Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/114

 sons as genuine representatives of early Japanese keramic art.

There remains to be noticed a method of decoration very rarely employed by the potters of Arita. A paste formed of chalk and glutinous rice was used to mould flowers—chiefly chrysanthemums and peonies—in relief. This decoration was not fired, but only sun-dried. It had therefore little durability, and pieces thus adorned possessed no value for the Japanese connoisseur. They appear, however, to have been occasionally exported.

Happily for the permanent reputation of Japanese keramics, the vitiated styles of the Nagasaki ware described above began to be replaced, some ten years ago, by fashions more consistent with the true canons of the country's art. Allusion will be subsequently made to this part of the subject.

Okawachi-yama—which is written "O-kawa-uchi-yama," or "the hill within the great river"—lies in the district of Nishimatsu-ura, about eight miles from Arita. The keramic industry was commenced in this district at a factory called Hirose. The first potters were Koreans, who settled there, about the year 1600, by order of Nabeshima Naoshige, feudal chief of the province. Their productions were faience, rudely decorated with white slip under the glaze and having pâte sufficiently dense to be called stone-ware. A few years later, when the methods of porcelain manufacture came to be understood at Arita, some of the Hirose workmen turned their attention to the new ware. A special kiln was opened for its production, and about the same time, or a little later, certain of the Arita potters moved to Ichinose, in the same district, and there began to manufacture porcelain