Video of Japanese Pottery Arts

Some unique pictures on Japanese Pottery Markings. Some of it, I'm not sure to classified under which category (of course I don't mean the hot geisha girls ;) ), maybe experts out there can guide me? Thanks

STEPS OF MAKING POTTERY

1. A potter first must find the proper clay and clean it to make it usable (if the artist buys clay at a store he can skip this whole step.)

2.The next step is to actually form the object.This can be done by throwing on a
potter's wheel.Throwing means shaping a big hunk of clay by spinning it on a potter's wheel. It can also be done with a mold.

3.After the object is shaped, it is ready for firing. How hot the fire is depends on if the object is going to be pottery(1,400 degrees F.) , porcelain (2,700 degrees F.) It is fired in a kiln.


4.There are many different kinds of glazes.Under glaze decoration (the design) is painted on after first firing.Then it is glazed before the second firing

What is pottery?

Pottery is clay that is hardened by fire. Pottery comes from the greekwork, keramos which means, "potter's clay".

Pottery had been found in the remain of every ancient civilization. The oldest known piece of pottery found in China and dates back to 7900 BC. The first pot were large bowl, form by taking a lump of clay and making a bowl shape. Pottery just does not only include pots, but anything made from clay that can hold things such as jugs, vases and cups. Pottery was used to hold milk, grain, water, and seeds.

Later, people learned to mix different clays together to make stronger pottery and to put the pottery in a fire oven so the clay would harden faster. The potter's wheel was invented in China around 3,100 B.C. The wheel spins clay like a top. It allowed people to make pottery much more quickly and make shapes that were perfectly symmetrical - bowls that were really round, rather than lumpy or uneven.

Japanese Pottery Markings Dealer

Souvenir Dealers:

TOKYO:
Shopping facilities: Mitsukoshi, Matsuya, Matsuzakaya; Takashimaya; Shirokiya and Arcade Hotel Imperial.
Porcelain: Fukagawa Porcelain Manufacturing Co., Quran & Co.

YOKOHAMA: Shopping: Nozawa-ya, Matsu-ya, Echizen-ya, Sagami-ya
Porcelain: Tashiro Shoten, Nikko Shoten; Nakanoya; Gloria Shokai, S. Oda, Miyakawa, R. InOne
Trivia: Owariya K. Takahashi, Kaneko, S. Shibata

KYOTO:
Shopping facilities: Marumono, Takashimaya, Daimaru
Porcelain: Kinkozan, Hiraoka, Kyoto porcelain

OSAKA:
Shopping facilities: Mitsukoshi, Daimaru, Hankyii; Nankai-Takashimaya, Matsuzakaya, Sogo, Takashimaya, Izutsu, Mikasaya.

KOBE:
Curiosities: T. Shibata, Harishin K. Nikko, K. Yoshida & Co.
Shopping facilities: Daimaru, Mitsukoshi, Sogo
Porcelain and lacquer: Chujyo Shoten; Harishin; Koshiishi Shoten, Miyazaki Shoten, K. Nikko; Ogurusu & Co., Suzuki & Co., Taniguchi & Co., William Rae, Genga Yamamoto, Yamato Bros. & Co.; K. Yoshida & co.

Type of Japanese Porcelain

Type of Japanese Pottery Markings

Satsuma porcelain - produced mostly in the outskirts of the city of Kagoshima in Kyushu. Such goods are finished in gloss ivory with fine crackles. They have an image of a number of artisans sitting in traditional Japanese pottery and vases, coffee tables hand painted.

Arita procelains - produced in the Saga Prefecture of Kyushu.

Kutani porcelain - produced in Ishikawa Prefecture, in the district Hokuiku of Honshu, the main island of Japan. In all Kutani porcelains are characterized by elaborate gold decoration based thick, red, blue and some other colors.

Kyoto goods

Rakuyaki Kyoto, closely related to the tea ceremony since ancient times.
Awata porcelain consumption and
Kiyomizu goods are among the memories of Kyoto.
Seto consumption. "The province of Owari, with Nagoya as its commercial and industrial metropolis, is the biggest [Ceramic Japan] to the extent that the amount of products ... Owari produces many varieties of porcelain and stoneware that the Japanese speak familiarly porcelain and ceramics in general as "setomono" after the village of the same name in this province. "

Japanese Pottery Bizen (Okayama Preferecture) characterized by their peculiar humor figures of gods, birds and beasts

Banko goods (Mie Prefecture), which are mostly unglazed

Goods Awaji (Awaji Island) monochromatic yellow or bright green glaze

Another Japanese Pottery Markings, the Soma pottery (Fukushima Prefecture), in which a horse is usually a picture seen.

Porcelain Trademark

Trademarks are usually read from top to bottom and from right to left. The signatures are usually followed by a suffix, for example Sei, saku tsukuru or meaningless "fact", or Ga, or Fude Dzu meaning "painted" or "made." Then there are the names of places, Satsuma, Kutani, Seto etc. To read the required credentials as a good Japanese / English dictionary as Nelson. A simple guide and easy to read and write Japanese is Ed Florence Sakade & al. J Bowes, Japanese brands and labels is very useful as Koop and Inada, Japanese names. It is a thankless task to go through lists of brands and as continuing in the hope of finding the exact match yours, however, a modest amount of study can make a big difference. Be careful, can become a Obession.

Porcelain History

To immediately obtain a better understanding of the many names that occurs in Japanese pottery and porcelain, I think the map is available here which shows the most common areas of the oven and cities will be useful.

Regarding the dates, names the following Japanese historical period are most commonly met with:

Momoyama period (1573-1603)
Edo period (1603-1867) or less divided into early, middle or end of Edo. Sometimes it was Genroku (1688-1703) when popular culture is distinguished blooms.
Meiji (1868-1913)
Taisho (1913-1926)
Showa (1926-1988), where "early Showa" is often used to cover the Showa reign before 1945, and
Heisei (1988-present)