Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/334

 some two hundred years before his visit to China, the glazing processes which he went to learn were practised successfully at Karatsu. For it is certain that the pieces attributed to the Korean settlers of the eleventh century were glazed, and that their general manufacture showed a higher degree of skill than that attained by Shirozaemon himself before his trip to China. Evidence bearing upon this point is meagre and inconclusive. The probability is that the age of these early specimens of Karatsu-yaki has been exaggerated. They were called Oku-gōrai, a term which may mean Korean (Korai) ware manufactured either in a distant (oku) country or at a remote period. If the latter explanation be taken—and the balance of expert opinion is in favour of it—Oku-gōrai-yaki may be translated "Ancient Ware in the Korean Style." It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon this point, or indeed upon any point connected with the Oku-gōrai. The pottery has neither technical nor artistic merit, if judged by modern standards. It chiefly deserves to be remembered as disputing with the Tōshiro-yaki the distinction of representing the first artificially-glazed faience of Japan. The Korean settlers appear to have used imported material originally. Among the specimens identified as Oku-gōrai are some which bear a strong resemblance to vessels of undoubted Korean manufacture dating from the ninth and tenth centuries. Their pâte is coarse, but of tolerably light colour; their glaze semi-diaphanous, roughly crackled, somewhat granular and of a patchy brown colour, often disfigured by blisters. It was soon found that the necessary clay existed at Karatsu, and the Japanese artisans, profiting by Korean instruction, would probably have developed considerable skill but for lack of