We’ll start off with this highly detailed red painted pot I looked at before in the “Famous Painters” post. Great brushwork to this piece, and fine use of detail. The use of negative space in the river winding away from the viewer creates a great sense of depth and perspective.

A totally different go-sai(5 color) pot with much less detail and more negative space than the last. For some reason, I’m reminded of the famous Sidney Opera House when I look at this pot, with it’s unique triangle architecture and bridge in the background. Very few elements and details with a great amount of negative space combine in this painting to form a cohesive landscape. Very elegant and understated, it feels almost expressionistic or cubist to me.

A more detailed sometsuke with very dark blue, and great sense of depth from the negative space of the overhanging cliff to the left.

A square or diamond shaped red pot with some very nice detailed brushwork and elegant space. The porcelain glaze on this pot appears very thick, rounding off what may be otherwise sharp edges.

Another red painting with a spartan landscape at the foot of the mountain. I love the lone tree slightly right of center at the foot of the temple. Stark.

Another very spartan red painting. This landscape, with it’s lone weeping willow and boater, feels a little sad to me. Would go very will with a spartan tree.

Another red with really nice, intricate details. Great patina on this piece.

A six sided pot blue with a lone hermit. This pot popped up for sale a month or two ago and was a fraction the cost of other Isseki, due to the gaps in the glaze you can see in the upper right.

Another Red with interesting use of space. The individual elements are all a bit separated, the trees to the right, the mountains in the upper left, as if seen emerging from a fog.

Another view of the same red from two different sides. You can see this interesting use of space between individual elements.

A cartoonishly colored go-sai with a nice patina beginning to form. Even through the patina, the bright colors still pop.

Another red with a greatly detailed boat and fisherman casting his net. I love the detail of the individual leaves of the reeds or bamboo to either side, and the balance created by the different amounts.

And we’ll finish up today’s post on Miyazaki Isseki with an elegant blue with great negative space to the left, and the same separation of the elements as seen in the red above.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at a few pots from Isseki! Up next: More pots from my collection!

Tsukinowa Shunseki lived from 1931-2006. I’ve seen very few examples of his work, and even the pottery books show only a relative few. His work is not near that of his father, and is relatively inexpensive in comparison.

Tsukinowa Shousen was born in 1960. He truly embodies the spirit and skill of his Grandfather, with the same attention to detail, marvelous brushwork, and quality ceramic work.
Because of the extremely high value and relative scarcity of Yusen pots, many forgeries exist. The only ones I’ve seen are pretty clear, it’s much more difficult to imitate Yusen’s extremely skillful painting than, say, a glaze color or a clay type, as in some very well done forgeries of Tofukuji and Heian Kouzan. Because of the forgeries of his grandfathers work, all Shousens come with a certificate of authenticity, stamped and signed box, and stamped and signed turmeric cloth.

In the future I’ll do posts on each potter individually, but here’s a brief(…) introduction to the lineage.
Now, on to the Pots!
Yusen

We’ll start off with the rarest and the priciest! Yellow window pots like this from Yusen are few, and VERY expensive, as only a handful exist. Great patina, and note the great feet and ceramic work, clean, flawless. No drip to the window, or blurring. Yusen was nearly as great a potter as painter, a true rarity.

A red painted round porcelain pot, showing some nice patina on the rim. Porcelain patinates at a fraction of the rate of other glazes and unglazed clay, so porcelain pots showing patina are much more valuable and tough to find. This pot is a prime example of why Yusen’s work is prized. Note the detailed brushwork, the full wraparound landscape, the flawless porcelain…gorgeous.

A five color painted landscape, with tall feet. This pot style is common to Yusen pots, and often seen holding lovely deciduous semi-cascades and cascades in the Gafu-Ten shows. Again, marvelous detailed landscape, really great ceramic work.

Another go-sai pot to contrast with the previous piece. No feet to speak of, and much softer lines to the pot all around…how cool is that? The pot is softer, more feminine, and the painting mirrors that change precisely! Softer lines and brushwork, more negative space, softer details…wow.

A Yusen Suiban with blue landscape. Great use of negative space, flawless porcelain. I have no clue how many of these exist…less than a handful I’m sure, as this is the only one I’ve seen.

Another red with great brushwork and details. Less negative space here, needs a busy tree to compliment it.

A simple pot with the tall feet common to Yusen pots. Great details and brushwork.
We’re not finished by Yusen by any means, there will be more to come!
As a footnote to Yusen, we should mention the paintings of Seifu Yohei. Yohei was a contemporary of Yusens who painted many pots made by Yusen for him. Here are a couple of examples.

We’ll look at Yohei’s work in more detail in another post. Suffice to say, it’s easy to see why Yohei wanted Yusen blanks…his ceramic work is excellent in these pots!

Shunseki
I only have 2 pots archived to show you Shunseki’s work. As indicated above, they’re simply not that great.

This one shows some good geometric and character work.

A gold and red painted pot. Nice detail to the kids, but the pot looks a little wonky.
Shousen

A sometsuke blue from the third generation Tsukinowa. You can clearly see the grandfathers influence in the fine brush style, full wraparound landscape, and great ceramic work on this pot.

A red painted pot based on famous old anthropomorphic paintings of animals. Super fine brush work, really pretty, fun, and playful.

A five color pot with a very nice hollow footed base. A spartan winter scene brightened up considerably by the foot painting and rim. An interesting and hopeful contrast.

A wonderful winter scene sometsuke. To me, it just feels cold and spartan, evoking the season perfectly. The top photo shows the various accoutrements that come with each Shousen pot. As I’ve indicated in previous posts, winter scene painted pots are hard to come by, which always seemed strange to me, as the most important shows are in winter…the best painters of the current generation, Haruyoshi, Ranzan, Joshu Syouzan, and Shousen, seem to have realized this as well, and I see more winter scenes from them than previous generations. Now if somebody in the United States would actually HAVE a show in winter(or at the very least an appropriate time…August in Chicago…really?). Well then we’d be taking a huge step forward!

Two great reds with totally different styles of pots and brushwork. The oval is, interestingly, painted more heavily than the rectangle, and while the rectangle is the stronger pot based upon shape alone, the painting makes the overall balance softer and more feminine, the oval becomes almost as strong as the rectangle. An interesting contrast.

And we’ll finish up with Shousen today with a round, showing two different views that would suit totally different trees. The first view needs a very strong tree, while the second, with more negative space, could suit much more elegant trees.

Hope you’ve enjoyed seeing this overview of the Tsukinowa Line. As soon as I find the photos, and the time, I’ll post on these potters in more depth(winter?).
Next up, Miyazaki Isseki. While Yusen is the master of the brush, Isseki is the master of the no-brush, that is to say, the master of negative space.
Thanks for reading, I DO appreciate it when you subscribe and comment, my favorite thing about this research and writing about it is meeting the others interested, so….post a comment! Subscribe!

A five color pot with horses. Super bright coloration! The scenery and details really pop, like a Disney cartoon.

Sometsuke pot with really nice detail and brushwork.

A small red painted pot with very fine line brushwork.

A more impressionistic five color pot than the first.
UPDATE
Here are a few more pots from Shiho.

A nicely painted dragon in 5 colors on a quince shape pot. I like the wild feeling of this painting.

Blue landscape in window with 5 color flower borders. Really bright painting surrounds the window.

A simple sometsuke rectangle with fine brushwork.

Unglazed reddish brown clay with inset sometsuke landscape windows. Nice detail to the landscapes, and clean edges to the windows. Very nice finish to the unglazed pot as well.

And we’ll finish up with another impressionistic landscape in 5 colors. Bold colors and interestingly fuzzy brushwork create a cartoonish landscape on this slightly wonky pot.
Thanks for reading and Stay tuned!
I’ll be listing great pots For sale tomorrow, and also Tomorrow I’ll be finishing up a post on The Tsukinowas! Tsukinowa Yusen is probably the greatest painter who specialized in Bonsai pottery in the history of the art, and we’ll take a look at his pots, as well as pots by Tsukinowa Shunseki, his son, who was a good painter in the shadow of the greatest, and His grandson, Tsukinowa Shousen, who is truly carrying on his grandfathers work with awesome paintings, great porcelain work, and forgery proof accoutrements(too cool and unfortunately too necessary!!!).

A great 5 color painted rectangle in my collection. Bright colors and very nice brushwork make for a fantastic pot.

Another from my collection, a deep metallic green over white clay. There is a small kamakizu(kiln crack) at the right foot, but it’s beautiful despite this “flaw.”

Also in my collection, this is a good example of Hosui’s red painted pots. I really love the detail of the pine on the left and the mountain in the background. Good use of negative space also, with clear direction.

The last of my collection. This Hosui is early work, mid to late 1970s, and is a copy of a Tofukuji pot.

A great 5-color pot in clear homage to Tsukinowa Yusen, that I found for sale from Kinbon. I love the detail in this pot, and the shape is great.

A sometsuke round pot. Interesting brush work and detail to the stand of pines in the foreground.

A nice simple round with a boat, I like the rim detail and detail to the boat.

A 5-color window painted pot with very nice brushwork and details. Great use of perspective and depth, the river winds away into the background perfectly!

A glazed piece. I love the thick drips!

Two nice crackle glazed pieces.

A pair of hand formed slabs in imitation of famous Kurama stones.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the pots of Echizen Hosui. If you’re interested, two of the pots in today’s post are up on the For Sale page!

Bigei!

Awesome Hosui!

Kamiya Ryuens! 4!

Middle crossing Chinese!

Itoigawa Shimpaku before work. Super tough material. Gigantic old trunk, but very tough to see the deadwood and great twisting live veins and Shari.

After work with Bjorn and yesterday alone working on the deadwood and hollowing out the punky deadwood on the Shari to the left. No matter what front was chosen, it was clear from the get go that this was going to be an unusually styled tree! The branch crossing the trunk in the middle will be replaced by a smaller branch from the rear in the future, after the foliage increases and it’s safe to jin it. That entire area will become a deadwood feature on the trunk. A good start for difficult material!

A twisty Kishu Shimpaku. This is the before. Much easier material!

And the after. Bjorn saw two options for the tree, a semi-cascade where the surface roots would eventually become a deadwood feature, or this more upright style that I liked better. The plan from here is increasing and pushing back the foliage on the right for a more compact tree, and slowly increasing the Shari to show a bit more deadwood.

This mountain maple is obviously pretty old, but the super heavy bar branches in the center and the heavy branches in the apex suck! Time for a change, so I brought it along for some confirmation for what I wanted to do.

And heres the after from the new front. I was planning more or less on removing all the branches and starting from scratch, instead, some were left as bases for the new branches and I ended up with more than I would have left! That big branch to the rear lower right will be removed around midsummer after the tree grows strongly from buds farther back along the branch, and the base will become a back branch, hopefully it will grow strongly enough this summer to do some initial wiring of the new branches!

I hope you enjoyed reading the post! Sign up for a workshop with Bjorn at this years Rendezvous if you haven’t already! He’s a real joy to work with!

7 point shohin display. From top, Japanese Black pine, Old Chinese Pot; Root Over Rock Trident maple, Reiho pot; Viburnum, Ikkou pot, Acer Palmatum, Yamafusa pot; Korin Satsuki, Bigei pot; Mixed Accent, Haruyoshi pot; Princess Persimmon, Chinese pot.
The rack and accompanying table were custom made for me by Greg Johnson, of Artisan Bonsai Woodworks. I can’t recommend his work enough! Very good quality for the price! You can find Greg’s website here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~mnhawk/artisanbonsaistands/index.html

The stand for this Black pine was made by Jay Kolaya. His work is the best I’ve seen outside of the high end Japanese tables. Unbelievable attention to detail and craftsmanship!

Chuhin Shimpaku , Second Generation Tofukuji Pot; mixed accent, Furumoto pot; Miyasama Trident Maple, Bushuan pot.

Since the Lecture and Demos were geared toward beginners, I decided to bring a couple of trees in process.
Chinese Quince, Joshu Syozan pot; mixed accent, Tosui pot; Itoigawa Shimpaku, Ikkou pot. The shiny dome is yours truly!
The Itoigawa I brought for the benefit of those attending a follow up workshop next week, where I will show it again after a hard work and styling with the help of Bjorn Bjorholm(but more on that later!).

One of the things about this pot that really stands out is the writing on the bottom. This is a numerical catalog code indicating that the pot is formerly of the Takagi collection, now the Takagi museum. Reiji Takagi was a famous collector of both pots and bonsai, as well as other Asian fine art, and his large collection is now a museum in downtown Tokyo, where hundreds of masterpiece bonsai can be viewed on the rooftop garden, while the pottery collection is housed on a lower floor. A nice piece of history to go along with a wonderful pot.