Formal description:
Handmade Japanese bonsai pot by Joshu Katsuyama. Rectangle with external rim, incised corners, cloud feet on lower rail. Hand painted landscape scenes to four sides, hand signed signature underneath.
External dimensions:
137 x 114 x 43mm (5⅜ x 4½ x 1¾ in)
Internal dimensions:
116 x 94 x 32mm (4⅝ x 3¾ x 1⅜ in)
SKU: 24351
Informal information:
Probably peak work from Katsuyama here. The paintings are confidently done with great variation of line weight, light and shade, delicate details, and with typical but popular scenes of both visiting and departing from friends.
The porcelain body has drying cracks that can occur after making but before the bisque firing. They're clearly drying cracks as in some places there is glaze in there. Katsuyama was clearly OK with that - porcelain is vitrified and so cracks are less of a structural risk, and the overall impression of age is increased, I do not think this is sloppiness.
The white underglaze itself is a very fine milk white colour, and the transparent overglaze is so thin it has virtually no effect on the blue painting.
Condition: Used, patina, body cracks (see pics), otherwise excellent.
Joshu Katsuyama - B 1937, real name Katsumi Ogiwara in Gunma Pref. Signature is Katsuyama or Katsuyama made. Self taught as a potter and painter, he started with aka-e and sometsuke painting as he already loved painting. He started painting pots made by Shinobu Hashimoto. He was painting in earnest from 1975, and around 1985 he built gas and electric kilns, and was both making and painting the pieces.
His style is immediately recognisable, and very similar to that of the more famous Fujikake Yuzan. Both of these artists paint 'Nanga' style scenes, but I do believe Katsuyama was inspired by Yuzans work and then took it in his own direction.
The style referred to as 'Nanga', is also known as Southern Painting, i.e. that of Southern China in the Edo period (1603-1868). In Japanese culture this became known as Bunjinja, or the painting of literati (intellectuals), and this is where we get Bunjin and Literati styles of bonsai. Other artists paint Nanga style paintings, for example Kutani Ikko, but the look is quite different. In landscape painting the other most common style is after that of the "Floating World", the woodcut images of Hokusai etc.
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