DOI Heft:
American section
DOI Artikel:Upson, Arthur: The art of Shippô Yaki: illustrated from the collection of Dr. Alfred Owre, Minneapolis
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28250#0449
Shippo Yaki
JAPANESE BOWL DR. OWRE’S
LATE PERIOD COLLECTION
hundreds of thousands of intricate cloisons, through
Late Period bowls with superb colour schemes in
bistre, cream, turquoise, and olive, down to fairy-
like kiku vases, and plaques in the purest black, or
white, or pale blue, bearing designs of miniature
reeds, irises, plum-blows, tiny butterflies and birds
a-wing, like little details from a Hiroshige landscape.
The screen panels shown in illustration are
superb examples of recent work. Upon broad
fields of exquisitely pure and flawless robin’s-egg
enamel, which in themselves are a triumph for the
Moderns, there are displayed two graceful and
perfectly coloured flower sprays, each with its
poetically associated wing-visitant. The left panel
shows the plum-blossom and the nightingale
(oumai-ni-uguisu), from earliest times twin har-
bingers of all the song and fragrance of a Japanese
spring. The right panel bears the cherry-blossom
and butterfly (sakura-ni-cho), with like charm of
association. Both panels are treated with that
infallible sense of space and balance which is the
unmistakable hall-mark of Japanese free design.
Each panel measures twenty-one by forty-one
inches, and is probably larger than any one panel
of shippo to be seen in the museums. Size, to those
who pause to consider the process of manufacture,
presents a tremendous factor in appreciation. To
make this clear, a brief review of the stages of
bringing through a piece of cloisonne will suffice.
In the first place, the artificer must have in his
employ, if not in his own brain, the results, as they
bear upon his work, of research in the following-
named sciences: geology, metallurgy, physics and
chemistry; and of arts: metal-working, draughts-
manship and design, painting and flower arrange-
ment. Individuality, that is, fidelity to race in-
stincts, and simplicity, with attention to detail, are
elementary requisites in which the craftsman
qualified when he was born a citizen of Dai Nippon.
If the object in hand is to be treated with opaque
enamels, any malleable metal may be used for a
base. In translucent shippo the base must be
copper, silver, gold, or some tinless alloy, since tin
so readily oxidises and fuses that a very small
percentage of it will render opaque the super-
imposed enamel. After the master-artist has pro-
nounced upon shape, design and colour, as well as
the quality of enamels to be employed in the new
object, the strong young metal-worker beats out,
welds and polishes a base to conform; the girl at
her mortar pulverises the vitreous cubes already
prepared with their metallic-oxide colours; the
old, rich-experienced workman applies the design
with fine strokes of either stylus or india-ink brush,
and all is ready for the investment of the metal vase
or plaque with the glories of cloisons and the Seven
Precious Things.
Youth again, accurate of eye, steps in to shape
and apply the fine ribbons of polished metal which
wind and waver in exact accord with the designer’s
will. The cloisons are temporarily secured to the
base with rice-paste, easily fluxed away, then made
fast with some low fusing-point solder, after which
exacting process, the object goes to the enameller.
The powdered enamels,'* having been reduced to
paste by mixing with water or volatile oil, are now
applied with utmost care, each colour in its proper
cells, while the superfluous moisture, brought to
the surface by gentle taps, is dried by an attentive
musume. When all the cells are filled the object is
set aside to dry, preliminary to the firing. The
latter process results in shrinkage of the paste,
rendering necessary another filling of the cells, a
second firing, and yet another, the entire process
being repeated until the object issues from the
muffle deeply incrusted with fused but incoherent
colours.
The final, and not the least difficult, stage re-
mains. The rough and blurred surface must be
uniformly scraped and polished down to the
cloisons, where the colours and design await the eye
in all their intended beauty. Fine sandstone and
magnolia charcoal are commonly used for this
purpose, and wood-ash and rape-oil for the final
polish. Merely to touch upon these stages gives
scarcely a hint of the attention, skill and time
required to produce a piece of shippo. Upon a
pair of vases sixteen inches high produced by one
LXIX
JAPANESE BOWL DR. OWRE’S
LATE PERIOD COLLECTION
hundreds of thousands of intricate cloisons, through
Late Period bowls with superb colour schemes in
bistre, cream, turquoise, and olive, down to fairy-
like kiku vases, and plaques in the purest black, or
white, or pale blue, bearing designs of miniature
reeds, irises, plum-blows, tiny butterflies and birds
a-wing, like little details from a Hiroshige landscape.
The screen panels shown in illustration are
superb examples of recent work. Upon broad
fields of exquisitely pure and flawless robin’s-egg
enamel, which in themselves are a triumph for the
Moderns, there are displayed two graceful and
perfectly coloured flower sprays, each with its
poetically associated wing-visitant. The left panel
shows the plum-blossom and the nightingale
(oumai-ni-uguisu), from earliest times twin har-
bingers of all the song and fragrance of a Japanese
spring. The right panel bears the cherry-blossom
and butterfly (sakura-ni-cho), with like charm of
association. Both panels are treated with that
infallible sense of space and balance which is the
unmistakable hall-mark of Japanese free design.
Each panel measures twenty-one by forty-one
inches, and is probably larger than any one panel
of shippo to be seen in the museums. Size, to those
who pause to consider the process of manufacture,
presents a tremendous factor in appreciation. To
make this clear, a brief review of the stages of
bringing through a piece of cloisonne will suffice.
In the first place, the artificer must have in his
employ, if not in his own brain, the results, as they
bear upon his work, of research in the following-
named sciences: geology, metallurgy, physics and
chemistry; and of arts: metal-working, draughts-
manship and design, painting and flower arrange-
ment. Individuality, that is, fidelity to race in-
stincts, and simplicity, with attention to detail, are
elementary requisites in which the craftsman
qualified when he was born a citizen of Dai Nippon.
If the object in hand is to be treated with opaque
enamels, any malleable metal may be used for a
base. In translucent shippo the base must be
copper, silver, gold, or some tinless alloy, since tin
so readily oxidises and fuses that a very small
percentage of it will render opaque the super-
imposed enamel. After the master-artist has pro-
nounced upon shape, design and colour, as well as
the quality of enamels to be employed in the new
object, the strong young metal-worker beats out,
welds and polishes a base to conform; the girl at
her mortar pulverises the vitreous cubes already
prepared with their metallic-oxide colours; the
old, rich-experienced workman applies the design
with fine strokes of either stylus or india-ink brush,
and all is ready for the investment of the metal vase
or plaque with the glories of cloisons and the Seven
Precious Things.
Youth again, accurate of eye, steps in to shape
and apply the fine ribbons of polished metal which
wind and waver in exact accord with the designer’s
will. The cloisons are temporarily secured to the
base with rice-paste, easily fluxed away, then made
fast with some low fusing-point solder, after which
exacting process, the object goes to the enameller.
The powdered enamels,'* having been reduced to
paste by mixing with water or volatile oil, are now
applied with utmost care, each colour in its proper
cells, while the superfluous moisture, brought to
the surface by gentle taps, is dried by an attentive
musume. When all the cells are filled the object is
set aside to dry, preliminary to the firing. The
latter process results in shrinkage of the paste,
rendering necessary another filling of the cells, a
second firing, and yet another, the entire process
being repeated until the object issues from the
muffle deeply incrusted with fused but incoherent
colours.
The final, and not the least difficult, stage re-
mains. The rough and blurred surface must be
uniformly scraped and polished down to the
cloisons, where the colours and design await the eye
in all their intended beauty. Fine sandstone and
magnolia charcoal are commonly used for this
purpose, and wood-ash and rape-oil for the final
polish. Merely to touch upon these stages gives
scarcely a hint of the attention, skill and time
required to produce a piece of shippo. Upon a
pair of vases sixteen inches high produced by one
LXIX