Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/451

 side of the Japanese ware, but in thinness of pâte it supports comparison with, and in profusion and beauty of incised decoration it excels, its Chinese original.

Latest of all to acknowledge the impulse of the new departure have been the potters of Kaga. For many years their ware enjoyed the credit, or discredit, of being the most lavishly decorated porcelain in Japan. It is known to Western collectors as a product blazing with red and gold, a very degenerate offspring of the Chinese Ming type which Hozen of Kyōto reproduced so beautifully at the beginning of the nineteenth century under the name of Eiraku-yaki. Within the past six years, however, a totally new departure has been made by Morishita Hachizaemon, a keramic expert, in conjunction with Shida Yasukyo, president of the Kaga Products Joint Stock Company (Kaga Bussan Kabushiki Kaisha) and teacher in the Kaga Industrial School. The line chosen by these keramists is purely Chinese. Their great aim seems to be the production of the exquisite Chinese monochromes known as u-kwo-tien-tsing (blue of the sky after rain) and yueh-peh (clair-de-lune), into the composition of both of which glazes gold enters. But they also devote much attention to porcelains decorated with blue or red sous couverte. Their work shows much promise, but like all fine specimens of the Sinico-Japanese school, the prices are too high to attract wide custom.

The Satsuma potters also have made a new departure, but in their case originality may be claimed, since no prototype is to be found among Chinese wares. They now produce faience with designs pierced à jour in a manner that is at once very beau-