26039 Keisei Tamura Fine calligraphy Hyakunin Isshu Kabuto Kaoru TAMURA Keisei

Height 13.0cm
Width 12.0cm
Depth 8.3cm

The "Kutani Brush Fine Calligraphy Technique" is a technique for painting classical literature, mainly waka poetry, onto porcelain using an extremely fine brush. Since the Meiji period, it has developed independently in the southern region of Ishikawa Prefecture as an expression that matches the delicate painting of Kutani ware. For over a century, the technique has been passed down from father to son within the Tamura family.

The fine characters are painted with a manganese-based glaze and then fired at approximately 800 degrees. Painting tiny characters using a viscous glaze is difficult, and it takes many years to master the technique. The work is generally done with the naked eye in order to arrange the characters in an orderly manner on the three-dimensional, curved surface of the unglazed porcelain and to ensure balance with the overall painting. Furthermore, when painting on the inside of the vessel, a completely different stroke order is used, such as drawing vertical lines from bottom to top. A variety of unique ingenuity has been incorporated into the aim to express characters that are tiny yet possess the beauty of calligraphy. This is truly a symbolic work that represents the pinnacle of technique, and successive generations have worked on it to hone their skills.

The fine calligraphy technique, which showed progress under the first generation Oda Seizan and the second generation Tamura Kinsei, has been passed down to the third generation Keisei and the fourth generation Seito, and is still being developed in pursuit of works that are full of modern, elegant beauty.