WARES OF KAGA
productions of the Kakiemon school are chaster and more delicate. But for decorative effect, combined with softness and artistic beauty, the Ao-Kutani has, perhaps, no equal. The transparency, purity, and richness of the enamels are not unique. In the best wares of Arita and even of Kyōtō these features are equally conspicuous. The charm of the Ao-Kutani is due primarily to the admirable harmony of its colours and to their skilful massing, and secondarily to the technical excellence shown in the manner of applying the enamels. The Kutani potter, in tracing his designs, used enamels with as much facility as though they were ordinary pigments, and balanced his masses of green, red, blue, purple, and yellow so perfectly that their harmony delights the sense of sight as keenly as the motive they served to depict appeals to the artistic instinct. Besides, Japan has the right to claim this decorative fashion as her own invention. Its origin has been sometimes attributed to the Kochi-yaki, or so-called faience of Cochin China. But the two have nothing in common beyond similarity in the colour and quality of their enamels. Still more marked is the difference between the Ao-kutani and every other porcelain of China or Japan. Thus the ware acquires additional interest as a genuine representative of Japanese taste.
The same is true, though to a less conspicuous extent, of the second family of Kutani ware,—the famille rouge, as it may not inaptly be called in contradistinction to the famille verte (Ao-kutani). The dominant decorative colour in this ware is red—rouge mat; varying from Indian red to russet. It is generally employed in diapers or scrolls separating
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