Studio: international art (46.1909)

The Cka-no-yu Pottery of Japan

“the terminus” (See previous article) by Algernon talmage

use of a comparatively small section of the com-
munity, each individual member of which jealously
guarded his own unique treasures, it is but seldom
that the outsider has occasion to see, and still more
rarely to acquire them. The great value set by
Japanese amateurs upon tea jars and tea bowls of
certain periods and makes is such as to have caused
especial comment by various writers upon Japan as
far back as the seventeenth century. The rarity at
the present day of genuine examples by the great
masters renders it extremely difficult for any collector
to amass a representative collection. The difficulty
of discriminating between genuine specimens and
the numerous forgeries which exist, especially where
no examples of the former of any great merit are
to be seen in public collections, again acts as a great
hindrance to the student in pursuit of information
and reliable guides. The Japanese so-called expert is
not always to be relied upon for exactitude of know-
ledge or judgment, and is frequently at variance
with his compatriots upon some doubtful question.
All these difficulties have doubtless prevented
Western students from taking up this subject of
Cha-no-yu pottery with that enthusiasm which
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they have devoted to other sections of Japanese
art.

The tendency of some writers in dealing with
the subject of Japanese pottery, to do so only from
a comparative point of view with its relation to the
splendid productions of China, while of interest
and value, is liable to mislead the student in his
efforts to obtain a just appreciation of the subject.
For it must never be forgotten, in appraising the
acknowledgments due by Japan to China, that
the modes of life in the two countries and the
resulting requirements of the people have always
been somewhat at variance. The potter’s patrons
in China demanded from the craftsman wares which
should fulfil conditions not existing in Japan. The
tea clubs which, in Japan, were the centres of
aestheticism and the principal patrons of the
ceramic art, did not, by their very nature and
character, encourage the production of the
highly decorative and beautiful manufactures of
the sister kingdom; and although it is true that
the prototypes of most of the ceramic productions
of Japan were produced in China or Corea, the
Japanese wares possess characteristics of their own