Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/416

 the ware is baked and the inexpensive nature of the furnace employed. The Raku potter's oven—a little earthen erection, measuring less than two feet in any direction—resembles an article of cottage furniture rather than a kiln, and the few simple appliances that constituted his plant were within easy reach of the humblest means. This facility of manipulation has procured for Raku faience the title of "Uchi yaki," or "home made pottery," and the names of quite a considerable number of amateurs are associated with its domestic manufacture. As shown above, the Imado potters included it among their productions. It has also been made, from time to time during the present century, by various residents of the Honjo district of Tōkyō. A curious and interesting manner of employing this Raku faience was suggested by the Chinese device of ornamenting woodwork with inlaid plaques of porcelain. Ogawa Ritsuo, or Haritsu, a Kyōtō artist who flourished during the first half of the eighteenth century, appears to have been the originator of this style in Japan. He used it in a variety of ways, as, for example, in the ornamentation of screens, medicine-boxes (inro), and hashira-kake (long, narrow pictorial boards for hanging against the square pillars in a Japanese room). The Japanese expert, however, altogether eschewed the formal fashions of his Chinese models. His plan was to produce mosaics in faience on a ground of plain or lacquered wood. The skill shown by Haritsu in work of this nature is really admirable. Not only is his technique remarkable, but his artistic effects are often charming. As a potter he deserves high rank, for certainly the manufacture of every variety of Raku faience—black, red, yellow, cream-white, and green glazes, as well