The history of Japanese porcelain: arita ceramics

At the beginning of the XVII century, a new type of ceramics called arita appeared in Japan, which was named after the town where it was produced. The village of Arita is located on the island of Kyushu and today is a major center for the production of ceramic products. Porcelain in Arita began to be produced in the 1620s, when kaolin clay was discovered near the city. The formation of a new school of Japanese porcelain is associated with the potter Ri Sampei, one of the artisans resettled from Korea during the invasion of the peninsula by the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

At first, the ceramics were not very successful and looked sloppy. Sometimes the master's fingerprints or particles of foreign materials were left on the vases. The painting was also careless, although within the framework of a modest aesthetic worldview known as wabi-sabi, such simplicity was even appreciated. Arita ceramics brought profit to the samurai house of Naoshige, which managed to compete with the Chinese Ming Dynasty – the main supplier of porcelain to Europe. The quality of porcelain began to grow, in wealthy Japanese families they replaced wooden and clay dishes.

The first arita products were white and contained blue patterns. Over time, new types of porcelain appeared, for example, kakiemon, which provided for the use of a wider set of colors: red, light blue, yellow. It was this ceramics that most influenced the formation of Meissen porcelain in Germany. Then the nabeshima style was formed, inspired by the drawings on the kimono. Nabeshima ceramics are particularly elegant. The kinrande - style porcelain combined elements of the two previous styles, and also contained elements of an ornament made of gold and red glaze. You can find vintage porcelain products on the Violity website.