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Japanese region in Buzen Province (now part of Fukuoka Prefect.), northern Kyushu, where stonewares were manufactured at various sites from c. 1600 (see also Japan, §IX, 3, (i), (d)).

The first potter to make Agano ware was the Korean master Chon’gye (Jap. Sonkai; 1576–1654). Deported to Kyushu during one of the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597, he entered the service of Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563–1645), the newly appointed governor of Buzen. On the completion of Tadaoki’s fortress at Kokura (now Kitakyushu), Chon’gye built the Saienba kiln, probably within the castle precincts. A site thought to be Saienba was found beneath Myōkōji, the temple that replaced the castle in 1679, and excavations took place between 1979 and 1983. Sherds of both tea ceremony and everyday wares have been found there; they have transparent glazes made with a wood-ash flux, opaque glazes made with a straw-ash flux or brown-black glazes pigmented with iron oxide. Inscriptions on surviving pieces and entries in contemporary diaries indicate that these early products were also called Buzen or Kokura ware. After a few years the Saienba kiln closed, and ...

Bazaar, which is rooted in Middle Persian wāzār and Armenian vačaṟ, has acquired three different meanings: the market as a whole, a market day, and the marketplace. The bazaar as a place is an assemblage of workshops and stores where various goods and services are offered.

Primitive forms of shops and trade centres existed in early civilizations in the Near East, such as Sialk, Tepe in Kashan, Çatal Hüyük, Jerico, and Susa. After the 4th millennium BC, the population grew and villages gradually joined together to shape new cities, resulting in trade even with the remote areas as well as the acceleration of the population in towns. The advancement of trade and accumulation of wealth necessitated the creation of trade centres. Trade, and consequently marketplaces, worked as the main driving force in connecting separate civilizations, while fostering a division of labour, the diffusion of technological innovations, methods of intercultural communication, political and economic management, and techniques of farming and industrial production....

Japanese centre of ceramics production. High-fired ceramic wares were manufactured from the end of the 12th century in and around the village of Inbe, Bizen Province (now Okayama Prefect.). This region had been a centre for manufacturing Sue-style stonewares and Haji-style earthenwares from the 6th century ad (see Japan, §IX, 2, (ii), (a)). At the end of the Heian period (794–1185) the potters moved from the old Sue-ware sites around Osafune village to Inbe, just to the north. In response to increased agricultural development, the new kilns manufactured kitchen mortars (suribachi), narrow-necked jars (tsubo) and wide-necked jars (kame). During the 13th century the wares show less of the grey-black surfaces typical of the old Sue tradition and more of the purple-reddish colour characteristic of Bizen. In the 14th century Bizen-ware production sites shifted from the higher slopes to the foot of the mountains. Kilns expanded in capacity, ranging up to 40 m in length. Vast quantities of Bizen wares, particularly kitchen mortars, were exported via the Inland Sea to Kyushu, Shikoku and numerous points in western Honshu, establishing Bizen as the pre-eminent ceramics centre in western Japan. By the 15th century the Bizen repertory had expanded to include agricultural wares in graded sizes; wares then featured combed decoration and such functional additions as lugs and pouring spouts. Plastic–forming was assisted by the introduction of a fusible clay found 2–4 m under paddy-fields. This clay, which fires to an almost metallic hardness, is still in use today....

[Yi]

Korean dynasty that ruled the Korean peninsula from 1392 to 1910. The founder of the dynasty, Yi Sŏng-gye, posthumously known as King T’aejo (reg 1392–8), established Neo-Confucianism as the official ideology, encouraging a modest and practical lifestyle. Thus the patronage of extravagant art was discouraged, and the status of the artist was reduced. Buddhism was often zealously suppressed but remained the private religion of the palace women, the common people and even some kings. T’aejo, for example, built Sŏgwang Temple in north-eastern Korea, the area of his origin; King Sejo (reg 1455–68) built the marble pagoda of the Wŏngak Temple in Seoul in 1466; and the Dowager Queen Munjŏng patronized painters (see Korea: Painting) and supported temple constructions during the reign of King Myŏngjong (reg 1545–67).

With the establishment of the capital at Hanyang (now Seoul), T’aejo built the Kyŏngbok and Ch’angdŏk palaces and city walls in ...

[kakiemonde: ‘Kakiemon style’]

Japanese porcelain made in the Arita district of Hizen Province (now Saga Prefect.). Sakaida Kinzaemon (later Kakiemon; 1596–1666) is traditionally credited with making the first porcelain in Japan in 1643 at the family kiln in Nangawara, but recent archaeological excavations have shown that ‘Kakiemon’ wares were widely produced in the region during the early Edo period (1600–1868). Kakiemon ware is chiefly represented by polychrome overglaze enamels (iroe), but it also includes underglaze blue-and-white porcelain (sometsuke) and white porcelain (hakuji; see Japan, §IX, 3, (iii)). Polychrome pieces show the harmonious combination of gold with soft reds, blues, yellows, violets and greens over a translucent milky-white body (negoshide; see fig.). Typical forms include plates, bowls, jars, water pitchers, teapots and animal and human figurines. The ware was widely exported, and popular designs, such as quail and millet, tiger and bamboo, deer and maple and bird-and-flower motifs, were imitated by several European manufacturers, most notably by the Meissen potteries during the 18th century (...

Last Chinese dynasty, founded by the Manchus, dating to 1644–1911. The Manchu emperors early became sinicized and patronized all forms of Chinese art and culture. Until the 19th century there was relative prosperity and peace under the Qing. Population and trade increased on an unprecedented scale, and expansion of territory made China the richest and largest state in the world. The reign periods of the Kangxi (1662–1722), Yongzheng (1723–1735), and Qianlong (1736–1796) emperors represent the height of Qing cultural attainment. In 1683 Kangxi founded the zaobanchu, a department of public artworks within the palace. He also promoted regional crafts and encouraged the latest Western inventions. Qianlong was also a great patron and collector. As enlightened despots, the emperors won over many patriotic Chinese, particularly by means of publishing enterprises that stimulated intellectual life, and by holding special examinations. In art the emperors were essentially conservative, but many merchants in Yangzhou and elsewhere in the south were also great artistic patrons....

A category of buildings designed to house retail and shopping. It includes arcades, department stores, shopping malls, strip centres, and big-box stores. Retail architecture exists in small towns, big cities, and suburbs: anywhere people congregate. It is as ubiquitous in time and space as the organized exchange of goods for money. It is distinguished from commercial architecture, which, in real estate and architectural practice, can refer more generally to any property that produces income for its investors or owners but does not refer to a building’s architectural function (i.e. retail).

Buildings housing commercial activity have existed since antiquity. Anthropologists have described exchange halls and commercial structures in many cultures, including Roman, Aztec, Tang dynasty China, and Mesopotamian. During the medieval and Renaissance periods, market halls and exchanges were built in cities such as Antwerp, Bruges, London, and Venice, sheltering trading activities at ground level and municipal government functions above (...

Japanese centre of ceramics production, in the foothills flanking the Daido River valley in south-west Ōmi Province (now Shiga Prefect.). Together with Seto, Echizen, Tanba, Bizen and Tokoname, Shigaraki is one of Japan’s oldest continuously functioning traditional pottery centres (see Japan §IX 3., (i), (d)). Sue stonewares and green-glazed earthenwares were produced in various locations in the Shigaraki region between the 6th century ad and the 10th, but the relationship between this early manufacture and the production of the subsequent period, evidenced in the appearance of large-mouthed jars (kame), small-mouthed jars (tsubo) and kitchen mortars (suribachi), is unclear. Although over 50 early kiln sites have been identified, only one group, the Nakaide kilns at the northern part of the valley, have been scientifically excavated. The earliest Shigaraki wares so far discovered seem to date from the 13th century, and suggest an influence from Tokoname, a large kiln complex in neighbouring Aichi Prefecture. Dated wares from the 14th century show the emergence of the distinctive Shigaraki clay body, characterized by large grains of feldspar and quartz and fired to a warm orange colour. The ware was fired in an excavated tunnel kiln (...

Centre of Japanese ceramics production based in and around Tachikui and Kamaya villages (Hyōgo Prefect.). Together with Bizen, Shigaraki, Echizen, Seto and Tokoname, Tanba is one of the few Japanese kiln centres that has been active from the 12th century to the present day. The origins of Tanba ware are not perfectly understood, but recent excavations of the Sanbontōge kiln (late 12th century–early 13th), thought to be the earliest Tanba kiln, suggest that the Echizen (Fukui Prefect.) and possibly the Tokoname (Aichi Prefect.) kilns played a central role in the ware’s development. The principal wares, which reflect improvements in Japanese agricultural production in the 12th century, include a limited number of kitchen mortars (suribachi), and greater quantities of wide-mouthed jars (kame) and narrow-mouthed jars (tsubo). Ten kiln sites, spanning a period from the 12th to the 16th centuries, have been identified, and it is thought that these were single-chamber tunnel kilns (...

Centre of ceramics production in western Chita (Aichi Prefect.), Japan. Tokoname, together with other important centres such as Bizen, Shigaraki, Seto, Tanba and Echizen, is famous for its continuous production to the present day (see Japan §IX 3., (ii)). The origins of the ware can be traced back to the 12th century, when increased agricultural development encouraged the spread of high-fired ceramics techniques from the central Sanage kiln complex, near the city of Nagoya, to neighbouring districts, including Higashiyama, Atsumi and Tokoname. Evidence for the Sanage lineage is seen in the Tokoname tunnel kilns (anagama; see Japan §IX 1., (v)) with a dividing pillar, variously placed at the fire-mouth or inside the kiln at the base of the slope. Unlike the Sanage potters, however, the Tokoname potters made larger vessels by coiling rather than with the potter’s wheel.

Before the 16th century, Tokoname kilns made three principal products: narrow-mouthed jars (...

Town in Jiangsu Province, China, situated c. 5 km west of Lake Tai, famous during the Qing period (1644–1911) and the 20th century for its high-quality teawares made of red stoneware. Most of the kilns lie to the south of Yixing in the village of Dingshuzhen.

It has been tentatively established that the earliest purplish-red Yixing stonewares were produced as early as the Song period (960–1279); examples include two pear-shaped vessels with dark purplish stoneware body and partial olive-brown glaze, found in a disused well in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, in 1961 (see Lo, p. 15). Excavations in that area have revealed kilns as well as sherds of coarse red stoneware, including many fragments of teaware. The production of Yixing wares is first well documented for the mid-16th century (e.g. teapot from the tomb of the court official Wu Jing (d 1533); Nanjing, Jiangsu Prov. Mus.). It was at this time that the names of individual potters were first recorded. They adopted the practice for which Yixing became famous, that of marking their wares with their own signatures (e.g. hexagonal red stoneware teapot signed by ...