Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/448

 moss-edged crackle of the beautiful Ko-yao. But his céladon certainly equals the more modern-Chinese examples from the Kang-hsi and Yung-cheng kilns. As for his ivory-white, it distinctly surpasses the Chinese Ming Chen-yao in every quality except an indescribable intimacy of glaze and pâte which probably can never be obtained by either Japanese or European methods.

Miyagawa Shōzan, or Makuzu as he is generally called, has never followed Seifū's example in descending from the difficult manipulation of coloured glazes to the comparatively simple process of painted biscuit. This comment does not refer, it need scarcely be said, to the use of blue and red sous couverte. In that class of beautiful ware the application of pigment to the unglazed pâte is inevitable, and both Seifū and Miyagawa, working on the same lines as their Chinese predecessors, produce porcelains that almost rank with choice Kang-hsi specimens, though they have not yet mastered the processes sufficiently to employ them in the manufacture of wares of moderate price. But in the matter of true monochromatic and polychromatic glazes, to Shōzan belongs the credit of having inaugurated Chinese fashions, and if he has never fully succeeded in achieving Lang-yao (sang-de-bauf), Chi-hung (liquid-dawn red), Chiang-tou-hung (bean-blossom red, the "peach-blow" of American collectors), or above all Pin-kwo-tsing (apple-green with red bloom), his efforts to imitate them have resulted in some very interesting pieces.

Takemoto and Kato of Tōkyō entered the field subsequently to Shōzan, but follow the same models approximately. Takemoto, however, has made a specialty of black glazes, his aim being to rival the