Mino Ware

Mino has been the site of ceramic production for centuries. Around the seventh century, it was making high-fired Sue ware. Between the twelfth and the fifteenth century it mass produced unglazed yamajawan wares for daily use. By the Momoyama period during the latter half of the sixteenth century, many famous pieces were being produced in Mino. It was during this period that Momoyama pottery was born. The various styles of Momoyama pottery included Ki-Seto (Yellow Seto), which appears yellow due to the ocher or feldspar added to the ash glaze; Shino, made from local white mogusa clay that contains little iron with iron underglaze decoration coated in feldspathic glaze; and Seto-guro (Seto Black) where the color black is produced by removing the fired vessel from the kiln once the iron glaze begins to melt and rapidly cooling it outside the kiln.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the multi-chambered climbing kiln was introduced to Kyushu from Korea replacing the conventional aboveground single-chamber kiln called ōgama. The revolution in kiln technology allowed production volume to grow. With the popularity of Momoyama-style wares, Mino ceramics were distributed widely across Japan.

The avant-garde designs of Mino ware became popular not only in the Kyoto/Osaka region, but also across Japan. 

In time, the popularity of Oribe ceramics went into sharp decline as a result of broader trends and the changing tastes of those in power. By the second half of the 1600s, pale green Ofukei ware with gentle shapes had come into vogue. Representative examples are small plates in shapes such as oak leaves, chrysanthemum flowers, rhombuses, etc.; mukōzuke individual dishes; and square sangide-style vases, modeled after ancient Chinese cong jades.

Fifth generation Nishiura ware potter Nishiura Enji (1856–1914) established a system to mass produce sometsuke and overglaze mainly in Tajimi. He successfully created an underglaze decorating technique using overglaze enamel beneath a transparent glaze, bringing into the world of Mino ceramics the trends from the West of Art Nouveau and its glamorously colorful tastes. For his achievements he was awarded a bronze prize at the Paris World Exposition in 1899, and also a gold award at the Saint Louis World Exposition in 1904.

The discovery by Arakawa Toyozō caused a rush to excavate old kiln sites in Mino, with numerous researchers making efforts to retrace the techniques of Ki-Seto, Shino, Seto-guro, and Oribe wares. As the leader of this trend, Arakawa Toyozō became in 1955 the very first person to be designated a National Living Treasure for his Shino and Seto-guro pottery techniques, when Japan’s Important Intangible Cultural Property system was established.

At the Kōbei kiln in in Tajimi's Ichinokura area, production of high-quality Japanese tableware began in the Meiji period (1868–1912). While fifth-generation Katō Kōbei left us with excellent Chinese and Korean inspired stoneware and porcelains, the sixth-generation Katō Takuo (1917–2005) was fascinated by Persian pottery and focused on using blue glaze and creating Lusterware. He was designated a Living National Treasure in 1995 for his dedicated work on the sansai (three-colored glazing) technique after he was assigned by the Imperial Household Agency to reproduce sansai pieces in the Sōshō-in collection. 

Katō Kōzō was born in 1935 in Mizunami and currently has a workshop at his home in Tajimi city and another in Kaji city. He was designated a Living National Treasure in 2010 for his work on the Seto-guro technique. He followed in the footsteps of  Arakawa Toyozō to create a tunnel kiln (anagama) and established his own way of creating Seto-guro and Ki-Seto wares, making efforts to pass the techniques on to future generations.

Nakashima Harumi (born in Ena in 1950), who studied ceramic art at Osaka University of Arts, has been teaching at the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center and Aichi University of Education for many years. As a contemporary artist, he has  influenced many young potters. His kutō-suru keitai (“struggling forms”) is a theme he has been working on for many long years, through which he questions the relationship between the organic form born from the plasticity of the clay and its inner/outer layers.

The acceptance of various techniques and modes of artistic expression in Mino has allowed a wide variety of Mino ceramics to continue to thrive today—from tea ceremony implements made with traditional techniques, to functional objects made to enrich and enhance daily life, to figurative contemporary ceramic artworks seeking innovative expression.