The Influences and Use of Japanese Tradition   1      2      3      4      -      PRINTER VERSION

>> tious and complicated decoration of Kutani and Imari ware. In Japan a potter has not only this rich language, with its seemingly inexhaustible vocabulary of shapes, glazes and decorative treatments, but also a visually literate audience that holds in high esteem those who use the language with style and authority.

The difficulties and pitfalls of working within such a complex visual language, however, are immense. Philip Rawson, the British art historian, in his book Ceramics (1971), the most important treatise on ceramic art in this century, noted that when artists lose sight of the meaning of cultural images they borrow, "loss of authenticity, corruption, and pretense" are the result. He goes on to say:

"It has become possible to treat what was originally a live existential discourse with condensed meaning, as pure convention at the level of mere chatter. This has happened especially, of course, when one culture has adopted the forms and symbolisms of an alien culture...Potters may then begin to follow mere convention or fashion. Such a failure shows itself in their work, which may slide in the direction of mere dead "ornament"; this has certainly happened at various times."

If modern potters influenced by Japanese ceramic art are to avoid the pitfall of making mere dead ornaments, they have to recognize that the significance of historical work from Japan does not lie in its use as a formal prototype. The real value exists in its ability to reveal the aesthetic potential and importance not only of pottery but of the human activity associated with its function. It is for this reason that these ancient works bear closer scrutiny from potters hoping to create work that will resonate with the same kind of urgency many of the ancient pieces still possess. As the late Kazuo Yagi, one of the most important ceramic artists in modern Japan, pointed out in an essay on Kenzan, "those elegant designs that are Kenzan at his best are still being repeated in today's ceramics world. But I feel that they have no significance as the formal 'patterns' they have become. Instead it is worth experimenting with them as a means of returning to the process through which they were developed, or even to the invention itself." Yagi urged contemporary potters to go beyond the superficial and obvious to an understanding of the very nature of the work itself. Rawson has asked us to do the same: "If possible we must try and discover, through active use of our imagination, how live meanings of works of ceramic art which played some role in the life of every patron can be revived in our minds." It is through the active use of our imagination that we can begin to perceive, for example, the nature of Kenzan's beauty. And with that perception we can start to echo that beauty, not by imitating his designs, but by addressing the same basic philosophical and aesthetic concerns that moved Kenzan and that have made his work as powerful and relevant in our culture today as it was in 18th-century Japan.

The potential for meaningful expression that exists in pottery in general and Japanese pottery in particular will never be realized by potters or recognized by critics, dealers and collectors until we reject cultural prejudices as well as romantic oversimplifications. Only then can we begin to look at the history of ceramic art as the accumulated desire of men and women to express their lives through their most intimate objects. Neither the denial of history nor the sterile appropriation of its forms offers the potter a
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