Japanese Pottery Japanese Pottery2 Japanese Pottery3 Japanese Pottery4

 

Japanese Pottery

The Japanese pottery started a bit later than the Chinese pottery. The Chinese pottery began in the Paleolithic era, while the Japanese pottery started in the Neolithic period having kilns that has produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed, and porcelain under distinguished potters such as Ogata Kenzan, Aoki Mokube, just to mention a few.

Apart from the kilns mentioned above there are others like the anonymous kilns that boomed through the timeline. Japanese pottery flourished under notable names few already mentioned; add to this is the ongoing fame of unequalled, unglazed buff up porcelain and stoneware, despite the time of porcelain popularity.

China’s heralding the stage of ceramic kiln ahead of Japanese was confirmed by the fact that during the 4th century Japanese pottery was influenced by Chinese and Korean pottery. For this reason the pottery making in Japan can realistically be described as a prototype to China’s pottery, differentiated with Japanese distinctive taste. Below is the story behind the Great unglazed and fired up wonderful peace of human art.

History of Japanese pottery

The story of Japanese pottery will be taken from two distinct stages marked by timelines separated in thousand of years starting from the 11th millennium or the Neolithic Era to the 19th century. The first earthen ware was produced in the 6th millennium BC, decorated using hand impressed patterns. In the Jomon period (a period that marked first earthenware creation) potteries where clay molded and processed not with kiln, but with an open fire technology that resembled kiln, this style or pattern was later dropped for the Yayoi pattern which is actually a simple to no pattern art. Haji later came on the scene knocking off Yayoi style, this time the pattern is different from the previous two. This insignificant trend of Japanese pottery trailed to the seventeenth century around the 4th century AD, and was overtaken by the Anagama kiln. This technology is said to have been introduced by the Korean immigrant potter, it involves building a kiln made up of covered tunnel. This kiln is made to produce stone wares like Sue ware that is buffed up at a very high temperature level of above 1000 degrees.

In the 8th century a three color glaze like the Chinese Sancai horse ceramic kiln - simple green glaze was produced in the Heian era, this was later followed in the 17th century when a new form of ceramic screaming the unrivalled artistry of Japanese pottery was introduced – unglazed stoneware. This type of pottery was specifically produced for use as funeral jars, storage jars, and assortments of kitchen pots.

Tochiro according to legendary records was said to have studied ceramic styles in China and imported buff up glazed ceramics to Seto in 1223. They copied Chinese pottery which record different glazes namely: ash, iron black, white feldspar, and green copper. This was the highpoint in the Japanese pottery; the remarkable ability to produce variants of glazes that was so popular that it became known as the product of seto. In 11th century the Japanese brought Chinese celadon, blue and white ware, and the white porcelain. Included in the list of imported art is numerous high class potteries used exclusively by upper echelons from Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. These patterns of imported wares were imitated adding slight variation to Koreans simpler tea bowls. This move were favored by some Japanese lords, for instance the Sen no the Raku family provided glazed ware tea bowls, while tea utensils were supplied by Bizen, Shigaraki, Iga etc.

The attempt at duplicating and replacement probably got into the head of Japanese pottery masters as Toyotomi was recorded to have initiated a campaign in the 16th century to defeat China – a move nicknamed the “ceramic war”. The mastery ceramic manipulation yielded some Japanese pottery like: Karatsu, Agano, Arita, and Satsuma kiln. Finally the intent paid off as Yi Sam-pyeong discovered the primary resources in Arita, and it was made in producing the first real porcelain.

The Arita kiln became famous and outshine most of the ceramic made from China. A fit that was gingered by the Ming dynasty and the Manchus which resulted to a lot of damaged kiln. Also the government of Qinq dynasty halting trade to Chinese added to fueling the Arita Kiln. Journey to success as potters from China probably due to revenge against the Qinq dynasty halt to trade, hunger, etc, offered Arita kiln - Japanese pottery, many refined porcelain. Japanese kiln due to the catastrophe in china at that time dominated the trade and supplied Arita kiln to Dutch East India Company.

The Neolithic period of the Japanese pottery was a significant one in Japan, it shows the pick and replacement trend of Japanese ware, and how they became a name to be recognized in the pottery business. In the 20th century the regular use of ancient kilns for ceramic making was dropped for making classic ware from different parts in Japan.

Indeed, Japan Pottery today still carries traces of Chinese pottery, except that they are replaced with Japan’s distinctive artistic techniques.



Find further information below:

 

_______________________________________________