CERAMICS. 475 



itself. This is often made to imitate basket ware. The orna- 

 mentation, however, consists in a rich, soft and harmonious tone of 

 polychromatic painting. The formation of the hairlike cracks (in 

 our artistic pottery the sign of a great miscalculation of the small 

 amount of shrinkage after the biscuit burning and of a quick and 

 very contractile glaze) is produced intentionally by the Chinese 

 and Japanese, and when well done, is much admired. Satsuma 

 cracklevvare and all its imitations, like Awata-yaki, Awaji-yaki, 

 Ota-yaki, has a narrow meshed net of such fine cracks, while in 

 the older Chinese crackle porcelain, the meshes and cracks are 

 much wider and coarser. 



The Japanese call this crackled clay-ware Hibi-yaki or Hibi-de. 

 They employ in its manufacture a glaze of felspar with leached 

 wood ashes, which assimilate with the glazing material, making it 

 more easily fusible. The" decorations in gold, red and green, re- 

 present flowers, principally chrysanthemums, paeonies, maples ; 

 fowls, peacocks and other birds are also subjects most frequently 

 taken. Censers, tea-pots, bowls and dishes, and in later times, 

 vases, urns and other larger articles, are the main productions of 

 this industry. 



Its introduction is connected with the expedition to Corea. 

 Shimadzu Yoshihisa, Daimio of Satsuma, on his return to his own 

 country in 1598, brought with him a large number of Corean 

 potters and their families, gave them the rank of Samurai, and 

 settled them in Kagoshima and several other places. Five years 

 later he gathered the most of them (seventeen families) in the 

 •' Corean village," Nayeshirogawa, 6 ri distant. Their descendants 

 live there still and continue the manufacture of pottery. They 

 have adopted the Japanese dress, mode of living and language, 

 but hold themselves otherwise aloof, and corporately preserve their 

 Corean character. They are a stronger type of men than the 

 Japanese, with intelligent features, very prominent cheek-bones 

 and pointed chin, resembling in this respect more the inhabitants 

 of Riukiu. 



The first generation manufactured only Raku-yaki, a black 

 glazed ware having no artistic quality and which had already been 

 made in Kioto by other Coreans under Hideyoshi. Tea-pots, bowls 

 and cups, and a quantity of other earthenware of this kind, are 

 still manufactured. Others produced crackle stone-ware, as in the 

 factory at Kagoshima; still others genuine porcelain of Amakusaishi, 

 and domestic kaolin, using Isu-bai as a glaze. The products, 

 however, are designed exclusively for the domestic market, and 

 none of them are in any way remarkable. 



The products which come to the European market under the 

 names Satsuma, Satsuma Faience, Satsuma ware, are not from the 

 Corean village, but were formerly manufactured in Tatsuno, near 

 Kagoshima. About twenty years ago the factory passed into the 

 hands of a company of Samurai, the Toki-gaisha, which established 



