Simply SHINO
May 3rd 2009 07:16
SIMPLY SHINO
Shino Ware
There is a common (mis)conception that Shino ware is named after a famous Japanese Tea and incense master called Shino Soshin due to a remark in a 17th century Japanese text.
The problem with that theory is that Shino ware first appeared well after the death of that master so his famous white bowl was probably "white temmoku" or an import from China or Vietnam?
Another theory is that Shino is a dialect form of shiro - white but there's no such word in Japanese.
After a hour or so of hunting thru several online databases of images and lexicons and dictionaries I did find though that there is a word SHINO also sounded out as Zoo or SHO that is a less common form of sasa or suzu - dwarf bamboo grass.
Now take another look up top.
Bamboo is very common design motif in Japanese art and one form of Shino has simple but charming pictures painted in iron glaze under the white glaze.
bamboo motif
This is what I think happened.
The ware was colloquially referred to as "shino" due to the use of grass patterns.
Some one thought Shino was a reference to the Tea master and changed the Kanji used to write the word from the one kanji that is the plant name shino suzu sasa zoo shoo chinese xiao3 to two kanji.
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