It was at the little village of Seto, some five miles from Nagoya,
the chief town of the province of Owari, or Bishū, that the celebrated
Kato Shirozaemon made the first Japanese faience
worthy to be considered a technical success. Shirozaemon
produced dainty little tea-jars, ewers and other cha-no-yu
Owari.
utensils. These, being no longer stoved in an inverted position,
as had been the habit before Shirozaemon’s time, were not
disfigured by the bare, blistered lips of their predecessors. Their
pâte was close and well-manufactured pottery, varying in colour
from dark brown to russet, and covered with thick, lustrous glazes—black,
amber-brown, chocolate and yellowish grey. These glazes
were not monochromatic: they showed differences of tint, and
sometimes marked varieties of colour; as when chocolate-brown
passed into amber, or black was relieved by streaks and clouds of
grey and dead-leaf red. This ware came to be known as Tōshiro-yaki,
a term obtained by combining the second syllable of Katō
with the two first of Shirozaemon. A genuine example of it is at
present worth many times its weight in gold to Japanese dilettanti,
though in foreign eyes it is little more than interesting. Shirozaemon
was succeeded at the kiln by three generations of his family, each
representative retaining the name of Tōshiro, and each distinguishing
himself by the excellence of his work. Thenceforth Seto became
the headquarters of the manufacture of cha-no-yu utensils, and many
of the tiny pieces turned out there deserve high admiration, their
technique being perfect, and their mahogany, russet-brown, amber
and buff glazes showing wonderful lustre and richness. Seto, in
fact, acquired such a widespread reputation for its ceramic productions
that the term seto-mono (Seto article) came to be used
generally for all pottery and porcelain, just as “China” is in the
West. Seto has now ceased to be a pottery-producing centre, and
has become the chief porcelain manufactory of Japan. The porcelain
industry was inaugurated in 1807 by Tamikichi, a local ceramist,
who had visited Hizen and spent three years there studying
the necessary processes. Owari abounds in porcelain stone; but
it does not occur in constant or particularly simple forms, and as
the potters have not yet learned to treat their materials scientifically,
their work is often marred by unforeseen difficulties. For many
years after Tamikichi’s processes had begun to be practised, the
only decoration employed was blue under the glaze. Sometimes
Chinese cobalt was used, sometimes Japanese, and sometimes a
mixture of both. To Kawamoto Hansuke, who flourished about
1830–1845, belongs the credit of having turned out the richest and
most attractive ware of this class. But, speaking generally, Japanese
blues do not rank on the same decorative level with those of China.
At Arita, although pieces were occasionally turned out of which
the colour could not be surpassed in purity and brilliancy, the
general character of the blue sous couverte was either thin or dull.
At Hirado the ceramists affected a lighter and more delicate tone than
that of the Chinese, and, in order to obtain it, subjected the choice
pigment of the Middle Kingdom to refining processes of great severity.
The Hirado blue, therefore, belongs to a special aesthetic category.
But at Owari the experts were content with an inferior colour,
and their blue-and-white porcelains never enjoyed a distinguished
reputation, though occasionally we find a specimen of great merit.
Decoration with vitrifiable enamels over the glaze, though it began to be practised at Owari about the year 1840, never became a speciality of the place. Nowadays, indeed, numerous examples of porcelains decorated in this manner are classed among Owari products. But they receive their decoration, almost without exception, in Tōkyō or Yokohama, where a large number of artists, called e-tsuke-shi, devote themselves entirely to porcelain-painting. These men seldom use vitrifiable enamels, pigments being much more tractable and less costly. The dominant feature of the designs is pictorial. They are frankly adapted to Western taste. Indeed, of this porcelain it may be said that, from the monster pieces of blue-and-white manufactured at Seto—vases six feet high and garden pillar-lamps half as tall again do not dismay the Bishū ceramist—to tiny coffee-cups decorated in Tōkyō, with their delicate miniatures of birds, flowers, insects, fishes and so forth, everything indicates the death of the old severe aestheticism. To such a depth of debasement had the ceramic art fallen in Owari, that before the happy renaissance of the past ten years, Nagoya discredited itself by employing porcelain as a base for cloisonné enamelling. Many products of this vitiated industry have found their way into the collections of foreigners.
Pottery was produced at several hamlets in Bizen as far back as the 14th century, but ware worthy of artistic notice did not make its appearance until the close of the 16th century, when the Taikō himself paid a visit to the factory at Imbe. Thenceforth utensils for the use of the tea clubs began to be Bizen. manufactured. This Bizen-yaki was red stoneware, with thin diaphanous glaze. Made of exceedingly refractory clay, it underwent stoving for more than three weeks, and was consequently remarkable for its hardness and metallic timbre. Some fifty years later, the character of the choicest Bizen-yaki underwent a marked change. It became slate-coloured or bluish-brown faience, with pâte as fine as pipe-clay, but very hard. In the ao-Bizen (blue Bizen), as well as in the red variety, figures of mythical beings and animals, birds, fishes and other natural objects, were modelled with a degree of plastic ability that can scarcely be spoken of in too high terms. Representative specimens are truly admirable—every line, every contour faithful. The production was very limited, and good pieces soon ceased to be procurable except at long intervals and heavy expense. The Bizen-yaki familiar to Western collectors is comparatively coarse brown or reddish brown, stoneware, modelled rudely, though sometimes redeemed by touches of the genius never entirely absent from the work of the Japanese artisan-artist. Easy to be confounded with it is another ware of the same type manufactured at Shidoro in the province of Tōtōmi.
The Japanese potters could never vie with the Chinese in the production of glazes: the wonderful monochromes and polychromes of the Middle Kingdom had no peers anywhere. In Japan they were most closely approached by the faience of Takatori in the province of Chikuzen. In its early days the Takatori. ceramic industry of this province owed something to the assistance of Korean experts who settled there after the expedition of 1592. But its chief development took place under the direction of Igarashi Jizaemon, an amateur ceramist, who, happening to visit Chikuzen about 1620, was taken under the protection of the chief of the fief and munificently treated. Taking the renowned yao-pien-yao, or “transmutation ware” of China as a model, the Takatori potters endeavoured, by skilful mixing of colouring materials, to reproduce the wonderful effects of oxidization seen in the Chinese ware. They did not, indeed, achieve their ideal, but they did succeed in producing some exquisitely lustrous glazes of the flambé type, rich transparent brown passing into claret colour, with flecks or streaks of white and clouds of “iron dust.” The pâte of this faience was of the finest description, and the technique in every respect faultless. Unfortunately, the best experts confined themselves to working for the tea clubs, and consequently produced only insignificant pieces, as tea-jars, cups and little ewers. During the 18th century, a departure was made from these strict canons. From this period date most of the specimens best known outside Japan—cleverly modelled figures of mythological beings and animals covered with lustrous variegated glazes, the general colours being grey or buff, with tints of green, chocolate, brown and sometimes blue.
A ware of which considerable quantities have found their way westward of late years in the Awaji-yaki, so called from the island of Awaji where it is manufactured in the village of Iga. It was first produced between the years 1830 and 1840 by one Kajū Mimpei, a man of considerable private means who Awaji. devoted himself to the ceramic art out of pure enthusiasm. His story is full of interest, but it must suffice here to note the results of his enterprise. Directing his efforts at first to reproducing the deep green and straw-yellow glazes of China, he had exhausted almost his entire resources before success came, and even then the public was slow to recognize the merits of his ware. Nevertheless he persevered, and in 1838 we find him producing not only green and yellow monochromes, but also greyish white and mirror-black glazes of high excellence. So thoroughly had he now mastered the management of glazes that he could combine yellow, green, white and claret colour in regular patches to imitate tortoise-shell. Many of his pieces have designs incised or in relief, and others are skilfully decorated with gold and silver. Awaji-yaki, or Mimpei-yaki as it is often called, is generally porcelain, but we occasionally find specimens which may readily be mistaken for Awata faience.
Banko faience is a universal favourite with foreign collectors. The type generally known to them is exceedingly light ware, for the most part made of light grey, unglazed clay, and having hand-modelled decoration in relief. But there are numerous varieties. Chocolate or dove-coloured grounds with delicate Banko. diapers in gold and engobe; brown or black faience with white, yellow and pink designs incised or in relief; pottery curiously and deftly marbled by combinations of various coloured clays—these and many other kinds are to be found, all, however, presenting one common feature, namely, skilful finger-moulding and a slight roughening of the surface as though it had received the impression of coarse linen or crape before baking. This modern banko-yaki is produced chiefly at Yokkaichi in the province of Ise. It is entirely different from the original banko-ware made in Kuwana, in the same province, by Numanami Gozaemon at the close of the 18th century. Gozaemon was an imitator. He took for his models the raku faience of Kiōto, the masterpieces of Ninsei and Kenzan, the rococo wares of Korea, the enamelled porcelain of China, and the blue-and-white ware of Delft. He did not found a school, simply because he had nothing new to teach, and the fact that a modern ware goes by the same name as his productions is simply because his seal—the inscription on which (banko, everlasting) suggested the name of the ware—subsequently (1830) fell into the hands of one Mori Yūsetsu, who applied it to his own ware. Mori Yūsetsu, however, had more originality than Numanami. He conceived the idea of shaping his pieces by putting the mould inside and pressing the clay with the hand into the matrix. The consequence was that his wares received the design on the inner as well as the outer surface, and were moreover thumb-marked—essential characteristics of the banko-yaki now so popular.
Among a multitude of other Japanese wares, space allows us to mention only two, those of Izumo and Yatsushiro. The chief of the former is faience, having light grey, close pâte and yellow or straw-coloured glaze, with or without crackle, Izumo.
