Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/204

 potted in the neighbourhood of the temple of Seikan, and at the kiln called Otowa, both of which are in the district of Omuro. Hence the origin of the term Omuro-yaki, by which these pieces are generally known. Subsequently he worked at factories called Awata, Iwakura, and Mizoro, not only practising but imparting the secrets he had acquired. All these places are in or near Kyōtō. Otowa-yama is the name of a hill which lies within three-quarters of a mile from the Imperial Palace, to the east. On a slope of this hill is the celebrated Kyomizu-zaka, a street which, shortly after Ninsei's time, became, and has ever since remained, the centre of the keramic industry of Kyōtō. Awata is about a thousand yards due north of Kyōmizu-zaka. Mizoro lies four miles to the northwest of Awata. The temple of Ninwaji is a mile and a quarter to the west of the Palace, and Iwakura is two and a half miles to the north of Mizoro, being thus more than five miles from Kyōtō. Nomura Ninsei made no attempt to hide the secret of his processes, but, a true lover of his art, delighted to visit the workshops of his confrères, and to impart to them the results of his own experience or receive those of theirs. No doubt the remarkably rapid development of the Kyōtō faience during the latter half of the seventeenth century is due in no small degree to this liberality.

If Ninsei's title to fame rested solely upon the fact that he was the originator of enamelled faience, he would deserve to be remembered. For, though he did not invent this process, his manner of employing it marked an epoch in the history of his country's keramics. Under his inspiration the wares of Kyōtō assumed a new character. He was the first to shake himself entirely free from alien influences, whether