is an artistic technique for creating

Japanese pottery , is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptionall ...

in multiple colors of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay part ...

. The technique is also called , although this term also refers to the throwing of multiple colored clays on a wheel.

History

is a contemporary Japanese term. Marbling ceramic techniques were used in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

and China and through the Romans to the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

. Early ceramics in

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement in Staffordshire and is surroun ...

use more than one colour of clay for decorative effect. In England this was referred to as

agateware Agateware is pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenw ...

. In Japan there are a few pieces from the

Momoyama period Momoyama may refer to: History *Azuchi–Momoyama period, the final phase of the Sengoku period in Japanese history 1568–1600 People *Ion Momoyama, Japanese singer and voice actor *Momoyama Kenichi (1909–1991), Korean prince and cavalry office ...

, and

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, as well as extant pieces of , that display marbled ceramics. There was an explosion in popularity of the technique from about 1978–1995 in Japan, due probably to Aida Yusuke's advertising and to Matsui Kousei, who refers to his work as . The term started being used in the 1970s to describe related kanji ''neriage''. Yusuke Aida was on a television commercial for

Nescafé Nescafé is a brand of coffee made by Nestlé. It comes in many different forms. The name is a portmanteau of the words "Nestlé" and "café". Nestlé first introduced their flagship coffee brand in Switzerland on 1 April 1938. History Nestl� ...

and it seems to have entered the vocabulary at about that time when his nerikomi coffee cups were available to the first people contacting the advertisers. It was used in the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdo ...

in 7th-century China there are at least two Chinese characters to describe variations of this technique (one surface, one structural).

Technique

In , a design is created in such a way that it extends through a long block of clay, akin to the

murrine Murrine (singular: murrina) are colored patterns or images made in a glass cane that are revealed when the cane is cut into thin cross-sections. Murrine can be made in infinite designs from simple circular or square patterns to complex detailed ...

canes of

millefiori Millefiori () is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware. The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" (thousand) and "fiori" (flowers). Apsley Pellatt in his book ''Curiosities of ...

glasswork. By slicing thin slabs of the block, the design can be repeated, to either be reassembled in repetition or applied to a larger piece.

References

External links

*http://nerikomi.blogspot.com in Japanese *http://www.yusukeaida.co.jp/ {{Japanese ceramics Artistic techniques Japanese art terminology Japanese pottery Japanese words and phrases

History

Technique

See also

References

External links