Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/223

 diapers. Sometimes the lacquer was partially used in tracing the design. This fashion was a violation of true art canons. It soon went out of vogue.

Another well-known cachet of Awata is Taizan. During the Empō era (1673–1680) Tōkurō, a retainer of the noble family of Sasaki, came from Omi to Kyōtō and began to manufacture pottery. He appears to have confined himself at first to producing Raku ware. In 1711 he obtained permission to establish a kiln at Awata, and there began to practise the decorative methods for which the place was famous. His son, Yōhei, succeeded to the industry in the Kyōho era (1716–1735), and assumed the business name of Obiya, thenceforth marking his pottery "Taizan" (Tai is another pronunciation of the ideograph obi). According to a tradition of Yōhei's descendants, he was particularly successful in his manner of using sulphate of iron to produce a rich red pigment. On the whole, however, it can only be said of the Taizan family that they carried the methods of the Awata factories to considerable excellence, and that they were remarkable for technical skill rather than for originative genius. The head of each succeeding generation was called Yōhei. The representatives of the third and fourth generations, who flourished during the second half of the eighteenth century, were eminently successful in producing rich Mazarine blue enamel which they sometimes used as body glaze, applying to it decorative designs in gold. The dates of the successive generations of the Taizan family, and some facts concerning them, are given in the following table:—


 * 1. Tōkuro; began to manufacture Raku faience about 1675, and set up a kiln at Awata in 1711.