Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/169

 period. Groups of saints—as, for example, the Sixteen Bōdhisattvas—or congregations of other religious persons—as the five hundred Arhats—are favourite subjects with the modern painter of Satsuma ware. To a Japanese of former times such subjects would have seemed as much out of place on the surface of a flower-vase as a crucifix on a beer-flagon would appear to Europeans. Of course the fitness of things would not have been equally violated by representations of peacocks or warriors. About these nothing need be said except that they were never in fashion at Nawashiro or Tatsumonji. The Satsuma potter confined himself strictly to diapers, floral subjects, landscapes, and a few conventionalities, such as the Phœnix, the Shishi (mythical lion), the Dragon, and the Kirin (unicorn).

The choice pieces potted at the Satsuma-yaki factory prior to the mediatisation of the fiefs (1868) were invariably small, or at most of medium size. Tripod incense-burners six or seven inches high, with pierced lids, were perhaps the most important examples. Smaller specimens take the form of cups, wine-bottles (Saké-dokuri) with slender necks, ewers (suiteki), censers (Kōro), incense-boxes (Kōgo), vases for placing on the lower shelf of a stand (Shoku-sh'ta), and so forth. The large imposing examples included in so many Western collections are invariably of modern manufacture.

It may be worth noticing that in a beautifully illustrated work called "The Keramic Arts of Japan" by Messrs. Audsley and Bowes, pains are taken to divide a series of Satsuma specimens—representing for the most part a period of about twenty years—into three sections, which are distinguished as Old, Middle, and