Jōmon Vessel

Texto del museo

Okabe Mineo presented his artistic vision in this work though an unexpected combination of materials and their treatment. The vessel features a blue-green glaze, resembling that produced in the Longquan region of China during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). In contrast, its stoneware body evokes earthenware expressions of Japan’s Neolithic period (about 14,000–300 BCE), known as the Jōmon, or “cord-marked” era, after designs found on a subset of its ceramics. Some vessels in Mineo’s Jōmon series have cord marks, while others, such as this one, reference the flamboyant mouths of some Jōmon pots. Throughout his life, Okabe changed his surname three times; born Kanō Mineo, he changed his surname to Katō, after his mother, in 1927, and again to Okabe, after his wife, in 1978.