of the ceramic art, Japan of course owes much to its close cultural contacts with China and Korea. China, in the T'ang and Sung dynasties, reached a pinnacle in art which has never been surpassed and seldom equaled elsewhere in the world.
The Japanese were eager pupils of China's master artists, and from the 16th century onward Japanese pottery developed rapidly. At the beginning of the 17th century the discovery of important deposits of porcelain stone in the Arita district of Hizen Province put the porcelain industry on a firm basis—and Japanese ceramics were in full flower. This book was originally published under the title Japanese and Oriental Pottery.
INTRODUCTION
Historical Outline - Glaze - Design - Colour
Classification and Identification
Potters' Marks and Seals
How can one distinguish Japanese porcelains from Chinese, and how can one recognise modern reproductions of genuine old wares are questions on the lips of many visitors to Japan who have neither time nor inclination to go deeply into the study of Oriental ceramics but who would like to take home with them representative pieces of authentic Japanese ceramic art. This little volume is an attempt to answer these and similar questions. In the field of ceramics, as in so many other cultural activities, Japan is at a great disadvantage through lack of available information in any European language. The facts set forth here, inadequate as the author knows them to be, are the result of long years of study and painstaking research.
The new-comer to Japan is confronted with a bewildering array of porcelains all very much alike to his unpractised eye and he has nothing in his own experience or culture on which to base his judgements. Familiar with European porcelain and its traditional decoration influenced by the classical arts of Greece and Rome, he searches in vain for similar motives or colours in the decoration of Japanese wares. Japanese pottery and porcelain decoration is Oriental in origin and as yet there are very few traces of European influence.
Any discussion of Japanese ceramics must take into consideration the fact that true Japanese wares are practically unknown outside of Japan. This statement is startling and perhaps needs some explanation, but it is fundamentally true.
Although political history is out of place in a book on ceramics it is impossible to substantiate the above statement without a quick review of pertinent events of the last four hundred years. Sometime about the year 1549 St. Francis Xavier found his way to Japan. He was in the vanguard of the first wave of European civilization. For about eighty years Japan allowed free entry to all Europeans. It must be remembered that these were eventful years in Europe. Spanish ships roamed the high seas, then Portuguese, then Dutch and finally English ships followed. It was in the same order that these countries' ships came to Japan bringing news of the religious wars in Europe and of the establishment of colonies in North and South America. Requests for trading privileges in Japan were followed by vain and unwise boastings and threats by undiplomatic ship captains. Thoroughly alarmed, the Japanese government closed its doors to all comers and Japan entered a period of seclusion which lasted two centuries and a half. The laws against the entry of Europeans were vigorously enforced; Dutch traders, the only licensed traders, were confined to the tiny artificial island of Deshima at Nagasaki and the number of trading ships, fixed at first at from seven to ten each year, in 1790 was reduced to one. Trading with Korean and Chinese merchants though not encouraged was not prohibited and ceramic wares from those countries continued to trickle into Japan through the ports of Kyushu, especially those of Karatsu and Nagasaki.
In 1598 Hideyoshi, the Shogun or Supreme Commander of the Army of Japan (there was no navy), set out to conquer China by way of Korea. The only result of this invasion was a great influx of Korean potters into Japan, as a military expedition it was a flop. It was at this time that the craze for pottery utensils for cha no yu was at its height, and every Japanese general brought back with him at least one expert potter to teach the native Japanese potters. It is said that one powerful and rich feudal lord brought thousands of potters to Japan. Excellent clay materials were discovered in Kyushu and by the beginning of the eighteenth century the Kyushu kilns were producing a good grade of porcelain. Meanwhile, the people of Europe had discovered Chinese porcelains, "China ware" they called them. But even in China the production of porcelain was in its infancy and enterprising Chinese merchants came to Nagasaki, Karatsu and Imari (ports in Kyushu) to buy porcelain for re-sale in Europe.
Thus it came about that Japanese porcelains were sold in the markets of Europe. These wares had been produced for that purpose, following Chinese models. Any divergence from Chinese originals was through ignorance or carelessness, not intentional, until Kakiyemon developed his own individual style. Kakiyemon's designs were well liked in Europe and it must be admitted that they are representative Japanese. In Japan, however, even Kakiyemon's wares have not been considered of any great importance because he worked in porcelain and the Japanese have always preferred pottery to porcelain. The porcelains sold abroad, and known as "Old Japan" in Europe, were called Brocade Imari (nishikide imari) in this country and have received but scant notice here. It is doubtful if there is a private collection of such wares in all Japan. Their over-crowded surface decoration runs counter to all Japanese art canons and their shapes unmistakably distinguish them from articles made for use of the Japanese in Japan-A pair of vases should warn the purchaser against the dealer who offers them as valuable old Japanese art, because for their own use the Japanese never make anything in pairs and vases are not used in a Japanese house. An exception to this statement must be made with regard to articles for Buddhist religious ritual which requires flower vases and candle sticks in pairs but these are never decorated in colour. Likewise six plates or cups exactly alike must have been made for export, for the Japanese make things for their own use in sets of five; and there is always some slight variation in design or shape.
The first attempts to make true porcelain in Japan were made at the beginning of the seventeenth century at a time that the laws prohibiting trade with Europeans were most vigorously enforced. Porcelains were smuggled out of the country through the agency of Chinese traders, some few were also sold to licensed Dutch traders for sale in the Dutch East Indies and India. In the year 1664 one Dutch ship cargo of 45,000 pieces of Imari porcelain was consigned to Holland directly. Under such circumstances, it is but natural to find strong traces of non-Japanese taste in these export wares.
To understand Japanese ceramics consideration must also be given to the history of the development of this art and the influences upon it of the close cultural contact of China and Korea. It is a fact that the potter's wheel was known in Japan since prehistoric times and that glazed tiles were made as early as the sixth century. Japanese history makes repeated mention of Korean potters coming to Japan and there are several towns and villages where tradition says the descendants of those potters still live. It must be admitted that it is little more than tradition for the villages and their inhabitants are today indistinguishable from their neighbours. It is believed that Jingu Kogo, the Japanese Empress who conquered Korea in the third century, brought back with her a number of potters.
The middle of the sixth century is the date officially assigned to the introduction of Buddhism into Japan. The immediate and lasting effect of this was the development of the arts of architecture, sculpture, bronze casting, weaving, painting, etc. but no mention is ever made of any form of ceramic art at that period. Buddhist ritual requires metal ceremonial utensils and the humble art of pottery had nothing to contribute. But pottery articles are essential to the simple ritual of the indigenous religion of Japan, Shintoism. Unglazed earthenware (suyaki) is, to this day, used for the daily offering of rice and sake, alike in humble homes and before imposing shrines.
Although, as we shall endeavour to show elsewhere in this book, the art of pottery and porcelain was known to some degree from very ancient times in the West, it came to flower in China along with so many other arts in that great country. China in the T'ang and Sung dynasties reached a
