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Tokoname
Ware
Massive stoneware storage jars
are one of the highlights of Japanese ceramics. Made as
functional objects to store grain or liquids and, in some
cases, to hold religious texts, they are some of the strongest,
aesthetically and physically, of any ceramics in world history.
Their place of production can be quickly determined because each
kiln area created its own distinctive clay body, repertory of
shapes, and surface design. Coil-built Tokoname ware has bold,
assertive forms, free-flowing ash glaze, and clay-body colors
that vary with oxidation, reduction in firing, and the mineral
content of clay and ash. The chestnut red body with greenish,
flowing glaze is a frequent combination.
Unique because of its long
production history and specialized uses, Tokoname stoneware was
first a utilitarian, even rustic household ware. The dispersal
of Tokoname ceramics throughout mainland Japan parallels the
spread of Buddhism, and the ware became particularly associated
with the esoteric Shugendo and Tendai sects. In early Buddhist
ritual, sutras (collections of Buddhist precepts) were
stored in Tokoname jars and buried in mounds, sometimes with
other ceremonial objects, a practice extending throughout Japan
by a.d. 1100.
Large jars were also used as funerary urns.
Originally functional pieces of
folk art, these storage jars came to be collected and highly
prized, both in Japan and the West. In the Momoyama and early
Edo periods (1568 -about 1650), the tea ceremony became a
highly organized ritual and aesthetic preoccupation. It was
practiced by Zen adherents and conducted by tea masters, many of
whom preferred to use simple wares with natural glazes and
shapes evoking nature's forms and textures. Tokoname ware,
with its links to rural life, embodied many of these virtues;
later in the Edo period a series of master potters signed the
Tokoname ceramics they produced especially for use in the tea
ceremony.
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