Unless
I am mistaken, I think that when most people think about the works of Sakai
Kobu what immediately springs to mind is his translucent, wet and ethereal
Kobu-Shino glaze that he is now best known for. Like most potters though, Sakai
started out as a Mino potter who made works in two distinct styles of
traditionally oriented Shino glazes; one was like most of his contemporaries and
the other a drier, stiffer surface that
is still obviously Shino but has shed the fat and creamy qualities that many
have been in pursuit of. As you can see in the illustration, the basics are the
same, the buff clay body is covered in a thin iron slip over which this drier
Shino glaze is applied and once fired there is a crispness to the design yet
the surface is still readily identifiable as Shino-yaki.
I like this
surface and actually find there are corollaries with his best known Kobu-Shino;
there is a quietness to these pieces yet they have quite a bit to say in a
contemplative fashion where there are no bells and whistles only the bare
essentials of a narrative in three dimensions. I am fond of the Kobu-Shino pots
and always welcome the opportunity to handle and study them when the chance
arrives but I suspect without this drier, more traditional glaze variant and
all the others that he worked through it is unlikely that what he is best known
for would have ever been created, potters and their pots generally evolve in a
mostly linear pathway, from there to here. More to follow as I get around to
building a video slideshow of this Shino mizusashi.
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