Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/320

 the advantage of being less than one-third of the price of the Chinese mineral, and the results obtained from it were much more uniform. But it gave such a miserable colour, so shallow, hard, and garish, that after some years Western taste rebelled against it, and the potters reverted to the Chinese mineral. They use the latter now with considerable success, not, of course, in decorating common pieces, but only for choice specimens. Sometimes they employ native cobalt, and sometimes they mix it with European smalt.

One of the most difficult feats of the Japanese potter was to produce monochromatic glaze of Mazarin blue (ruri). This could be accomplished only by using the best Chinese or Japanese cobalt. European smalt gives a wholly inferior colour. When to this blue ground white designs in high relief were applied, a rich and charming result was attained. Such a fashion of decoration was successfully followed by the experts of Hizen and Owari in former times. It was generally used for flower-pots, water-vessels, and so forth.

It is difficult to say precisely when the use of enamels and pigments over the glaze came into vogue in Owari. Certainly the potters of Tamikichi's time did not affect this style, from which it may be inferred that the information given by Gensaku of Amakusa to the Seto student was not so full as the latter's annalists claim. According to some authorities, painted porcelain was first produced in Bishiu at the Inagi-mura kiln. This was a factory situated about two miles (English) from the castle of Inu-yama,