DOI Heft:
Nr. 191 (February 1909)
DOI Artikel:Holme, Charles: The Cha-No-Yu pottery of Japan
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20966#0063
The Cha-no-yu Pottery of Japan
FIGS. 23 AND 24. TEA BOWLS, BY NINSEI
only after close scrutiny that its many excellences
are recognised.
Indeed, it is exactly for this reason I wish to
draw attention to it. Brilliantly coloured, showily
decorated pottery could not be tolerated for one
moment in a Japanese tea ceremony, but the pre-
ferences of the Cha-iin were such as to prove that
aesthetic value might still be attained even when
accompanied by the utmost sobriety.
There is a curious mark, a sort of brush smear,
which appears occasionally upon objects of Cha-no-
yu pottery and which evidently met with the appro-
bation of the tea-clubs. This hakima, or brush mark,
appears on one of the Ninsei bowls, on a Yatsushiro
bowl (Fig. 27), and on an unsigned dish of irregular
form, probably by Rokubei (Fig. 26). To call this
mark a species of decoration would probably be re-
sented by some —and yet I think it may have been
looked upon as such by tea votaries. The use of the
brush in writing in Japan and China is universal.
Good writing is distinguished from bad by the
power and ability with which the brush is handled
by the writer. A piece of fine calligraphy displayed
in Kakimono form was in especial favour at a tea
function, and was judged to be equal, if not superior,
in artistic interest to a drawing by a great
painter. The brush is used by a potter in
applying over-glaze or slip as well as in
painting, and the cleverness with which the
brush is directed naturally lends additional
interest to the results. It would be quite
legitimate for the brush-work of the potter
to have an artistic value as well as that of
the writer, and this evidently was con-
sidered to be the case from the manner
in which it was frequently applied.
There is a kind of slip decoration very
much favoured by Yatsushiro, Satsuma,
and other potters, known as Mishima,
and originally of Corean introduction.
Small patterns are stamped in the dark
clay body before it is fired, and a white
clay slip is run into the depression, so that
when stoved the design appears white
upon a grey or brown ground. The slip
is usually applied with a brush, and is
afterwards scraped away from the spaces
between the indented patterns. To avoid
the mechanical effect caused by a too
careful finish, such as is often seen in
modern Yatsushiro examples, the slip, by
some potters, was only partially rubbed
away from the plain surface, bands of
brush work being left untouched between
the patterns, as seen in one of the bowls repro-
duced (Fig. 28). In other cases, the pattern is
omitted altogether, the brush-work being applied
alone and fired without further operation. One
observes in the varieties of this class of decoration
an effort on the part of the potters working for the
Cha-jin to avoid anything approaching machine-like
perfection. They did not desire to hide the method
FIG. 25. TEA BOWL, BY HOZEN
41
FIGS. 23 AND 24. TEA BOWLS, BY NINSEI
only after close scrutiny that its many excellences
are recognised.
Indeed, it is exactly for this reason I wish to
draw attention to it. Brilliantly coloured, showily
decorated pottery could not be tolerated for one
moment in a Japanese tea ceremony, but the pre-
ferences of the Cha-iin were such as to prove that
aesthetic value might still be attained even when
accompanied by the utmost sobriety.
There is a curious mark, a sort of brush smear,
which appears occasionally upon objects of Cha-no-
yu pottery and which evidently met with the appro-
bation of the tea-clubs. This hakima, or brush mark,
appears on one of the Ninsei bowls, on a Yatsushiro
bowl (Fig. 27), and on an unsigned dish of irregular
form, probably by Rokubei (Fig. 26). To call this
mark a species of decoration would probably be re-
sented by some —and yet I think it may have been
looked upon as such by tea votaries. The use of the
brush in writing in Japan and China is universal.
Good writing is distinguished from bad by the
power and ability with which the brush is handled
by the writer. A piece of fine calligraphy displayed
in Kakimono form was in especial favour at a tea
function, and was judged to be equal, if not superior,
in artistic interest to a drawing by a great
painter. The brush is used by a potter in
applying over-glaze or slip as well as in
painting, and the cleverness with which the
brush is directed naturally lends additional
interest to the results. It would be quite
legitimate for the brush-work of the potter
to have an artistic value as well as that of
the writer, and this evidently was con-
sidered to be the case from the manner
in which it was frequently applied.
There is a kind of slip decoration very
much favoured by Yatsushiro, Satsuma,
and other potters, known as Mishima,
and originally of Corean introduction.
Small patterns are stamped in the dark
clay body before it is fired, and a white
clay slip is run into the depression, so that
when stoved the design appears white
upon a grey or brown ground. The slip
is usually applied with a brush, and is
afterwards scraped away from the spaces
between the indented patterns. To avoid
the mechanical effect caused by a too
careful finish, such as is often seen in
modern Yatsushiro examples, the slip, by
some potters, was only partially rubbed
away from the plain surface, bands of
brush work being left untouched between
the patterns, as seen in one of the bowls repro-
duced (Fig. 28). In other cases, the pattern is
omitted altogether, the brush-work being applied
alone and fired without further operation. One
observes in the varieties of this class of decoration
an effort on the part of the potters working for the
Cha-jin to avoid anything approaching machine-like
perfection. They did not desire to hide the method
FIG. 25. TEA BOWL, BY HOZEN
41