Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/427

 have few artistic merits to repay the search. The collector will generally meet with cups and bowls in the best examples of which the potter has evidently taken Kwang-yao and the Yuan ware of China as his model. He never, indeed, produced, or thought, apparently, of producing, the clair-de-lune body colour of the Yuan keramists. But their large, blood-red splashes he imitated with tolerable fidelity, and the effect of these upon his peculiar mottled-grey glazes is not unpleasing,—praise that may be extended to his combinations of blue and brown also. Pieces thus decorated belong to the middle period of manufacture (1750 to 1820). Those of earlier date must be classed among the essentially severe wares of Japan,—wares destined to suit the exaggerated simplicity of the Cha-no-Yu canons. Some amateurs find considerable merit in the vigorous delineation of the horse which constitutes the cachet of the Sōma potters. It is the conventional horse of the Kano school, a sufficiently fiery animal, but stereotyped. Its original designer showed himself at least capable of independent conception, since in limning a galloping horse (Sō-ma), he did not hesitate to represent it as tethered to a stake. Specimens of Sōma-yaki are often distinguished by a circular device of nine balls, the badge of the Sōma family.

The province of Iwaki has several factories where rude pottery and stone-ware for local use are manufactured. It is unnecessary to speak of these in detail.

At Ikao, a well-known watering-place in the provvince of Joshiu (Kotsuke), faience of the Raku type