MISHIMA IN THE ROUND

I put up a blog post some time ago depicting a classically decorated and presented mishima mizusashi by kohiki and slipware specialist, Ogawa Tetsuo and decided to build this short video slideshow to fill it out a bit. As you can see in the slideshow, Ogawa relies heavily on the Korean archetypes and style of decoration while adapting them to traditionally Japanese vessels and objects putting on a display of mishima in the round. In this case the mizusashi was divided into bands of highly articulated mishima inlay that is sandwiched by horizontal lines that seemingly contain the expanded volume of the form. 

The top of the form creates a visual pathway into the mizusashi that is then terminated by the black lacquer lid which creates the perfect vessel for both use in the tea ceremony and admiration as a solitary and contemplative pot. The surface of the pot does go beyond just the mishima decoration with areas of mishima, grey-blue for where the glazed stoneware can be seen and some very enticing blushing resonating about surface breaking up any sense sameness as the viewer surveys the piece. Like most pots that I favor, this is a simple pot, no bells and whistles with a traditional form that as you see all of the pot through this short slideshow the flavor and subtle complexity becomes all the more apparent.