|
Japan Ceramics
One of Japan's oldest art forms, ceramics, reaches back
to the
Neolithic period (ca. 10,000 B.C.), when the earliest soft
earthenware was coil-made, decorated by hand-impressed
rope
patterns (Jomon ware), and baked in the open. Continental
emigrants
of the third century B.C. introduced the use of the wheel
along
with the metal age (Yayoi), and eventually (in the third
to fourth
centuries A.D.), a tunnel kiln in which stoneware fired at
high
temperatures embellished with natural ash glaze was
produced. Medieval kilns enabled more refined production
of
stoneware, which was still produced in the late twentieth
century
at a few famous sites, especially in central Honshu around
the city
of Seto, the wares of which were so widely used that
Seto-mono
became the generic term for ceramics in Japan. The
overlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean campaigns of the late
sixteenth century were dubbed the "ceramic wars," since
the
importation of Korean potters appeared to be the Koreans'
major
contribution. These potters introduced a variety of new
techniques
and styles in their artifacts that were greatly admired
for the tea
ceremony. They also discovered in northern Kyushu the
proper
ingredients needed to produce porcelain and were soon
dazzling the
guests at daimyo banquets with the first
Japanese-made
porcelain
(see Ashikaga Bakufu
, ch. 1).
The modern masters of these famous traditional kilns
still
bring the ancient formulas in pottery and porcelain to new
heights
of achievement at Shiga, Ige, Karatsu, Hagi, and Bizen.
Yamamoto
Masao of Bizen and Miwa Kyusetsu of Hagi were designated
as
mukei bunkazai. Only a half-dozen potters were so
honored by
1989 either as representatives of famous kiln wares or as
creators
of superlative techniques in glazing or decoration; two
groups were
designated for preserving the wares of distinguished
ancient
kilns.
In the old capital of Kyoto, the Raku family continued
to
produce the famous rough tea bowls that had so delighted
Hideyoshi.
At Mino, continued to be made to reconstruct the classic
formulas
of Momoyama-era Seto-type tea wares at Mino, such as the
famous
Oribe copper-green glaze and Shino ware's prized milky
glaze. Artist potters experimented endlessly at the Kyoto
and Tokyo
arts universities to recreate traditional porcelain and
its
decorations under such outstanding ceramic teachers as
Fujimoto
Yoshimichi, a mukei bunkazai. Ancient porcelain
kilns around
Arita in Kyushu were still maintained by the lineage of
the famous
Sakaida Kakiemon XIV and Imaizume Imaiemon XIII,
hereditary
porcelain makers to the Nabeshima clan; both were heads of
groups
designated mukei bunkazai.
By the end of the 1980s, many master potters no longer
worked
at major or ancient kilns, but were making classic wares
in various
parts of Japan or in Tokyo, a notable example being Tsuji
Seimei,
who brought his clay from Shiga but potted in the Tokyo
area. A
number of artists were engaged in reconstructing famous
Chinese
styles of decoration or glazes, especially the blue-green
celadon
and the watery-green qingbai. One of the most
beloved
Chinese glazes in Japan is the chocolate-brown
tenmoku glaze
that covered the peasant tea bowls brought back from
Southern Song
China (in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) by Zen
monks. For
their Japanese users, these chocolate-brown wares embodied
the Zen
aesthetic of wabi (rustic simplicity).
Interest in the humble art of the village potter was
revived in
a folk movement of the 1920s by such master potters as
Hamada Shoji
and Kawai Kanjiro. These artists studied traditional
glazing
techniques to preserve native wares in danger of
disappearing. The
kilns at Tamba, overlooking Kobe. A number of institutions
came
under the aegis of the Cultural Properties Protection
Division.be,
continued to produce the daily wares used in the Tokugawa
period,
while adding modern shapes. Most of the village wares were
made
anonymously by local potters for utilitarian purposes.
Local
styles, whether native or imported, tended to be continued
without
alteration into the present. In Kyushu, kilns set up by
Korean
potters in the sixteenth century, such as at Koishibara
and its
offshoot at Onta, perpetuated sixteenth-century Korean
peasant
wares. In Okinawa, the production of village ware
continued under
several leading masters, with Kaneshiro Jiro honored as a
mukei
bunkazai.
Data as of January 1994
|
