Page 327 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

dhist clergy. This left patronage of native dent from its inability to survive the competition followed, aptly known as "The Age of the
ceramics to the townsfolk and, even more, to of the various provincial kilns loosely called Country at War." Seto ware imitations of
the farmers. the Six Old Kilns — Shigaraki (Shiga Prefec- Chinese and Korean mei-ping vases, temmoku
Japan's ceramic tradition was perhaps even ture) and nearby Iga (Mie Prefecture); Toko- tea bowls brought from China's Fujian Province
older than that of China. The earliest vessels, name, just south of Nagoya on Chita Peninsula; or copied after these, transcriptions of Chinese
earthenware jars of the Jomon culture, are now Tamba, just north of Osaka (Hyogo Prefecture); guan jars and four-handled tea storage jars from
convincingly dated as early as 10,500 B.C. By Bizen, east of Okayama, and Echizen, on south China, these were the formal school in
about 2500 B.C. we find the complex and fantas- the Japan Sea coast (Fukui Prefecture). which the Japanese developed an early, Sinicized
tically modeled vessels of Middle Jomon — By the fifteenth century there were other, taste in tea and its utensils. But the ultimate
among the greatest of all Neolithic ceramics. smaller, ceramic centers, but the Six Old Kilns, appearance, not only of Tea Ceremony wares
This low-fired earthenware tradition continued along with Seto (no longer making Chinese but of the tea house and its garden as well, cor-
through various permutations until the seventh style vessels), were the dominant ones. All responded subconsciously and intuitively to the
and eighth centuries A.D. With the rapid whole- made rather similar simple wares for similar rough, unassuming, provincial wares of Japan.
sale importation and adoption of Chinese Bud- purposes: burial jars; storage jars for grain, tea, Yoshimasa's Silver Pavilion and its garden
dhism and Chinese culture in the Asuka, pickled vegetables, and liquids; graters; platters; embody the same aesthetic character and mode
Hakuho, and Nara periods (mid-6th-late 8th bottle-vases. The manufacture entailed local as wares from the Six Old Kilns. By the mid-
centuries), the first glazed ceramics, some rela- clays, often with impurities; the use of ash- sixteenth century tea masters (chajiri) were
tively high fired, make their appearance. In this induced or ash glazes; tunnel, or climbing, designing and commissioning wares specifically
transformation of Japanese religion, culture, and kilns; and firing over many days in an oxidizing for their very special purposes. Murata Shuko
art Korea was a major intermediary. Korean atmosphere at about 1100° C. The key word in (1423-1502), the master of "informal" tea and
influence was most important in the develop- any description of the products of all these kilns the revered "father" of Cha no yu is reported to
ment of sueki, the first Japanese ceramic to be is local. Their wares — especially Seto—were have said, "I think that Japanese utensils like
made on the potter's wheel. This was a gray exported to other parts of Japan, but their pro- those of Ise Province (Mie Prefecture) and Bizen
ware, often glazed (sometimes as a result of kiln files, colors, and textures were determined by Province (Okayama Prefecture), if they are
accident), and fired in elementary tunnel, or local potters, often from farm families; local attractive and skillfully made, are superior to
"dragon/' kilns. Called anagama, these kilns materials; local techniques; and peculiarities of Chinese ones" (Hayashiya, Nakamura, and
were tunnels, dug along the slope of a hill and local usage. The differences among these agri- Hayashiya, 1974, 27-28).
then roofed over, and they were capable of tem- cultural communities were minor, and often it The early tea masters, then, were the inheri-
peratures well over 1000° C. is difficult to tell their ceramics apart. Tamba tors of a Chinese custom, informally organized
Beginning in the ninth century the decline of clays seem more refined, and the shapes more at first to accompany social gatherings and later
imperial power both in China and Japan had a regular. Echizen jars differ from Tokoname in to be compatible with Chan Buddhist ritual,
dampening effect on overseas cultural and trade the shape of shoulders and neck. Bizen often especially meditation. The Tea Ceremony as
relations, except for continuous contacts among dispenses with the green to brown ash glaze in practiced by Shuko and his patron Yoshimasa
Buddhist clergy and institutions. The develop- favor of a matte biscuit surface streaked with tended toward informality and the use of
ment of native traditions in secular painting red fire burns. But all these wares reflect the Chinese implements — ceramic tea bowls and
(yamato-e, Japanese painting), in lacquer deco- rough-hewn provincial circumstances of their metal and ceramic flower holders. The shogun's
ration (maki-e, powdered-metal picture), and in manufacture and use: the autonomy of local famous collection of Chinese objects and paint-
stonewares was a major achievement of the warrior-chiefs, a need for food storage and prep- ings, of which Noami (considered by some to
Heian period (794-1185). Kilns expanded and aration vessels, and a "fine disregard" for have been Shuko's tutor in Tea) was curator,
proliferated mainly in the Sanage mountain refinement and perfection. These rugged, mon- followed the Chinese taste in tea utensils. In
area, just east of Nagoya, a region that was to be umental vessels show clearly both the methods declaring that Japanese ceramics also were
the major ceramic production center in Japan to and the accidents of their making—whether appropriate for Tea, Shuko determined the
the present day. they were coiled or thrown, whether the kiln direction of their future change and develop-
The Kamakura period (1185-1333) marked supports or adjacent pots stuck to their skins, ment. This was manifested earliest at Seto:
the renewal of substantial contacts with China whether their walls blistered or fissured or there, beginning in the early fifteenth century,
through the religious and commercial activities partly collapsed during firing. All were put into to the repertory of vessels in the style of
of the newly powerful Zen (C: Chan) monas- use, at first because their makers could not Chinese qingbai, longquan celadon, and cizhou
teries in Kamakura and (somewhat later), afford to discard them and later, as the sixteenth wares were added tea bowls imitating Chinese
Kyoto. Chinese celadons and qingbai wares as century progressed, because the growing jian ware. These were clearly inexpensive sub-
well as jian ware (J: temmoku) tea bowls were number of priestly and samurai devotees of the stitutes for the highly prized Chinese temmoku,
imported in large numbers. Especially cela- Tea Ceremony (Cha no yu) bestowed aesthetic the most efficient drinking bowl ever designed,
dons—the beach at Kamakura is still littered at cachet on what the local potters had produced of of which the shogun's collection included a few
low tide with shards of Song celadons from the necessity. very special examples. By the early sixteenth
cargo ships that unloaded there in the thir- The Tea words wabi and sabi subtly denote century the Mino kilns near Seto were produc-
teenth century. At Seto, just north of Sanage, qualities of naturalness, of noble and antique yet ing a few light-colored bowls in temmoku shape
new kilns were built, and green- to brown- unassuming poverty, of a certain nostalgic sad- (cat. 259) that appear to anticipate the kind of
glazed stonewares in Chinese shapes with Chi- ness. Shibui means roughness, "astringency." glaze later characteristic of Shino wares made at
nese and some Japanese decorative schemes were These qualities, which are as one with the prod- Mino specifically for the Tea Ceremony. Some
made in quantity. That this early Seto produc- ucts of the Six Old Kilns, emerged as ideals in of these were designed by tea masters, thus
tion proved uncongenial to Japanese taste is evi- the world of the Onin War and the century that anticipating the "artist-potter" production of

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