EARLY WARES
in Hyakusai (a division of Korea). Among the three states of Korea this Hyakusai is remarkable as deriving its name from the fact that a hundred (hyaku) noble Chinese families made it their place of refuge at a very early date. Thus Gyōgi was of Chinese origin. Famed equally for philanthropy and mechanical ability, he devoted his time to travelling from place to place in Japan, instructing the people wherever he went in the arts of carpentry, carving, engineering, writing, and pottery. Many relics of his skill are preserved in the temples throughout the country, and he is credited with inventing and introducing into Japan the potter's wheel. But the contents of the dolmens show that the use of the wheel was familiar to Japanese keramists centuries before Gyōgi's era. Indeed, there is difficulty in determining what new process he really did teach. Specimens of ware confidently attributed to him are unsightly vessels of coarse, dark clay, with no trace of glaze other than that produced by the fusing of silicates accidentally present in the clay, and without any technical merit beyond a certain regularity of form, due to the employment of the wheel in their construction. Probably Gyōgi's fame as a keramist—for famous he certainly is among the Japanese—is to be ascribed to the kindly efforts he made to disseminate knowledge of an industry that added much to the comfort of every-day life. At all events, his figure assumed such historical prominence that everything antecedent passed out of view, and to this day, whenever from any long-unexplored place there is exhumed a specimen of unsightly and time-stained pottery, virtuosi unhesitatingly christen it "Gyōgi-yaki."
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