Blue and White - Early Japanese Export Ware (Art History Ebook).pdf

Lerner, Martin, "Blue and White: Early Japanese Export Ware"
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art | 1978 | ISBN: N/A | English | PDF | 74 pages | 7.94 Mb

The title of this exhibition circumscribes an important category of porcelain which until recently has been neglected by both Western and Japanese museums and collectors. Although some pioneering reference works exist/it is only within the past decade that serious attention has been paid to these wares. Earlier histories of Japanese ceramics either totally ignored these porcelains or briefly mentioned them in passing. It is not too difficult to suggest reasons for these omissions. Traditional Japanese taste for ceramics developed through, and then was altogether overwhelmed by, the aesthetics of the tea ceremony. This taste could accommodate the wares of famous potters such as Ninsei and Kenzan, but never the commercially oriented output of anonymous potters producing for export. And then, by definition, very few pieces of export porcelain remained in Japan.