Saishoku Bizen Guinomi — Landscape and Sun — No. 1
Abe Anjin
Bizen stoneware with kiln effects, coloured decoration and gold
Reference JPN-HIS-006
About the work
In this Saishoku Bizen sake cup, Abe Anjin approaches the dark Bizen surface almost as a painter approaches canvas. A luminous gold field frames blocks of blue, brown and red — earth, sky and sun reduced to a few forceful marks — and shifts dramatically in the light as the cup is turned in the hand.
Detail
In this guinomi, Abe Anjin treats the ceramic vessel almost as a painter treats a canvas. A broad, gold-coloured field interrupts the dark Bizen surface, and within it blocks of blue, brown and red suggest a condensed landscape — earth or mountain, sky and sun reduced to a small number of forceful visual elements. Gold plays a particularly important role here: it establishes a visual frame while responding directly to light, so the surface changes noticeably as the cup is handled or viewed from different angles, its brightness shifting with every small rotation. Beneath the colour, the physical reality of the fired clay stays visible — irregular texture and traces of firing show through and around the painted areas rather than being smoothed away, keeping the ancient material character of Bizen present alongside the contemporary pictorial intervention. The vessel remains, in scale and use, a sake cup, yet its small surface operates like an independent abstract painting animated by its own material, gold-lit surface.
About the series
The contrast between the ancient material character of Bizen and this contemporary pictorial intervention is central to the work — a small sake cup whose surface operates like an independent abstract painting.
