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While in Japan, I took a motorcycle trip one weekend to Hakone. My two main aims of the trip were to enjoy the Hakone Skyline road, a twisting ridgeline full of fantastic corners and smooth bitumen. My second aim was to visit the Hakone Museum of Art to view some 10,000 year old Jomon pottery. Large coiled forms dominated the interior of the museum, which were much larger and more detailed than I had imagined. Jomon pottery is widely accepted as being the oldest in the world. Some of it dating back to 14,000 BC. What really amazed me is that in the last 16000 years, much has remained the same regarding technique.
The Jomon pottery culture not only begins early, but it continues till well down into the first millennium BC, for the Bronze Age did not begin till very late in Japan. Thus the majority of Jomon pottery is of the third and second millennia BC, when it achieved numerous exotic forms. Jomon means twisted cord in Japanese, and the main characteristic is the twisted cord decoration. Many of these vessels form fine displays in museums round the world (Current Archaeology, UK).
Jomon, in Japanese means ‘twisted cord’. And as can be seen, the works are made with a twisted cord decoration.
Pottery of a similar age and style was also discovered in Russia, in the far eastern end, in the Vladivostok region. A theory suggested for this is that at the height of the Ice age, the sea levels would have been much lower. The northern island of Japan, Honshu, may have been joined by a land bridge to the mainland of Asia at this time. Early pottery has also been reported from sites in China.
This map shows the position of Odai Yamamoto at the extreme northen end of the main island of Japan, and also the Amur river sites in Russia which have also produced pottery made in the coldest part of the last Ice Age
For anyone in the area, I would highly recommend a visit to the Hakone Museum of Art , in Saitama prefecture to see some of the oldest pottery in the world. The setting is very beautiful and will enhance your experience of the museum.
I know I am not the only one who draws inspiration from this man. His work; simple, austere, technically amazing (watch his demo below). He really is something to watch. I don’t know what it is about his work that attaches me to it. It could be the spirit of tradition that it imbues. I would love to have met him.
“To return to mingei, the problem is how does the individual artist today approach folkcraft. Of course the answer is that he should look after his character first. The problem of his own character must come foremost. With one’s intellect, with one’s mind, one can understand what tradition means. The folk art formula may be fed though the mind and through the intellect. But in work, what comes out must come out through one’s own fingertips, one’s own hands, otherwise it is no work at all…. Because Yanagi was a critic and dealt in words, he used the term “beauty” a great deal to express what he was trying to say. In my case, being a workman, I do not feel any lack by not using that word…. Beauty is not in the head or in the heart, but in the abdomen.”
- Shoji Hamada
His close friend Bernard Leach said of his work: ‘His pots are a living expression of the man himself’. For biographical information visit this site.
Shoji Hamada demonstrating at the University of Hawaii during a lecture tour which Leach and Hamada under took in 1953.
Signature and Hamada’s chop
(inside of box lid)
Press Moulded Bottle:
A press moulded rectangular bottle by Shoji Hamada. Decorated in typical fashion with Hamada’s distinctive brush work.
Teabowls by Shoji Hamada
“Take, for instance, eating and apple. The primitives took it right off the tree and ate it, skin, seeds, and all. But today we seem to think that peeling it looks better, and then we cut it up and stew it and make a jam of it and prepare it in all kinds of ways. In preparing the apple, quite often we commit many errors on the way. But in just taking it off the tree and eating the whole thing, there are no mistakes to be made”.
- Shoji Hamada
Watch a little bit about what he means below:
For a more comprehensive video of Hamada in action:
