Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/88

 ready for the modellers. These are provided with the so-called potter's wheel. At Arita it consists of a driving and a working wheel, fixed about twelve to fifteen inches apart on a hollow wooden prism. On the lower side of the driving-wheel is a porcelain cup that rests on a vertical wooden pivot projecting from a round block of wood over which the system is placed. The pivot is planted in a hole of such depth that the rim of the driving-wheel is slightly raised above the surface of the ground. Beside this hole the modeller sits, and while turning the system with his foot, moulds a mass of material placed on the working-wheel. His only tools are a piece of wet cloth to smooth and moisten the vessel; a small knife to shape sharp edges; a few pieces of stick to take measurements, and a fine cord to sever the finished vase from its base of superfluous matter.

The pieces, having passed from the modeller's hands, are air-dried, after which they are again placed upon the wheel and their shapes perfected with iron tools. They are then coated with the white clay called Kudaru-yama-tsuchi, for the double purpose of imparting to the finished vase a pure, soft aspect, and providing a ground suited to the blue, intense or delicate, which is used in the decoration. The piece is now placed in the preparatory kiln, called Suyaki-yama (kiln for unglazed ware). The management of temperature in this kiln is a business demanding great care, the object being, not to bake the porcelain thoroughly, but merely to prepare it for the reception of the decoration and the glaze. After cooling, the pieces are carefully washed and passed to the decorator, who paints upon them various designs, using for pigment, nowadays, common smalt, whereas formerly he used cobaltiferous manganese imported from China. It would be difficult to exaggerate the difference, from an artistic point of view, between the colours produced by the two materials. That obtained from smalt is thin, garish, and superficial; that obtained from the Chinese mineral is deep, intense, and so intimately associated with the pâte as to appear inlaid. Chemists claim that to provide the pigment of former times is easily within their resources. Nevertheless, great interest attaches to its composition, and independent