Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/284

 mon. They are the family of Kato Nagatoshi, who established a kiln in Yamano-ue-machi, Kanazawa, 1856, and employed clays obtained at Hōkōji-mura, Yamano-ue-mura, Dangi-mura, and Ono-mura in the Nōmi district of Kaga; and the family of Hara Yosobei (called also Gozan), a Cha-jin, who, in 1862, built a kiln at Uguisu-dani, and produced ware that has been compared to the yellow Chien-yao (vide Chien-yao) of China. He employed clays from Aratani-mura, Nabetani-mura, Sano-mura, Utsu-yama, and Yamada-mura (all in Kaga), from Shigaraki, in Omi, and from Awata, in Kyōtō.

One other ware produced in the province of Kaga remains to be mentioned: a faience of great beauty, popularly but erroneously known as Ohi-yaki. The pâte is of the Raku type,—soft with a peculiarly dull timbre. The glaze is cream white, waxy, opaque, showing subdued lustre and finely crackled. But the charm of the ware lies in the enamelled decoration. It is difficult to conceive anything more admirable, from a technical point of view, than the manner in which the decoration is executed. The enamels, pure and lustrous, green, blue, yellow, purple, and red, are used with all the facility of ordinary pigments to depict landscapes, floral subjects, birds, diapers, scrolls, and so forth, with microscopic accuracy and charming taste. Only in some of the choicest specimens of Kyōtō faience, masterpieces by Eiraku, Shūhei, and their peers, can work be found of such infinite delicacy. The Kaga faience is further distinguished by metallic reflection; but, on the other hand, it is without the exquisite softness of the Kyōtō glaze. The originator of this beautiful ware was Kurin-ya Gembei, who constructed a kiln for the manufacture of