copied by Japanese potters. Solid colours within strong outlines, or just indicated by brush strokes.
Upper line; various picture-graphs of kame or tortoise. Lower line; picture-graphs of the word sakana or fish.
Stylized Chinese cloud forms, sometimes found on Japanese ceramics. Solid enamel colours within strong outlines.
The most striking difference in designs on Chinese and Japanese ceramic wares is to be found in the use of borders and repeated panel designs. The Chinese potter delights in covering the surface glaze of any article with a mass of intricate designs, he seems to have a horror of undecorated surfaces; the beautiful sea-green celadons have incised or moulded designs under the glaze; the three-colour and five-colour porcelains have conventionalized cloud or fire designs as a sort of diaper pattern on those parts of the surface of an article that is not covered by the main design.
Japanese rendition of the Chinese cloud forms as developed by the celebrated artist Ninsei 300 years ago. Ninsei simplified the shapes of the clouds, presenting a cloud mass rather than groups of clouds. Ninsei used gold dust and gold foil freely.
Cloud forms found on all types of Japanese ceramics, an adaptation of Ninsei's clouds. These may be merely outlined, shaded in gold or colour, or solid masses of colour or gold.
There is a vast difference between the art designs used by the Chinese potter and those used by the Chinese painter. This is not so in Japan, for although at first the Japanese potters faithfully copied the technic both of making pure white porcelain glaze and of over-glaze enamel decoration they soon began to treat the article to be decorated as the pictorial artist treats his canvas, that is, merely as a surface on which to paint a picture. The artists of no other country have ever reached the heights achieved by the Chinese pictorial artist in his handling of empty spaces in a picture, but it was left to the Japanese potters to apply this technic to ceramic wares.
Family crets often found on ceramic wares. Top, left to right; the Imperial crest kiku no man much used on early Imari export wares; crest of the House of Satsuma found on wares made at kilns in Satsqma. Bottom, left to right; tethered horse crest of the House of Soma; crest used by the Empresses of Japan kiri no mon usually found in association with the hoo-bird, and crest of the Kusunoki family, kikusui, used as a ceramic design or frequently developed into a box for holding incense.
An explanation of this may be found in the working conditions of the potters of these two countries. In China, potters were workmen, patient, artistic and skillful, it is true, but still workmen, employed by the hundreds at great government-owned kilns, turning out thousands of articles according to official orders. The designs were furnished them by the Imperial Court and each piece went through many hands. So strict was the oversight and control of the workmen that even the amount of colouring material necessary for the design was carefully measured out and each workman was required to turn in a fixed number of decorated articles. When there were orders from the Court the kilns were operated, when the needs of the Court had been met the kilns were shut down and the workmen turned away. Of course it must have been that there were small private kilns and artist-potters working alone but we have no historical record of them. But in Japan porcelain and decorated pottery developed under quite different conditions. The influence of the Imperial Court of Japan was indirect, not direct. Japanese potters worked as individuals, designing, making and decorating each article. Each potter worked at home assisted by his own immediate family, or by a few student apprentices and fired his productions at a community kiln. Almost every feudal lord, and there were more than three hundred of them, operated a kiln at which wares were made for his personal use. Instead of a fixed quota of production being required, the production of the different kilns was often limited. Under the feudal system artisans received their usual stipend whether they worked or not. Pottery making was an art not a trade and under the influence of famous cha jin (tea masters) individuality was encouraged in the potters. Not as workmen but as master craftsmen the Japanese potters were encouraged to strive after perfection and their reward was the admiration of their fellow potters and the recognition of their feudal lord. Also decorative design for porcelains developed differently in the two countries, in China the goal sought was perfection and detail of design while in Japan it was perfection of general appearance with design a subordinate requirement
As tea is served in modest households.
Colour is of course closely associated with design and here again we find national characteristics an aid in determining the origin of a piece of porcelain or pottery. Certain colours and certain ways of using colours are found on Chinese wares and not on Japanese wares. With the single exception of seiji, or celadon, one colour porcelains are practically unknown in Japan (disregarding for the moment the imitations of Chinese wares made in Japan). The Japanese prefer a white or neutral colour background for their ceramic designs. Under-glaze blue and under-glaze red are common to both countries, as are the so-called gosai or five colour wares. Only long experience can teach one how to distinguish these wares by colour alone. Imari red and Kutani purple, green and yellow, are unmistakably Japanese. The Chinese colours of cerise-red, rose-red, pea-green, egg-yellow, turquoise-blue, all soft beautiful colours have never found favour in Japan and the reason is not far to seek. The Chinese household furnishings, even the houses themselves, are made of dark polished wood of a beautiful brown colour, against such a background these brilliant colours show to perfection, but they would be lost and insignificant against the Japanese neutral tints of unpolished wood and straw matting. Likewise the Japanese scale of colours, more especially the type of pottery the Japanese prefer, does not look well on polished wood.
The Japanese at one period, about the first part of the eighteenth century, in the early days of Imari wares, used a black enamel as decoration on porcelain but it was not a common practice. However, black glaze is used very much on pottery articles, especially on raku yaki. Perhaps because of the difficulty of obtaining a purple-black or a pure white colour glaze, such glazes are in high favour with the Japanese potters and public alike. The Japanese call any shade of light tan, or tannish-grey or blue-grey, "white" on pottery; and the cream white of Chinese all-white wares never stirred them to emulation. A milk or snow white enamel glaze is used in the decorative designs on some pottery wares; but, other than an impure and greyish white on certain ritual wares, such as the large incense burners (koro) used in Buddhist temples, all-white wares are seldom found in Japan. The white glaze used for decorated rice bowls is deliberately given a bluish or greenish cast in order to enhance the creamy white of the boiled rice.
The beautiful heavy thick glazes known as "Flambe" (or transmutation glazes) with their many shades of blue, red and purple, or the red shading off to green and yellow glazes of "Peach Bloom" were never popular in Japan, except as collector's items.
Cake bowls. The Japanese place only a few cakes in a good sized dish.
More certain than design or colour as a clue to the origin of a piece of porcelain is the quality of the porcelain, its glaze and its purpose. It must always be kept in mind that at one time or another every possible Chinese article, every Color glaze and every Style of decoration
