Oribe-ware

Oribe-ware

Oribe-ware (Japanese: 織部焼  Oribeyaki) is considered a variety of Mino ware and is closely related to Shino and Seto wares, which originated in the same area. It developed in the early seventeenth century in Mino province in central Japan in what is now Gifu prefecture. It prospered because of its association with Furuta Oribe, an early master of the tea ceremony (and a general in the wars leading to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate).

Oribe-wares were known for their rustic, “folk” pottery characteristics. The clay was often coarse. Pieces were irregular, their shapes sometimes eccentric, even deformed. Perfection was eschewed in favor of a calculated clumsiness. Textures were rough. The bamboo spatula used in Japanese pottery making as a finishing tool was used instead to gouge furrows and to mar the surface. Decorations were simplistic and crude—lines, geometric shapes—and often were childlike depictions of objects, both natural and man-made. Stylized versions of flowers, vegetables, plants, and trees were common. Textile patterns inspired many designs. The decoration often gives the impression of being quickly applied in a slap-dash manner.

 

 

Several varieties of Oribe have been distinguished, usually based on the color of the dominant glaze—black, green, red, monochrome. The most common is green Oribe, named after its heavy, thick dark green glaze (based on copper). The glaze is usually applied in corners or along the sides. Often the green areas are on opposite sides of a piece and create pictorial fields in the spaces between them.

The pieces are first covered with a cream- or gray-colored glaze that serves as the ground. Pictorial elements are drawn on this ground using an iron-rich brown slip (less often a rusty-red slip) applied with a Japanese brush. The areas of green glaze are applied over the ground either before or after the slip decorations are drawn. The green glaze is heavy and can be manipulated to flow down the piece; the leading edge can build up and become noticeably thicker. Sometimes “tears” or thick blobs develop. Oribe can be a very tactile pottery; it has to be felt to be fully appreciated. In green Oribe, the predominant colors are cream, brown, and green.

The heyday of classical Oribe lasted about fifty years. Since then it has survived as a decorative program in Japanese ceramics. Modern pieces are often much more polished than classical Oribe. Green Oribe has had the most impact, and today the word “Oribe” instantly brings to mind pieces like the one above. At its best, modern Oribe work is energetic, sometimes incorporating playful modern elements drawn from anime or manga. Good pieces are often whimsically inept. At the other end of the spectrum are pieces that reproduce the color schemes and design elements of green Oribe as clichés of rusticity, the furusato no aji, "the flavor of the ancestral village."