12th to 18th Centuries



Since Japan's production of celadon did not begin until around 1610, it lagged far behind that of China and Korea. Thus, during and before the Medieval era, Japan could only import porcelain from abroad and regard it as a treasure. As early as the Hei’an era, during the 12th century, celadon and white Yue ware and other porcelain wares were being imported from China, but it was not until the time of Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181) that the volume of trade between the Song dynasty and Japan began to increase. A great deal of white porcelain has been excavated, primarily in Japan's western regions and in the Heisen region of the northeast, where the Fujiwara clan was based. In Kyushu and elsewhere many white porcelain bowls and dishes dating to this time have been unearthed. However, the quantity of unearthed celadon from the Kamakura era (c. 1185-1333) and afterward shows a marked increase. The unearthed artifacts are mostly Longquan celadon ware, and there are also some bowls and dishes from Tong’an in Fujian and elsewhere. Generally speaking, among the porcelain items that have been excavated from various sites in Japan, there tend to be more bowl-shaped vessels than small dishes.
Distribution of Celadon in the Medieval era
During the Kamakura period, celadon imported from China was circulated throughout the country from western Japan and from the political capital, Kamakura. During this time there was also a small quantity of Korean Goryeo (Koryo) celadon mixed in with the rest. But the quantity of celadon unearthed at Kamakura drops off suddenly from the latter half of the 14th century, as soon as the Ming dynasty began and Japan's political center returned to Kyoto from Kamakura. During the Muromachi period (c. 1336-1573), celadon could be found in aristocratic households throughout Japan, judging from excavations of sites dating to this period (c. 1336-1573), but celadon was especially abundant in the Ryukyu Kingdom, where trade was growing steadily. Even in excavations of the walled towns on the Tsugaru Peninsula, the northernmost point of Honsh , we begin to see Chinese celadon and small quantities of Korean porcelain that had been imported during the 14th and 15th centuries. Imported Chinese celadon utensils at the time consisted mainly of bowls, followed by small dishes. There are also a number of larger vessels, symbolic of status, such as wine jars, incense burners, plates, large dishes, and deep bowls. These porcelain utensils consisted primarily of celadons made in Longquan and kilns of that lineage, but there are also rather coarsely-made celadons. As for the Chinese porcelain tableware dating from this period, besides celadon there is also white porcelain, and among the white porcelain pieces small dishes are most plentiful. Judging from the fact that traces of red appear on them more frequently than on the ordinary tableware, it is more likely that these were used for cosmetics.
During this time of dominance by Chinese celadon, Jingdezhen began firing its era-defining blue and white (painted) porcelain. That was during the first half of the 14th century, during the Yuan dynasty. However, the large-scale production of blue and white ware did not take place until the latter half of the 15th century. Japan also began importing blue and white in the latter half of the 15th century, but it was not after the 16th century that blue and white replaced the position of celadon and became the new focus in porcelain.
What I call the “blue and white era” refers to the period during and after the 16th century. Japan in the 16th century was in its “Warring States era,” and in any archeological survey around the walls and moats of the battling fiefdoms of that time one is virtually certain to find blue and white bowls and small dishes made in Jingdezhen. At the same time, however, the quantity of Longquan celadon fell quickly. Even if one excavates a celadon piece, chances are that it is a low-quality celadon bowl or dish made in Fujian and Guangdong. With this as background, a small quantity of mid-sixteenth century chrysanthemum-shaped celadon bowls and dishes exported from Jingdezhen have been unearthed from wall sites. These findings may be said to match precisely the description of Japanese tastes in porcelain found in Chouhai tupian (published in 1542): “[They] choose floral styles and use them. In incense-burners they prefer small ones with sides ribbed like bamboo segments, in small dishes they prefer chrysanthemum shapes, in bowl-type vessels they prefer caltrop-flower shapes. They are not insistent upon whether they come from official kilns.”
In the second half of the sixteenth century, as demand for blue and white porcelain increased, the private kilns in Zhangzhou, in southern Fujian, began making blue and white at prices lower than those fetched in Jingdezhen.

The Folding Screen with World Map in the Kawamori Family collection shows “Zhangzhou kiln” with the caption, “Produces bad dishes and tea bowls,” and this was indeed the case. The outer rims of this sort of Zhangzhou ware had wavy lines and the coarser bowls (of a shallower shape) appear to have been intentionally modeled after Longquan celadon ware. Many of these have been unearthed in Japan, but these imported porcelains were of the cheapest variety. Judging from their patterns, they may have been intentionally modeled after celadon bowls, but the color of the Zhangzhou ware, in comparison with the Longquan celadons, was whiter, approaching white porcelain. The context supporting porcelain of this quality continued into the first half of the seventeenth century. In the latter years of the Ming dynasty, the Zhangzhou kilns were producing large quantities of large celadon plates that were distributed mostly throughout Southeast Asia, but few of these have ever been excavated in Japan. Only a very small quantity of small celadon incense-burners from late Ming China have been excavated, but it seems that the shapes of small celadon incense-burners produced in Arita during the early period bear some relationship with these. However, the Longquan kilns at this time had nearly gone out of operation, because almost all the celadon being exported to Japan was coming from Jingdezhen and Zhangzhou. Not many Jingdezhen celadons have been found—all rather small, thin-walled bowls and such drenched with ceramic glaze-and among the antique late Ming Jingdezhen wares ordered by Japanese tea masters, one finds only a few celadons.

Even during this period when celadon was in short supply, Japan's aristocratic houses still seem to have maintained their demand for Longquan celadon. In excavations of sites relating to the great Edo fire of 1657 or of mansions of the nobility in Edo and elsewhere, distinctive Longquan celadon plates, incense-burners, and so on are always found.1 The vessels passed down through the generations in these aristocratic houses also include many Longquan celadons from the first half of the Ming,2 and all of these are high-quality celadons. It is no longer possible to determine whether these had been passed from generation to generation in Japan from the beginning or had been imported as antiques into Japan during the early Edo period. In any case, these separate phenomena indicate that the aristocratic class of the early Edo period definitely had a demand for Longquan celadon, which symbolized status.The Arita kilns were born after Japanese demand for celadon had gradually reached a certain scale. It was within this background that the domestic manufacture of celadon began around the 1630s.

The Earliest Japanese Porcelain and Celadon Production
There is no sign of any celadon having been made in Arita when the town first began making porcelain around 1610. It produced mainly blue and white, using small quantities of white porcelain, plumbic glaze, ferric glaze, and so on. This is probably because the ceramic techniques that Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and his men had brought back from their Korean campaign had come precisely from Korea, which did not produce celadon during the sixteenth century.

However, the demand for celadon among Japan's upper class finally enabled Japan to begin celadon production. According to historical records, Nabushima Tadashige (1584-1624), the younger brother of Nabushima Katsushige (1580-1657), the daimy of Saga domain, had found great favor while serving as an attendant to Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632), the second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, and in 1624 or before he had ordered the making of two “new-style celadon tea bowls” from an important retainer in his home domain. According to these records, the “new style” referred to the fact that they were small tea bowls with small circular bases, and were understated and elegant. Around the same time, the noted artisan Takahara Goroshichi moved to Iwayagawachi in Arita, and according to the genealogy of the Fukuda clan, the fame of his celadon ware had gradually spread far and wide. Now a large quantity of celadon has been unearthed at the Sarugawa kiln in Iwayagawachi. Although it is impossible to determine that that is where Nabushima Tadashige's “understated, elegant celadon tea bowls” had come from, more than a few celadon tea bowls were indeed excavated there. Moreover, the Tani kiln, which produced excellent tenmoku celadon bowls, was located nearby. During the 1630s and 1640s, many kilns began firing celadon bowls. In addition, the renowned Tengudani kiln, one of the kilns in which Kanagae Sanbee (Yi Sam-pyeong, d. 1655) had been involved in managing, had during its early period produced tall-necked vases besides celadon bowls. Outside of Arita, inside the neighboring principality of omura, Hasami in Nagasaki Prefecture produced excellent celadon utensils during the same period. Characteristic of the many large celadon plates produced here is a purer, more transparent green color compared with the wares of Arita. Besides using patterns incised with chisels, the Hasami artisans also used impression techniques. It is conjectured that the three feet on the bases of the large plates were due to the influence of Ming dynasty Longquan celadon, but one cannot find works that were pure imitations.Later on, after the famous artisan Takahara Goroshichi came under suspicion of being Roman Catholic, he vanished without trace from Arita, but the production of celadon at Arita continued to prosper as it had before into the 1640s. Within the Arita region, a number of high-class plates that combined plumbic glaze, ferric glaze, blue and white glaze, and other ornamentations were produced. Another technique emerged whereby after the celadon glaze was applied, part of the pattern-an egret, for instance-would be scraped off, and then a painted blue and white pattern would be added. No parallel for this sort of technique can be found in China, so it is likely that this was an ornamentation technique unique to Arita. As mentioned earlier, the differences between Arita celadons of the 1630s and 1640s on the one hand and Chinese Longquan ware on the other is that some of the Arita celadons used white china clay bodies, from which parts of the celadon glaze was scraped away and replaced with blue and white ornamentation; some of them used plumbic, ferric oxide, and yellow glazes in combination; and some would use distinctive linear incised patterns. In addition, no glaze was applied on the circular base of a vessel, or, in a manner like that of blue and white ware, the glaze only on the bottom of the circular base was scraped off. From these works, one cannot sense at all any influence from the Ming celadon ware of Longquan.
Just at this time, in 1644, China fell into civil war because of the Ming-Qing transition, and production in southern China's kilns fell off. After the dramatic decline in the quantity of Chinese export ware, Japan had to source its porcelain primarily from Hizen, so Hizen improved its productivity. All at once it monopolized the Japanese domestic market in porcelain. Around 1647, Chinese merchant vessels under the Zheng clan started to engage in export trade with Southeast Asia. In addition, it seems that Chinese techniques were brought directly into Japan: around 1650, everything from kiln implements to shaping were switched over from techniques that had originated in Korea to techniques that had originated in China. To fire large celadon bowls and plates, methods identical to those used at the Longquan kilns in the Ming dynasty started to be used. The tool used to put porcelain into the kiln, called chiatsu in Japanese and zhiquan in Chinese, was the same as the one used at Longquan. For raw material the kilns continued to use white china clay bodies, but the clay had a higher iron content, with a slight grayish cast, which made the celadon a darker green. In particular, because the clay bodies of the Arita and Hasami celadons were quite white, a ferric glaze would be daubed onto the bottom of the circular bases of the vessels where the celadon glaze had been scraped away in a snake-eye pattern, as had been one at the Longquan kilns in the Ming, before placing them in the kiln. This way they attempted to achieve the burnt tea-color effect seen on the bases of Longquan vessels. In addition, the large celadon plates were patterned using chisels or pressure molds, so that they could mass-produce the kind of large plate that had been made in Longquan. This kind of plate was mass-produced at Arita and Hasami, Nagasaki Prefecture. During the 1650s, the export of Chinese ceramics dropped dramatically, but in 1684 the edict of the Qing court reopening the seas once again brought Chinese porcelain to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian states, and they were even exported to Turkey. Japan's upper classes also continued to have a demand for this sort of celadon, of which significant quantities have been unearthed at various sites in Japan. However, after the 1684 edict, the production of porcelain fell even more rapidly, so that by the 18th century it had nearly vanished without a trace. This is perhaps also due to increased demand abroad. As for Hasami, meanwhile, it continued to produce large celadon plates that had been influenced by Longquan ware until around the early 18th century.
During the latter half of the seventeenth century, apart from the large plates and large bowls mentioned above, there were also celadon bowls, small dishes, incense burners, covered containers, vases, pots, dolls, display items, and so on being produced, but one hardly sees among all these any ordinary utensils like ordinary rice bowls or tea bowls.After entering the eighteenth century, Arita began manufacturing bowls on which celadon glaze was applied only on the outside surface. In the first half of the eighteenth century, Arita had already begun to manufacture high-class bowls that had celadon glaze applied on different sections of the surface. However, mass production of this kind of bowl had to await the latter half of the century; these items would be mass-produced at the Hirosemukai kiln and the supplementary kilns of the Okawachi domain kiln (which made ordinary objects for broad distribution). Around the same period of time, the Higuchi kiln in Arita and the Tsutsue kiln in the Takeo domain began manufacturing blue and white dishes and bowls with sections of celadon glaze.Whereas during the seventeenth century Hasami was the main producer of celadon, during the eighteenth century it mostly switched over to the production of low-priced blue and white bowls and plates. The only celadon ware it produced were Buddhist flower vases, small firepots, ashtrays, and so on.

Tribute for the Shogunate—Nabeshima
While the celadon-producing kilns in Hizen were privately owned, the Nabeshima domain (Saga) covered all production expenses for Nabeshima ware, since its main purpose was to fill tribute quotas for the shogunate. of course, the tribute included a large quantity of celadon. During the early Edo period, the first lord of the Saga fiefdom, Nabeshima Katsuhige (1580-1657) purchased ideal Chinese porcelain items from Chinese ships on their way to Nagasaki, to offer as tribute to the shogunate, but after civil war broke out in China in 1644, the supply of kind of vessels produced at Jingdezhen was cut at the source. He thus ordered the development of substitute wares in Arita. Arita then imported the painting and other techniques that had been used in Jingdezhen, so that Arita's technical standards could rival those of Jingdezhen. The Tokugawa jikki (The True Record of the Tokugawas)

records that in 1651, Nabeshima Katsushige once presented a sample set of shogun-grade tableware for inspection by the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651). After receiving Iemitsu's approval, and despite Iemitsu's death the following day, the Nabeshima ware became a regular annual tribute item for the next-generation shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna (1641-1680). The production of Nabeshima ware was originally limited to the Iwayagawachi domain kiln in Arita, but in 1659, after the ware began formally to be exported abroad by the Dutch East India Company (which also brought a period of prosperity to the Arita kilns in general), it was thought inappropriate to have the domain kiln set amongst all the other Arita kilns, lest the technical secrets of the shogunate tribute wares be leaked out. Thus the domain kiln was moved approximately five kilometers north to Okawachiyama, which was surrounded by steep mountains. The move is estimated to have taken place around the 1660s.
For the next 200 years, up to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate era, the domain kiln at Okawachiyama spared no expense in producing mostly tableware for the shogunate, and it continued to use distinctive methods. Outstanding ceramists from the private Arita kilns would be hired by the domain kiln and brought to the fine studio separate from the private kilns in order to produce limited quantities of fine porcelain every year. In terms of quality and design, the tableware for the shogunate had to be entirely different from that found among commoners. Therefore, as soon as any pattern or special technique was adopted by the Nabeshima domain kiln, the private kilns were forbidden to imitate it. Conversely, if the private kilns came out with an excellent pattern or design, it could also be adopted by the Nabeshima domain kiln, and afterward these patterns and techniques would disappear from the private kilns. Such was the relationship between the domain kiln and private kilns. As a result, a design that perfectly expressed the Japanese aesthetic was born: the unique utensil in the form of a shallow wooden cup. However, inside the circular bases on the bottom, all the extraneous elements customarily used by the private kilns-patterns, maker's marks, and so on-were done away with. A method was devised to eliminate even the pinprick marks usually found on the base in order to create perfect, flawless utensils. They were also made to precise dimensions. Twenty pieces constituted a set, with dishes and small wine cups. To make the patterns and images, a color-and-ink image on rice paper, called nakadachigami or “medium paper,” was drawn and then pressed upon the vessel, and this formed the template for the blue and white image. The exquisitely high level of technique in creating these images was such that people are hard-pressed to discern any difference among the images on the individual pieces of a set.3
Besides blue and white and painted porcelain ware, Nabeshima also produced a lot of celadon. Unlike the celadon produced in the private kilns, the shape of the cups were the same as the Nabeshima's blue and white ones. Compared with the celadon wares produced by private kilns, the domain kiln covered the utensils with a thick layer of glaze, and in many cases applied two thick but evenly balanced layers of celadon glaze. As for the patterns and images on the utensils, they were shaped with molds or painted over the glaze before initial firing, and sometimes blue and white glaze and celadon glaze were applied on separate sections. Many of the combination celadon and blue and white wares from the domain kiln used these three methods to express the patterns.
Nabeshima celadon with additional blue and white painted patterns eventually reached a golden age, but later on they virtually disappeared. During the latter half of the 18th century, when the private kilns began producing large quantities of celadon and blue and white, the Nabeshima ware gradually declined. Precisely because Nabeshima was making these special kinds of utensils as tribute for the shogunate, it was always easy for it to be out of synch with developments in the private kilns.Nabeshima's manufacture of celadon continued to the late Edo period, and even at that time it sought to emulate the style of China's opaque celadon Longquan ware of the Southern Song and Yuan periods. With regard to flower vases, hakamagoshi-type incense burners (what in Chinese terms is described as an incense burner in the shape of a bronze li vessel), and so on, it had attempted to search for unique shapes. Its production of celadon Buddhist ritual implements such as incense burners and flower vases and of celadon ware for daily use far exceeded that of celadon plates, dishes, and so on, because there was a demand for them within Japan from the Medieval period onward, especially among the upper classes.

Notes:
1 Tokyo daigaku konai iseki chosa kenkyu nempo, 2, bessatsu: Tokyo daigaku konai iseki shutsudo tojiki, toki no bunrui (1) [Annual Report of Survey of Historical Sites in the Campus of the University of Tokyo, Vol. 2 Supplement: Porcelain and Earthenware Objects Excavated from Historical Sites in the Campus of the University of Tokyo (1)] (Tokyo Tokyo daigaku maizo bunkazai chosa shitsu, 1999).
2 Matsui bunko no meihinten, II: Matsui bunko no tojiki [Masterpieces from the Matsui Collection, II: Ceramics] (Kumamoto: Kumomoto kenritsu bijutsukan, 1989).
3 Yamamoto Ayako, "Kinsei Hizen jiki etsuke gijutsu no kenkyo: Hizen jiki etsuke gijutsu ni okeru nakadachi-gami shiyo no seiritsu katei (Soda Hiroshi kyoju tainen kinengo)" ["A Study of techniques for Hizen porcelain painting: the development process Hizen porcelain painted by use of nakadachi-gami (Commemorating the Retirements of Professor Sohda Hiroshi)"], Aoyama shigaku [Aoyama Historical Review] 28 (2010), 31-48.
Reference:
Ohashi Koji, Umi o watatta tojiki [Ceramics that Crossed the Seas]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 2004.