Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/220

 with this honour he received the name of Kinkō-zan, which he thenceforth stamped upon his best pieces, and which was similarly used by his successors. The present representative of the family is Kagiya Sōbei. His manufactures have earned numerous medals and certificates at exhibitions at home and abroad. The Kagiya family carried the enamelled decoration of Kyōtō faience to its highest point of richness and brilliancy. Prior to their time the Awata glaze had been of a somewhat cold, hard character, but in their hands its colour changed from greyish white to light buff, and it assumed an aspect of great delicacy and softness. To this warm, creamy ground a wealth of gold, red, green, and blue enamels was applied, generally in the form of floral scrolls, the result being indescribably rich and mellow. The Kinkō-zan style is essentially decorative and conventional, as distinguished from the naturalistic school affected by the Dōhachi family, and indeed by the majority of noted Kyōtō artists. Flower-vases were more largely produced by Kagiya Mohei and his successors, than by other Kyōtō potters. In the rare examples of these now to be found the decorative effect is usually assisted by reticulation and by conceits of shape. As a general rule, however, the productions of the Awata potters took the form of cups, vegetable bowls (muko-zuke), censers, clove-boilers (chōji-buro), water-vessels (mizu-sashi), and figures. The great majority of the famous Kyōtō keramists were clever modellers. Their favourite motives were the Seven Gods of Good Fortune (Shichifukujin). In moulding these they often left the faces, hands, and feet unglazed, and exhausted all the resources of their decorative methods on the drapery. Here they evidently reflected the methods of