bird drawn under the glaze.
Kurawanka cha wan, is a less well known but very interesting kind of tea bowl of a thick hastily potted ware with a soft thick glaze, decorated in under-the-glaze blue designs drawn with a sure firm hand. The glaze is thick, uneven and pleasant to the touch. These bowls are interesting because they are of pure Japanese origin and have historical associations. At the end of the sixteenth century when Tokugawa Iyeyasu was struggling to establish his power throughout Japan, the boatmen on the Yodogawa River between Osaka and Kyoto furnished him timely aid at a crisis in his war career. In gratitude Iyeyasu granted them and their discendants the privilege of selling food from boats to the pleasure seekers on this river. Because of being signaled out by this honour these boatmen became proud and overbearing. "Kurawanka" is a vulgar or colloquial expression for the more polite "meshi agarimasenka" meaning roughly the equivalent the American "Get your hot dogs here." These bowls at that time were included in the small price of the food offered and were frequently simply thrown overboard when emptied. The custom of selling food in this ware has been abandoned but now fishermen make a living retrieving the bowls from the river bottom.
Oribe
Of all the names mentioned in any discussion of Japanese pottery that of Furuta Oribe no Sho is most often heard. He was born in 1544 and died in 1615, a period when cha do culture was at its best and he is known as Chajin Oribe—that is, Oribe, Master Teacher of Ceremonial Tea. He served under three war lords: Oda Nobunaga, who died at the hand of one of his own retainers just as he had completed national unification after a long period of civil wars; Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who continued the work of unification and who in pursuance of a progressive imperialistic policy died while commanding the invasion of a foreign country; and Tokugawa Iyeyasu whose strong centralizing policy succeeded in completely systematizing Japan as a feudalistic state and enforcing the policy of seclusion. A time also that was a kind of Renaissance in Japan, later to be known as the Momoyama Period.
Typical Oribe shapes and designs.
Oribe was born in Mino, near Seto the ceramic center of Japan. His real name was Furuta Shigeyoshi or Shigenari and he was the son of Furuta Shigesada, called also Kan ami, who had been a priest but who left the orders and became a retainer of Hideyoshi with the title of Gemba no Sho. He served as samurai or man of arms under Oda Nobunaga until that leader's death in 1582. Serving under Hideyoshi, Oribe was created a daimyo, or feudal lord, in 1585. In this capacity he was put in charge of a castle in the neighbourhood of Kyoto. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Sen Rikyu and became his pupil in matters concerning cha no yu.
In 1585 Hideyoshi held his famous tea party at his palace of Ju raku and many great tea masters attended. Although one of the most important pupils of Sen Rikyu, Oribe was at that time but little known. On the death of Hideyoshi, Oribe joined the forces of Tokugawa Iyeyasu. In 1610 he became the tea teacher of Hidetada, son of Iyeyasu and second Shogun. It was then that his position as tea master became established. Daimyos, small and great, competed with one another to become his pupils and in building houses for cha no yu according to his designs and in acquiring art objects which met with his approval. Consequently his taste was predominant at this period.
In 1614 there was a decisive battle fought between Hideyori, son of Oribe's former master Hideyoshi, and Hidetada who was both his master and his best loved pupil. Oribe fought on the side of Hidetada. He visited different camps to entertain the leaders with out-door cha no yu behind bamboo barricades. One time he was so absorbed in looking for material, from which to make a tea spoon (cha shaku), among the bamboo of the barricade that he was seen by the enemy and wounded. The war ended in a truce and while the two shoguns, Iyeyasu and Hidetada, met with various feudal lords to discuss new strategy a retainer of Oribe's as chief conspirator of a group of dissenters tried to set fire to the streets of Kyoto in order to attack the Tokugawa forces. The plan was discovered and the conspirators were taken prisoners. As was Japanese custom, Oribe though ignorant of the treason, was held responsible for the acts of his retainers and he was ordered to commit suicide. This he did, without unnecessary protest, in a quiet and seemly manner. Like his master in cha do, Sen Rikyu, Oribe died a tragic death. Oribe and Rikyu were alike in many respects but while Rikyu made cha no yu monasterical because he was a medievalist at heart, Oribe made it social because he was at heart a modernist. Although Oribe died by his own hand at the command of his Shogun, he had lived man's allotted time of "three score years and ten" and he had lived at an exciting time in Japanese history. His lot was cast with 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
