Page 67 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

They are wrapped around the dishes in a successful play of negative and positive space, leaving an
empty center. The innate strength of the symbolism has been subsumed within the design.
On three other Nabeshima dishes a radish, snowflakes, and tassels take on a life their own.
A single radish swirls around the molded rim of one dish to make a sweeping circle (cat. 18). In fact,
the radish may be seen to suggest the human form, with two roots for legs and leaves for hair. The
background is an abstracted wave pattern, which appears to project in front of the radish, depicted in
negative, with a clean white porcelain body. Snowflakes fall over another Nabeshima dish (cat. 19),
without reference to gravity or the uniqueness of natural forms. The snowflakes appear as identically
shaped flowers, lighter in weight than the green celadon ground that surrounds them, freezing

66 them in place. Perhaps the most powerfully ornamented Nabeshima dish has a design of four tassels
(cat. 20). A tassel, made of silk thread attached to a cord, would have been a common sight in a daimyo
household. Silken cords were used to tie up documents, bind together objects, close lacquer boxes,

and so on. The tassel, however, was always subsidiary to the object onto which it was attached. On this
dish tassels are freed from such restraint, even from being tied. Their animation brings two of them,
one orange and one blue, toward the center of the dish, breaking the expanse of white and adding to
the feeling of the cords' independence of spirit. The Nabeshima example of tassels in a circular motif
shows Edo style at its most exuberant.

Animating ordinary objects was a practice in Japanese design as far back as the first century before
Christ, with agricultural implements depicted individually on bronze bells. These representations are
thought to have been prayers to the spirits for a plentiful harvest. The practice continued throughout
Japanese history and became pronounced in the early Edo period. A samurai saddle, for instance,
decorated with floating women's cosmetic brushes (cat. 54), contrasts hard (saddle) and soft (brushes),
military arts and applied beauty, to give the object and the decoration new meaning.
One object depicted in all media during the Edo period, including Nabeshima porcelains, was
the illustrated book. Printing and literacy transformed the Edo world, and designers must have taken
particular delight in animating books and handscrolls and placing them on porcelains, robes (feosode)
(fig. 3), and screens. The books become more than just static objects. Kazari as a life force animates
fig-3
the objects and at the same time reduces them to a pattern of space and textures against a flat gold Robe design published in an
ground. Such is the strength of Japanese design. early textile pattern book
Okakura Kakuzó recorded in his book Ideals of the East, written in 1904 to introduce America and
Europe to concepts of Asian art, particularly Japanese: "Any history of Japanese art ideals is, then, almost

an impossibility, as long as the Western world remains so unaware of the varied environment and
interrelated social phenomena into which that art is set, as if it were a jewel. Definition is limitation." 22
It is hoped that this discussion of kazari has revealed that there is more to Japanese ornament than,
quite literally, meets the eye. Through an understanding of the way that these objects would have been
perceived, and the feelings they might have evoked, one can begin to appreciate the richness of the
material culture of the Edo period and the complexities of Edo style.