Clay and natural enamel, worked on the lathe (h 170 mm x Ø 10 mm).
Bizen ceramic vase. Unique piece, complete with wooden box ( Kiritomobako ), custom-made and bearing the artist's signature. Perfect preservation.
Bizen pottery is characterized by an earthy, reddish-brown color, with traces of molten ash that resembles a glaze, and a remarkable hardness due to high-temperature firing. The pieces, in fact, are slowly fired for a long period that lasts from 10 to 14 days, using red pine as firewood because the resin it contains helps to produce a fire that reaches very high temperatures.
In the prefecture of Okayama, in southern Japan, there is a small province that includes the city of Bizen, famous for the incredible ceramics that have been produced here for over 800 years. Made with clay extracted from rice fields and fired in kilns built with ancient techniques, these ceramics have the particularity of being modeled by man, but decorated by nature through the uncontrollable processes that occur inside the kilns.
In these ovens the ash, smoke and resins contained in the wood used to cook the ceramics crystallize on the pieces creating unique and unrepeatable effects. The peculiarity of these ceramics lies in the colors and different shades that the earth takes on, which often veer towards a metallic bronze sometimes with iridescent effects.
Yabe Atsuo is the third son of Tōshū Yamamoto (1906-1994), a renowned Bizen master with innate manual skill at the wheel, who was designated a National Living Treasure (Important Intangible Cultural Property). This honor not only recognized his mastery of Bizen pottery, but also celebrated his unique approach and significant contributions to Japanese ceramic art. His legacy lives on not only in his creations, but also in the influence he has had on contemporary ceramics.