Papers by Richard L Wilson
In Michel Conroy, ed., Mingei Legacy: Continuity and Innovation Through Three Generations of Modern Potters (Erie, Colorado: NCECA, 2003): 13-24., 2003
This brief article introduces contexts—social, industrial, and artistic—for the development of Ja... more This brief article introduces contexts—social, industrial, and artistic—for the development of Japan's folk-art ceramics in the early 20th century.
The Journal of Asian Studies, 1991
Humanities (International Christian University) v. 52, 2020
Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) was born and raised in Kyoto and built his illustrious career as a ceram... more Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) was born and raised in Kyoto and built his illustrious career as a ceramic designer in that city. However in his final years he chose to move to Edo, where he worked until his death. Although there is a paucity of evidence for this period, this article considers Kenzan’s motivations, his interactions with elite patrons and local ceramics workshops in Edo, and finally how that legacy resonated for later professionals and amateurs who variously evoked his name and techniques in handwritten and printed manuals.
Humanities (International Christian University) v. 51, 2019
This article surveys the technical legacy of the Japanese ceramic designer Ogata Kenzan (1663-174... more This article surveys the technical legacy of the Japanese ceramic designer Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) through the pottery manuals from his own hand and those written by his successors. Following a brief introduction to modes of technological transmission and the fundamentals of Japanese ceramic technique, each manual is transcribed and its contexts and vocabulary are explicated.
ICU ARC Occasional Papers, 2021
A defining aspect of the ceramics of Japan's early modern era (1600-1868) is that in addition to ... more A defining aspect of the ceramics of Japan's early modern era (1600-1868) is that in addition to being made and used they were inventoried, ranked and explicated in writing and print, a reflection of a vastly expanded cultural literacy. The writers include the potters themselves, the most noteworthy example being the Kyoto dilettante-turned-potter Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743). Here we apply the tools of natural science, chiefly instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), to some of the excavated material from Kenzan's kiln site. The aim is to create a comprehensive technical profile of Kenzan's clays, from their geological origins to their manifestation in specific products. We will see that Kenzan, an outsider to professional ceramics production, carried both personal cultivation and class identity into his practice.
Humanities vol. 40 (International Christian University), 2009
Modernization in Japan profoundly changed ideas about the making of
crafts by hand. From the 1910... more Modernization in Japan profoundly changed ideas about the making of
crafts by hand. From the 1910s, a select number of producers, mostly
based in Tokyo, began to focus upon the role of the individual maker,
the meaning of tradition, and the relationship of craft to everyday
life. A burgeoning mass media began to valorize makers and products. A
central figure on that stage was the British ceramicist Bernard Leach
(1887-1979). Here we examine the formative stage for Leach’s move into ceramics, using the online Bernard Leach Catalogue at the Crafts Centre in Farnham, Surrey, U.K. References in Leach's diaries, when considered in light of artistic and cultural activities in Tokyo, shed new light on the modern craft movement in Japan
International Christian University is well known for its Palaeolithic and Jomon-era sites. This p... more International Christian University is well known for its Palaeolithic and Jomon-era sites. This preliminary report introduces Middle-Jomon era artefacts and features excavated from a Middle Jomon site in the southeast sector of the campus.
Historical research exposes both its explicit subject as well as the implicit biases of its write... more Historical research exposes both its explicit subject as well as the implicit biases of its writers. This article discusses research on the celebrated ceramic designer Ogata Kenzan in the context of several distinct phases of development: 1) a period of antiquarianism where Kenzan was fitted into various artistic genealogies (e.g., the tea ceremony, the Rinpa school of painting); 2) a period of “internationalism” in the sense that Kenzan was favorable received abroad on one hand, and western positivism influenced Japanese accounts of Kenzan on the other; 3) a period of popular romanticism, where scholarship served a highly subjective biography—one which in turn contributed to problems in connoisseurship. Finally, the authors consider new perspectives in the field such as comparative research and archaeology.
Abetted by peace and prosperity, and by the strategic utility of cultivated pastimes in an era ... more Abetted by peace and prosperity, and by the strategic utility of cultivated pastimes in an era of regime change, Japanese literary themes enjoyed an unprecedented florescence in the seventeenth century. As scions of a wealthy merchant house serving the highest echelon of the imperial court, the Ogata brothers Korin (1658-1716) and Kenzan (1663-1743) were steeped in classical verse (waka), narrative (monogatari), and drama (noh) traditions. With the decline of their family business at the end of the century both brothers were compelled to convert this “habitus” into production of painting, lacquer and ceramic design. Their contributions form the core of what came to be known as the Rinpa school.
The early-modern treatment of the indigenous literary tradition is marked by new modes of packaging and dissemination. While prose and poetry themes are hardly new to the crafts, Kenzan’s synthesis of theme, calligraphy, painting and ceramic form is entirely without precedent. In order to take full measure of this approach, the authors surveyed all known works inscribed with Japanese poetry and noh-drama lyrics attributable to Kenzan and his workshop, totaling 20 sets (as presently constituted) and individual objects, for a total of 223 pieces. All inscriptions were transliterated and traced to their classical sources. Below we summarize the findings for waka and noh, with special attention to selection, pictorialization, and text-picture-object relationship. Monogatari and poet- portrait (kasen) themes are relatively few in number and thus excluded from this summary.
For ceramics inscribed with waka, Kenzan showed a preference for poetry by and related to Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241) and for poetry by Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537). The Teika-legacy material includes “Teika’s Ten Styles of Poetry” (Teika jittei, 1207-1213), Manuscript of Remnants (Shui guso, 1216), Single Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu, 1235), and “New Six Poetry Immortals” (Shin rokkasen, 1505). The Sanetaka verses are all extracted from Jewels of Snow (Setsugyokushu, n.d.). The interest in Teika reflects his centrality in the medieval literary tradition and posthumous links to noh, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. Kenzan was in agreement with his contemporaries in frequently using “Birds and Flowers of the Twelve Months” (Junikagetsu waka, 1214), originally included in Shui guso. As for Sanetaka, there is a tenuous connection to the Mikohidari line of poets descended from Teika, and Sanetaka is renowned in the tea ceremony for instructing Takeno Joo (1502-55) in Teika’s poetics; additionally Kenzan probably favored Sanetaka for the topics of his poems, especially “poems on things” (daiei) that were readily adaptable to pictures.
Pictorialization of waka (uta-e) accelerated in the mid-seventeenth century after a long hiatus. Decoration on Kenzan’s Teika twelve-month dishes relate closely to painted versions, especially those in an album in the Idemitsu Museum bearing the signature of Kano Tanyu (1602-74). Other poetic vignettes have a basis in the kai-e (literally “poem-meaning picture”), abbreviated scenes that first appear around 1660, inserted above portraits of classical poets (kasen-e) also associated with Tanyu. The kai-e becomes a fixture in illustrated manuals from the 1670s, exemplified by Hishikawa Moronobu’s Single Poems by One Hundred Poets, with Commentary (Hyakunin isshu zosansho, 1678). The simplification and modularizing tendency in the kai-e commended it to ceramic décor.
Befitting a man of letters, Kenzan adroitly manipulated the relationship between the text, picture, and vessel. The permutations include 1) dishes with picture on the front and poetry on the back, 2) dishes with picture and poetry on the front, 3) paired dishes with pictures and the first and second halves of a poem on the respective halves, 4) the same as previous but without pictures, and 4), dishes with (complete) poems only. The strategy reflects the social aspect of the waka tradition, rooted in uta-awase but with playful innovations like cards (karuta) reaching maturity in the seventeenth century.
Kenzan and his brothers participated in non-guild noh drama (tesarugaku) from an early age, and recent scholarship has underlined the influence of noh on Korin’s art. Kenzan’s experience is revealed in sets of dishes decorated with noh-drama themes. The front of each dish is painted with an evocative scene or object related to a specific play and the back features an excerpt from that play’s script. An originary model for the pictures can be found in hand-painted covers of deluxe noh libretti (utaibon) from the early seventeenth century, but Kenzan’s schematization parallels the aforementioned kai-e. The calligraphic excerpts on the back of the dishes are key passages from the respective plays: these excerpts, called ko-utai, were expected recitation material for celebratory and social events, and ko-utai compendia were best-sellers in Kenzan’s day.
The authors have tried to demonstrate that Kenzan wares with Japanese literary themes are closely related and indebted to early modern appropriations of classical Japanese literature and trends in its pictorialization. However the versatile design strategies—particularly the sensitive deployment of writing, centered around calligraphic inscriptions from Kenzan’s own hand—must be seen to reflect the sensibilities and skills of Kenzan himself. This helps to explain why Edo-period Kenzan imitators rarely attempted to work in this mode.
Waseda Global Forum, 2017
Literacy and leisure combined to revolutionize craft production in Edo-period Japan. Inspired by ... more Literacy and leisure combined to revolutionize craft production in Edo-period Japan. Inspired by precedents in painting and lacquerware, and even more by the burgeoning illustrated book, from the mid-seventeenth century textile and ceramics makers began to systematically produce objects that quoted or otherwise referenced classical texts. Japanese waka poetry and noh drama are the primary sources, but Chinese poetry makes its debut in textiles in the s, and by the opening of the next century Chinese verses appear on ceramic surfaces. The latter breakthrough was engineered by the Kyoto ceramics designer Ogata Kenzan-, brother of the celebrated painter Ogata Krin-. Before opening a ceramics workshop at Narutaki in the northwest hills of Kyoto in , Kenzan had spent a decade immersed in studies of Chinese poetry and baku Zen Buddhism. His neighbor during this formative period was the master potter Nonomura Abstract The Kyoto ceramics designer Ogata Kenzan-is particularly well known for dishes decorated with monochrome painting and calligraphic inscriptions, created shortly after he opened his first ceramics workshop in Narutaki, northwest of Kyoto, in. The gestation of this synthesis of painting, poetry and pottery is nevertheless poorly understood. However, a-dated work that came to light in Tokyo in clarifies both the technical and iconographic standards that Kenzan employed at the beginning of his career. This article will examine these aspects with special emphasis on the interplay between poetic inscription, painted theme, and ceramic vessel.
ICU Humanities, 2004
Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) is widely recognized as a potter who introduced the literary arts into ... more Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) is widely recognized as a potter who introduced the literary arts into ceramics. Chinese and Japanese poetry is a key element of Kenzan ware decoration. However, there has never been a systematic investigation of the meaning and reception of those inscriptions. This article introduces new research into their background and meaning. About 1000 ceramics, paintings, and writings bearing the signature "Kenzan" were selected for analysis. All of the inscriptions and signatures were carefully read and recorded in typeset, preserving as faithfully as possible the original characters and noting mistakes and inconsistencies. In the case of wares with Chinese inscriptions (kanshi), all them were translated into Japanese (yomikudashi). The sources of the inscriptions of both Chinese and Japanese poetry were subsequently investigated as exhaustively as possible, covering their first appearance in ancient times and tracing their usage down to Kenzan's own day.
Our survey revealed a hitherto unknown--or perhaps forgotten--dimension of Kenzan's art. The poetry selections demonstrate Kenzan's personal aesthetic interests and the faithful adoption of same by followers and imitators. Evidence introduced in this essay shows that they also mirror popular trends in literary consumption. First, in the case of the waka inscriptions, Kenzan's overwhelming favorite was the medieval poet Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537), with particular preference for the poems published in the Setsugyokushu, one of Sanetaka's two great anthologies. This was published in a popular edition in 1670, and its extensive contents and rational structure made it a virtual dictionary for waka aficionados. A devotion to Sanetaka can be seen in Kenzan's calligraphy and painting as well as his ceramics.
In the case of kanshi, Kenzan drew from a number of famous themes and authors, but all of his selections were from recent anthologies, the most prominent being Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo), a voluminous manual of popular poetry excerpts first published in Ming-dynasty China and reprinted numerous times in Japan from the 1650s. Divided into forty-four topics ranging from the heavens to insects, and with a preponderance of couplets, it was a convenient repository for any aspiring literatus or artist. Our research has shown that Enki kappo was the source not only for the well-known dishes made jointly by Korin and Kenzan, but for production by second-generation Kenzan, Ogata Ihachi, and later copyists.
On the reception side, we have found that the Enki kappo was important at several levels. First, its alleged editor Wang Shizhen (1526-1590), together with Li Panlung (1514-1570), editor of the Tang shi xuan, were central figures in the late Ming archaist movement that was so strongly endorsed by the most well-connected intellectual of Kenzan’s day, Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728). At the same time, Enki kappo was appropriated frequently by the most prominent authors of Kenzan's time, including novelist Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) haiku master Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). These links to a popular literary and performing-arts culture help us to form a more accurate historical understanding of how Kenzan ware was understood and enjoyed in his day.
This article is the second of two installments covering the iconography of Kenzan-ware dish... more This article is the second of two installments covering the iconography of Kenzan-ware dishes decorated with monochrome painting and Chinese poetic (kanshi) inscriptions, or the so-called "gasan" style. The most celebrated of these specimens are the square dishes with poetry inscribed by Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) and painting by Kenzan's older brother Ogata Korin (1658-1716). These were made in limited numbers in the late Hoei (1704-1711) and Shotoku (1711-1716) eras, but were mass-produced from the Kyoho era (1716-1736) though the middle of the eighteenth century. Collectively these works are recognized as the premier examples of Kenzan's expression of the literati ethos.
The poetic and pictorial traditions of flowering plants and trees are centered around the mobilization of select species, using their fragrance, form, and seasonality as auspicious and moral symbols. Such deployments are in evidence as early as the Warring States era but gained critical mass among the scholar-official elite of the Northern Song dynasty. Plant allusions were not only aesthetically appealing; they became a political necessity in an age where direct moral criticism was difficult. Worship of literati heroes and their plant avatars became an iconographic system in the Yuan dynasty, as this group struggled to affirm its identity in the midst of Mongol domination. This sensibility was transmitted to medieval Japan and came to flourish in the Five Mountain or Gozan monastic culture. With the popularization of sinophilia in the 17th century, Chinese-derived floral codes became a staple of literary and artistic representation in Japan. Thus when the young Kenzan himself was described by a mentor, the Obaku monk Gettan Docho, he was "tending chrysanthemums by an eastern fence," an unmistakable reference to the bucolic pleasures of literati paragon Tao Yuanming ("Shuseido ki", in Gazanko, 1690). In the form of poetry excerpts, these tropes were increasingly available in Japanese editions of popular Chinese anthologies; the most popular of these, the Wanli-era Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo), is the source for most of the inscriptions in Kenzan ware.
The painted decoration on these dishes also evokes a multi-layered tradition, which on a general sense we might call "ink flowers." Documents reveal how Northern Song literati dabbling in monochrome bamboo and plum came to be highly regarded as an expression of personal character and refinement. In the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, ink flowers became firmly established as a mark of literati identity. At the same time, Chan-Zen painters were fond of creating ink impressions of plants and vegetables. Surviving paintings in the style of the Chan monk Muqi, or by the Yuan literatus Zhao Zhong, use the handscroll format to show a succession of ink flora on against a blank background—called kakizatsukan or handscroll of miscellaneous flowers.
From the Kamakura period ink flowers came to be painted in Japan, notably by Zen monk painters Tesshu Tokusai and Gyokuen Bonpo. From the late 14th century, these subjects come to exhibit brushwork and compositional traits distinct from their Chinese models. Furthermore they were now painted as small hanging scrolls in order to fit the newly evolved Japanese tokonmoma. Imported Chinese handscrolls were cut into sections for the same reason. In this compact format, ink flowers subsequently became a popular subject for tea ceremony display (chagake).
From the mid-17th century, connoisseurship of Song-Yuan and Muromachi paintings became a central and self-legitimizing activity of the Kano family of painters. Their appraisals of are preserved in the form of annotated sketches or shukuzu. These sketches, which included floral subjects, subsequently served as school models under the name of funpon. In addition to serving as components for larger pictures, such models were readily transferable to small-format surfaces such as fans (senmen) and album pages (gajo). The range of possibilities and modularizing tendency can be seen in Kano Tsunenobu's (1636-1713) copybooks Kara-e tekagami and Kara gakan, albums of his copies of Chinese paintings.
From the late 17th century, as painting became a popular pastime, woodblock-printed painting manuals (gafu) began to circulate, initially in the form of Chinese editions or their Japanese reprints. From the 1720s Kano-school funpon were also collected into painting manuals, notably Ehon shaji bukuro (1720) and Gasen (1721).
Kenzan conceived his early efforts in this mode as a ceramic version of the literati-inspired "three perfections", that is, poetry, painting and calligraphy. Since these were produced in sets of assorted themes, his patrons surely associated them with the painting album; the thematic preferences, simple compositions, and "boneless" strokes could equally evoke the chagake or gafu. In short, there was no deficit of allusions, both classical and contemporary.
We should not neglect the fact these dishes were intended for practical use. The early collaborations of Korin and Kenzan were made in the comparatively large form of suzuributa, a square or rectangular tray used for serving snacks or sweets in intimate gatherings. However from second decade of the 18th century, smaller round, square or rectangular dishes were produced in much greater numbers, presumably filling the role of mukozuke, a dish placed on the far side of the tray used for individual servings, or as side dishes to supplement a main serving. A few large sets remain, positioning them as stock items in the higher end of the food and entertainment industry. Even these, however, maintain an improvisational look central to the "literati" ethos. The users presumably enjoyed identifying the texts and images and trading their knowledge with companions.
Keywords: Edo-period Japanese ceramics; Ogata Kenzan; Kenzan ware; Rinpa; Chinese poetry in Japan
近世日本陶磁、尾形乾山、乾山焼、琳派、詩画軸、画讃、花鳥画
Abstract
Iconography of Kenzan Ware:
Chinese Poetic Themes (1) Landscapes, Human Figures, and ... more Abstract
Iconography of Kenzan Ware:
Chinese Poetic Themes (1) Landscapes, Human Figures, and Animals
乾山焼 -- 画讃様式の研究（一）山水・人物・禽獣
English Summary
A revolutionary ceramic product, one that looked more like a painting than a pot, made its debut in Kyoto in the opening years of the eighteenth century. These rectilinear dishes and trays were decorated with monochrome painting, poetic inscriptions, and personal signatures. The designer and frequently the calligrapher for these works, Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), understood the codes of poetry, painting, and writing that had evolved in China and Japan. His knowledge was mediated by the reproduction of those codes in contemporary painting and especially in illustrated literature. His products were functional ceramics, which means that these images had now migrated from the tokonoma to the tatami, so to speak; at the same time, the decidedly "non-ceramic" shapes, and impromptu painting-poetry provided the work with a performative aura that resonated with the consumers, specifically that segment of the population who, from the 1680s, had begun to learn Chinese and use it in their entertainments.
This article is the first of two installments that survey this genre of Kenzan ware, which the authors call the "gasan" style after the Chinese expression for inscribed paintings, or hua zan. Kenzan-ware gasan ceramics from the Narutaki (1699-1712) and Shogoin workshops (1712-mid-18th century) are the focus. Judging from the number of surviving works, the style was remarkably popular, and it came to be mass produced at Shogoin, first under Kenzan himself and then under his adopted son and successor Ogata Ihachi (dates unknown).
This installment on Kenzan-ware gasan treats landscape, human figures, and animal subjects. The article begins by reviewing the Chinese locus classicus for the combined arts of poetry, painting, and calligraphy, with special attention to the way in which this synthesis articulated the values of the scholar-official class. A discussion of the appropriation of that tradition in Japan follows.
In the data section, surviving works and archaeological specimens are studied in terms of their inscriptions, including sources and meanings, and painted decoration, including styles and lineages. Landscape themes are the most numerous, and they divide into panoramic scenes descended from the Xiao and Xiang river tradition (J: Shosho hakkei) and close-up views of "pavillion landscapes" (J: Rokaku sansui). The former type, which occurs most frequently in Kenzan's first decade of production, features full-length poems and rather detailed painting in the Kano style. The latter type, which is common to Kenzan's later production and also the work of his adopted son Ogata Ihachi, typically features single-line excerpts and highly abbreviated, often amateurish painting.
Figural themes constitute the second category. Here too the subject matter is orthodox, drawing from the Muromachi-based line of Chinese "saints and sages" that had become increasingly popularized in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The poetic excerpts for this category are typically couplets, and the painting is either by or in the style of Ogata Korin (1658-1716). This approach is also limited to Kenzan's first decade of production.
The last category, animals, makes use of creatures associated with Buddhist or literati values; the wares are inscribed with couplets or one-line excerpts, and most of the painting is quite abbreviated. Wares decorated with animals appear at the end of Kenzan's first decade of production, specifically in association with Korin, but they also appear in later work as well.
For all categories, the poetic inscriptions are taken from the Yuan-dynasty anthology Shixue dacheng (J: Shigaku taisei) and its Ming successor Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo). Both of these collections enjoyed considerable popularity in Kenzan's day.
In selecting the poems for his pottery Kenzan exhibited a preference for those that had been originally composed as ti hua shi (J: daiga shi), that is, poems that were written upon the viewing of a painting. Those "versed" in the code of gasan could appreciate an experiential quality in such work. Yet, conversely, both the painting and poetry clearly access a well-developed archive of popular reproduction. Additionally, the lofty images of solitary and religious pursuits were now being employed in the decidedly communal and secular spaces of wining and dining. The appeal of Kenzan ware gasan must derive from these incongruities. In any case, with such a literary load Kenzan clearly diverted ceramic appreciation away from the materiality of the object to its "conception" (yi) embodying poetic traditions, thoughts of the maker, and the moment of execution.
Assuming that Kenzan ware reached a broad public—a fact increasingly validated by urban archaeology—and chose poetic excerpts and themes that would be recognized by that public, the ceramic works also document cultural literacy in the mid-Edo period. They show how an ever-growing consuming class could read and savor selections of poetry from the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties together with painting. Basho and Chikamatsu wove the same verses into their haikai and joruri. A plethora of how-to books like Shirin ryozai (Handy materials for the world of poetry; 1684) ensured popular access to these quotations.
Until quite recently (see vol. 35 of this journal), the poetry-painting synthesis in Kenzan ware was bypassed by researchers. The authors hope that this article will serve as a reference for understanding Kenzan's distinctive appropriation of the gasan lineage and its reception in the mid-Edo period.
Keywords: Edo-period Japanese ceramics; Ogata Kenzan; Kenzan ware; Rinpa; Chinese poetry in Japan; 近世日本陶磁、尾形乾山、乾山焼、琳派、詩画軸、画讃、日本漢詩
![Research paper thumbnail of Biography of Ogata Kenzan: Documentary Sources and their Reconsideration 乾山の伝記--年譜を礎いしづえとして (ICU Humanities Bulletin vol. 45 [2014])](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/40012453/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Biographical research on the ceramic designer Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) has been conducted since t... more Biographical research on the ceramic designer Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) has been conducted since the second decade of the
twentieth century, and it reached a plateau in the early postwar era. This article re-examines the sources for this portrait, and introduces new material and perspectives. The article begins with a reprisal of Kenzan's career that emphasizes his literati pastimes and ceramics production. The second section inventories persons, places, events, texts, and institutions related to Kenzan. Some of the highlights of this research are listed below.
Kariganeya period (1663-1688): This period covers Kenzan's boyhood, his early interest in learning, and the collapse of
the family's textile business under the stewardship of his oldest brother Tozaburo (ca. 1650-after 1714). Regarding the latter,
the authors introduce new information on a "Kawaguchi Genzaburo" who is identified as the employer of Tozaburo in Edo as of 1714 Ogata family genealogy. Genzaburo, a hatamoto, was the son of Kawaguchi Genzaemon (1630-1704) who served in influential government posts in Nagasaki and Edo. The link with the Ogata may be traced to the funeral of thier principal patronTofukumon-in in 1678, which Genzaemon is known to have attended. The ca. 1720 record Chonin kokenroku relates many cases where the scions of bankrupted merchants (like Tozaburo) move to Edo or regional domains to serve samurai.
Shuseido period (1688-1699): Following his father's death Kenzan moved to Omuro, in the northwest suburbs of Kyoto, to
a villa that he called the Shuseido (Hall of Learning Tranquility). For over a decade Kenzan pursued a literati lifestyle, studying
Zen with monks of the Obaku sect and attending the salon of high-ranking courtier Nijo Tsunahira (1670-1732). The authors
reconfirm the circumstances behind the construction of the Shuseido villa and the survival of its principal building within the
Ninnaji temple. The exchanges between Kenzan, his fellow Zen students, and the Obaku monks are covered in detail. Kenzan's
decision to purchase land for a ceramic workshop just after the death of his Obaku mentor, Dokusho Shoen (1617-1694), is
linked to a relationship with an Omuro neighbor, the potter Nonomura Ninsei (active ca 1640s-1690s).
Narutaki period (1699-1712): Kenzan opened his first ceramics workshop in Narutaki-mura northwest of Omuro in 1712. He
relied on a cadre of specialists: brother Korin and Watanabe Soshin for painting, Ninsei scion Seiemon for high-fired ceramics (hongama), and an Oshikoji-ware potter named Magobei for low-fired ceramics (uchigama). This section focuses on these personnel, especially the connection with Ninsei's family, which Kenzan would maintain until the end of his career, eventually adopting Seiemon's grandson Ihachi as an heir to the Kenzan line.
Nijo-Shogoin period (1712-ca. 1731). In 1712, citing the inconvenience of his remote location, Kenzan changed his workshop location to Chojiyamachi, a neighborhood on the north side of Nijo-dori just west of Teramachi. This was a business location, with numerous craft workshops and publishers, all depending on the nearby wharves of the Takase Canal, the shipping conduit to Osaka and markets beyond. A report of this move to city authorities mentions that Kenzan had shifted his management style, and instead of running his own kiln he was renting space in the kilns at Awataguchi and Gojozaka. During this period Kenzan's adopted son Ihachi established a workshop in Shogoin-mura, just across the Kamo River from Chojiyamachi. Sherds recently excavated on the campus of the Kyoto University Hospital show the existence of this workshop, which both continued the first-generation
Kenzan style and created new designs. This section also considers recently introduced evidence for the ownership of
Kenzan's Narutaki land after 1712.
Edo period (ca. 1731-1743): Kenzan's move to Edo was connected to Kokan (1697-1738), a tonsured prince selected to head the Tokugawa religious establishment of Kan'eiji, in what is now Ueno Park, Taito-ku. Kenzan settled in nearby Iriya-mura and continued making ceramics and attending cultural circles. A Meiji-era report mentions that one Shindo Suo-no-kami attended to the details of Kenzan's burial, and this article introduces the existence of Shindo's personal seal inside of Kenzan's 1737 pottery manual Toko hitsuyo. The article also introduces a Meiji-era map of Zenyoji, the Edo temple where Kenzan was buried. Kenzan's grave and the memorial tablet later erected by Rimpa revivalist Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828) appear on this document.
Keywords: Ogata Kenzan, Ogata Korin; Rinpa; Japanese ceramics
From 1996, the archaeology of production and consumption sites began to impact the study of ceram... more From 1996, the archaeology of production and consumption sites began to impact the study of ceramics made by Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) and his followers. This article coordinates the archaeological evidence with extant Kenzan wares, and attempts to delineate the characteristics of associated workshops.
The scion of a highly cultured Kyoto family, Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) spent his early adulthood p... more The scion of a highly cultured Kyoto family, Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) spent his early adulthood pursuing Zen and studying Chinese poetry and calligraphy. When he finally took up
ceramics at age thirty-seven, it wasn’t to display manual skill, but rather to translate the world known to him into ceramic design. This “world” can be divided into one, the resources that supported Kenzan’s cultivation and profession, and two, the resources that supported Kenzan designs. The purpose of this article is to survey both areas and link them to specific
concepts and works asociated with Kenzan.
Books by Richard L Wilson
Working Papers in Japan Studies v. 7, 1997
Prior to Japan's "bubble" era of the late 1980s, artifacts excavated from Edo-period (1615-1868) ... more Prior to Japan's "bubble" era of the late 1980s, artifacts excavated from Edo-period (1615-1868) contexts in Tokyo were routinely discarded. From that time however expanded archaeological budgets and the magnitude of the subsequent discoveries fueled the creation of Edo archaeology as a field. This study, a collaboration between faculty and students at International Christian University, Tokyo, is the first English-language overview of this domain. Key sites, features and artifacts are surveyed and considered in relation to other historical materials. Edo archaeology both complements and challenges orthodox portraits of the premodern city.
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Papers by Richard L Wilson
crafts by hand. From the 1910s, a select number of producers, mostly
based in Tokyo, began to focus upon the role of the individual maker,
the meaning of tradition, and the relationship of craft to everyday
life. A burgeoning mass media began to valorize makers and products. A
central figure on that stage was the British ceramicist Bernard Leach
(1887-1979). Here we examine the formative stage for Leach’s move into ceramics, using the online Bernard Leach Catalogue at the Crafts Centre in Farnham, Surrey, U.K. References in Leach's diaries, when considered in light of artistic and cultural activities in Tokyo, shed new light on the modern craft movement in Japan
The early-modern treatment of the indigenous literary tradition is marked by new modes of packaging and dissemination. While prose and poetry themes are hardly new to the crafts, Kenzan’s synthesis of theme, calligraphy, painting and ceramic form is entirely without precedent. In order to take full measure of this approach, the authors surveyed all known works inscribed with Japanese poetry and noh-drama lyrics attributable to Kenzan and his workshop, totaling 20 sets (as presently constituted) and individual objects, for a total of 223 pieces. All inscriptions were transliterated and traced to their classical sources. Below we summarize the findings for waka and noh, with special attention to selection, pictorialization, and text-picture-object relationship. Monogatari and poet- portrait (kasen) themes are relatively few in number and thus excluded from this summary.
For ceramics inscribed with waka, Kenzan showed a preference for poetry by and related to Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241) and for poetry by Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537). The Teika-legacy material includes “Teika’s Ten Styles of Poetry” (Teika jittei, 1207-1213), Manuscript of Remnants (Shui guso, 1216), Single Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu, 1235), and “New Six Poetry Immortals” (Shin rokkasen, 1505). The Sanetaka verses are all extracted from Jewels of Snow (Setsugyokushu, n.d.). The interest in Teika reflects his centrality in the medieval literary tradition and posthumous links to noh, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. Kenzan was in agreement with his contemporaries in frequently using “Birds and Flowers of the Twelve Months” (Junikagetsu waka, 1214), originally included in Shui guso. As for Sanetaka, there is a tenuous connection to the Mikohidari line of poets descended from Teika, and Sanetaka is renowned in the tea ceremony for instructing Takeno Joo (1502-55) in Teika’s poetics; additionally Kenzan probably favored Sanetaka for the topics of his poems, especially “poems on things” (daiei) that were readily adaptable to pictures.
Pictorialization of waka (uta-e) accelerated in the mid-seventeenth century after a long hiatus. Decoration on Kenzan’s Teika twelve-month dishes relate closely to painted versions, especially those in an album in the Idemitsu Museum bearing the signature of Kano Tanyu (1602-74). Other poetic vignettes have a basis in the kai-e (literally “poem-meaning picture”), abbreviated scenes that first appear around 1660, inserted above portraits of classical poets (kasen-e) also associated with Tanyu. The kai-e becomes a fixture in illustrated manuals from the 1670s, exemplified by Hishikawa Moronobu’s Single Poems by One Hundred Poets, with Commentary (Hyakunin isshu zosansho, 1678). The simplification and modularizing tendency in the kai-e commended it to ceramic décor.
Befitting a man of letters, Kenzan adroitly manipulated the relationship between the text, picture, and vessel. The permutations include 1) dishes with picture on the front and poetry on the back, 2) dishes with picture and poetry on the front, 3) paired dishes with pictures and the first and second halves of a poem on the respective halves, 4) the same as previous but without pictures, and 4), dishes with (complete) poems only. The strategy reflects the social aspect of the waka tradition, rooted in uta-awase but with playful innovations like cards (karuta) reaching maturity in the seventeenth century.
Kenzan and his brothers participated in non-guild noh drama (tesarugaku) from an early age, and recent scholarship has underlined the influence of noh on Korin’s art. Kenzan’s experience is revealed in sets of dishes decorated with noh-drama themes. The front of each dish is painted with an evocative scene or object related to a specific play and the back features an excerpt from that play’s script. An originary model for the pictures can be found in hand-painted covers of deluxe noh libretti (utaibon) from the early seventeenth century, but Kenzan’s schematization parallels the aforementioned kai-e. The calligraphic excerpts on the back of the dishes are key passages from the respective plays: these excerpts, called ko-utai, were expected recitation material for celebratory and social events, and ko-utai compendia were best-sellers in Kenzan’s day.
The authors have tried to demonstrate that Kenzan wares with Japanese literary themes are closely related and indebted to early modern appropriations of classical Japanese literature and trends in its pictorialization. However the versatile design strategies—particularly the sensitive deployment of writing, centered around calligraphic inscriptions from Kenzan’s own hand—must be seen to reflect the sensibilities and skills of Kenzan himself. This helps to explain why Edo-period Kenzan imitators rarely attempted to work in this mode.
Our survey revealed a hitherto unknown--or perhaps forgotten--dimension of Kenzan's art. The poetry selections demonstrate Kenzan's personal aesthetic interests and the faithful adoption of same by followers and imitators. Evidence introduced in this essay shows that they also mirror popular trends in literary consumption. First, in the case of the waka inscriptions, Kenzan's overwhelming favorite was the medieval poet Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537), with particular preference for the poems published in the Setsugyokushu, one of Sanetaka's two great anthologies. This was published in a popular edition in 1670, and its extensive contents and rational structure made it a virtual dictionary for waka aficionados. A devotion to Sanetaka can be seen in Kenzan's calligraphy and painting as well as his ceramics.
In the case of kanshi, Kenzan drew from a number of famous themes and authors, but all of his selections were from recent anthologies, the most prominent being Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo), a voluminous manual of popular poetry excerpts first published in Ming-dynasty China and reprinted numerous times in Japan from the 1650s. Divided into forty-four topics ranging from the heavens to insects, and with a preponderance of couplets, it was a convenient repository for any aspiring literatus or artist. Our research has shown that Enki kappo was the source not only for the well-known dishes made jointly by Korin and Kenzan, but for production by second-generation Kenzan, Ogata Ihachi, and later copyists.
On the reception side, we have found that the Enki kappo was important at several levels. First, its alleged editor Wang Shizhen (1526-1590), together with Li Panlung (1514-1570), editor of the Tang shi xuan, were central figures in the late Ming archaist movement that was so strongly endorsed by the most well-connected intellectual of Kenzan’s day, Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728). At the same time, Enki kappo was appropriated frequently by the most prominent authors of Kenzan's time, including novelist Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) haiku master Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). These links to a popular literary and performing-arts culture help us to form a more accurate historical understanding of how Kenzan ware was understood and enjoyed in his day.
The poetic and pictorial traditions of flowering plants and trees are centered around the mobilization of select species, using their fragrance, form, and seasonality as auspicious and moral symbols. Such deployments are in evidence as early as the Warring States era but gained critical mass among the scholar-official elite of the Northern Song dynasty. Plant allusions were not only aesthetically appealing; they became a political necessity in an age where direct moral criticism was difficult. Worship of literati heroes and their plant avatars became an iconographic system in the Yuan dynasty, as this group struggled to affirm its identity in the midst of Mongol domination. This sensibility was transmitted to medieval Japan and came to flourish in the Five Mountain or Gozan monastic culture. With the popularization of sinophilia in the 17th century, Chinese-derived floral codes became a staple of literary and artistic representation in Japan. Thus when the young Kenzan himself was described by a mentor, the Obaku monk Gettan Docho, he was "tending chrysanthemums by an eastern fence," an unmistakable reference to the bucolic pleasures of literati paragon Tao Yuanming ("Shuseido ki", in Gazanko, 1690). In the form of poetry excerpts, these tropes were increasingly available in Japanese editions of popular Chinese anthologies; the most popular of these, the Wanli-era Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo), is the source for most of the inscriptions in Kenzan ware.
The painted decoration on these dishes also evokes a multi-layered tradition, which on a general sense we might call "ink flowers." Documents reveal how Northern Song literati dabbling in monochrome bamboo and plum came to be highly regarded as an expression of personal character and refinement. In the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, ink flowers became firmly established as a mark of literati identity. At the same time, Chan-Zen painters were fond of creating ink impressions of plants and vegetables. Surviving paintings in the style of the Chan monk Muqi, or by the Yuan literatus Zhao Zhong, use the handscroll format to show a succession of ink flora on against a blank background—called kakizatsukan or handscroll of miscellaneous flowers.
From the Kamakura period ink flowers came to be painted in Japan, notably by Zen monk painters Tesshu Tokusai and Gyokuen Bonpo. From the late 14th century, these subjects come to exhibit brushwork and compositional traits distinct from their Chinese models. Furthermore they were now painted as small hanging scrolls in order to fit the newly evolved Japanese tokonmoma. Imported Chinese handscrolls were cut into sections for the same reason. In this compact format, ink flowers subsequently became a popular subject for tea ceremony display (chagake).
From the mid-17th century, connoisseurship of Song-Yuan and Muromachi paintings became a central and self-legitimizing activity of the Kano family of painters. Their appraisals of are preserved in the form of annotated sketches or shukuzu. These sketches, which included floral subjects, subsequently served as school models under the name of funpon. In addition to serving as components for larger pictures, such models were readily transferable to small-format surfaces such as fans (senmen) and album pages (gajo). The range of possibilities and modularizing tendency can be seen in Kano Tsunenobu's (1636-1713) copybooks Kara-e tekagami and Kara gakan, albums of his copies of Chinese paintings.
From the late 17th century, as painting became a popular pastime, woodblock-printed painting manuals (gafu) began to circulate, initially in the form of Chinese editions or their Japanese reprints. From the 1720s Kano-school funpon were also collected into painting manuals, notably Ehon shaji bukuro (1720) and Gasen (1721).
Kenzan conceived his early efforts in this mode as a ceramic version of the literati-inspired "three perfections", that is, poetry, painting and calligraphy. Since these were produced in sets of assorted themes, his patrons surely associated them with the painting album; the thematic preferences, simple compositions, and "boneless" strokes could equally evoke the chagake or gafu. In short, there was no deficit of allusions, both classical and contemporary.
We should not neglect the fact these dishes were intended for practical use. The early collaborations of Korin and Kenzan were made in the comparatively large form of suzuributa, a square or rectangular tray used for serving snacks or sweets in intimate gatherings. However from second decade of the 18th century, smaller round, square or rectangular dishes were produced in much greater numbers, presumably filling the role of mukozuke, a dish placed on the far side of the tray used for individual servings, or as side dishes to supplement a main serving. A few large sets remain, positioning them as stock items in the higher end of the food and entertainment industry. Even these, however, maintain an improvisational look central to the "literati" ethos. The users presumably enjoyed identifying the texts and images and trading their knowledge with companions.
Keywords: Edo-period Japanese ceramics; Ogata Kenzan; Kenzan ware; Rinpa; Chinese poetry in Japan
近世日本陶磁、尾形乾山、乾山焼、琳派、詩画軸、画讃、花鳥画
Iconography of Kenzan Ware:
Chinese Poetic Themes (1) Landscapes, Human Figures, and Animals
乾山焼 -- 画讃様式の研究（一）山水・人物・禽獣
English Summary
A revolutionary ceramic product, one that looked more like a painting than a pot, made its debut in Kyoto in the opening years of the eighteenth century. These rectilinear dishes and trays were decorated with monochrome painting, poetic inscriptions, and personal signatures. The designer and frequently the calligrapher for these works, Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), understood the codes of poetry, painting, and writing that had evolved in China and Japan. His knowledge was mediated by the reproduction of those codes in contemporary painting and especially in illustrated literature. His products were functional ceramics, which means that these images had now migrated from the tokonoma to the tatami, so to speak; at the same time, the decidedly "non-ceramic" shapes, and impromptu painting-poetry provided the work with a performative aura that resonated with the consumers, specifically that segment of the population who, from the 1680s, had begun to learn Chinese and use it in their entertainments.
This article is the first of two installments that survey this genre of Kenzan ware, which the authors call the "gasan" style after the Chinese expression for inscribed paintings, or hua zan. Kenzan-ware gasan ceramics from the Narutaki (1699-1712) and Shogoin workshops (1712-mid-18th century) are the focus. Judging from the number of surviving works, the style was remarkably popular, and it came to be mass produced at Shogoin, first under Kenzan himself and then under his adopted son and successor Ogata Ihachi (dates unknown).
This installment on Kenzan-ware gasan treats landscape, human figures, and animal subjects. The article begins by reviewing the Chinese locus classicus for the combined arts of poetry, painting, and calligraphy, with special attention to the way in which this synthesis articulated the values of the scholar-official class. A discussion of the appropriation of that tradition in Japan follows.
In the data section, surviving works and archaeological specimens are studied in terms of their inscriptions, including sources and meanings, and painted decoration, including styles and lineages. Landscape themes are the most numerous, and they divide into panoramic scenes descended from the Xiao and Xiang river tradition (J: Shosho hakkei) and close-up views of "pavillion landscapes" (J: Rokaku sansui). The former type, which occurs most frequently in Kenzan's first decade of production, features full-length poems and rather detailed painting in the Kano style. The latter type, which is common to Kenzan's later production and also the work of his adopted son Ogata Ihachi, typically features single-line excerpts and highly abbreviated, often amateurish painting.
Figural themes constitute the second category. Here too the subject matter is orthodox, drawing from the Muromachi-based line of Chinese "saints and sages" that had become increasingly popularized in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The poetic excerpts for this category are typically couplets, and the painting is either by or in the style of Ogata Korin (1658-1716). This approach is also limited to Kenzan's first decade of production.
The last category, animals, makes use of creatures associated with Buddhist or literati values; the wares are inscribed with couplets or one-line excerpts, and most of the painting is quite abbreviated. Wares decorated with animals appear at the end of Kenzan's first decade of production, specifically in association with Korin, but they also appear in later work as well.
For all categories, the poetic inscriptions are taken from the Yuan-dynasty anthology Shixue dacheng (J: Shigaku taisei) and its Ming successor Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo). Both of these collections enjoyed considerable popularity in Kenzan's day.
In selecting the poems for his pottery Kenzan exhibited a preference for those that had been originally composed as ti hua shi (J: daiga shi), that is, poems that were written upon the viewing of a painting. Those "versed" in the code of gasan could appreciate an experiential quality in such work. Yet, conversely, both the painting and poetry clearly access a well-developed archive of popular reproduction. Additionally, the lofty images of solitary and religious pursuits were now being employed in the decidedly communal and secular spaces of wining and dining. The appeal of Kenzan ware gasan must derive from these incongruities. In any case, with such a literary load Kenzan clearly diverted ceramic appreciation away from the materiality of the object to its "conception" (yi) embodying poetic traditions, thoughts of the maker, and the moment of execution.
Assuming that Kenzan ware reached a broad public—a fact increasingly validated by urban archaeology—and chose poetic excerpts and themes that would be recognized by that public, the ceramic works also document cultural literacy in the mid-Edo period. They show how an ever-growing consuming class could read and savor selections of poetry from the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties together with painting. Basho and Chikamatsu wove the same verses into their haikai and joruri. A plethora of how-to books like Shirin ryozai (Handy materials for the world of poetry; 1684) ensured popular access to these quotations.
Until quite recently (see vol. 35 of this journal), the poetry-painting synthesis in Kenzan ware was bypassed by researchers. The authors hope that this article will serve as a reference for understanding Kenzan's distinctive appropriation of the gasan lineage and its reception in the mid-Edo period.
Keywords: Edo-period Japanese ceramics; Ogata Kenzan; Kenzan ware; Rinpa; Chinese poetry in Japan; 近世日本陶磁、尾形乾山、乾山焼、琳派、詩画軸、画讃、日本漢詩
twentieth century, and it reached a plateau in the early postwar era. This article re-examines the sources for this portrait, and introduces new material and perspectives. The article begins with a reprisal of Kenzan's career that emphasizes his literati pastimes and ceramics production. The second section inventories persons, places, events, texts, and institutions related to Kenzan. Some of the highlights of this research are listed below.
Kariganeya period (1663-1688): This period covers Kenzan's boyhood, his early interest in learning, and the collapse of
the family's textile business under the stewardship of his oldest brother Tozaburo (ca. 1650-after 1714). Regarding the latter,
the authors introduce new information on a "Kawaguchi Genzaburo" who is identified as the employer of Tozaburo in Edo as of 1714 Ogata family genealogy. Genzaburo, a hatamoto, was the son of Kawaguchi Genzaemon (1630-1704) who served in influential government posts in Nagasaki and Edo. The link with the Ogata may be traced to the funeral of thier principal patronTofukumon-in in 1678, which Genzaemon is known to have attended. The ca. 1720 record Chonin kokenroku relates many cases where the scions of bankrupted merchants (like Tozaburo) move to Edo or regional domains to serve samurai.
Shuseido period (1688-1699): Following his father's death Kenzan moved to Omuro, in the northwest suburbs of Kyoto, to
a villa that he called the Shuseido (Hall of Learning Tranquility). For over a decade Kenzan pursued a literati lifestyle, studying
Zen with monks of the Obaku sect and attending the salon of high-ranking courtier Nijo Tsunahira (1670-1732). The authors
reconfirm the circumstances behind the construction of the Shuseido villa and the survival of its principal building within the
Ninnaji temple. The exchanges between Kenzan, his fellow Zen students, and the Obaku monks are covered in detail. Kenzan's
decision to purchase land for a ceramic workshop just after the death of his Obaku mentor, Dokusho Shoen (1617-1694), is
linked to a relationship with an Omuro neighbor, the potter Nonomura Ninsei (active ca 1640s-1690s).
Narutaki period (1699-1712): Kenzan opened his first ceramics workshop in Narutaki-mura northwest of Omuro in 1712. He
relied on a cadre of specialists: brother Korin and Watanabe Soshin for painting, Ninsei scion Seiemon for high-fired ceramics (hongama), and an Oshikoji-ware potter named Magobei for low-fired ceramics (uchigama). This section focuses on these personnel, especially the connection with Ninsei's family, which Kenzan would maintain until the end of his career, eventually adopting Seiemon's grandson Ihachi as an heir to the Kenzan line.
Nijo-Shogoin period (1712-ca. 1731). In 1712, citing the inconvenience of his remote location, Kenzan changed his workshop location to Chojiyamachi, a neighborhood on the north side of Nijo-dori just west of Teramachi. This was a business location, with numerous craft workshops and publishers, all depending on the nearby wharves of the Takase Canal, the shipping conduit to Osaka and markets beyond. A report of this move to city authorities mentions that Kenzan had shifted his management style, and instead of running his own kiln he was renting space in the kilns at Awataguchi and Gojozaka. During this period Kenzan's adopted son Ihachi established a workshop in Shogoin-mura, just across the Kamo River from Chojiyamachi. Sherds recently excavated on the campus of the Kyoto University Hospital show the existence of this workshop, which both continued the first-generation
Kenzan style and created new designs. This section also considers recently introduced evidence for the ownership of
Kenzan's Narutaki land after 1712.
Edo period (ca. 1731-1743): Kenzan's move to Edo was connected to Kokan (1697-1738), a tonsured prince selected to head the Tokugawa religious establishment of Kan'eiji, in what is now Ueno Park, Taito-ku. Kenzan settled in nearby Iriya-mura and continued making ceramics and attending cultural circles. A Meiji-era report mentions that one Shindo Suo-no-kami attended to the details of Kenzan's burial, and this article introduces the existence of Shindo's personal seal inside of Kenzan's 1737 pottery manual Toko hitsuyo. The article also introduces a Meiji-era map of Zenyoji, the Edo temple where Kenzan was buried. Kenzan's grave and the memorial tablet later erected by Rimpa revivalist Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828) appear on this document.
Keywords: Ogata Kenzan, Ogata Korin; Rinpa; Japanese ceramics
ceramics at age thirty-seven, it wasn’t to display manual skill, but rather to translate the world known to him into ceramic design. This “world” can be divided into one, the resources that supported Kenzan’s cultivation and profession, and two, the resources that supported Kenzan designs. The purpose of this article is to survey both areas and link them to specific
concepts and works asociated with Kenzan.
Books by Richard L Wilson
crafts by hand. From the 1910s, a select number of producers, mostly
based in Tokyo, began to focus upon the role of the individual maker,
the meaning of tradition, and the relationship of craft to everyday
life. A burgeoning mass media began to valorize makers and products. A
central figure on that stage was the British ceramicist Bernard Leach
(1887-1979). Here we examine the formative stage for Leach’s move into ceramics, using the online Bernard Leach Catalogue at the Crafts Centre in Farnham, Surrey, U.K. References in Leach's diaries, when considered in light of artistic and cultural activities in Tokyo, shed new light on the modern craft movement in Japan
The early-modern treatment of the indigenous literary tradition is marked by new modes of packaging and dissemination. While prose and poetry themes are hardly new to the crafts, Kenzan’s synthesis of theme, calligraphy, painting and ceramic form is entirely without precedent. In order to take full measure of this approach, the authors surveyed all known works inscribed with Japanese poetry and noh-drama lyrics attributable to Kenzan and his workshop, totaling 20 sets (as presently constituted) and individual objects, for a total of 223 pieces. All inscriptions were transliterated and traced to their classical sources. Below we summarize the findings for waka and noh, with special attention to selection, pictorialization, and text-picture-object relationship. Monogatari and poet- portrait (kasen) themes are relatively few in number and thus excluded from this summary.
For ceramics inscribed with waka, Kenzan showed a preference for poetry by and related to Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241) and for poetry by Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537). The Teika-legacy material includes “Teika’s Ten Styles of Poetry” (Teika jittei, 1207-1213), Manuscript of Remnants (Shui guso, 1216), Single Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu, 1235), and “New Six Poetry Immortals” (Shin rokkasen, 1505). The Sanetaka verses are all extracted from Jewels of Snow (Setsugyokushu, n.d.). The interest in Teika reflects his centrality in the medieval literary tradition and posthumous links to noh, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. Kenzan was in agreement with his contemporaries in frequently using “Birds and Flowers of the Twelve Months” (Junikagetsu waka, 1214), originally included in Shui guso. As for Sanetaka, there is a tenuous connection to the Mikohidari line of poets descended from Teika, and Sanetaka is renowned in the tea ceremony for instructing Takeno Joo (1502-55) in Teika’s poetics; additionally Kenzan probably favored Sanetaka for the topics of his poems, especially “poems on things” (daiei) that were readily adaptable to pictures.
Pictorialization of waka (uta-e) accelerated in the mid-seventeenth century after a long hiatus. Decoration on Kenzan’s Teika twelve-month dishes relate closely to painted versions, especially those in an album in the Idemitsu Museum bearing the signature of Kano Tanyu (1602-74). Other poetic vignettes have a basis in the kai-e (literally “poem-meaning picture”), abbreviated scenes that first appear around 1660, inserted above portraits of classical poets (kasen-e) also associated with Tanyu. The kai-e becomes a fixture in illustrated manuals from the 1670s, exemplified by Hishikawa Moronobu’s Single Poems by One Hundred Poets, with Commentary (Hyakunin isshu zosansho, 1678). The simplification and modularizing tendency in the kai-e commended it to ceramic décor.
Befitting a man of letters, Kenzan adroitly manipulated the relationship between the text, picture, and vessel. The permutations include 1) dishes with picture on the front and poetry on the back, 2) dishes with picture and poetry on the front, 3) paired dishes with pictures and the first and second halves of a poem on the respective halves, 4) the same as previous but without pictures, and 4), dishes with (complete) poems only. The strategy reflects the social aspect of the waka tradition, rooted in uta-awase but with playful innovations like cards (karuta) reaching maturity in the seventeenth century.
Kenzan and his brothers participated in non-guild noh drama (tesarugaku) from an early age, and recent scholarship has underlined the influence of noh on Korin’s art. Kenzan’s experience is revealed in sets of dishes decorated with noh-drama themes. The front of each dish is painted with an evocative scene or object related to a specific play and the back features an excerpt from that play’s script. An originary model for the pictures can be found in hand-painted covers of deluxe noh libretti (utaibon) from the early seventeenth century, but Kenzan’s schematization parallels the aforementioned kai-e. The calligraphic excerpts on the back of the dishes are key passages from the respective plays: these excerpts, called ko-utai, were expected recitation material for celebratory and social events, and ko-utai compendia were best-sellers in Kenzan’s day.
The authors have tried to demonstrate that Kenzan wares with Japanese literary themes are closely related and indebted to early modern appropriations of classical Japanese literature and trends in its pictorialization. However the versatile design strategies—particularly the sensitive deployment of writing, centered around calligraphic inscriptions from Kenzan’s own hand—must be seen to reflect the sensibilities and skills of Kenzan himself. This helps to explain why Edo-period Kenzan imitators rarely attempted to work in this mode.
Our survey revealed a hitherto unknown--or perhaps forgotten--dimension of Kenzan's art. The poetry selections demonstrate Kenzan's personal aesthetic interests and the faithful adoption of same by followers and imitators. Evidence introduced in this essay shows that they also mirror popular trends in literary consumption. First, in the case of the waka inscriptions, Kenzan's overwhelming favorite was the medieval poet Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537), with particular preference for the poems published in the Setsugyokushu, one of Sanetaka's two great anthologies. This was published in a popular edition in 1670, and its extensive contents and rational structure made it a virtual dictionary for waka aficionados. A devotion to Sanetaka can be seen in Kenzan's calligraphy and painting as well as his ceramics.
In the case of kanshi, Kenzan drew from a number of famous themes and authors, but all of his selections were from recent anthologies, the most prominent being Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo), a voluminous manual of popular poetry excerpts first published in Ming-dynasty China and reprinted numerous times in Japan from the 1650s. Divided into forty-four topics ranging from the heavens to insects, and with a preponderance of couplets, it was a convenient repository for any aspiring literatus or artist. Our research has shown that Enki kappo was the source not only for the well-known dishes made jointly by Korin and Kenzan, but for production by second-generation Kenzan, Ogata Ihachi, and later copyists.
On the reception side, we have found that the Enki kappo was important at several levels. First, its alleged editor Wang Shizhen (1526-1590), together with Li Panlung (1514-1570), editor of the Tang shi xuan, were central figures in the late Ming archaist movement that was so strongly endorsed by the most well-connected intellectual of Kenzan’s day, Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728). At the same time, Enki kappo was appropriated frequently by the most prominent authors of Kenzan's time, including novelist Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) haiku master Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). These links to a popular literary and performing-arts culture help us to form a more accurate historical understanding of how Kenzan ware was understood and enjoyed in his day.
The poetic and pictorial traditions of flowering plants and trees are centered around the mobilization of select species, using their fragrance, form, and seasonality as auspicious and moral symbols. Such deployments are in evidence as early as the Warring States era but gained critical mass among the scholar-official elite of the Northern Song dynasty. Plant allusions were not only aesthetically appealing; they became a political necessity in an age where direct moral criticism was difficult. Worship of literati heroes and their plant avatars became an iconographic system in the Yuan dynasty, as this group struggled to affirm its identity in the midst of Mongol domination. This sensibility was transmitted to medieval Japan and came to flourish in the Five Mountain or Gozan monastic culture. With the popularization of sinophilia in the 17th century, Chinese-derived floral codes became a staple of literary and artistic representation in Japan. Thus when the young Kenzan himself was described by a mentor, the Obaku monk Gettan Docho, he was "tending chrysanthemums by an eastern fence," an unmistakable reference to the bucolic pleasures of literati paragon Tao Yuanming ("Shuseido ki", in Gazanko, 1690). In the form of poetry excerpts, these tropes were increasingly available in Japanese editions of popular Chinese anthologies; the most popular of these, the Wanli-era Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo), is the source for most of the inscriptions in Kenzan ware.
The painted decoration on these dishes also evokes a multi-layered tradition, which on a general sense we might call "ink flowers." Documents reveal how Northern Song literati dabbling in monochrome bamboo and plum came to be highly regarded as an expression of personal character and refinement. In the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, ink flowers became firmly established as a mark of literati identity. At the same time, Chan-Zen painters were fond of creating ink impressions of plants and vegetables. Surviving paintings in the style of the Chan monk Muqi, or by the Yuan literatus Zhao Zhong, use the handscroll format to show a succession of ink flora on against a blank background—called kakizatsukan or handscroll of miscellaneous flowers.
From the Kamakura period ink flowers came to be painted in Japan, notably by Zen monk painters Tesshu Tokusai and Gyokuen Bonpo. From the late 14th century, these subjects come to exhibit brushwork and compositional traits distinct from their Chinese models. Furthermore they were now painted as small hanging scrolls in order to fit the newly evolved Japanese tokonmoma. Imported Chinese handscrolls were cut into sections for the same reason. In this compact format, ink flowers subsequently became a popular subject for tea ceremony display (chagake).
From the mid-17th century, connoisseurship of Song-Yuan and Muromachi paintings became a central and self-legitimizing activity of the Kano family of painters. Their appraisals of are preserved in the form of annotated sketches or shukuzu. These sketches, which included floral subjects, subsequently served as school models under the name of funpon. In addition to serving as components for larger pictures, such models were readily transferable to small-format surfaces such as fans (senmen) and album pages (gajo). The range of possibilities and modularizing tendency can be seen in Kano Tsunenobu's (1636-1713) copybooks Kara-e tekagami and Kara gakan, albums of his copies of Chinese paintings.
From the late 17th century, as painting became a popular pastime, woodblock-printed painting manuals (gafu) began to circulate, initially in the form of Chinese editions or their Japanese reprints. From the 1720s Kano-school funpon were also collected into painting manuals, notably Ehon shaji bukuro (1720) and Gasen (1721).
Kenzan conceived his early efforts in this mode as a ceramic version of the literati-inspired "three perfections", that is, poetry, painting and calligraphy. Since these were produced in sets of assorted themes, his patrons surely associated them with the painting album; the thematic preferences, simple compositions, and "boneless" strokes could equally evoke the chagake or gafu. In short, there was no deficit of allusions, both classical and contemporary.
We should not neglect the fact these dishes were intended for practical use. The early collaborations of Korin and Kenzan were made in the comparatively large form of suzuributa, a square or rectangular tray used for serving snacks or sweets in intimate gatherings. However from second decade of the 18th century, smaller round, square or rectangular dishes were produced in much greater numbers, presumably filling the role of mukozuke, a dish placed on the far side of the tray used for individual servings, or as side dishes to supplement a main serving. A few large sets remain, positioning them as stock items in the higher end of the food and entertainment industry. Even these, however, maintain an improvisational look central to the "literati" ethos. The users presumably enjoyed identifying the texts and images and trading their knowledge with companions.
Keywords: Edo-period Japanese ceramics; Ogata Kenzan; Kenzan ware; Rinpa; Chinese poetry in Japan
近世日本陶磁、尾形乾山、乾山焼、琳派、詩画軸、画讃、花鳥画
Iconography of Kenzan Ware:
Chinese Poetic Themes (1) Landscapes, Human Figures, and Animals
乾山焼 -- 画讃様式の研究（一）山水・人物・禽獣
English Summary
A revolutionary ceramic product, one that looked more like a painting than a pot, made its debut in Kyoto in the opening years of the eighteenth century. These rectilinear dishes and trays were decorated with monochrome painting, poetic inscriptions, and personal signatures. The designer and frequently the calligrapher for these works, Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), understood the codes of poetry, painting, and writing that had evolved in China and Japan. His knowledge was mediated by the reproduction of those codes in contemporary painting and especially in illustrated literature. His products were functional ceramics, which means that these images had now migrated from the tokonoma to the tatami, so to speak; at the same time, the decidedly "non-ceramic" shapes, and impromptu painting-poetry provided the work with a performative aura that resonated with the consumers, specifically that segment of the population who, from the 1680s, had begun to learn Chinese and use it in their entertainments.
This article is the first of two installments that survey this genre of Kenzan ware, which the authors call the "gasan" style after the Chinese expression for inscribed paintings, or hua zan. Kenzan-ware gasan ceramics from the Narutaki (1699-1712) and Shogoin workshops (1712-mid-18th century) are the focus. Judging from the number of surviving works, the style was remarkably popular, and it came to be mass produced at Shogoin, first under Kenzan himself and then under his adopted son and successor Ogata Ihachi (dates unknown).
This installment on Kenzan-ware gasan treats landscape, human figures, and animal subjects. The article begins by reviewing the Chinese locus classicus for the combined arts of poetry, painting, and calligraphy, with special attention to the way in which this synthesis articulated the values of the scholar-official class. A discussion of the appropriation of that tradition in Japan follows.
In the data section, surviving works and archaeological specimens are studied in terms of their inscriptions, including sources and meanings, and painted decoration, including styles and lineages. Landscape themes are the most numerous, and they divide into panoramic scenes descended from the Xiao and Xiang river tradition (J: Shosho hakkei) and close-up views of "pavillion landscapes" (J: Rokaku sansui). The former type, which occurs most frequently in Kenzan's first decade of production, features full-length poems and rather detailed painting in the Kano style. The latter type, which is common to Kenzan's later production and also the work of his adopted son Ogata Ihachi, typically features single-line excerpts and highly abbreviated, often amateurish painting.
Figural themes constitute the second category. Here too the subject matter is orthodox, drawing from the Muromachi-based line of Chinese "saints and sages" that had become increasingly popularized in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The poetic excerpts for this category are typically couplets, and the painting is either by or in the style of Ogata Korin (1658-1716). This approach is also limited to Kenzan's first decade of production.
The last category, animals, makes use of creatures associated with Buddhist or literati values; the wares are inscribed with couplets or one-line excerpts, and most of the painting is quite abbreviated. Wares decorated with animals appear at the end of Kenzan's first decade of production, specifically in association with Korin, but they also appear in later work as well.
For all categories, the poetic inscriptions are taken from the Yuan-dynasty anthology Shixue dacheng (J: Shigaku taisei) and its Ming successor Yuanji huofa (J: Enki kappo). Both of these collections enjoyed considerable popularity in Kenzan's day.
In selecting the poems for his pottery Kenzan exhibited a preference for those that had been originally composed as ti hua shi (J: daiga shi), that is, poems that were written upon the viewing of a painting. Those "versed" in the code of gasan could appreciate an experiential quality in such work. Yet, conversely, both the painting and poetry clearly access a well-developed archive of popular reproduction. Additionally, the lofty images of solitary and religious pursuits were now being employed in the decidedly communal and secular spaces of wining and dining. The appeal of Kenzan ware gasan must derive from these incongruities. In any case, with such a literary load Kenzan clearly diverted ceramic appreciation away from the materiality of the object to its "conception" (yi) embodying poetic traditions, thoughts of the maker, and the moment of execution.
Assuming that Kenzan ware reached a broad public—a fact increasingly validated by urban archaeology—and chose poetic excerpts and themes that would be recognized by that public, the ceramic works also document cultural literacy in the mid-Edo period. They show how an ever-growing consuming class could read and savor selections of poetry from the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties together with painting. Basho and Chikamatsu wove the same verses into their haikai and joruri. A plethora of how-to books like Shirin ryozai (Handy materials for the world of poetry; 1684) ensured popular access to these quotations.
Until quite recently (see vol. 35 of this journal), the poetry-painting synthesis in Kenzan ware was bypassed by researchers. The authors hope that this article will serve as a reference for understanding Kenzan's distinctive appropriation of the gasan lineage and its reception in the mid-Edo period.
Keywords: Edo-period Japanese ceramics; Ogata Kenzan; Kenzan ware; Rinpa; Chinese poetry in Japan; 近世日本陶磁、尾形乾山、乾山焼、琳派、詩画軸、画讃、日本漢詩
twentieth century, and it reached a plateau in the early postwar era. This article re-examines the sources for this portrait, and introduces new material and perspectives. The article begins with a reprisal of Kenzan's career that emphasizes his literati pastimes and ceramics production. The second section inventories persons, places, events, texts, and institutions related to Kenzan. Some of the highlights of this research are listed below.
Kariganeya period (1663-1688): This period covers Kenzan's boyhood, his early interest in learning, and the collapse of
the family's textile business under the stewardship of his oldest brother Tozaburo (ca. 1650-after 1714). Regarding the latter,
the authors introduce new information on a "Kawaguchi Genzaburo" who is identified as the employer of Tozaburo in Edo as of 1714 Ogata family genealogy. Genzaburo, a hatamoto, was the son of Kawaguchi Genzaemon (1630-1704) who served in influential government posts in Nagasaki and Edo. The link with the Ogata may be traced to the funeral of thier principal patronTofukumon-in in 1678, which Genzaemon is known to have attended. The ca. 1720 record Chonin kokenroku relates many cases where the scions of bankrupted merchants (like Tozaburo) move to Edo or regional domains to serve samurai.
Shuseido period (1688-1699): Following his father's death Kenzan moved to Omuro, in the northwest suburbs of Kyoto, to
a villa that he called the Shuseido (Hall of Learning Tranquility). For over a decade Kenzan pursued a literati lifestyle, studying
Zen with monks of the Obaku sect and attending the salon of high-ranking courtier Nijo Tsunahira (1670-1732). The authors
reconfirm the circumstances behind the construction of the Shuseido villa and the survival of its principal building within the
Ninnaji temple. The exchanges between Kenzan, his fellow Zen students, and the Obaku monks are covered in detail. Kenzan's
decision to purchase land for a ceramic workshop just after the death of his Obaku mentor, Dokusho Shoen (1617-1694), is
linked to a relationship with an Omuro neighbor, the potter Nonomura Ninsei (active ca 1640s-1690s).
Narutaki period (1699-1712): Kenzan opened his first ceramics workshop in Narutaki-mura northwest of Omuro in 1712. He
relied on a cadre of specialists: brother Korin and Watanabe Soshin for painting, Ninsei scion Seiemon for high-fired ceramics (hongama), and an Oshikoji-ware potter named Magobei for low-fired ceramics (uchigama). This section focuses on these personnel, especially the connection with Ninsei's family, which Kenzan would maintain until the end of his career, eventually adopting Seiemon's grandson Ihachi as an heir to the Kenzan line.
Nijo-Shogoin period (1712-ca. 1731). In 1712, citing the inconvenience of his remote location, Kenzan changed his workshop location to Chojiyamachi, a neighborhood on the north side of Nijo-dori just west of Teramachi. This was a business location, with numerous craft workshops and publishers, all depending on the nearby wharves of the Takase Canal, the shipping conduit to Osaka and markets beyond. A report of this move to city authorities mentions that Kenzan had shifted his management style, and instead of running his own kiln he was renting space in the kilns at Awataguchi and Gojozaka. During this period Kenzan's adopted son Ihachi established a workshop in Shogoin-mura, just across the Kamo River from Chojiyamachi. Sherds recently excavated on the campus of the Kyoto University Hospital show the existence of this workshop, which both continued the first-generation
Kenzan style and created new designs. This section also considers recently introduced evidence for the ownership of
Kenzan's Narutaki land after 1712.
Edo period (ca. 1731-1743): Kenzan's move to Edo was connected to Kokan (1697-1738), a tonsured prince selected to head the Tokugawa religious establishment of Kan'eiji, in what is now Ueno Park, Taito-ku. Kenzan settled in nearby Iriya-mura and continued making ceramics and attending cultural circles. A Meiji-era report mentions that one Shindo Suo-no-kami attended to the details of Kenzan's burial, and this article introduces the existence of Shindo's personal seal inside of Kenzan's 1737 pottery manual Toko hitsuyo. The article also introduces a Meiji-era map of Zenyoji, the Edo temple where Kenzan was buried. Kenzan's grave and the memorial tablet later erected by Rimpa revivalist Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828) appear on this document.
Keywords: Ogata Kenzan, Ogata Korin; Rinpa; Japanese ceramics
ceramics at age thirty-seven, it wasn’t to display manual skill, but rather to translate the world known to him into ceramic design. This “world” can be divided into one, the resources that supported Kenzan’s cultivation and profession, and two, the resources that supported Kenzan designs. The purpose of this article is to survey both areas and link them to specific
concepts and works asociated with Kenzan.