魯山人が立ち止まった温泉地、山代温泉

北大路魯山人が「住んだ場所」は数あれど、山代温泉は、明らかに特別な時間が流れていた場所だと思います。

北大路魯山人が山代温泉に身を置いたのは大正期。当時の山代は、いわゆる観光温泉ではなく、工芸と湯治と思想が静かに共存する場でした。

魯山人はここで、名工・須田菁華の窯に出入りし、九谷の素地と徹底的に向き合います。華美な赤絵でもなく、輸出用の金彩でもない。彼が求めたのは「料理を受け止める器」、つまり用の哲学でした。

作陶でお世話になっている河村先生の引き継いだ北鎌倉の「星岡窯」や東京での活動が注目されがちですが、京都出身の魯山人の美意識が「工芸として地に足をつけた」のは、間違いなく山代・菁華山房です。

魯山人の寓居跡はいろは草庵として建物が残っていたのですが、そんな場所があるよと偶然タクシーの運転手さんに聞いて、気になって訪ねてみると、まさに本日は魯山人の命日でした。きっと呼ばれましたね。

Yamashiro Onsen, the Hot Spring Town Where Rosanjin Once Paused

Kitōji Rosanjin lived in many places, but Yamashiro Onsen strikes me as somewhere time flowed in a distinctly different way.

Rosanjin stayed in Yamashiro during the Taishō period. At the time, Yamashiro was not a tourist hot spring resort as we think of today, but a quiet place where craft, therapeutic bathing, and thought coexisted in balance.

Here, Rosanjin frequented the kiln of the master potter Suda Seika, confronting the clay of Kutani ware with uncompromising intensity. What he sought was neither flamboyant red overglaze nor gold decoration made for export. Instead, he pursued vessels that could truly receive food—in other words, a philosophy of utility.

Although attention often centers on Hoshigaoka Kiln in Kita-Kamakura, inherited by my own teacher Kawamura-sensei, or on Rosanjin’s activities in Tokyo, it was undoubtedly in Yamashiro—at Seikazanbō—that the aesthetic sensibility of the Kyoto-born Rosanjin became firmly grounded as craft.

Rosanjin’s former residence still remains as Iroha Sōan. I happened to hear about it by chance from a taxi driver, and when I decided to visit out of curiosity, I discovered that today was, in fact, the anniversary of Rosanjin’s death.

I suppose I was called there.

雨でゴルフをキャンセルして、本日は加賀九谷焼美術館へ。

九谷焼は、単に「美しい日本の陶器」という枠を超え、日本美術が到達した色彩と思想の極点のひとつだと思います。

まず決定的なのは、色の哲学です。

赤・緑・黄・紫・紺青という、いわゆる「九谷五彩」。これは装飾技法ではなく、世界観そのものを器面に展開する方法論です。古九谷に顕著な大胆な構図と余白の使い方は、後世のヨーロッパ装飾芸術に先行する抽象性すら感じさせます。

17世紀中葉、加賀藩という一地方でこれが生まれたという事実は、日本美術史の中でも静かな事件です。

同時代のヨーロッパが写実と遠近法を深化させていた頃、日本では色と面で世界を切り取るという、全く異なる進化が起きていた。

そして重要なのは、九谷焼が一度断絶し、再び立ち上がった文化だという点です。古九谷の消滅、新九谷の再興、明治九谷の輸出工芸、そして現代作家による再解釈——

九谷焼は「完成された伝統」ではなく、何度も自己更新してきた稀有な工芸なのですね。

Because of the rain, we canceled our golf plans and instead visited the Kaga Kutani Ceramic Art Museum today.

Kutani ware, I believe, goes far beyond the simple category of “beautiful Japanese pottery.” It represents one of the pinnacles of color and thought ever achieved in Japanese art.

What is decisive, first of all, is its philosophy of color.

Red, green, yellow, purple, and deep indigo—the so-called Kutani gosai (five Kutani colors). These are not merely decorative techniques; they are a methodology for unfolding an entire worldview across the surface of a vessel. The bold compositions and daring use of negative space seen in Ko-Kutani even suggest a kind of abstraction that predates later European decorative arts.

The fact that this emerged in the mid-17th century, in the provincial domain of Kaga, is a quiet but remarkable event in the history of Japanese art.

While contemporary Europe was deepening realism and linear perspective, Japan was undergoing a completely different evolution—one that carved out the world through color and planes.

Equally important is that Kutani ware is a culture that once vanished and then rose again. The disappearance of Ko-Kutani, the revival of Shin-Kutani, the export crafts of Meiji-era Kutani, and the reinterpretations by contemporary artists—

Kutani ware is not a “completed tradition,” but a rare craft that has continually renewed itself, time and again.