THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE JAPANESE DECORATIVE STYLE IN CERAMICS
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE JAPANESE DECORATIVE STYLE IN CERAMICS
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Issue Date
1984
Authors
Alberts, Betty Neary
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Abstract
The subject of this paper is the development of the unique Japanese decorative style that culminated in the first half of the Edo period (early seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century) and its application to specific contemporary ceramics of that period. A review of various art forms from Japanese art history will be used to help show how this native style, comprised of patterns and designs based on favorite indigenous motifs, evolved. The first chapter of this paper briefly surveys the Japanese artistic tradition that laid the foundation for the decorative style. The second chapter then summarizes the ceramic tradition in Japan from the late twelfth to the seventeenth century, stressing the importance of the tea ceremony and the place of ceramics in Japanese life and culture.
Chapter three discusses the three individuals who were most responsible for expressing and promoting the decorative style in painting: Honnami Koetsu, Tawaraya Sotatsu, and Ogata Korin. They expressed the Japanese love for nature and native lore in their painted scrolls and screens, which today are unmistakingly identified by even the casual art observer as being Japanese.
Chapter four focuses on two brilliant ceramists, Nonomura Ninsei (active mid-seventeenth century) and Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), who were the first to transfer aspects of the decorative style from painting to ceramics. Kenzan was a student and follower of Ninsei, and both their lives and their art centered mainly around the cultural life of seventeenth-century Kyoto.
Specific museum pieces, primarily from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, will be used to help illustrate how various Japanese styles were assimilated in the work of these two outstanding artists. Illustrations accompany the text as Figures 1 to 23.