Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/233

 tion does not appear to have been at any time a principal object with the Mizoro potters. They preferred bold, strong effects, and these were unquestionably better suited to the nature of the materials which they employed. There are no records to show what potters worked at Mizoro after Ninsei's time, and tradition is silent on the subject. All trace of the factories has disappeared, and the inhabitants of the locality retain no memory of the days when the keramic industry was practised there. Doubtless, as in the case of Iwakura, the artisans ultimately moved into Kyōtō, finding that the accessibility of a part of their materials did not compensate for the inaccessibility of their market. The Mizoro clay is not used at all now.

Wares of Kyōtō other than those produced at Awata, Iwakura, or Mizoro, are included in the general term Kyōmizu-yaki. They are manufactured in those districts of the Western capital known as Kyōmizu-zaka and Gojō-zaka. The history of this part of the subject is a record of individuals. In former times there was nothing that could properly be called a factory in the streets above mentioned. They were simply the sites of a number of potters' dwellings where domestic industries were conducted chiefly on a small scale.

The first recorded potter of Kyōmizu faience is Seibei Yahyō, who established himself at Gojō-zaka during the Genroku era (1688–1703). According to some authorities, this man was a grandson of Nomura Ninsei, but the evidence in support of such a theory cannot be accepted. Seibei certainly copied Ninsei's methods, but his connection with the great artist ends there. In the Temmei era (1781–1788) the factory was moved to the neighbouring district of Kyōmizu,