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BearTrack Farm Pottery
Temmoku
Black glazed bowls are recorded as being used in tea competitions
held by the Chinese imperial court during the Sung period. The Japanese
word 'temmoku' (sometimes spelled tenmoku) derives from 'Tianmu Shan'
("Mount Eye of Heaven"), a mountain group in the Fuchien Province of
China. Priests visiting a monastery there returned to Japan bearing
Buddhist altar items, including some Jian (oil spot temmoku) tea bowls.
The drinking of tea in Japan before this date is unconfirmed, however,
by the Middle Ages (Kamakura and Muromachi Periods), the practice had
become widespread throughout the country and Seto Potters had
established their own temmoku production.
Today, temmoku refers to a dark brown-to-black glaze, fired in
reduction, that breaks to rust or russet on the edges. With their
startling intensity, iron-oxide rich temmoku glazes contrast exotically
with their reduction-fired counterparts. Included in this group are
intense black temmoku, oil spot, iron saturate, kaki, tessha, tea dust.
hair's fur and tortoiseshell temmoku glazes. Glossy and, on occasion,
lustrously iridescent, they may flux to produce elegantly contrasting
amber breaks at rim and on raised decoration. Others variations such as
pig-skin or tea-dust have semi to matt effects.
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