CLASSICAL CONTEXT

I know I will end up sounding like a very broken record, but I love getting older books on modern Japanese pottery. There is a perspective and insight that you miss when you simple see a singular contemporary photo in a book recently published, in the older books you see a wide array of pottery, all produced in and around when the book was published. This affords the viewer a glimpse in to the time and temperament at a given moment in time which creates a context of what was happening and how each potter made their way while working and not necessarily being totally aware of everything that was taking place before the advent of the internet and books, magazines and catalogues flooding the scene.

The attached illustration is from a small jiten, encyclopedia style book from Showa 48 (1973), written by founder of Kuroda-Toen, Kuroda Ryoji, a ceramics expert and author of numerous books including  CLASSIC STONEWARE OF JAPAN; Shino and Oribe  as well as SHINO (Famous Ceramics of Japan series), both in English and many others in Japanese. Though a grainy b/w photo, the power of the tsubo shows through the illustration and is by the father of modern Tokoname pottery, Ezaki Issei. Ezaki's early body of work served as  a standard and a new archetype for the revival of modern Tokoname ware through not only his own pottery but through his pupils as well, most notably, Takeuchi Kimiaki and Osako Mikio. The direct use of clay, forms and firing techniques helped breath a sense of vitality back into Tokoname classical stoneware pottery and a tradition that was for a century better known for water pipes than a medieval tradition.

I think it is safe to say that this essential and practical pot heralds back to earlier times, fortified with a strength and perhaps a tiny bit of ego to continue a nearly lost tradition in to the modern age. This simple pot is a stalwart addition to the various traditions re-imagined and reinvented during the 20th century of which Tokoname owes a debt to pots just like this one made by a potter determined to adhere to certain classical tenets that find their roots all the way back to the birth of the regional styles seen in the ancient Sueki wares.