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Porcelain and ceramics
It is rightfully believed that the tastes, customs and character of the Japanese are reflected in their ceramics. Among all types of crafts, this one is the most national, and the Japanese have a special passion to it. It seems that they do not know a higher esthetic pleasure than admiring a the color, shape and pattern of a ceramic bowl or a pot, vases or flower pots, flasks or sake cups and other everyday or decorative objects.
Japanese ceramic and porcelain objects astonish with the diversity of their shapes, decorative techniques and refined singularity. Traditions of Japanese ceramics count to no less than 12 thousand years. All elements of the esthetics typical of the Japanese art were embodied in haniva – symbolic clay figures that were buried together with the deceased. The 4th – 6th centuries were the golden age of Japanese ceramics. This passion of the Japanese to ceramics can also be proved by the fact that after the conquest of Korea in the end of the 16th century, they drove several dozen thousands of masters who specialized in porcelain and ceramics making home with them. Objects made in the Japanese workshops of Nabesima, Kakiemon, Arita-Hidzen, etc. were exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company and were considered luxury. Japanese masters of ceramics have recently re-discovered the lost secrets of porcelain making that were used in China of the Min epoch (14th – 17th centuries).
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