Friday, February 14, 2014

STONE TSUBO

Illustrated is a large ishime-ji style tsubo with incised decoration inlaid in white depicting an abstracted battle scene from an ancient Japanese story. Measuring about 16" tall and the same wide, the piece is called DAN(no)URA and based on the pivotal sea battle between the warring Minamoto and Taira clans during the late 12th century Heike War. Thrown out of white stoneware, the jar has a clear glaze interior and vitreous grey-black and white exterior and fired to both cone 8 and then cone 6. I went with the banded style of decoration to mimic the emaki-mono style of narrative scroll format that was immensely popular for depicting such stories in medieval Japan.