Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/264

 less lustrous and full-toned,—yellow, purple, and soft Prussian blue. The glazes were applied so as to form diapers, scrolls, and floral designs; or they were simply run over patterns traced in black on the biscuit. The second class of ware was decorated somewhat after the Arita fashion, with this principal difference,—that the Kutani potters seldom employed blue under the glaze in conjunction with enamels, except in wholly subordinate positions. Their chief colours were green and red, supplemented by purple, yellow, blue (enamel), silver, and gold. The Kutani red was a specialty,—a peculiarly soft, subdued, opaque colour, varying from rich Indian red to russet brown. For designs the early potters had recourse to a well-known artist, Kuzumi Morikaga, of the Kano school, a pupil of the renowned Tanyu. From his sketches they copied miniature landscapes, flowers ruffled by the breeze, sparrows perched among plum-branches, and other glimpses of nature in her simplest garb. On some of their choice pieces the decoration is of a purely formal character,—diapers, scrolls, and medallions enclosing conventional symbols. On others it is essentially pictorial. Figure subjects are rarely found, except the well-known Chinese children (Karako). The amateur may be tolerably confident that specimens decorated with peacocks, masses of chrysanthemums and peonies, figures of wrinkled saints, brightly apparelled ladies, cocks upon drums, and so forth, belong to the manufactures of modern times.

It is doubtful whether the first place among Japanese enamelled porcelains does not belong to the Kutani-yaki. In wealth and profusion of ornament the Chrysanthemo-pæonienne family of Imari appeals more forcibly to Western taste, while the