Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/205

 Chinese or Korean, and to adopt the "natural style" now universally regarded as representative of Japan. To whatever factory the student turns, some traces of the inspiration of Ninsei's genius are discernible, and it is scarcely too much to assert that almost every decorative fashion which by its grace and artistic fidelity has excited the admiration of Western critics, owes a large debt to Nomura Ninsei and those whom he educated. Nor is this all that can be said of him. In the eyes of his own countrymen he distinguished himself by the improved technical processes he introduced much more than by his use of vitrifiable enamels. Up to his time the only respectable pieces of Kyōtō faience were virtually accidental productions. Genjiro, Sōhaku, Shimbei, and their peers never mastered the details of manipulation and stoving so thoroughly as to have any confidence in their work or to establish any claim to be called experts. They appear to have formed little conception of the capabilities of crackle, content if only they produced pâte and glaze which might bear comparison with their Seto models. But in Ninsei's hands the faience of Kyōtō became an object of rare beauty. Not only was the pâte of his pieces close and hard, but the crackle of the grey or cream-coloured glaze was almost as regular as the meshes of a spider's web. Only the most painstaking manipulation of materials and management of temperature in stoving could have accomplished such results. In later and less conscientious times, the nature of the crackle changed so perceptibly that this one point affords a trustworthy criterion of old and fine ware. Ninsei's crackle was nearly circular. The surface of choice specimens of his handiwork conveys the impression of being covered with very fine netting,