Six Ancient Kilns of Japan
Koka, Shiga
Shigaraki ware has been made in Shigaraki, in the city of Koka, Shiga Prefecture, since the Kamakura period, and is one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan. Drawing on the official Six Ancient Kilns materials, this page outlines how Shigaraki ware began and what sets its clay and firing apart, along with the Shigaraki-connected potters, exhibitions and shops that megu knows about.
Pottery-making in Shigaraki began around the 13th century, in the middle of the Kamakura period, under the technical influence of Tokoname. At first both the kilns and the wares were so similar to Tokoname that they are hard to tell apart, but by the 14th century a distinctly Shigaraki style had emerged. The main products were storage jars, pots and bowls, for which demand was growing as farming expanded.
Shigaraki lies close to the great consumer markets of Kyoto and Osaka, and from the late 15th through the 16th century its wares spread outward from Kyoto. Their plainness was seen as close to the spirit of the tea ceremony, and in the Warring States period they were prized by tea practitioners in Nara, Sakai and Kyoto. Along with Bizen, Shigaraki is thought to be among the earliest wares used as tea utensils.
In the Edo period the multi-chamber climbing kiln made large-scale production possible. Shigaraki made the koshijiro tea jars that held Uji tea presented to the shogun, and small glazed everyday wares that stood in for expensive Kyoto ware. From the Meiji era on it adapted to each era's needs — industrial ceramics, train teapots and charcoal braziers (made since the late Edo period), then from the late 1950s plant pots and architectural ceramics such as tiles. The Shigaraki tanuki figure, born in the early Showa era, became known nationwide after Emperor Showa's visit to Shigaraki in 1951. The "Black Sun" on Taro Okamoto's Tower of the Sun, made for Expo '70 in Osaka, was also produced with Shigaraki's techniques.
Shigaraki's clay is dug from the Kobiwako (Paleo-Lake Biwa) formation — sediment laid down on the bed of an ancient lake that preceded Lake Biwa — into which weathered granite and rhyolite washed, producing clay well suited to pottery. It is highly heat-resistant and versatile enough for everything from tiles to large storage jars.
Shigaraki began as yakishime: unglazed stoneware fired hard at high temperature. Its appeal lies in a coarse surface flecked with grains of feldspar and quartz, and in the "landscape" (keshiki) that forms on the reddish-brown body as natural ash glaze vitrifies and scorch marks mingle during firing. Incised higaki (cypress-fence) and nawame (rope) patterns on the shoulders of jars, and the small squat jar called uzukumaru ("crouching"), are also known as characteristic Shigaraki forms.
In the 1970s, the third-generation Rakusai Takahashi and the fourth-generation Naokata Ueda worked to revive old Shigaraki techniques, and many potters carrying on those traditional methods followed. Since the late 1980s, artists working in contemporary sculpture with clay as their medium have been active here too. When you pick up a piece, look at the grainy surface and at the colour changes left by the firing — with yakishime, it is said that no two pieces ever come out the same, even in the same form.
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The Six Ancient Kilns of Japan (Nihon Rokkoyo) is the collective name for six representative pottery-producing areas whose production has continued from the medieval period to the present day: Echizen, Seto, Tokoname, Shigaraki, Tamba and Bizen. The name was coined around 1948 by the ceramics scholar Fujio Koyama, and in 2017 the six were recognised together as a Japan Heritage under the story "Kitto Koisuru Rokkoyo" (roughly, "You're sure to fall for the Six Ancient Kilns: pottery towns born and raised in Japan").
Of the six, only Seto made glazed ware; the other five are known for yakishime — unglazed stoneware fired hard at high temperatures.
59 people. Potters who have exhibited at a shop or gallery in Shigaraki, or whose profile mentions Shigaraki. This is not a complete list of the area's potters.
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