15th century

Muromachi period

Stoneware with natural ash glaze
W: 24.2 cm
Imbe, Japan

Purchase--Friends of Asian Arts F1998.25

Sturdy unglazed jars made in Bizen province (modern Okayama prefecture) had long been used in kitchens and storerooms. With the emerging popularity of the ritualized form of tea preparation called chanoyu, Bizen jars also came to the attention of urban connoisseurs, who used them to store tea. They also discerned—in the mottled coloration of the unglazed surface and the random deposits of wood ash—an austere beauty that they described as the jar’s “landscape.” This perception of the “landscapes” on jars from Bizen, as well as from Shigaraki, forms the first recorded aesthetic appreciation of unglazed stoneware, a preference that has remained central to Japanese taste in ceramics.