Page 81 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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Dish with spider's web design
c. 1673-1681
Hizen ware, Koimari style
Porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue
Diameter 21.1 (8 'A)
The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Saga
Illustrated page 63

• The high point of the Japanese
porcelain industry was clearly the
8o 16705, when innovative designs like
this one were created for the domes-
tic market (and Kakiemon-style
wares were produced for export). The
spider's web design on this dish
was popular in textile pattern books
during the Kanbun era and on sword
guards in the later eighteenth cen-
tury. It follows a Chinese prototype,
which assigns auspicious meaning to
the spider's web (the Chinese term
for "spider's web" is a homonym for
"joy descending from heaven").
16 enamels in a painterly fashion, and
This dish was formed in a mold, and Celadon bowl with linked circle, the shape of the bowl. The reticulated
the sections of the spider's web have snowflake, and geometric design linked circles around the rim are from
been painted to align with the octago- a Kakiemon-style mold, an example
nal shape of the dish. Sixteen sections c. 1690-1700 of which is still owned by the Sakaida
are defined by thin dark cobalt blue Hizen ware, Koimari style Kakiemon family in Arita (see Nabe-
lines radiating from the center of the Porcelain with green glaze, under- shima 1957, fig. 5).
dish. Irregular segments of each sec- glaze cobalt blue, and polychrome
tion, blocked off with bars of cobalt overglaze enamels The red and gold enamel combination
3
blue, are left white toward the center Diameter 21.3 (8 /s) is reminiscent of brocade porcelains
of the dish and filled in with an even The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, of the Chinese Jiajing era (1522 -1566),
light cobalt blue wash toward the rim. Saga exported to Japan in large numbers.
Two sections of the rim are left white, The classic Chinese design included
however, to accent the asymmetry • This celadon bowl is classified as symmetrically placed roundels filled
of the design and enhance the play Kinrande (brocade) Koimari in style, with geometric patterns, usually on a
of negative and positive space. its distinctive design executed in rich red ground. Chinese design elements
underglaze and overglaze colors. It in this bowl have been adapted to a
The spider's web pattern extends in was produced during the Genroku era Japanese aesthetic: the roundels
some places onto the exterior of the (1688 -1704) and expresses the exu- have become squares that are placed
piece, which is covered entirely with a berance of design that was current at asymmetrically, and five large
light cobalt blue wash. The interior of the time. snowflakes have been introduced into
the footring has a four-character the empty spaces, creating a familiar
mark reading "Enpó nensei" (made in The bowl is actually a transitional tension between motif and ground.
I
the Enpô era [1673 ~ 68i]), one of the piece. The Koimari-style features, Here the circular painted snowflakes,
earliest examples of written Japanese which became dominant beginning in some overlapping each other, echo
reign dates on porcelains. In addition the 17005, include the color palette the linked rings around the rim of
to the reign date, six spur marks cre- and the painted design. But the the bowl. NCR
ated by the firing tools are still visible Kakiemon-style features, popular in
inside the footring. NCR the i66os -16905, include the creamy
white body with minimal use of
underglaze cobalt blue, the applica-
tion of bright overglaze polychrome