Japanese & Oriental Ceramic. Hazel H. Gorham
and sufficient for the average person, is to familiarize oneself with what is essentially Japanese and to use this knowledge as a foundation from which to progress. Most of the designs or Japanese ceramics came from China via Korea. Korea seems to have passed designs on practically unaltered and to have been very little affected by this operation; for Korean ceramic designs remain even more distinctly Korean than those of Japan are Japanese, while Japan continues to use and to adopt Chinese designs side by side with purely Japanese designs.
Korean influences are discernible in some Japanese wares, namely the mishima wares, although even here it is the method of developing the design rather than the design motive. It was through Korean potters' skill and ability rather than through Korean artists' designs that Korea played so great a role in facilitating the passage of Chinese ceramic art to Japan This may also be due to the fact that after the introduction of Chinese things by Korea the Japanese very quickly looked to China directly and sent students to study the arts there as well as invited Chinese teachers to Japan.
About the only purely Korean design that can be found on Japanese ceramics is that known as "unkaku" cloud and bird design-thin attenuated cranes flying among equally attenuated cloud forms.
Left to right—The three leaf design in a circle is the mon or crest of the Tokugawa family and is found on porcelain designed for them and on many export wares.
The mitsu tomoye, purely Japanese development. The Koreans have a similar design but with no spaces between the three comma-like objects). Its exact meaning is not known, it is of very ancient origin; it may express the universal idea of trinity. It is found painted or carved on objects used in both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples as well as on roof tiles of private store-houses.
The strange looking object with cord and tassel is a store-house key, used to symbolize wishes for great wealth.
The two circular figures of the crane and the tortoise are found on all types of ceramics.
The last is one form of noshi, the dried flesh of the abalone (awabi in Japanese) used on all presents. It is symbolic of food and a reminder to all Japanese that their forefathers were dependant on the bounty of the sea for their food. This form of noshi is found on the oldest Imari ware designed for use in Japan.
Designs that are purely Japanese in origin and development include the Ship of Good Fortune (takara bune) and the treasures it carries (takara mono); various modifications of the Japanese symbol used on gifts (noshi); the flaming pearl (hoshu) sometimes single, frequently three together; the three comma shapes in a circle (mitsu tomoye); certain popular food fishes (tat, katsuo) and shell fish (ebi, hamaguri); designs based on the markings on a snake's skin, fish scales and the carapace of the tortoise; the tortoise as pictured with a long tail (mino game); vegetables such as egg plants (nasu) turnip (kabu), red pepper pods (togarashi); the crests (mon) of many well known Japanese families, including the chrysanthemum crest of the Emperor (kiku no mon) and the paulownia-flower-and-leaves crest of the Empress (kiri no mon)', small pine seedings with the roots attached (waka matsu); the Seven Gods of Good Fortune together or separately (shichi fukujin); the six poets of old, one of them a woman (rokkasen); court ladies (tsubone); historical figures of warriors in armour; and bugaku and gagaku dancing figures.
Three court dancers; the male figures are bugaku dancers, the female is a gosechi mat dancer.
Chinese designs are drawn with a strength and verve that is seldom equalled by Japanese designs which tend to be more elegant and refined. Chinese ceramic designs were executed by master craftsmen, often dozens of men worked on one piece like the assembly line of modern motor-car manufacturing. Japanese designs are more often the result of the carefully, even lovingly, detailed work of a single potter (although Japanese potters since earliest times have been accustomed to specializing in a certain design or colour in endless repetition). There is practically no Chinese ceramic design that has not at sometime been copied by the Japanese potters. In general it may be said that the Chinese are more prone to use human figures than the Japanese; especially the eighteen arhats (rakan), gaunt old men seated in various attitudes of meditation; the eight sages, old men each carrying a symbolic object, frequently pictured in a bamboo grove (sen nin); Chinese children at play; or the beautiful ladies known to Europeans as "Lange Eleizen". Besides the numerous flower and bird combinations, the curly-haired lion-dog (kara shishi), the one horned kirin and the dragon (ryu), fabulous animals of Chinese lore, are frequently to be found on Japanese porcelains. A kind of bird of Paradise, purely a creature of Oriental imagination, known as hoo in Japan (which is sometimes mistakenly translated Phoenix); meander or arabesque patterns based on the honeysuckle, lotus or chrysanthemum; stylized mountain and wave designs known in Europe as the "Rock of Ages pattern"; a quite distinctive design called the cloud pattern; the scepter head (jui or jooi) pattern; the figure of the Buddhist teacher Daruma who in Japan becomes the subject of jokes and is drawn in most un-dignified positions and situations; representations of the peach, pomegranate and Citron, usually as repeat patterns in borders; are common to both China and Japan. The Chinese frequently incorporate the characters for good fortune, longevity, riches, etc. in the pattern as a type of decoration while the Japanese artist delights in distorting characters into a semblance of the thing itself. The eight sacred objects of Buddhism are found more often on Chinese wares, as also the symbolic objects of the eight sages. Houses and other architectural features so often found in Chinese porcelain designs are practically never found on Japanese wares. Here it may be well to mention that the "Willow Pattern" design so well known in Europe and America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seems to have been totally unknown in Japan until within the last few years.
Stylized flame forms used on Chinese ceramics and more or less faithfully copied by Japanese potters. Solid colours within strong outlines, or just indicated by brush strokes.
Upper line; various picture-graphs of kame or tortoise. Lower line; picture-graphs of the word sakana or fish.
Stylized Chinese cloud forms, sometimes found on Japanese ceramics. Solid enamel colours within strong outlines.
The most striking difference in designs on Chinese and Japanese ceramic wares is to be found in the use of borders and repeated panel designs. The Chinese potter delights in covering the surface glaze of any article with a mass of intricate designs, he seems to have a horror of undecorated surfaces; the beautiful sea-green celadons have incised or moulded designs under the glaze; the three-colour and five-colour porcelains have conventionalized cloud or fire designs as a sort of diaper pattern on those parts of the surface of an article that is not covered by the main design.
Japanese rendition of the Chinese cloud forms as developed by the celebrated artist Ninsei 300 years ago. Ninsei simplified the shapes of the clouds, presenting a cloud mass rather than groups of clouds. Ninsei used gold dust and gold foil freely.
Cloud forms found on all types of Japanese ceramics, an adaptation of Ninsei's clouds. These may be merely outlined, shaded in gold or colour, or solid masses of colour or gold.
There is a vast difference between the art designs used by the Chinese potter and those used by the Chinese painter. This is not so in Japan, for although at first the Japanese potters faithfully copied the technic both of making pure white porcelain glaze and of over-glaze enamel decoration they soon began to treat the article to be decorated as the pictorial artist