TSUBO - THE NOBLE JAPANESE JAR - THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD -

by Leighton R. Longhi

The HIGH-WATER mark in the production of ’s great jars known as tsnbo occurred during the medieval period (1185-1573), encompassing the Kamakura, Nambokucho and Muromachi periods. Though the technol­ ogy for producing high-fired stoneware came to Japan from Korea during the fifth century, it wasn’t until the medieval period that large tsubo were produced. Fine arts and crafts are sharply divided and precisely defined in Western culture. However, no such distinctions exist in traditional Japanese connoisseurship. In fact, the term for fine art in Japanese is bijitsu, which encompasses all creative work in the diverse media of painting, calligraphy, sculpture, crafts and architec­ ture. What is it that has inspired Zen practitioners and followers of the in Japan, as well as Westerners of diverse artistic backgrounds, to appreciate the beauty of Japanese jars? Some Western philosophers have reasoned that one defines beauty by example, not definition. So, beyond these words, perhaps a sense of the jar through illustration will ring a greater truth, since there are no traditional terms of beauty that would properly explain the tsubo. Certainly not their perfect shape, because they are beautifully uneven. Not because of their painted decorations, since there are none. There are random deposits of natural in most cases, and sometimes incising, but their drippings and surface textures would come closer to the painting of Morris Louis or Jackson Pollock. To the contrary, the beauty of tsubo lies within their unevenness and imperfection. Picasso said that art is “what nature is not’’.1 Man-made, tsubo are formed Figure l, Suzu Stoneware Jar (Kamc). 13th century. from the earths’ materials in a way that recreates a sense of Height: 23% in. (59.5 cm.) Private Collection, U.S.A. whence they were derived. A powerful ovoid form with rugged texture, furnished by man from earth and water, fired and blown with ash, is brought together in the kiln as nature It must also be kept in mind that within each area of cannot. production there were numerous kilns, anywhere from 400 Japanese have traditionally grouped medieval production to 600. This was partially due to the amount of wood into six kiln areas: Bizen (Okayama Prefecture), Tamba needed to fuel a kiln. As wood was used up around one kiln, (Hyogo Prefecture), Shigaraki (Shiga Prefecture), Echizen production was moved to another hillside. At a later period (Fukui Prefecture), Tokoname and Seto (Aichi Prefecture). production might resume again at the old site when trees in However, since the 1960's, as a result of numerous excava­ the area had matured. A representative piece from one of the tions, a number of previously unknown medieval sites have newly excavated kilns would be a Suzu jar (fig. 1), a rarity come to light, some 26 on the Island of Honshu with a few here in the West. (Another smaller example resides in the scattered kilns on the other islands. These include lizaka Asian Art Museum of San Francisco ). Suzu jars were created (Fukushima Prefecture), Suzu and Kaga (Ishikawa Prefec­ for simple everyday use and usually built by coil technique in ture), Atsumi (Aichi Prefecture), Kancgama, Nakatsugawa five sections. As a result of reduction firing their surfaces and Mino Sue (Gifu Prefecture), Kamei (Saitama Prefecture), range in color from gray to black. This jar has combed Tokita, Takoda, and Shinanoura (Miyagi Prefecture), Sasaga- patterns that suggest windswept rain or water, giving further mi (Niigata Prefecture), Kosai (Shizuoka Prefecture), Kauai character to a body which manifests an almost planet-like (Gumma Prefecture), Kameyama (Okayama Prefecture) and appearance. As with most medieval jars of kame (wide­ Sue (Kagawa Prefecture). mouthed) shape, it is large and unglazed. It was intended for

13 water or liquids whereas tsubo, a narrow-mouthed jar, was used for seeds and other agricultural products. (Tanctsubo were larger jars used to store seeds and chatsubo were smaller jars for the storage of tea leaves.) Expansion and improvements in farming on medieval manors gave rise to an enormous demand for large storage and handling vessels. Beginning in the Kamakura period (1185-1336), areas with access to the sea such as Tokonamc, Bizen and Suzu, were able to ship large jars to most of the outlying areas of Japan. Of the three, was transitional in the change from reduction firing typical of earlier wares to the more economical oxidation firing. Of the many kilns that were active during the medieval period, it was only the major kilns of Seto, Tokoname, Bizen, Shigaraki, Tamba and Echizen, with the addition of Iga, Mino and Kaga, that survived into the Edo period (1615-1868) and are still in production today. It is amongst these primary six kilns that tsubo production occurred during the medieval period. In addition to tsubo, they also made kaine and (grating bowls) — all utilitarian objects of daily usage unintended for any artistic involvement. It was not until later in the sixteenth century that these peasant potters were commissioned by the practitioners of the tea ceremony to make (tea bowls), chairc (tea caddies), mizusashi (water jars) and hanaike (flower vases). Changing tastes as well as social and political upheavals during the later brought to ascendance tea masters such as Murata Juko (1423-1502) and Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591 ) who dictated taste to the ruling class in everything from tea ceremony to architecture and garden design. Juko was tea master to the shogun Yoshimasa and a Figure 2, Echizcn Stoneware Jar (Tsubo), c. 1500. student of the great Zen priest-painter and calligrapher Ikkyu Height: 22'A in. (57.5 cm.) Leighton R. Longhi, New York, N.Y. (1394-1481). He tried to give tea a religious aspect using common everyday objects and it was the wabi taste of such Figure J opposite, Shigaraki Stoneware Jar (Tsubo). 15th century. tea masters that created a renewed interest in native Japanese Height: 21 'A in. (54.5 cm.) Yale University Art Gallery. (Purchased with a ceramics. gift from Walter Barciss. B.S. 1940’s, and Molly Bareiss, and with the Wabi is a Japanese conceptualism of beauty and is normally Leonard C. Hanna. Jr. B.A. 1913, Fund, and the Henry Sage Goodwin, B.A. 1927, Fund). found together with the term sabi. It originally meant ‘insuf­ ficient’ or ‘not thorough’. Wabi, as it came to be appreciated by tea followers in the Momoyama era (1573-1615) repre­ glazed wares; the earlier tea ceremony utilizing more elegant sents simplicity, austerity, naturalness, asymmetry, calmness; a (ch’icn ware, , etc.). Native subtle profoundness and wizened nature. Sabi is the Japanese ceramics such as Scto ware had also been used, but restrained refinement and luster of things and can represent these were glazed wares imitating Chinese prototypes. Zen, anything from the patina on an old piece of wood to the combined with the native Japanese religion, Shinto, helped wetness on an aged and encrusted rock in the garden. The to end this and seek the adoption of simple objects for the wabi sabi concepts arc said to have originated with Matsuo tea ceremony. It would be fair to say that the taste in native Basho, Japan’s famous 17th century haiku poet, but the taste Japanese ceramics was formed through religious conviction and feelings existed long before Basho’s time. and has lasted to the present day. This taste extended to Largely due to the precepts of Zen Buddhism and it’s painting and calligraphy and resurrected the Zen style of adoption by the warrior class then in power, later tea masters painting. Even aristocrats such as Konoc Nobutada (1565- exerted enormous influence over the military rulers they 1614 ), a member of the Imperial Court, fashioned his served, such as Oda Nobunaga (1534 -1582), Toyotomi calligraphy in the rugged Zen manner and even went so far Hideyoshi (1536-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616). in many of his works as to utilize rough fibrous paper to Zen was, in a word, simplistic, believing in the immediate enhance the naturalness of his calligraphy and painting. and intuitive nature of the mind and it’s oneness with the A general overview of the main producers of medieval universe. Because of its anti-doctrinaire nature, it was tsubo would mainly encompass the kilns of Echizen, Shigara­ immensely appealing to the warrior class that was emerging ki and Tamba; the other three kilns primarily made other as a power in Japan as early as the 13th century. Zen was forms of jars and vessels. The ancient Sueki kilns were the thoroughly opposed to anything contrived, mannered or basis for the medieval ceramic tradition, which was already ostentatious. Previous taste in ceramics reflected more aristo­ occurring in Echizen Province (present-day Eukui Prefec­ cratic standards, partially due to the expensive nature of ture) during the late Heian/early Kamakura period

14 IS fk ■tilm % 12tli/13th century). However, in the case of Echizen, its potters arc deeply indebted to the Tokonamc tradition. Their kilns, the greatest in the area of the Sea of Japan, produced jars of various sizes, as well as grating mortars, tiles : ifHF& and other objects for everyday use. During the later Kamakura period it became popular to apply various incised I abstract and floral designs to Echizen wares, some perhaps for i identification, and others, as some scholars have theorized, for religious reasons. Echizen jars are marked by a reddish stoneware body, a result of high iron content and an ip oxygen-rich atmosphere in the kiln, with an abundance of m

kiln fallout, as opposed to the gray/black stoneware of Sucki, which was fired by the reduction process. Echizen jars were ; generally made by the coiled and paddled technique. { a Unglazed, they were removed from the kilns after firing with handsome green or brown natural ash deposits that proceed from the neck running down the shoulders (fig.2). Of medieval tsubo Echizen are the most difficult to find, fcC j since kanic are the more typical of their production. The most well-known of the tsubo from the medieval tradition are the jars of Shigaraki, east of Kyoto, in Shiga ;;.V Prefecture. The numerous kilns are known collectively as ! ‘Shigaraki’. They have a long history, dating back to the Nara period (710-794), when tiles were made for the Emperor Shomu. In the early Kamakura period the Zen i priest Eisai (1141-1215), founder of Kcnninji temple in Kyoto, returned from China with tea seeds and popularized the custom of drinking tea, which had formerly been ■ ______Sllb consumed only for medical reasons. Shigaraki jars, made of ___i_____ clay, rough in texture and therefore nonhydroscopic, became ideal for the storage of tea leaves. Figure 4, Ko Tamba Stoneware Jar (Tsubo), 16th century. Height: 17!^ in. Medieval is typified by a coarse coil-built (44.6 cm.) Cleveland Museum of Art. 63.556. body ranging in color anywhere from a light red or orange to a deep orange-brown color (depending on position in the kiln), with numerous grains of feldspar and quartz in the clay (fig.3). Fired in an anagaina (tunnel kiln), there are many splinter-like holes in the surface of these wares, where feldspar has exploded from the heat of the kiln. From the very beginning of the 16th century, Shigaraki wares caught the attention of the arbiters of taste, the Zen tea masters. Formerly pedestrian pieces were given sophisticated names, and especially the smaller ones (which were ideal for tea), became highly prized objects. When the Portuguese arrived in Japan they were greatly impressed by Japanese screens as well as lacquer wares, which they thought supreme among . * all nations. Yet they were incredulous at how much certain tea wares were treasured. As Alessandro Valignano, a Jesuit Figure 5, Detail of Japanese Screen, dated 1859, picturing Noboriganui, dated priest in Japan, observed: “Among these vessels is a certain 1859. Leighton IL. Longlii, New York, N.Y. kind which is prized beyond all belief and only the Japanese can recognize it. The King of Bungo once showed me a small earthenware caddy, for which, in all truth, we would Bizcn ware was made in the present Prefecture ol have no other use than to put it in a bird’s cage as a drinking Okayama beginning in the Kamakura period. These wares trough... nevertheless he had paid 9,000 taels (14,000 ducats) are characterized by a dark brown surface, caused by the for it, although I would certainly not have paid two farthings oxidizing kiln. It has been said that the potters of Bizen were for it... however much we examine them, we can never the first to adopt a new system of firing with a more steeply manage to understand in what consists their value and how sloped kiln rising up a hill and covered by a roof. Although they arc different from the others. In the same way, a piece different in form from a Sue ware kiln, Bizen kilns likewise of paper with a painting of a little bird or a small tree done in produced high-fired stoneware. During the Muromachi black ink will be bought and sold among them for 3, 4 or period (1392-1573), due to the resurgence of native Japanese ten thousand ducats... although it seems quite worthless to , Bizen wares enjoyed a renaissance of sorts, with our eyes”.2 considerable demand from the Zen tea practitioners. Bizen

16 Figure 6, Shigaraki Stoneware Jar (Tsubo), with heavy ash build-up. 15th Echizcn ware, had a high iron content and is characterized century. Height: 18% in. (48 cm.) Leighton R. Longhi. New York, N.Y. by a dark reddish- brown surface. The natural ash glaze is quite peculiar to Tokonamc; it is a dark olive color, which is enormously irregular, usually covering a good portion of the jar. The earliest datable example is a jar inscribed with a date corresponding to 1125, excavated at Imamiya Shrine in Kyoto. (produced in present-day Aichi Prefecture), an offspring of Sanage ware, developed to maturity during the Kamakura period. Known today as ko-seto (old Seto) its early jars were intentionally glazed and imitated Chinese styles as opposed to other medieval wares. Their production was aimed at a more aristocratic or elitist clientele; decorated with incised or stamped designs and varying in glaze from light green to dark iron brown, they stand in sharp contrast to the simple wares of the other kilns. A brief history of kilns and their techniques in Japan would take us back to the 5th century, when the anagania was introduced from Korea and utilized in the production of ceramics collectively known as sueki. An anagama was a single-chambered kiln constructed by excavating the side of a hillside and covering it with a ceiling of earth. The earthen ceiling was arched with over half of its shape extending above the ground and covered by a roof. Anagama were utilized throughout the medieval period, but with a transi­ tion from the earlier Sue reduction process to the oxidation firing process typical of the medieval period. By the end of the Momoyama period, a new type of kiln, called noborigama, was also introduced from Korea. It was a climbing kiln of several chambers built on a slope with a fire mouth at the ware was sometimes wrapped in a rice straw and the tech­ bottom and a chimney at the top that burnt wood more effi­ nique is known as hi-dasuki. As the straw burnt off, it left ciently than its predecessor. As is the case with all exposed various patterns and hues which came to be greatly appreci­ kilns, it was covered by a roof which in the case of rain, kept ated by connoisseurs. the enormously hot kiln from bursting (fig.5). Tamba kilns, located in present-day Hyogo Prefecture, Medieval pots were made in sections by the coil tech­ began production early in the Kamakura period, evolving nique, where coils of clay formed the bottom portion, a out of the Sueki tradition. Utilizing a single chamber second the rising portion and the third the shoulders. The anagama, they produced a large number of tsubo for everyday neck was not of the coil form, but was actually thrown on a use. Of coiled construction, the jars have a surface decora­ wheel, giving it a more perfect form in contrast to the rest of tion of melted wood ash, which produced a green glaze the jar. It is no wonder that broken necks seem more in proceeding from the shoulders and necks of the jars, keeping with the naturalness of the jar than do unbroken contrasting with various hues of brown and red on the ones and never affect the value or appreciation of a great jar. exposed surfaces of the clay from flame flashing. The particu­ The Western equivalent of this wabi sabi sensibility would be lar shade of green in the ash glaze is one way of identifying Puvis de Chavannes maxim: “More beautiful than a beautiful Tamba jars (fig.4). thing are the ruins of a beautiful thing”.' He believed that Tokonamc (present-day Aichi Prefecture) is noted for its there was nothing ugly in art, as other Western philosophers large jars with a strong reddish-brown body with production and sculptors had reasoned, unless it was false or artificial commencing sometime in the early 12th century. Traditional without character. thinking has always postulated that all 'six major medieval As each coil section is made, it is left to partially dry. Later, kilns’ evolved out of the Sueki tradition. However, in the the top portion of each section is slightly etched and moist­ case of Tokoname and Seto, it was the Sanage tradition (east ened so that the next section can be affixed. At no point is of Seto) that was responsible for their inspiration. Most of any section left to dry too long as bonding would be diffi­ the production was centered around present-day . In cult. As the sections are joined the potter paddles from the ancient times this was a large farming area, so most of the outside as well as the inside with a mallet and block to early Tokoname ware was produced for rugged everyday control the shape. Paddling marks are usually smoothed out, use, though some were utilized as cinerary urns or sutra but in early wares such as the Suzu jar (fig. 1). paddle marks burial containers. The major portion of production consisted are visible both inside and out. of large, wide-mouthed home built in the coiled technique After the jar has been constructed it is left to dry thor­ with thick walls. Like the other 'six kilns’ of the medieval oughly, as too much moisture in the clay would cause it to period, Tokoname jars were fired in an anagama to explode in the kiln. Nevertheless, the jar is still heavy due to stoneware hardness of up to 2,282° F. The clay body, as in its moisture content and a number of men are needed to

17 Figure 7, Shigaraki Stoneware Jar (Tsubo), with kiln residue on shoulders Because wood was expensive, as many jars as possible were and lifting markings on foot, 15th century. Height: 18% in. (46 cm.) placed inside a kiln for each firing. That is why it is common Honolulu Academy of Arts, purchased with funds donated by the Robert F. Lange Foundation, 1993 (7384.1). to see jars with the adhered remnants of other wares or dents to their body as the Echizen jar in fig. 2. Because it tipped over in the kiln during stacking, the natural ash glaze ran pick it up with lifting ropes and bring it to the kiln. Often diagonally to one side and we can determine the angle at we can see what are termed ‘lifting marks’ on the bottom of which it rested in the kiln by a fragment from another jar jars where this has occurred (fig.7). that adhered to it.

18 color on paper: by Teizan, dated 1859. Dimensions: 8ft. 6in. x 4ft. 7in. (259 However, an interesting screen by Teizan (fig.8), a 19th x 139 cm.) Leighton R. Longhi, New York. N.Y. century Japanese artist, illustrates the various methods of ceramic production. Though the kiln pictured is a noborigama Kilns were fired for an average of seven to eleven days and type and is free standing, it nevertheless shows the operation were attended day and night for stoking and observation of a kiln by its attendants. To one side of the kiln we can see (fig.5). During the medieval period most jars were fired by various workmen pulverizing clay and pouring it into a the oxidation process which produced a red flame, as settling tank, as well as clay that has been set out on drying opposed to the earlier reduction process (relatively less boards. Throughout the village various types of ceramics are oxygen in the kiln) which caused a blue flame. Oxidation being fabricated. In the left panel of the screen, close to the firing (an abundance of oxygen in the kiln) produced a burnt artist’s signature, we can see the enormous amount of wood orange to orange-brown in Shigaraki, a deeper reddish- needed to fire the kiln. However, it must be kept in mind brown in Echizen, Tokoname and Tamba and a dark brown that this is a larger and more commercial enterprise than its in Bizen. Of course, colors were usually stronger in those counterpart during medieval times. pieces closer to the front of the kiln and lighter on those Ceramic production, one of the longest unbroken art farther back and away from the forward heat of the kiln. traditions in Japan, remains today a lively art form with a Another result of oxidation firing was more ash build-up and number of artists designated as ‘Living National Treasures’. therefore more glaze with those jars closest to the front of They produce some wares that relate to the old kilns, but as the kiln (where the temperature was the highest), receiving with all artists, there are many new and unique shapes that- the most ash, some of which did not melt (fig.6). keep this wonderful tradition modem and vital. Kilns were fired with good wood such as split red pine and even the most economical ones consumed enormous quanti­ ties of fuel. As a kiln reached full temperature, natural NOTES wood-ash (which contains a silica base) would descend upon 1. Richard EUiman. Oscar IViUc (New York, 1987). p. 377. 2. Michael Cooper. Tliey Came to Japan (University of California Press, the molten pots accumulating around the neck and melting, 1965), pp. 261-262. causing a natural glaze to form and run onto the shoulders of 3. Frederic Grunfeld, Rodin (New York. 1987). p. 87. the jars. Another fortuitous development was residue from the kiln which sometimes fell onto the shoulders of the jars, giving them further character and texture (fig.7). Other jars SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY have an overall glossy body caused by falling ash known as J. Fontein and Money Hickman, Zen Painting and Calligraphy, (Boston, 1970). ‘kiln gloss’. W. T. De Ban’, ed. Sources of Japanese Tradition, (New York, 1958). Beginning in the Edo period (early 17th century), glaze Cort, Louise Allison. Shigaraki, Potteis' Valley, (Tokyo, New York, San tended to be manually applied rather than accidental and Francisco, 1979). therefore more contrived, lacking the beautiful random Frederick Baekeland and Robert Moes, Modem Japanese Ceramics in American quality of the natural ash glaze. Pictorial renderings of Collections (New York, 1993).

19