The Transition from Everyday Pottery to Artistic Glazeware (11th–16th Centuries)
In the late eleventh century, Mino potters shifted away from luxury Sue ware and began producing simple, unglazed plates and bowls for mass consumption. These items are called yama-jawan (“mountain bowls”) because they are often found discarded in heaps near the ruins of mountain kilns.
If pottery is glazed, the individual pieces must be kept fully separate during firing to prevent them from fusing together. However, the unglazed yama-jawan could be stacked together and fired in large batches. Rice husks were layered between the pieces to separate them, leaving imprints that can be seen on the bases of the bowls. However, this method was not always successful, and excavations of old kilns often uncover discarded lumps of several fused yama-jawan like the one below. Yama-jawan production continued in Mino and its surrounding areas for about 400 years.
During the same period, a separate style of ceramics emerged in the nearby town of Seto. These ceramics, which were modeled after Chinese glazeware, are called Koseto, or “old Seto” ware. Seto potters eventually began using reddish-brown iron glazes to add ornamental elements to the pieces prior to firing them. This was done by pressing a stamp into the still-wet clay or carving patterns on partially dried clay before glazing. Sometime in the fifteenth century, a Seto potter spent time working near Mino, and these techniques were passed to the local kilns. Today, Koseto is considered another form of Mino ware.
