AS CLOSE AS

Once again I'll start out with the caveat that I have not handled this particular chawan but I have handled several in Ki-Seto, Kohiki, Seto-Guro and Shino over the years including a couple similar to this one. To get to the point, though I have been incredibly lucky to handle two dozen pots by Arakawa Toyozo, for the vast majority of people this Toyoba Seiya Ki-Seto chawan is as close as one normally can get to handling the work of his master. If you really study this chawan what is striking about the bowl is the similarities but not slavish imitation of the form, using both clay and glaze that resemble that of Arakawa it becomes very clear that though not by the master, both master and pupil have based their pots on ideals and archetypes that have a great deal in common.
Though there is nothing slight about the form, there is a distinct robustness to Arakawa's chawan that few modern potters can capture and to be clear, I am not talking about size or scale. It is very easy to see the corollaries between Arakawa and Toyoba having been master and pupil, not to mention in-laws as well but there are certain subtleties and nuances that set each apart from one another. In the end, I believe very few have the creative capacity to make chawan that would stand up as competition to Arakawa but Toyoba's works are a very worthy successor to his master and I suspect many of the various subtleties that one sees that distinguishes the one from the other are the intentional voice of a pupil finding his own way out of the shadow of the master a task at which I think he has succeeded quite well.