Kutani Ware: Japan's Boldest Ceramic Painting

The Kutani Red That Astonished the World

At the Paris Exposition of 1867, European ceramic collectors stared at the vividly coloured porcelain displayed in the Japanese pavilion. Deep green, burning red, brilliant yellow. Bold painting covering the entire surface of a piece was the very symbol of the Japanese craft that Europe was then embracing as Japonisme. That was Kutani ware.

Born in the mountains of Ishikawa Prefecture, in the country of Kaga, this porcelain carries over 350 years of history and continues to captivate collectors worldwide. Early pieces known as Ko-Kutani command high prices at the world's leading auctions, and work by contemporary Kutani artists is exhibited in galleries in New York, London and Paris.

Why does Kutani ware move people so strongly? The secret of its colour, the layers of its history, and the work of contemporary makers. This guide covers all of it.

The Birth of Kutani Ware

The first kiln, and the mystery of Ko-Kutani

The history of Kutani ware begins around 1655, when a kiln was opened in the Yamanaka area of Ishikawa Prefecture, in what is now the Kutani district of Kaga City. Set against the Six Ancient Kilns and their thousand-plus years, it is a comparatively young region.

Early Kutani ware is called Ko-Kutani, and it used the deep green, yellow, purple, dark blue and red known as the five colours of Kutani in bold, pictorial designs. But Ko-Kutani was produced for only about fifty years before disappearing abruptly. Why the kiln closed is not certain, and that abundance of mystery deepens the romance of Kutani further. Surviving Ko-Kutani pieces are extremely rare and carefully held in museums and private collections in Japan and abroad.

What defines Ko-Kutani is bold painting in those five colours — green, yellow, purple, dark blue, red. A technique of filling the ground entirely with colour, and large motifs of plants, birds and figures. Influenced by Ming Chinese porcelain, they were raised into a style through a distinctly Japanese interpretation.

Revived Kutani: an era of competing styles

About a hundred years after Ko-Kutani ceased, in the early 1800s of the late Edo period, Kutani ware revived. Beginning with the Kasugayama and Wakasugi kilns led by the Kaga domain, distinctive kilns opened one after another, each establishing a style of its own. That Kutani ware today carries a startling range of styles compared with other regions rests on the competition of that era.

Those styles are carried into the present and are the source of Kutani's diversity. A craft in which so many different styles coexist under one name is very unusual among Japanese traditional crafts, and it is a large part of the appeal.

Kutani ware today

Southern Ishikawa Prefecture — Kaga City and Nomi City — still holds more than 200 kilns and painting workshops, placing it among the larger Japanese ceramic regions.

Today, young artists reinterpreting traditional technique through their own sensibility produce one-of-a-kind pieces that are highly valued in exhibitions at home and abroad.

The World of Gosai, Kutani's Five Colours

Why Kutani ware is so vivid

The defining feature of Kutani ware is its overwhelming colour. Where other Japanese ceramic regions honour wabi-sabi, stillness and natural tones, Kutani holds the opposite aesthetic: opulent, brilliant, bold, talkative.

This is bound up with the culture of the Kaga domain. Known as "Kaga of a million koku," the wealthy domain invested lavishly in craft and gave its makers the charge to produce the very best. The splendour of Kutani colour emerged inevitably from that cultural ground.

Kutani ware achieves its brilliance through the combination of five colours.

• Green　The colour that represents Kutani. Deep green made from copper changes its face with the angle of view.
• Red (bengara)　A scarlet made from iron oxide. Called "Kutani red" and prized by collectors worldwide.
• Yellow　Modern lead-free yellow is technically the most difficult colour to achieve.
• Purple　A restrained purple from manganese, whose role is to hold the other colours together.
• Dark blue　Cobalt blue. The most stable of the five colours, a navy like deep sea water.

The art of overglaze painting

Kutani ware is porcelain built around overglaze painting. Bisque-fired porcelain is glazed and fired once, then painted over with pigment and fired again at low temperature. That second firing is what produces the vivid colour.

Painting demands high skill and long training. A first-rate painter draws complex motifs composed of dozens of fine lines across the surface of a rice bowl 10 cm across. Brush control, managing pigment density, judging drying time. It is said to take at least ten years for all of it to become physical knowledge.

How to Recognise and Choose Kutani Ware

Recognising genuine work

Inexpensive goods carrying the Kutani name circulate in the market. Here is what to look for in genuine Kutani ware.

• Check the foot ring　A piece with an artist's signature or a kiln mark stamped inside the foot ring is more reliable.
• Density and precision of painting　Genuine painting shows no bleeding even under magnification, and the lines are drawn at even thickness. Rather than mechanical printing, you should feel the slight waver of a hand and the character of the brushwork.
• Depth of colour　Genuine Kutani green and red shift in depth as you change your viewing angle. The colour does not stop at the surface; it has a depth as though dissolved into the glaze layer.
• Weight and feel　Fine porcelain has appropriate weight in the hand, and the surface is smooth and cool. Flick the rim with a finger and it rings clearly.

That last test, tapping for sound, distinguishes stoneware from porcelain by the note a piece gives. Porcelain (Arita, Hasami, Kutani) is hard and tightly fired, so it gives a high, clear, metallic ring. Stoneware (Bizen and others) has coarse clay particles holding air, so it gives a lower, duller knock. With practice you can read a piece's character from the sound alone.

Choosing by style

Kutani ware comes in a variety of styles.

• If you want a showy piece with presence　The Ko-Kutani style. Green and yellow lead, and large motifs cover the surface boldly. It has a powerful, wild presence.
• If you want to study fine detail　Akae saibyo, fine red painting. Delicate scrolling vines and bird-and-flower motifs drawn in scarlet alone. Restrained, but the more you look the deeper it goes — a piece you can study for a lifetime.
• If you prefer contemporary form　Choose freely among contemporary artists. They keep evolving while making use of traditional colour, and their work is easy to use daily and sits well in an interior.

Bringing Kutani Into Daily Life

Because of its splendour, Kutani ware is often assumed to be for display. It was made to be used as tableware.

Kutani excels at contrast with what is served on it. Against vividly painted Kutani, simple food served white looks beautiful. Steamed tofu, thin slices of sashimi, plain rice — the cleanness of the ingredient and the splendour of the piece produce an exact contrast.

And when you want to lift a table — a Christmas dinner, a meal for guests, a birthday lunch — a single piece of Kutani is enough to bring a sense of occasion.

Kutani as a gift

Kutani is known among Japanese ceramics as work that is especially welcome as a gift. The reason is visual impact: the moment the wrapping opens, everyone says it is beautiful.

Weddings, housewarmings, retirements, birthdays. It has the formality to suit any occasion. A pair of tea cups, a set of small plates, a flower container. Choose according to the use and the person.

Visiting the Kutani Region

Southern Ishikawa Prefecture, around JR Komatsu Station, is the centre of Kutani ware.

The Kutani Ceramics Museum in Kaga City shows work from Ko-Kutani to the contemporary and is essential for seeing the whole history at once. At the Yoshidaya kiln site in the Kutani district, an early kiln has been restored, putting you in touch with the origin of the ware. The Kutani Ceramic Art Village gathers kilns together, and many workshops there offer painting sessions by reservation, so it is a destination where you can do more than look.

The Spirit of Kaga, Held in Colour

Kutani ware is not simply pretty pottery. It is the most splendid ware in Japanese ceramics, raised by the weight of 350 years and by the rich cultural ground of Kaga.

The brilliance of its five colours catches the eye of anyone seeing it for the first time, deepens in attachment with use, and passes down across generations. Bring the colours of Kaga to your own table. Why not take that first step today?

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