Japanese & Oriental Ceramic. Hazel H. Gorham
military men and he followed them in their battles but he was basically a man of peace and he was more concerned with the shape of the tea cup he used in the lull of a battle than with that battle's outcome. His lifetime spanned the turn of the seventeenth century, a time in which all the world was astir and Japan felt the repercussions of expanding Europe. Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch ships reached its shores, bringing new ideas and new things. That Oribe was fully aware of these things is proved by his designs and some of the pottery objects he caused to be made for him. Pottery candle holders in the shape of Hollanders, the Dutchman's long stemmed pipe, bits of European woven designs in his own designs, etc. attest to his interest in what was new and modern. Perhaps it is because of his so typically Japanese awareness of the new culture that his hold on the imagination of his fellow Japanese has been so strong, for even today three hundred years after his death, his spirit continues to exert an influence on Japanese ceramics. Oribe wares are divided by Japanese experts into three classes: Black (kuro oribe yaki), Green (ao oribe yaki) and Red (aka oribe yaki) though it is difficult for the foreigner to separate one from the other. They all have the usual dark green glaze on a portion of the article and the rest of the surface is covered with thick grey glaze on the Black and Green types, and a reddish brown glaze on the Red type. This division of the surface of an article into two kinds of decoration is known as "some wake" in Japanese. This green glaze is unique on Oribe wans, it is a lovely soft dark green with the edges of the glaze thinning out into peacock blue and purple-red. Under the lighter grey or tan glaze can be seen a very sketchy design done in bold free strokes in an iron brown pigment. The general appearance is of refined elegance and a close inspection reveals unsuspected beauties in the colour gradations.
Oribe yaki; pictures reconstructed from remnants of authentic old wares.
Oribe wares are quite distinctive as to shape also. It is doubtful if he ever gave his approval to a perfect or regularly round dish or cup, he seems to have preferred bent or dented shapes which appear to have grown that way rather than to have been made by the hand of man. However, his wares are always dignified, never bizarre. Square deep dishes, linked rectangular trays or bowls, especially the fan-shaped dishes so popular with cha jin are some of the shapes known by his name. His designs were extremely simple, yet somehow they evoke a sense of elegance; two stalks of rice heavy with grains, three persimmons drying on a sagging line, a couple of blades of grass, or the spokes of a water wheel to suggest a countryside scene.
An amusing porcelain water pot in blue and white.
Clays, Kilns
and
Potters' Methods
Location of Ceramic Clays
The cultural, as well as the political and social, history of a country is influenced by its geographical environment and the story of ceramics in Japan illustrates this. An island country lying off the coast of a great continental country Japan was ideally situated to receive cultural impulses from that country. Due to the peculiar geographical construction of her many mountains Japan has an unlimited amount of natural porcelain and pottery clays. Most of Japan's mountains are made up of granite rock and this granite in the natural course of erosion becomes disintegrated and is washed down the mountain-side to form immense deposits of natural kaolin. While the potters of other lands must bring various clays and ingredients for porcelains from different places and mix them, the Japanese potter finds his materials ready to his hand in many places. It is these deposits of natural pottery clays that dictated the location of the earliest kilns. In Japan clay-materials for ceramics presented no problem but the matter of fuel with which to fire the kilns has been a major problem, often necessitating the removal of kilns as the supply of fire wood was exhausted. This fact tends to cause confusion to the European student of Japanese ceramics for as he delves into the history of individual kilns he will find one kiln with its master potter and workmen recorded at more than one kiln site.
Because these kaolin deposits are found at the foot of or on the lower slopes of mountains many Japanese kiln names have some form of the word for "valley" in their composition; as for instance the well-known Kutani which is written with characters meaning "nine valleys." For this reason also Japanese kilns are clustered in groups rather widely separated from one another, and the many kilns of such groups will produce pretty much the same type of ceramic wares, due to the common use of one type of clay materials.
Ceramic making in Japan has always been a group-project. The clay deposits were free to any potter of the district and the kilns were usually under the direct authority of the feudal lord. During the Tokugawa period, the beginning of which exactly coincides with the first crude efforts to make porcelain pottery and porcelain making was an art, not a business. If the kiln, were small it was a family affair with no outside help, if large it was a neighbourhood affair. The firing of the finished wares was done at community kilns. The potters worked primarily not for money, but for love of their craft. The more skilfull potters made wares which their feudal lord gave as presents to his friends and superiors, the less skilfull made the thins that were necessary to the daily life of the potters and their neighbours. This was under the old form of feudalism where the lord was responsible for the livelihood of his men. Later some of the feudal lords kept only one kiln for their own use and encouraged potters at other kilns in their district to make articles for sale. Then after 1868, when Japan became modernized, the kilns became the property of the potters employed in them and the clay deposits went under the joint ownership of the potters. The preparation, that is the excavation and packaging, of ceramic clays is now in the hands of commercial companies and the clays which were once used only by the potters of the neighbourhood are now bought and sold all over the country like any other commercial product.
In the early history of ceramics each group of kilns guarded their trade secrets very strictly. Potters did not openly go from one kiln to another and there are recorded cases where a potter of one location who sold or divulged the secrets of his group to a potter of another group of kilns was punished with death.
Later when such rules and regulations had somewhat relaxed, artist designers went from one district to another, as Ninsei, Oribe and Enshu. Such men made their homes in Kyoto but their influence was felt in many widely separated kilns.
Kyoto is the center of a group of kilns although there are no clay materials to be found there. Kyoto potters use clays brought from great distances. They are attracted to Kyoto because it is the cultural and artistic center of the country. None of the kilns are large, often the master himself is the only worker; and quite unlike the kilns grouped around a kaolin deposit, they are individually owned. Kyoto wares are not difficult to distinguish because they are usually compounded of several clays and carefully and exceedingly well made. Also it was the potters of Kyoto who first signed or sealed their productions.
Kilns
It is thought that pre-historic Japanese pottery was fired in an open fire on the surface of the ground. Historically the oldest kilns are known as cave kilns (ana gama) and may be an adaptation of the primitive charcoal burner's kiln. They were holes dug into the slope "of a hill, or rather open pits dug in the hill-side and covered with a rounded earthen roof. The pit was filled with pottery and covered with earth leaving two openings, that at the lower end was used as a fire box for heating the kiln, the hole at the upper end served as a chimney through which the smoke escaped. Kilns of this type are in use to this day for the production of small quantities of pottery for local use and are now known as oh gama (large kilns). In the days before modern transportation methods were known it was necessary for the Japanese potter to move his kiln from place to place as he exhausted, not his clay supply, but his wood supply, because he found it easier to take his materials to a source of fuel than to bring fuel to his clay deposits; or again groups of potters migrated en masse to a new location in search of fuel.
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