bowl, Shinichi Koyama

Exhibition Label:
"Contemporary Ceramics East and West," Feb-2002, Susan Earle, Mary M. Dusenbury
Tenmoku glazes were developed in China during the Song dynasty (960-1279). In the 13th century, Japanese Buddhist monks returning from study in monasteries on Mt. Tienmu (Japanese ‘tenmoku’) brought Chinese teabowls back with them. These lustrous bowls became a favorite of the Ashikaga shoguns, and it wasn’t long before a few Japanese potters learned to imitate the difficult technique. The metallic blackish glaze and brilliant ‘oil spots’ are a result of a combination of iron oxide with a base glaze of feldspar and wood ash. The iron oxide both turns the bowl a lustrous blackish hue (here a blue-black), and creates a ‘hare’s fur’ effect as it pools on the surface of the bowl. The exact placement of the bowl within the kiln and even very small fluctuations in temperature affect the final appearance of the glaze. For every successful bowl, a potter might have to discard several dozen.

Koyama Shinichi is the eldest son of the well-known potter and ceramic historian Koyama Fujio.