Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/457



—Izumo is the place where men emigrating from the Asiatic continent to Japan via Korea would naturally land, supposing them to follow the chain of islets which form partial stepping-stones from Korea to Japan. The story of keramics thus furnishes incidental evidence of the theory that Izumo was the first point reached by the Mongoloid immigrants, who subsequently pushed on to Yamato.  —Owari, Bizen, Izumo, Mikawa, Settsu, Nagato, Omi, Mino, Harima, Sanuki, Chikuzen, Tampa, Awa, and Chikugo.  —One of the chief imperfections of modern Arita porcelain is due to the faulty manipulation of its glaze.  —It will be well, perhaps, to warn collectors against elaborately modelled and highly decorated specimens of Imari porcelain which are placed upon the market by unprincipled dealers as examples of Kakiemon's work. There were several generations of Kakiemons, and the mere fact of ascribing a specimen to Kakiemon is sufficient to proclaim the ignorance or dishonesty of the description. As for the figures of richly robed females that have received this title in recent works on Japanese art, they are manifest forgeries.  —The leading features of this story are repeated in the case of two or three potters. 