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Characteristics

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:03:09 +0000

Ceramics, a mixture of cultures on earth

Seeing the whole history of Japanese ceramics, we can say that while ceramics are definitely a part of traditional Japanese culture, at the same time they are mixture of global cultures.

Some very common techniques such as the wheel and kiln were brought from Korea, as well as the techniques to make porcelain, which is now very common in Japanese ceramics.

In addition, typical painting for Imari ware which is now widely recognized as traditional decoration for Imari originated in Jingdezhen. It is said that Chinese pottery artists came from China to Japan and had a great influence on the techniques of pottery painting. It can be said that Japanese ceramics have been affected by Korea and China, but it is also true that Japanese ceramics were exported to Europe and had an immense effect on European pottery. One of the most royal ceramics in Germany, Meissen, is a good example. During the Edo era, Japan exported ceramics from Imari to Europe, mainly targeting royalty. The pottery artists in Imari used flamboyant pottery decoration since ceramics were used to as a room decoration. The wide acceptance of Imari in Europe led to an influence in paintings. In this manner, Japanese ceramics affected Western countries. People in Japan now use and enjoy such Western famous pottery as Wedgwood, Royal Dolton, and Minton which have been adopted by contemporary Japanese culture.

Seen from a global view, although Japanese ceramics has retained its original identity, it has developed by accepting international cultural influences. Many different cultures affected each other and has been formed into Japanese ceramics.

Looking at each Japanese ceramic type, it is interesting to see the history, political situations and the lifestyles of people through ceramics. For example, consider Shigaraki ware which is famous for raccoon dog statues. Its earthy and rustic look are a testament to its historical and cultural background. In the 8th century, Shigaraki ware started as pieces of roof tiles used for Shigaraki palace. The Shoumu Emperor built this palace for a great statue of the Buddha. Moving to the 14th century, people identified the spirit of ‘Tea cult’ with the simplicity and rusticity of Shigaraki, and preferred to use them as tea utensils. Even today, Shigaraki ware uses the traditional technique of Yakishime, a way to fire the work without using glaze.

In contrast, a most gorgeous ceramic example is Imari. From its beginnings as an imitation of the Chinese school of painting, it flourished under the influence of Kakiemon, and came to be exported as a ceramic to Europe. The bright colors of the Imari ceramics were suited to the tastes of the royal families in late baroque period. Knowing the history and stories hiding behind each ceramics will give you a new understanding of Japanese ceramics.

Glazing and Decorating

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:02:39 +0000

The Color of Ceramics – Glazing and Decorating

In pottery decoration, pigments which can withstand high temperatures such as gosu, tessa (also known as oni’ita) and shinsa (cinnabar) are used to paint designs after unglazed firing. Then the pottery is glazed, and once it undergoes complete firing, paints which can melt at low temperatures are used for decoration. Since gosu contains cobalt oxide as its main component, the pottery can give off a cobalt-blue color. Tessa contains a dark, rocky mineral which helps to give off a blackish color while shinsa expresses itself as a red color. Pigments used in design can be said to have the trait of frequently blending with the pottery, but on the other hand, decoration with colors such as red, green, purple, and yellow provide vivid hues. In addition, the kinds of pictures used to illustrate pottery are abundant. Images such as whirlpools, mountain rivers, thunder, and pictures of nature, treasures, knotting, Japanese celebratory ornaments (shochikubai), and other designs of celebration, motifs with Chinese children and saints, shrimp, crabs and other forms of marine life are often used. Images from Japan’s oldest manga, “Animal Caricatures” (Choju-giga) have also been depicted. Things that are rooted in Japan’s history, topography, culture and lifestyle are preferably used.

Even in glazing, there are actually many kinds of glaze used. Glazes have the role of a cover or lid over the surface of ceramics and porcelain, but there are also many kinds of clear and colorless glazes along with the abundant types which provide a variety of colors. Depending on each ingredient and firing style, the colors that come out can differ, and so making minute adjustments to the composition of these ingredients will create changes in the colors expressed. For instance, ash glaze, lead glaze and feldspar glaze make up a foundation by dissolving in water and adding iron or copper. Another glaze, shino, which consists of white feldspar can create a white finish. Even with all of these numerous glazes, the firing will take a lot of time. But however basic the works are, the glazes are very popular. Adding iron oxide or manganese oxide to feldspar glaze creates candy glaze (ameyu) which has a light caramel color with a glossiness, while adding cobalt oxide to the same glaze creates an azure glaze which provides a deep blue finish. In addition, ash glazes which consist of dobai, an ash made from the burning of kindling wood in ovens, and natural ash which comes from trees and shrubs and their bark, have a light ashy color, while cinnabar glaze, which is made by burning lead with a reduction flame, produces a red color. Furthermore, even if you apply the same glaze, differing firing techniques can produce vastly different finishes. For example, applying glaze with added copper and then using an oxidizing flame during firing will cause the copper to oxidize and thus produce a green finish, but using a reduction flame will reduce the copper to produce a purple finish. Also, there is also the mixing of several kinds of glaze which can produce a whole new glaze, methods to apply several discrete glazes onto one piece of work, and the combination of these colors and the manner of application which can create works with various expressions.

Mingei

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:01:18 +0000

Japanese Folk Arts

People dwell on true beauty…”functional beauty”…especially when it comes to a thing they use day after day. As the Taisho Era arrived, practical and popular objects of craftwork (shominteki kougeihin…abbreviated as “mingei”) which had a simplicity that hadn’t been an object of merit up to that time in art history, showed a new value and caused a folk art movement which would spread widely around the world. Muneyoshi Yanagi, known as the main force behind the spread of the folk art ideology, helped to spread the folk art movement within Japan alongside Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai. Due to the outbreak of the independence movement on the Korean peninsula at that time, there was an interest in the simple works made there during the Osho Era, and in the idea of gathering Korean goods mainly consisting of porcelain goods and bringing them back to Japan to display to the public. A Japanese folk arts museum was established in Komaba, Tokyo to help spread the beauty of folk arts. After Yanagi’s death, Shoji Hamada was made the 2nd director of the folk arts museum to further ensure the spread of Yanagi’s ideology, and he created his own simple, powerful and original style. By using just a hand pottery wheel, he created many simple models. With a dynamic application of glaze, he took pride in his simple and powerful style. Hamada also set up the Mashiko Sankokan Museum to display domestic and foreign works of folkcraft that he had personally collected.

Hamada, who had sensed “functional beauty” in everyday items such as pots and bowls that had been made in Mashiko, designated the city as the city for pottery making. As a result, the name of Mashiko spread widely throughout Japan. Its uniquely massive earthenware along with the folk ceramics that had the dynamic application of glaze, also common in Hamada’s style, fused into them were considered masterpieces. Afterwards, many craftsmen also chose Mashiko as their starting point to create their works. Until that time, there had been no framework for the tradition to be bound to, but artists with their own respective sensitivities and personalities to express started to congregate in Mashiko, and eventually it became the Kanto region’s primary ceramics town, and a centre for folk arts. Many nations of the world modernized and industrialized, and yet the handicraft industry known as folk arts strongly survived. In addition, it can be considered to be one of the characteristics of ceramics specific only to Japan as a firm part of Japanese culture.

History

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:00:08 +0000

The first ceramics in Japan: Jomon Ware
The very first examples of earthenware in the world were produced 12,000 years ago in the form of Jomon Ware, Japan’s very first ceramic products. Various kinds of pottery were produced ranging from products rolled in straw rope to produce patterns to figurines. Baked in open-air fires at comparatively low temperatures, the heat produced results that were thick but brittle and easy to shatter.
Before long though, a method was brought over from the Korean Peninsula, and a great change began to materialize in the shape of earthenware. Different from the complex forms of Jomon Ware, the new products were streamlined and simple structures. This was Yayoi Ware.

The emergence of the kilns
The techniques of Sue Ware were introduced from the Korean Peninsula in which pottery was made with a potter’s wheel and fired in a kiln at high temperatures. From this, many kinds of pottery, such as jars, earthenware vessels for alcoholic beverages, and wares with a horse or pagoda motif could be made which were unlike the examples of earthenware that had been made up to that time. They were frequently used as burial accessories.

The Beginning of Glazing
On entering the Asuka Era (circa 7th century AD), a new technique was introduced from the Korean Peninsula. This method, incorporating the use of a glaze with molten lead, was available for the first time in Japan. Certain ingredients included in the lead turned green so that the parts which were solely covered in the glaze could change color. Furthermore, on entering the Nara Era, the number of colors also increased to include yellow-brown and white. Pottery with a bright, glossy finish could be produced. At that time, quite a wide variety of products such as alcohol vessels, jars, bowls and plates were able to be made.

The Prosperity of Regional Kilns
In the Heian Era, when politics were about to be based on a legal code system, regions began to wield power, and in addition to that, kilns in those areas developed rapidly. Aichi Prefecture’s Sanageyou Kiln and Gifu Prefecture’s Minoyou Kiln, places that are even prospering today through pottery, began their growth at that time. From the beginning, Sanageyou, favoured by the ruling class of nobility and warriors, steadily gained daily use by the masses, and came to produce plates called yamachawan (literally translated as “mountain bowls”) in large quantities. The glaze that had been used up to that time started to decline in usage. Among the kilns for the yamachawan, the ones that especially rose in prominence were the Tokoname and Atsumi kilns of Aichi Prefecture. Incidentally, the reading of yamachawan was derived from the fact that there were so many bowls produced that shards of the bowls could be easily found in the mountains.

Ceramics as High-Quality Items
As mentioned before, the Tokoname and Atsumi kilns, representing yamachawan, developed from Sanageyou to produce daily-use ceramics for regular people. However, to regain its past glory, Sanageyou started manufacturing glazed pottery again from the beginning of the Kamakura Era, and accomplished a renaissance of Setoyaki as high-quality ceramics. Setoyaki, which can also be alternately known as Setomono, was being developed even after the beginning of the Muromachi Era.

Large Pots Flourish
One of the characteristics of Muromachi Era pottery is that large pots were possibly assembled together. But though “large pots” is said as one expression, there were differences in the natural glazing colors as well as the burnishing depending on the pottery town (within the kiln, the wood ashes adhered to the pottery, and they melted at a high temperature), and characteristics began to appear on them. Within those characteristics, one involved the large pots of Bizen in which the name of the creator and the vintage were stamped thereby providing an awareness of their creator. In addition, along with the large pots, the variation in flower vases and teapots also increased, and high-quality items were produced alongside the daily-use items.

The Tea Ceremony and Ceramics
Entering the Momoyama Era, the point was reached in which pottery with a different shape that hadn’t been seen before started to be made. This was “Chatou”. Because of Sen-no-Rikyu, the man who greatly developed the tea ceremony which honored the spirit of Japanese refinement, teacups were made so that they became implements of the tea ceremony. Unlike the trend in ceramics where techniques had been developed and passed on from the Korean Peninsula and China up to that time, it can be perceived that its expansion could be realized in tandem with the development of Japanese culture. Due to this, Bizen Ware and Shigaraki Ware could realize great development.

Further Development
The world of surprisingly drab teacups welcomed the emergence of a new technique. This was glazed decoration. Glazed decoration involved the drawing of pictures and designs after an unglazed work had been fired before glaze was applied. However, the mixing of red clay into the body of the pottery, and the application of pictures and designs firmly increased its expressiveness. The use of various glazes for different purposes meant that a single body of work could be expressed as a work of multiple colors. In addition, the introduction of tea ceremony utensils with intentionally crooked shapes represented a huge change.

The Birth of Porcelain
Because of the influx of potters from the Korean Peninsula at the beginning of the Edo Era, the first examples of porcelain were successfully created. Since this happened in the town of Arita, Saga Prefecture, this is the origin of Arita Ware. In addition, because it was exported abroad from the port of Imari, it also has the alternate name of Imari Ware. In contrast with pottery using clay as its raw material, porcelain used a white stone called touseki as was first explained. However, it was clear that the patterned porcelain brought in from Jindezhen, China was known as something that was new and vastly different from the other types of porcelain up to that time. As well, techniques of adding pictures after the application of glaze were often used, and there were developments in akae (late 19th-century woodblock prints established by Kakiemon Sakaida), colors, and furthermore, techniques often used to draw with many colors such as dark green, purple and yellow. Pottery started emerging with a different feel compared to its predecessors.

Towards ornamental porcelain goods
Entering the Meiji Era, doll-like porcelain goods which emulated the human shape, pots, decorative plates and other ornaments…the number of complex figures increased in number; not only everyday goods of necessity but also the high-quality porcelain goods hit a peak in their manufacture. In addition, goods meant to be exported overseas had their own desired designs printed at the export site with the result being that gifts could be exchanged between countries.

As works of art
Artisans who studied overseas and took Western culture to heart could absorb new points of view which had been absent in ceramics in Japan up to that point. That meant that works without a practical use could be manufactured as goods to be appreciated aesthetically. The custom of manufacturing works of bird or animal motifs that had previously no practical use but could be seen as works of art was said to be a characteristic of the Taisho Era.

The trend of learning from the past
While china was developing rapidly, because of the rediscovery of the old pottery studios, there was also a rebirth of the old ceramics. At the time, in contrast with mainstream china, a wave of bringing back simple and practical pottery as tea utensils and the beauty of glazing also emerged.

The expression of individuality
Bringing together pottery and porcelain goods, when various tastes in works emerge, artists devote themselves to creating things that serve as a medium for their own sensitivity and individuality. The artists who have visited each country in the world and learned various ideas and techniques haven’t just taken in size, shape and methods but they have also become able to express themselves through their creations. This trend still holds sway even today as ceramics are treated more richly than the daily goods they are.