The village or town of Arita, of which the better-known Imari is the port, lies about fifty miles to the north-east of Nagasaki, and it may almost be regarded as the King-te-chen of Japan. The clay and china-stone used there is now brought, for the most part, from the adjacent islands, from Hirado, from Amakusa, and even from the more remote Goto islands. By a combination of some of the most important potters of the district, and with the assistance of some wealthy merchants, a company, the Koransha, was formed some twenty-five years ago,[123] and an attempt was made to keep up the quality of the porcelain produced, at least from a technical point of view. It was certainly time for some such effort to be made, for about that period, just after the Philadelphia Exhibition, the arts of Japan reached perhaps their nadir.
Mikôchi or Hirado Ware.—It was with a somewhat similar object that, long before this—about the middle of the eighteenth century—the feudal lord of Hirado had taken some of the kilns near Arita under his patronage, and had also attempted to regulate the wasteful and careless way in which the materials were quarried on the slopes of Idzumi Yama. This was the origin of the beautiful Mikôchi (Mi-ka-uchi) ware, which was at first produced only for the use of the prince and of his friends, or for presentation to the Shogun.
To understand the important influence of this aristocratic patronage upon the scattered kilns of Japan (only a few of these, indeed, produced porcelain), I cannot do better than quote the words of Captain Brinkley, perhaps our first authority on Japanese ceramics: ‘During the two centuries that represent the golden age of Japanese ceramic art, that is to say, from 1645 to 1845, every factory of any importance was under the direct patronage either of the nobleman in whose fief it lay, or of some wealthy amateur whose whole business in life was comprised in the cultivation of the Cha-no-yu. The wares produced, if they did not represent the independent efforts of artists seeking to achieve or maintain celebrity, were undertaken in compliance with the orders of the workman’s liege lord, or of some other exalted personage. Considerations of cost were entirely set aside, no expenditure of time and toil were deemed excessive, and the slightest blemish sufficed to secure the condemnation of the piece.’ All these conditions were swept away by the revolution of 1868 and by the opening of the country to foreigners. ‘Codes of subtle æsthetics and criticisms of exacting amateurs had no longer to be considered, but in their stead the artist found himself confronted by the Western market with all its elements of sordid haste and superficial judgment.’
To return to the Mikôchi porcelain, this Hirado ware, for it was known also by that name, produced at the prince’s kilns, six miles to the south of Arita, was for more than a hundred years regarded as the ne plus ultra among Japanese porcelain, and its value was enhanced by the fact that the ware never found its way into commerce. In the sous couverte blue it was sought to imitate the paler type of the old Ming ware. The best-known examples of this blue decoration are seen on the little cups delicately painted with Chinese boys at play under pine-trees—the more the boys the better the ware, it is said. Careful manipulation of the clay and finish of surface has never been carried to a higher point than in the varieties of this porcelain worked with pierced patterns and ornaments in relief, so prized by Japanese collectors. On these we find, in addition to the blue, a peculiar tint of pale brown. Of this coloured ware there are some good specimens at South Kensington.
Ôkôchi or Nabeshima Ware.—The same high technical finish has been attained in the Ôkôchi porcelain made at the village of that name (Ô-kawa-uchi) three miles to the north of Arita. The kilns here were patronised by the Nabeshima princes, who belonged to one of the greatest feudal families of old Japan. In this case also, the small highly finished pieces were destined for presents only and were never sold. This ware is generally to be identified by the comb-like pattern (Japanese Kushi-ki), painted in blue round the base of the cups and bowls.[124] Like the little Chinese boys of the Mikôchi ware, this pattern is often seen on very inferior ware of quite modern manufacture. A peculiar kind of finely crackled celadon was also made at Ôkôchi.
In the Arita district are many other factories, some of which, as those at Matsugawa, have at times produced excellent ware. Of most of these private kilns, however, the chief outturn has always been confined to the blue and white sometsuke for domestic use.
We have now to follow the steps by which the knowledge of porcelain was carried from the western island to other parts of Japan. We had better pass at once to the Kioto kilns, for although the manufacture of porcelain was not introduced at the old capital so early as at some other places in the main island, yet the skill of its artist potters and their connection with the imperial court led, in the course of the eighteenth century, to the spread of their influence in every direction.
Kioto was already in the sixteenth century the seat of more than one ceramic industry, but it was not so much the problem of the materials for a true porcelain, as the questions connected with the coloured enamels lately brought over from the West, that excited the curiosity of the Kioto potter at this time. The story goes that one Aoyama Koyemon (I quote again from The Chrysanthemum, April 1883), who came to Kioto from the porcelain district of Hizen, to obtain orders for the new enamelled ware, allowed the secret of its manufacture to be wormed out of him by a crafty Kioto dealer, and that for this breach of trust the wretched ‘traveller’ was crucified by his liege lord on his return to Arita. This occurred just before the death of the great ceramic artist Ninsei (about 1660), and the old potter at once obtained the knowledge of the new enamelling process from the above-mentioned crockery merchant. This man, we should add—the dealer—is said to have gone mad when he heard the dreadful fate of his friend Koyemon—a fate for which he was in so large a measure responsible. Such stories as this, and there are other similar ones in the annals of Japanese ceramics, call to mind the adventures of the experts of the eighteenth century, who trafficked with the German princes in the arcana of the newly introduced porcelain, but for these German experts the penalties for breach of confidence were not of so severe a nature.
Nomomura Ninsei is generally held to be the greatest ceramic artist that Japan has produced. The decorated stoneware and pottery that he turned out late in life may be regarded as the common source from which the wares produced in the two main groups of kilns in the neighbourhood of Kioto took their origin. With one of these groups, with the wares produced in the factories around Awata, we are not concerned here, for no porcelain was ever produced in that suburb of Kioto. But to the other group of kilns, called after the beautiful temple of Kiyomidzu, to the north of Kioto, belong some of the most artistic specimens of porcelain in our collections. It was here that this somewhat uncongenial material was forced for the first time to adapt itself to the fanciful genius of the people. It was to this district that the great original artist Kenzan, the brother of the still more famous Ogata Korin, came towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is true that little of this artist’s work is executed in a true porcelain, but his picturesque signature, scrawled in black, is sometimes found on the so-called more noble ware ([Pl. B]. 21). Like his brother Korin, Kenzan obtained his effects by the simplest means, sometimes by mere patches of colour cunningly distributed over the surface. The work of both these men has of late found many admirers and imitators in France.