“Oribe especially avoided perfect and symmetrical wares and sought asymmetrical harmony and eccentricity.
He even went so far as to favor bowls warped and distorted by throwing or firing accidents.. ”

Ryoich iFujiokan, Shino and Oribe Ceramics

Introduction

Chawan

Guinomi

Tokkuri

Bizen

Oribe

More Japanese

American Bowls

Other

Acoma

 

Figure 1: An Oribe chawan. Callout A shows an example of the brown line that often appears inside the bowl. Callout B is an indentation made by a flat stick. This chawan is unusual becasue it is not thrown on a wheel but formed by hand.

Figure 2: A different Oribe chawan with similar techniques.

Figure 3: Foot of an Oribe chawan.

Figure 3: Oribe chawan

Figure 4: Oribe chawan

Figure 5: A summer style Oribe chawan.

Figure 6: Kuro-Oribe chawan

 

Figure 7: Nerumi-Oribe chawan

Figure 8: Oribe tokkuri

Figure 9: Oribe basket is a very common and traditional form. Also you can see an example of the white color which commonly appears on Oribe design.

Figure 10: Oribe sushi plate.

Figure 11: Kuro-Oribe, black Oribe, is commonly not round, but in a style refered to as a shoe form.

Figure 12: Narumi Oribe by Takiguchi Kiheiji

Figure 13: Oribe yuinomi.

Figure 14: A green Oribe plate. Here you can see that the whole piece is green.

Figure 15: A small Oribe dish I like to use for shiokara.

Figure 16: An Oribe choko for soba or sometimes I use it for somen on hot summer days.

Oribe pottery ias distinct from other Japanese kilns in that it is named after a person, Furuta Oribe (1544-1615). From a samurai family, he was a famous tea master who was a student of Sen no Rikyuu but started his own style of tea ceremony. And perhaps like Rosanjin, a chef who begn making pottery because thought his food should be served on the best dishes, Oribe began making his own tea utensils.

Oribe is an old style of pottery in Japan. The glaze is copper green transparent ash fired by oxdidation. Oribe was the first high-fired copper glaze using the Nabori-Gama (climbing kiln) in the MIno/Seto area in the Momoyam period (1568-1600) which is a famous period for pottery.

For me Oribe is an example of potters over hundreds of years who have comitted themselves to finding personal expression in thier commitment to following an established style. You can see the style of each potter, but you can see that they are all Oribe.

Generally Oribe, like you see on the right, has a beige background, a dark brown drawing, some green drips, often a brown circular line arond the inside top and a place on the outside where a flat tool has made an indent Figure 2 left side). There is a lot of historical and technical information about the Oribe style available.

Other styles are Red Oribe and where the pot is all or mostly green (Figure 11). I would rather show you the samples I have so that you can get a feel for the style. These are all pots made by different potters at different times, and still you can see the continuity of the Oribe style as well as the different personality of the potter.

Green drip and brown line are common elements but how each potter applies it is different. Figure three has only one drip on the right side. Where in most of the chawan the potter dipped one side and then the other in the glaze, in figure 4 the potter turned the pot upside down and dippedthe whole rim in equally.

In Figure 1 the pot is not thrown but formed by hand. This potter was famous for this and it is unusual. Oribe comes from the Mino/Seto area and is closely related to Shino style. The name Oribe became clearly associated with this style in the late seventeenth century and was probably related to Furuta Oribe who was was an important figure in early development of Tea Ceremony.

Mine may not be the best examples of the best Oribe but they are good examples of the style of Oribe and they are the ones that I own and use. But from now on you will recognize Oribe when you see it.

What makes Japanese folk kiln pottery such Great Art is that potters learn to express themselves from within a tradition. It is not uncommon to find one of a kind pottery from individual kilns for sale in a major Japanese department store. They might be production pieces made by apprentices under the guidance of a master potter but they are still individually made and reasonably priced. The same department store will also offer higher priced pieces by the master and regularly feature gallery style exhibitions of high quality, high priced work.

In this way art is available to people at an affordable price. In the US and western world such quality items are usually mass produced by a major company such as Limoges or Wedgewood and are produced to be exactly the same. One generally has to go to a crafts store to purchase individual pottery and often the purchase is not for personal use but as a present for Christmas.

Furthermore the individual pottery is considered craft and the "Real Artist" in pottery usuallly identifies themself as creating non-functional pottery clearly meaning that to create functional pottery is below them and curators at museums. However in my opinion functional pottery is a much higher level of art than non-functional pottery Potters that care about the things we use in our everyday life are at a miuh higher leve lof artist than potters who think about their career as a great artist.