Japan boasts many other famous ceramic wares. Such are the various kinds of Bizen ware, of which the most original are humorous figures of gods, birds, lions, and other creatures; the thin, mostly unglazed Banko ware, whose manufacturers at the present day display great ingenuity in giving quaint fanciful shapes to tea-pots and other small articles; the Awaji faience, consisting chiefly of small monochromatic pieces with a bright yellow or green glaze; the Sōma pottery, to be recognised by the picture of a running horse; the egg-shell cups of Mino; and the Takatori, Izumo, and Yatsushiro wares, the last of which—especially in its more ancient specimens—is very highly prized.
The qualities of sobriety and "distinction," which are so noticeable in the other branches of Japanese art, have not failed to impress themselves on the ceramics of this esthetic land. Some of the early Arita porcelain was, it is true, manufactured to the order of Dutch traders at Nagasaki, and bears the marks of this extraneous influence in the gaudy overcrowding of its decoration. For this fault Wagenaar and other chiefs of the Dutch factory are responsible, not the Japanese whom they employed. A British matron possessed of the necessary funds may dictate as she pleases to a Paris modiste; but the result is not necessarily a perfect index of Parisian taste. The typical Japanese ceramists were no hired workmen, no mere sordid manufacturers, but artists, and not only artists, but clansmen faithful to their feudal chief. By him they were fed; for him and for the love of their art they worked. Pieces were made for special occasions,—for presents, say, from their lord to the Shōgun at Yedo, or for the trousseau of their lord's daughter. Time was no object. There was no public of mediocre taste to cater for. Nothing was made, as the vulgar phrase is, for the million. The art was perfectly and essentially aristocratic. Hence the distinction of, for instance, the early Satsuma ware, the delicacy of its drawing, the subdued harmony of its colouring. It is a mere piece of amiable optimism to suppose it possible that such a tradition can be kept up in the days which have produced that frightful, but aptly descriptive, term, "art
