archae ology anything to do with your having spent some years in Asia? A. No, my interest certainly didn't begin only in the War; it goes back even to my childhood and I can't account for it. When I went to Cambridge in 1936 ， there wasn't a big faculty o f Chinese studies, so reading for a degree in Chinese was out of the question, but I had always been interested in affairs in China. Nevertheless it was after my seven years in the army that I decided to make Far Eastern studies my special field. Q. You have recently published The Tang and Liao Ceramics. How was it that you dealt exclusively with ceramics? A. I always had the ambition to write on different aspects of Tang art and in recent years, I have been very interested in Tang ceramics because of its contribution to our knowledge of Tang culture and art in a very wide sense. I regard Tang pottery as one of the greatest aestheti cism in Chinese ceramics by the variety of invented shapes, by the interesting way in which certain Buddhist themes are worked into the pottery and then the gradual development of high-fired wares. In the book, I was looking at ceramics from the art historian point of view. I have paid attention first of all to the shapes of pieces and to the history of kilns, not to the material. I was very keen as well to put the ceramics of the Liao period into perspective with the Tang ceramics. I flatter myself that I have managed to do it better or more fully, in terms of material, than has been done pre viously. In writing the book, I based it entirely on publications coming from the People's Republic 24 INTERVIEWS