Sunday, February 17, 2008

Gotoh Museum




Water jar, named Yaburebukuro (Burst Pouch), Momoyama period (1573-1615),
Gotoh Museum Japan

Furuta Oribe and Oribe Ceramics
Born in 1543 or 1544, about the same time as the first arrival of Portuguese merchants in Japan, Furuta Oribe worked closely with the principal characters who shaped the political and artistic climate of sixteenth-century Japan. Like many other warlords of the time, he cultivated a keen interest in the tea ceremony, and in the vacuum created by his mentor Rikyu's death, Oribe's name became increasingly associated with tea. Rikyu had already begun to move away from dependence on Chinese and Korean tea utensils, preferring Japan's indigenous products. Oribe went a step further, intentionally cultivating the beauty of the imperfect. With its enormous cracks resulting from several weeks of firing at a high temperature, the famous water jar from the Iga kiln nicknamed "Burst Pouch," an Important Cultural Property in the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo, was considered by Oribe as a vessel endowed with a unique beauty.

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