Kato Tokuro lived a turbulent life as a ceramic artist beyond the bounds of ordinary people.
He called himself a “poor farmer and poor kiln owner in Seto”. Tokuro's real name is Shokuro. He was born in 1898 into a Kano family that made a living from farming as well as pottery. From his early childhood, he enjoyed playing with clay and often collected pottery shards from the neighborhood.
His grandmother, who hoped to revive the family business, believed that schooling would ruin people, and so he was forced to learn the art of making pottery.
At the age of thirteen, inspired by the black-Oribe tea bowl of the Momoyama period, he began working with Mino pottery (Oribe pottery is a type of Mino pottery).
He took over his father's pottery kiln and became an independent potter under the artist name of "Tokuro" when he was 16 years old. Interestingly, the only reason for the name change was that there were so many other potters in the area named Shokuro.
At the same time, under the influence of a friend who was the same age as him, he began to study tea ceremony. He found a copy of "The Complete Book of Tea Ceremony Genealogy" at a bookstore in Nagoya. The book was written in a delightful Chinese style, and it was this book that taught him the close connection between the tea ceremony and pottery throughout history, and that the tea ceremony was the most important part of traditional culture. It was a great experience for him and he was truly amazed at how one book could change a person so much.
In 1918, at the age of 21, he married his childhood friend, Kato Kinu, who was five years younger than him. He also began to study ceramics in earnest while excavating old kiln sites.
After having many opportunities to see the masterpieces of the Momoyama period, Tokuro became absorbed in the study of Shino pottery. In 1929, he built a new anagama (hole-type kiln) in Sobokai town of Seto city to make Shino pottery in imitation of the old pottery.
In the same year, he discovered a piece of kizeto pottery inscribed with the inscription "Bunroku 2 (1953)" in the lower part of an old Mino kiln.
In those days, Tokuro often visited a small teahouse in Sobokai. When Mr. Yokoi from Tokyo, who was a famous tea master, came to attend a tea ceremony, he used the tea bowls that Tokuro had fired in January.
Yokoi was very impressed and said, "Let's take this one to Masuda Donno”. Donno was CEO of Mitsui financial clique and a very influential tea ceremony master.
Yokoi was an executive of Mitsui and Company at the time and was said to be the most influential subordinate of Donno. Yokoi took the five pieces Tokuro had brought to the tea party and delivered one of them to Donno.
When Donno saw it, he said, "A modern artist studied Unohanagaki (National Treasure, Shino-glazed tea bowl in Momoyama period) as his master. We'll call it "Tsurara (icicle)”.
Donno wrote, "this blue from indigo is bluer than indigo and looks cold like water from icicles that is colder than the icicles” and signed the wooden box of the bowl.
Thanks to Donno, Tokuro came to be noticed by the tea masters. The following year, his work "Fish Vase" was selected for the first time at the 12th Teiten exhibition.
In 1933, Tokuro published his research results in his book "Kizeto" (Hounsha Co., Ltd.).
This book was the starting point of a new view on Mino pottery in the Momoyama period, and he argued that Seto-ware was fired in Mino earlier than Seto.
However, this book caused an outcry among Seto citizens and resulted in a book burning riot.
He denied that Toushiro, who is enshrined as the founder of Seto pottery, was not the founder and argued that Kizeto pottery, Shino pottery and Oribe pottery were not unique to Seto, but the original pottery was fired in Mino, based on the findings of excavation.
The potters and others with conflicts of interest led an anti-Tokuro movement.
As a result, the house of Tokuro in Sobokai received threatening letters every day, stones were thrown at him, and a fire was started. Finally, he decided to evacuate his family to another location for safety reasons. But before evacuating, he was assaulted by a thug, severely injured by a beer bottle, and was forced to leave Seto.
In 1935, with the full support of Kawakita Handeishi, Tokuro opened his studio in Suishoen, a suburb of Nagoya (now Kasugai City). Almost all of Tokuro's surviving works were created in Suishoen. And one of Tokuro's masterpieces, Shino tea bowl "Akane" was also made there.
He always used to say, "Soil for one, soil for two, and soil for three. (He valued soil above all else)”. Also, Tokuro said "The Momoyama potter had the heart of samurai" so his art is powerful.
In 1951, he exhibited six pieces of tea ceremony pottery in Oribe pottery at the exhibition of Japanese ceramics at the Musée Chernusky in Paris. It became a hot topic when he exchanged his works with Picasso on this occasion. In 1952, he was selected as the first holder of Living National Treasure for the Oribe pottery technique.
In 1960, the incident of ”Fake Pottery Pot in Einin Period” broke out. The following is a brief explanation of the incident. A pottery pot was excavated accidentally during a road construction site in Higashi-Kasugai-area of Aichi Prefecture in 1943. The pot was inscribed with the inscription "Einin 2", indicating that it was made in 1294. Furthermore, the same type of pot was excavated from Seto. The pot excavated from the construction site has gone missing, but the pot excavated from Seto was designated as national important cultural property in 1959.
Amidst the uproar about this new important cultural property, Kato's eldest son, Mineo, claimed that he had made the pot himself, which caused a great commotion. However, Tokuro also claimed that he had made the pot, and from then on, he refused to say anything about it. Kato Mineo later changed his family name to Okabe Mineo after a conflict with his father, Tokuro, to distance himself from his father.
Because of this incident, Tokuro was stripped of his title of Living National Treasure. After that, he called himself "Muichimonin (all of nothing)" and devoted himself to his own pottery, working in Shino, Karatsu, Oribe, and Kizeto. He left masterpieces one after another and immersed himself in his life's work of compiling his original encyclopedia of ceramics.
Kato Tokuro, a leading figure in contemporary ceramics and a subject of much discussion, died at 10:05 a.m. on December 24. He died of a heart attack at his home in Nagoya City. He was 87 years old.
]]>At the beginning of the 19th century, one of the most influential figures in Owari pottery was born: 10th Kato Nihei, known as Shuntai.
It is said that Shuntai served the clan when he was only 15 years old. This coincided with the timing of the revival of Ofuke-ware when the feudal lord Saito began to maintain the Ofuke Imperial Garden. Around this time, the person who discovered Shuntai in his youth began his retirement.
In Kyouwa 11 (1801), Hirasawa Kuro retired from active life and moved to the Koganagaya Garden in Joto Kiyomizu-sakashita. He was enjoying a slow life while he built a teahouse called Konjaku-an and Jiou-an.
In addition to the tea ceremony, Kuro also enjoyed kneading clay, pulling the pottery wheel, and making pottery. In addition to Shuntai, other potters such as Tosaburo, Toyosuke 3rd, and Shunetsu were taught pottery making by Kuro. It is said that the disciple who was most favored by Kuro was Shuntai, who was in his fifties and Shuntai in his twenties, so they were as far apart as father and son in their relationship.
The tea pottery made by Kuro became popular among tea ceremony masters, such as "Mizusashi Kuro", a water container made by Kuro, which was mentioned in the tea ceremony records of those days. The Furu-seto glazed water jar was one of Kuro's representative works, and he also made a variety of other ceramics such as Oribe tea bowls and Shino tea bowls, and Mukozuke tea ceremony dish plates.
Naturally, these are reflections of Kuro's preferences, and it is thought that Shuntai was given considerable guidance and training in the process of creating them.
In the 19th century, Ofuke-ware was actively producing "copies of masterpieces of the Owari clan". A particularly striking example is the "Mishima-de" vessel. In the Owari family, Mishima Oke, a tea bowl praised as "the unrivaled masterpiece", has been passed down through to the present day and this copy was also made. In addition to the above, tea bowl "Fuji-bakama", and a straw bag-shaped tea bowl used by the second lord of the Owari clan, Mitsutomo, were produced as high-quality works among the Ofuke-ware in that period, and were treated with respect and passed down to the present day.
It was published on the web pages of the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Tokugawa Art Museum, so I would like to introduce you to it.
https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/18724
https://www.tokugawa-art-museum.jp/en/exhibits/collection/room2/03/
https://www.tokugawa-art-museum.jp/exhibits/planned/2018/0909-2hosa/post-7/
]]>1) Deoxidized firing and oxidized firing of pottery
A teapot can be fired either with an oxidized or a deoxidized method. In short, these refer to pottery that is fired with a perfect combustion by infusing it with air, and pottery that is fired with an imperfect combustion by largely restricting it from contacting air. Pottery is made up of minerals, and those minerals are oxidized when it is fired with an oxidized method, and conversely, those minerals are deoxidized when it is fired with a deoxidized method.
In the case of clay that is thought to be the same type, whether the clay is fired with an oxidized or a deoxidized method will cause a difference in the taste and scent of the tea. Up to now, I took oxidized pottery from both Sado Island and Tokoname and compared them to deoxidized pottery. Although there were differences in the degree of strength of the variations, between the oxidized and deoxidized firing methods, I observed the same tendency in variations regardless of the clay.
A characteristic with oxidized firing is that the aroma is more readily enhanced. The tendency is that the scent easily spreads inside one's mouth, so it is best suited for oolong tea and black tea.
In the case of deoxidized firing, the scent does not stand out as much compared to oxidized firing. In exchange, a richer flavor can be experienced. I think that would be best suited for pu'er tea and green tea. Additionally, people who place more of an emphasis on flavor over scent apparently also make oolong tea in teapots made from this clay.
2) Firing temperature
In general, it is assumed that the more minerals in the clay, the more effect that will have on the water. Nevertheless, if made in a teapot that is 100% iron, that does not mean that the flavor of the tea will be milder. Although the amount of minerals contained in the clay is important, the exterior structure of the clay is also an essential component. The larger the surface area of the clay is porous, the more the flavor of the water will change. Also, grains of clay that are finer will have a stronger effect on the water. In practice, if the same type of clay is fired at different temperatures, the lower the temperature, the more that the flavor of the water will change. The higher the temperature it is fired at, the more the degree of change to the flavor diminishes. If fired at a high temperature, that will cause more of the grains to melt and vitrify, and the vitrified portions are unlikely to have that much of an effect on the flavor of the water.
3) Types of minerals in the clay
The types of minerals in clay change the flavor of the water in different ways. For example, iron, tin, titanium, and gold particles will give it a milder taste. In comparison, copper, zinc, aluminum, and silver particles will cause the water to have a bitter taste.
While researching the above, I remembered that the manager of a teaware shop told me that a Tenmoku teacup will give the tea a milder taste. Tenmoku refers to teacups made with a deoxidized firing method that is covered in a glaze that has a lot of iron, so I believe that property is similar to an iron kettle or a vermilion stoneware teapot. The glaze on Tenmoku pottery has a lot of iron, giving it a darker color. Tenmoku from China's Song dynasty was made from clay in the northern regions that have a lot of iron, giving the clay a black color.
Going from this theory, celadon pottery is made with a deoxidized firing method, and the natural glaze made from wood ashes has a lot of minerals, so that will make the water taste more delicious.
I immediately tried to see if using a Tenmoku teacup would bring about a change in the flavor of the tea. Most teacups used for green tea are covered in a vitrified glaze, so in line with this theory, that would mean there would not be the sort of the change in flavor observed from unglazed pottery.
I tried several times to compare tea drunk from a teacup used for green tea and a glass cup, but to be honest, my tongue could not pick up on a difference in the flavor. In the end, if someone wants there to be a change in the flavor, I think Mumyoi ware, or a vintage Tokoname ware or Yixing ware teapot should be used.
]]>The man himself was the creator of the pottery works displayed at the booth, and he was a Mumyoi Ware creator from Sado Island named Hosono Toshio. According to Master Hosono, if you drink tea and alcohol from a cup of Mumyoi ware, the taste of the water changes and improves the taste. The red soil from the Sado Gold Mine contains high levels of iron and this makes the water poured into the pottery ware made from such soil more mellow. Apparently the iron content far exceeds that of Bizen Ware. I recalled a story which I heard at a tea shop in a Yokohama Chinese town in the past, and felt that I wanted to try this and decided to buy one un-glazed pottery cup.
Once I came home after safely buying the Tochio deep-fried tofu, I had my usual oolong tea from Master Hosono's cup. I was first surprised by the taste from the first mouthful. The tea was smoother than usual and the water tasted softer than usual. Additionally, it was less bitter and tasted sweeter than usual. When comparing the tea from a glass cup, the difference was stark. My wife also tried it - she shared the my opinion, and insisted that she wanted one for herself, and thus she went to the Dai-Niigata event to buy another of Master Hosono's cups the following day.
I was able to hear the story of the Mumyoi Ware from the creator himself, so I will be sharing this information with you all as well. The following is a description of Mumyoi Ware.
Mumyoi is a type of red soil which contains a rich amount of iron oxide which is produced from around the Gold Mine, and the Mumyoi pottery uses it as its pottery clay, which is then baked at high temperatures.
The character of the clay is such that it requires special work such as polishing while raw and then polishing it with sand after baking it.
In addition, the pottery clay goes through "elutriation" - a way to get rid of sand and impurities in the process of balancing the clay particles - using a 200-mesh sieve which makes the baked pottery clay shrink by around 30% due to the loss of these particles.
Therefore the product is extremely hard and when hit it makes a clear metallic sound and the more use it gets the more it shines.
The Mumyoi Ware products are gaining attention as a means of improving the taste of tea, alcohol, beer and coffee.
In China, Mumyoi had been used as a type of herbal medicine to cure hemostasis since ancient times, but as they did not know the source of the effect they seemingly named it Mumyoi (no name). In Japan this was gathered only around the Sado Gold Mine. It was a byproduct of mining operations during the 1640s - the height of the gold rush on Sado Island after the discovery of the Aikawa mines.
The history of Mumyoi ware began with Ito Jinpei creating Raku Ware using the Mumyoi produced from the Sado Mines in the 2nd year of Bunsei (1819).
Afterward, Miura Jozan (1836-1903) realized that Mumyoi produced from the Sado Mines has a very similar nature to Yixing clay. He doubled his efforts to change the usual Mumyoi ware, which was quite fragile, into strong pottery similar to the pottery created from the Yixing kiln in China, and he completed a piece of strong, high-temperature Mumyoi pottery. Tea tools in Mumyoi ware became popular among people who like green tea because they made tea delicious like Chinese Yixing ware.
According to a record, the famous shogunate retainer, Katsu Kaishu bought tea tools from Miura Jozan.
In 2003 Mumyoi Ware was registered as a National Important Intangible Cultural Property.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is attempting to register Sado Aikawa gold mines in the World Heritage List now. Unfortunately, because of this, it became very difficult for potters to obtain Mumyoi from around Sado Aikawa gold mines because collecting the mine soil from the area was banned.
Master Hosono's pottery is apparently not only pursuing the art style of standard Mumyoi but is also pursuing changes in the colors of the pottery through heat by using a glaze which is a combination of natural stones in Sado and tree ash in the ascending kiln.
]]>Indeed, I had heard that putting sake into a bizen ware sake bottle made it taste better, but I had never actually tried it out myself.
Now that I think about it, soil is just a lump of minerals, and that must be why the water flowing in rivers through mountain forests is so delicious.
I feel like this ended up being a good opportunity for me to become interested in the relationship between pottery and the taste of water.
my favorite Yixing tea pot
]]>The head temple of the Rinzai sect’s Daitokuji school of Buddhism, also known as Ryuhozan.
The temple was established by Zen Buddhist monk Shuho Myocho (Daito Kokushi) in 1315, in the latter years of the Kamakura period. It was severely damaged during the Muromachi period Onin War but was restored by Ikkyu Sojun. In the wake of the Muromachi period, after Murata Juko, the early developer of the wabi-cha style of tea and other practitioners of Higashiyama culture came for Zen meditation with Ikkyu, Daitokuji developed a close connection with the world of cha-no-yu and many tea ceremony masters such as Takeno Joo, Sen no Rikyu, and Kobori Enshu formed relationships with the temple. The temple has many tea ceremony rooms that are designated cultural assets, such as the Mittan room in Ryuko-in sub-temple, which is a national treasure. The temple also owns a calligraphic scroll signed and sealed by a former head priest at Daitokuji and a tea cup with a note of authentication contained in a box, items which are loved in the tea ceremony. This prompted the city’s young townsfolk to mock the temple, calling it “Daitokuji no chazura. (Family temple for tea ceremony masters)” In the Muromachi period, Toyotomi Hideyoshi held a funeral service for Oda Nobunaga, built the sub-temple Soken-in as a mortuary temple for Nobunaga, and donated land. This set off a flurry of temple building among the Azuchi-Momoyama period commanders.
The temple’s Imperial Emmisary Gate, Mountain Gate, Buddha hall, Dharma hall (important national treasures), and the abbot’s quarters (national treasure) and lined up from north to south and create what is known as a complete seven-structured temple compound. The second story of the Mountain Gate was added by Sen no Rikyu and is called Kimokaku. There is a well-known story about the installation of a statue of Sen no Rikyu in the gate so much angering Hideyoshi that he ordered Rikyu to commit ritual suicide.
As of 2014, Taitokuji has two branch temples and 22 sub-temples.
Two-story mountain gate. The lower level was built in the 2nd year of the Kyoroku era (1529) with a contribution by renga poet Shocho, and Sen no Rikyu completed the upper levels in the 17th year of the Tensho era and called it "Kinmokaku". To repay Rikyu's favor, a wooden statue of Rikyu wearing geta (Japanese sandals) was installed on the upper level, but, because those passing through the gate would be under Rikyu's feet, it is said that this enraged Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which became the reason behind Rikyu's ritual suicide.
Sokenin is a sub-temple of the Daitokuji in the Kita Ward of Kyoto. It is Oda Nobunaga's family temple. 100 days after the Honnoji Incident, on the 10th of October, famous funeral services were held at the Daitokuji, as the stage for the fight for supremacy of the Nobunaga Administration, with the task of chief mourner befalling Oda Nobunaga's orphan and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's adopted son, Hidekatsu. After that, in time for the first anniversary of Oda Nobunaga's death, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had the temple built and it became one of Daitokuji's 22 sub-temples.
The founder is the Daitokuji's 117th abbott, Sochin Koukei. It is said that at the time of foundation the group of temples were very prosperous, and the temple grounds were lined with magnificent temple buildings.
Tadaoki Hosokawa, known as a skilled commander during the Sengoku period and one of Rikyu’s seven dsiciples as a tea ceremony master, built this temple in 1602 for his father, Hosokawa Fujitaka (Yusai), and named Gyokuho Joso the founder. Gyokuho Joso was Hosokawa Fujitaka’s younger brother, and Hosokawa Tadaoki's uncle.
Tadaoki died at the age of 83 in 1645, and according to his will his teeth were buried at the Kotoin, which was from then on protected as the Hosokawa family temple.
The temple was built and founded in order to hold memorial services for Josui, the father of Kuroda Nagamasa, the first lord of the province of Chikuzen (Fukuoka). Kuroda Toshinaga and Kuroda Kazunari were in charge of the construction. The temple name, Ryukoin, came from Yoshitaka's posthumous Buddhist name, Great Layman Lord Ryukoin Josui Ensei. Because Shun’oku Sōen passed away while in seclusion at this temple, Kogetsu Sogan became the actual founder. Sogan had a friendly relationship with Kobori Enshū and others, and during his lifetime, the Enshu’s Kohoan Hermitage was also inside the temple grounds. Kogetsu Sogan was the son of Tsuda Sogyu. Many of the famous tea utensils handed down at the Ryukoin Temple are considered to have come into the temple’s possession through bequests that trace back to Sogyu. At the time of its foundation, Ryukoin Temple had numerous buildings and three times its current land. Unfortunately, it reached its current form after being destroyed in the execution of the anti-Buddhist official separation of Shinto and Buddhism that took place in the Meiji Period.
Kohoan was built in 1612, inside the grounds of the Daitokuji subtemple Ryokoin (which had been built by Kuroda Nagamasa). It was established by Kobori Enshu, with Kogetsu Sogan as its patriarch. It was moved to its current location in 1643, and inherited by Koun Soryu. It was burned in a fire in 1793, but was then rebuilt based on old blueprints by the daimyo of Matsue, Matsudaira Harusato (Fumai), a tea master who revered Enshu. It is now served by Takugen Kobori, who is the 18th generation to serve it.
Otomo Sorin, who was known as the Christian daimyo, invited Tesshu Sokyu and Taiman Kokushi, who he was devoted to, to be founders of the temple, and built it as his own family temple. The temple's name is from "Zuihoin Denzuiho Sorin Kyoshi", his posthumous Buddhist name. When seen from above, its traditional dry-landscape garden looks like a crucifix.
]]>tall: 8.6 cm
origin: China
age 13-14c
collection: Tokugawa art museum
]]>width: 7 cm
tall: 6 cm
origin: China
age: 12-13c
collection: Seikado art museum
]]>across: 9.1 cm
tall: 6.4 cm
origin: China
age: 13c
collection: Tokugawa art museum
]]>width: 7.9 cm
tall: 8.8 cm
origin: China
age: 12-13c
collection: Tokugawa memorial foundation
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