Shino Myths
August 29th 2009 23:43
SHINO MYTHS
There are several myths about Shino.
A Shino Bowl
This is a typical Shino bowl showing the white glaze with fire change color effects at the edge of the glaze.
Myth One
Shino is a unique felspathic JAPANESE WHITE glaze.
Well yes and no. Certianly the Japanese seem to have hit upon the idea of making the glaze white from by mixing it with felspar as the major ingredient but modern chemical analysis suggest some ash was mixed in to varying degrees.
Also writers on ceramics who get their information mainly from (translated) Jpanese sources tend to overlook that the Chinese developed the first white glazes as early as possibly the Sui dynasty.
Google the Xing and Gong Xian Kilns then look up Ding and Qingbai.
Yes these glazes probably used rice or bamboo ash but they are white or off white with colors varying from pure snow white thru cream to a very pale light blue and green often labelled celadon. Do not confuse Ding and Qingbai with the gray green of celadon. They're similar and not the same.
The Thais and Vietnamese and the Koreans also had white ware. BEFORE the Japanese.
Some writers claim Korean moon jars and other baekja had felspar in their glazes.
Myth Two:
Shino is named after a famous Tea Master
Yes there was a tea master called Shino Soshin but he lived well before the development of Shino. Shino was porbably called Setomono or Minoyaki until the 18th century since the first use of Shino in writing does not appear until then.
I suspect the use of the word Shino came about because of the use of plant motifs on some Shino.
Shino Bowl with Plant Motif
Now look at this ...
Sasa Bamboo Grass
The ideogram used to write Sasa also has an alternative reading of SHINO!
Myth Three
The Mino potters were copying "WHITE" Temmoku or porcelain or celadon
The legendary white temmoku tea bowl was probably Chinese but more likely came from what is now Northern Vietnamese and the kilns of the Red River Delta. The Japanese imported teaware from everywhere! What they were probably trying to copy was the clear glazes used over white slip used by SE Asian and Korean potters or the white glaze on Korena baekja moon jars or they were trying to get a white that looked like the kaolin clays they did not have full access to.
The iron rich soil of the Mino area gave them something different : SHINO
I'll be showing you images of various Asian white ware over the next couple of weeks so visit again soon!
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