AS LONG AS I AM AT IT

Every now and again I get a group of Japanese exhibition catalogue, either ones I have bought from a particular book dealer in Tokyo or those that a friend and book collector sends my way while he is in Japan. Most of these come by sea mail and can take some time to get here and in one of these groups from some time back I received two Yamato Yasuo exhibition catalogues and I figured as long as I am at it, I may just as well share another wild and fissured dai-kannyu Hagi chawan. Obviously differing from the other illustrations, this chawan has a more classic, formal shape, painted in a variety of softer, earthy hues with mostly smaller fissures under a milky white glaze that makes for a rather somber and lonely feeling, like snow covered ice beginning to crack under the (unwanted) attention of the sun. However you see this or interpret the horizontal narrative there is a poetic and lyrical quality to this chawan that pulls in the viewer and is likely not to lessen its grip for some time to come.

"In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow, And keep eternal spring-time on thy face." Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus)