Bizen vs Hagi: Two Opposite Ideas of Wabi-Sabi

Two kinds of wabi, two philosophies

Japanese tea has a saying: first Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu. It names the regions whose tea bowls practitioners prize most — Raku ware first, Hagi ware second, Karatsu ware third.

The saying leaves something out. There are regions that have always been spoken of in the history of Japanese ceramics and of tea as immovable presences with a philosophy of their own. Those are Bizen ware and Hagi ware.

Both are plain. Both embody the aesthetic of wabi. Both have the beauty of natural form, where no two pieces can ever be the same. And yet each region has an appeal entirely its own.

This article introduces what makes Hagi and Bizen compelling, each in its own way. Use it as a reference when you want to bring one of them into your home as a piece of wabi-sabi pottery.

The regions and histories of Hagi and Bizen

Hagi ware, born of Korean and samurai sensibility

Hagi ware is made mainly in and around Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Its origin dates to 1604, after the Battle of Sekigahara — the largest samurai conflict in Japanese history — when Mori Terumoto invited the Korean potter Yi Sukkwang and his brother to begin work there.

Several of Japan's pottery regions were opened up by Korean potters brought over during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean campaigns. Hagi is one of them. Arita ware and Hasami ware belong to exactly the same lineage. They are forms of beauty that arose when Korean ceramic culture met Japanese clay and the Japanese eye.

Hagi clays include daido, the base of the whiteness and bright color of Hagi ware, and mishima, high in iron and producing a dark reddish tone. Over them goes a feldspar glaze, which produces the glaze cracks known as crazing that define Hagi ware. The colors are soft, running from white through cream to a pinkish flesh tone. Firing temperatures are relatively low, and among stoneware Hagi is particularly absorbent.

Bizen ware, born of fire and clay

Bizen ware is made mainly in and around Bizen, Okayama Prefecture. Its history reaches back to the late Heian period, and with more than a thousand years of unbroken kiln tradition it is Japan's oldest pottery region and one of Six Ancient Kilns.

What defines Bizen is that no glaze is used at all. The distinctive Bizen clay — fine-grained and iron-bearing — is formed, placed straight into the kiln, and fired at 1,200–1,300°C for a long stretch, usually 10 to 14 days.

A surface made by nothing but natural flame and clay. That is the singular skin of Bizen ware. Position in the kiln, how the flames travel around a piece, how the ash falls — all of it acts as chance the maker cannot control, and no two pieces ever come out with the same keshiki, the word for the expression on a piece's surface.

Contrasting aesthetics you can read at a glance

The softness of Hagi ware

Pick up a piece of Hagi ware and the first thing you feel is softness. The surface is moist to the touch, the color running from white to cream, ivory, a faint pink. Fine glaze cracks called kannyu run across it, and as the color of tea seeps into them the piece develops an expression of its own the more it is used.

This is the phenomenon called hagi no nanabake, the seven transformations of Hagi. The name means "changing seven times." Keep using a piece for a year and it shifts steadily. Loving those shifts is the greatest pleasure of the people who love Hagi ware.

Taken as a whole, Hagi ware has a soft, poetic beauty that suits words like moonlight, overcast sky, a foggy morning.

The strength of Bizen ware

Pick up a piece of Bizen ware and what you feel first is weight and strength. The surface has no gloss; it is matte and slightly rough. The colors are built on brown, grey and black, marked by the paths the flames took (enjo), the glassy speckling where ash melted (goma, sesame), and the scorch left where straw was wrapped around the piece (hidasuki). These natural formations overlap in complex layers on a single work.

Wild. Dramatic. Sculptural. These are the words Western collectors reach for when describing Bizen — which tells you how much energy its world holds.

Comparing how the two feel in use

Using Hagi ware

Because Hagi ware is highly absorbent, what stands out is how well it suits tea. Used as a rice bowl or a yunomi, the compounds in the tea are absorbed little by little into the clay and the color of the tea enters the crazing. That process is the basis of the seven transformations.

Hagi pieces are also often made thin, giving a lightness that settles into the hand. The lip is soft, and the way it meets the mouth is distinctive. One reason tea practitioners love Hagi ware is said to be exactly this softness at the lip.

The drawback is that its high absorbency rules out the dishwasher and means you should avoid leaving it to soak. Wash it soon after use and dry it thoroughly.

Using Bizen ware

Bizen is one of the few kinds of pottery said to change the taste of a drink. Pour beer into a Bizen cup and a fine head forms and the taste turns mellow. Because there is no glaze and the liquid touches the bare body, the minute unevenness of the surface is thought to encourage bubble formation — a nucleation effect. Many people say water, too, tastes rounder after sitting in Bizen for a while.

Bizen tableware also has low thermal conductivity, so hot food and drink stay hot and cold things stay cold. In other words, it holds temperature well.

Bizen has low absorbency, because it is fired unglazed to vitrification, which makes it easy to wash and quick to dry — a real advantage for daily use. Detergent is no problem, though you should avoid metal scourers.

Who each one suits

Hagi ware is for you if

• You want the pleasure of raising a piece　If you want to enjoy the transformations that come with use, and the feeling of raising a piece speaks to you, Hagi ware is the best possible partner.
• You drink Japanese green tea every day　Hagi cups and bowls suit Japanese tea perfectly, as the tea world's phrase "first Raku, second Hagi, third Karatsu" suggests. The taste of the tea soaks into the piece, and green tea drunk from a well-used Hagi cup is something else.
• You are drawn to soft, poetic beauty　Pale, moonlit tones and a moist surface. For anyone whose eye finds that beautiful.
• You like minimal interiors　The whitish tones of Hagi ware sit easily with Nordic interiors, Scandinavian design and contemporary minimal spaces.

Bizen ware is for you if

• You love accidental beauty and one-of-a-kind scenery　A skin created by flame and ash alone, the unpredictable beauty of natural form. If that moves you, Bizen will draw you in without fail.
• You love sake and beer　As a sake cup or a beer cup, Bizen is said to change the taste of the drink, and it is superb as grown-up pottery for enjoying alcohol.
• You collect art　Bizen has a sculptural power you could call pottery as sculpture, and displayed pieces give a space real presence.

What they share: wabi-sabi made visible

Hagi and Bizen are entirely different in style, yet they share a spirit.

It is the refusal to chase perfection. Asymmetry, slight distortion, unintended patterning — keshiki. Both regions accept these not as flaws but as character, and produce pieces that exist only once. And within handwork that does not suit mechanical mass production, they keep artificial elements to a minimum among clay, fire, water and ash, leaving to nature what can be left to nature, and out of that comes scenery found nowhere else.

This is the spirit of wabi-sabi itself, embodying the beauty of imperfection that modern society is steadily losing.

Hagi and Bizen: two kinds of pottery worth being drawn to

Two treasures born of Japanese clay. At first glance opposites, together they teach us how deep the beauty we look for in pottery can go.

Hagi draws you in through softness. The porous body that comes from mixing daido and mishima clays, and the texture woven by a gentle feldspar glaze, seem to receive the body heat of the person using them. The seven transformations, in which the piece grows through its crazing each time tea is poured, might be called a symbol of the Japanese aesthetic that does not rush to completion — the beauty of the unfinished.

Bizen, on the other hand, overwhelms you with strength. No glaze at all, and a solid unglazed firing born from a head-on contest between clay and flame. The goma where pine ash falls, the hidasuki where straw leaves red traces — scenery brought by natural chance that lets you feel the pulse of the earth, powerful and unadorned.

Which of the two draws you may be a mirror of your own state of mind at the time. When you want to be gently held, the warmth of Hagi; when you want to steel yourself, the severity of Bizen. Either turns an ordinary moment into something particular. A piece met once and never again will, over long years, come to carry a story that is yours alone. Why not begin that life alongside clay with these two?

Related guides

More on the culture and history of Japanese ceramics

• A Short History of Japanese Ceramics, Jomon to Now
• Reading Wabi-Sabi in a Single Bowl
• Wabi-Sabi in Ceramics: What It Actually Means
• Pottery That 'Grows': How Ceramics Change With Use
• Ichigo Ichie: Why No Two Handmade Pieces Repeat
• Keshiki: How to Read the 'Landscape' on a Pot

More on Japan's pottery regions

• Japanese Pottery by Region: A Buyer's Map
• Bizen Ware: Pottery With No Glaze at All
• Bizen
• Hagi Ware: The Tea Bowl That Changes Colour as You Use It
• Hagi

How to choose Japanese ceramics

• Why Japanese Pottery Is Worth Buying (and Keeping)

How to buy Japanese ceramics

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• Buying Japanese Pottery Online: What to Check First
• New Arrivals