Studio: international art (46.1909)

The Cha-no-yu Pottery of Japan

controlled the function in its every detail,
and to remember that no single portion
of its ritual, no detail of its accessories, is
too insignificant to pass unnoticed.

One of the characteristics which first
strike the observer is the absence of
painted decoration on the great majority
of examples which come before him. But,
occasionally, a water jar or a tea bowl is
found with an inscription upon it, or a
few touches of colour suggestive of bird
or plant-life. It may easily be understood,
however, that an elaborately decorated
piece of pottery would be entirely out of
place in a room in which everything was
reduced to its simplest form; one slight
sketch to hang in the recess, one vase of
flowers simply and naturally arranged,
forming the sole ornamentation. And it
is doubtful if the painter’s art when applied
to pottery does not to a certain extent
clash with the qualities which rightly
belong to the potter’s craft. Painter’s
work is not essential to the completion of
a perfect piece of pottery. It adds nothing
to its use, and, unless it be subordinate,
rather detracts from the interest attaching
to those methods of manufacture in which the
truest art of the potter lies. The charm of Cha-no-yu
pottery must be found in those details essentially
necessary to its production. We have seen how in
the tea bowl by Doniu the chief items of interest
are its form and the nature of the clay of which
it is made and of the glaze with which it is covered.
The same observations apply to wares of old Seto,
of Hagi, of Shigaraki, of Iga, of Ohi, of Karatsu, of
Tamba, and of numerous other centres in which
Cha-no-yu wares were produced. But the astonish-
ing thing is, that in spite of the common absence
of applied decoration, individuality may be traced
in almost every example we take in hand. Differ-
ences in the character of the clay, differences in
form or in the treatment of the enamelled glazes
continually strike us. Our interest in such details
is awakened and certain subtleties in one or
other of the potter’s operations which are not at
first apparent become after a time more readily
distinguishable. We begin to appreciate the
curious coarse material employed sometimes by
the Shigaraki potters in which little particles of
quartz sand are embedded, the hard fine stoneware
of Bizen, the beautifully-prepared material of the
Seto potters, or the red and grey varieties of
Satsuma earths. We are able to distinguish the


FIG. 2. TEA BOWL, MATSUMOTO, HAGI WARE

FIG. 3. TEA BOWL, HAGI WARE

varied methods by which the potter loved to show
his individuality in the shaping of the vessel on the
wheel, or by hand, or with the spatula, either
separately or in combination, and the quaint con-
ceits of form in which he sometimes would delight
and by means of which he was able to express his
genius as surely and as clearly as the painter might
do by his brush-work.

The varied secrets of the craft reveal themselves
to us in the beauties of glazing, in the rich depths
of colour, and the play of lights, obtainable only
by the intimate acquaintance with the final opera-
tions of firing. The subtle varieties which dis-
tinguish the work of the numerous makers of tea
jars (cha-tsubo) of Seto from the first Toshiro
downward to the present day, are closely studied
by amateurs in Japan, and various treatises have
been written and profusely illustrated by them in
which minor differences are discovered, carry-
ing the art into realms not likely to be often
explored by the Western connoisseur. The slight
but suggestive decoration which was applied by
Ninsei, Kenzan, Rokubei and other great potters,
although contrary to the principles of the more
severe masters of the cult, were permitted and
even welcomed by others, and in their very reti-
cence are productive of much aesthetic deduction.

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