Shiro Cochi

yenling83

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I'm a huge fan of Shiro Chochi pots, absolutely love them! But don't know much about them.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
What does the, “Kochi” or “Cochi” in “Shiro Kochi” mean? I believe Shiro refers to the color white. Also, what classifies something as Shiro Cochi? It seems that all Shiro Cochi are antique or close to antique white or cream pots. Is there a specific age the white/cream pot must be to classify?

Some examples taken from Kaedebonsai-en and Peter Warrens site.

shiro1_zpstb5ko1jy.jpg


Shiro2_zpslljqdysu.jpg


Shiro3_zpsltij5xfr.jpg
 

Toche

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It's never too late for an answer. :) ;)

In the world of Japanese bonsai, Japanese terms are used to classify Chinese pottery.
These include Kowatari, Nakawatari, Shinto, etc.
These names are estimates of the age of the pots.
The shirokochi color is one of the tones found in Kowatari and Nakawatari pots, and is indeed a white, creamy-white tone.

Kowatari pots were made before 1800.

Nakawatari pots were made between 1800 and 1911.

These two varieties of Chinese pots were imported to Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.
They are often highly prized by wealthy amateurs for displaying their high-quality bonsai at renowned exhibitions such as Kokufu-ten and Taiken ten.
 

Toche

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A small correction. ;)

These two varieties of Chinese pots were imported to Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.
I mean, the popularity of these pots dates back mainly to the 1970s and 1980s.
 

rockm

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Shiro Kochi refers to a whitish cream glaze that has origins in the Cochin region of China if I remember correctly.

Kowatari and Nakawatari refer to the "crossing" of pots from China to Japan. Those eras were when the Japanese were importing Chinese ceramics in big numbers. Kowatari refers to import before 1800. Nakawatari refers to the period between 1800 and 1911 or so.
 

rockm

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My English is very bad, but it seems to me that you're confusing the dates when the pots were imported and when they were made.

Bjorn Bjorholm talks about this subject here
How so?

Bjorn has confused the history a bit or muddled what it means. He says that the Japanese made Nakawatari and Kowatari pots popular in the 70's and 80's. In other words, what was already there (or searching out similar things in China), became fashionable. That doesn't mean Nakawatari or Kowatari pots weren't already in Japan. They were, They just weren't part of a popular trend. The actual export from China to Japan happened a lot earlier than the 1970's. It was part of a greater export exchange between China and Japan dating back centuries. The Japanese valued the "refined" esthetics of Chinese stuff for a very long time. Bonsai is one of the exports from China to Japan, for instance. The "Iiterati" style is a direct result of that exchange as well. The two "crossings" were part of freer trade between China and Tokugawa and Meiji eras in Japan, part of a widening of large-scale trade in the 1860's. It's a long complicated history.

"Containers exported to Japan during the 17th and 18th centuries would be referred to as Kowatari ("old crossing"). Extremely elegant and later harmonizing well with old dwarfed trees, these were made between 1465 and about 1800. Many came from Yixing in Jiangsu province -- unglazed and usually purplish-brown -- and some others came from around Canton, particularly during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Some porcelain containers were starting to be used for plants at this time in China.
By the year 1700, containers now had a finer texture than those made during Ming times, and these featured a tremendous variety of patterns. The practice of carving calligraphy or paintings onto container surfaces dates from this time.
Pots exported from China to Japan between 1816 and 1911 (especially in the late 1800s) were called Nakawatari ("middle-crossing") or Chuwatari. Unglazed shallow, rectangular or oval-shaped stoneware pots with carved feet and very large drainage holes were used at ancestral shrines and treasured by the Chinese. These antique containers were originally incense burners for outdoor use in cemeteries. "
 

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Thank you Wikipedia. :D :)

Bjorn and I are saying the same thing.
We're just saying that the success and imports into Japan of these pots grew in the 1970s and 1980s.
Probably thanks to the evolution of means of communication.
 

rockm

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Thank you Wikipedia. :D :)

Bjorn and I are saying the same thing.
We're just saying that the success and imports into Japan of these pots grew in the 1970s and 1980s.
Probably thanks to the evolution of means of communication.
Bjorn has fudged the actual meaning of the terms. Kowatari and Nakawatari are distinct in their meanings and time periods. Imports of pots into Japan in the 70's and 80's aren't really the same thing.
From John Naka's Bonsai Techniques II (printed in 1982):

nakawatari.jpg
 

Toche

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Thanks for this page, but John Naka doesn't say anything different from Bjorn.

On the contrary, this book dates from 1981, and the last sentence: "Within the last few years, the Japanese bonsai people have taken..." tends to prove that imports did increase in those years.

But I'll stop here, as we say in our country: "There's none so deaf as he who will not hear."
The main thing for me was to provide an answer concerning the shirokochi color for Yenling.
 

rockm

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Thanks for this page, but John Naka doesn't say anything different from Bjorn.

On the contrary, this book dates from 1981, and the last sentence: "Within the last few years, the Japanese bonsai people have taken..." tends to prove that imports did increase in those years.

But I'll stop here, as we say in our country: "There's none so deaf as he who will not hear."
The main thing for me was to provide an answer concerning the shirokochi color for Yenling.
Naka does say something completely different and you seem to be missing it (and it's not an unimportant detail when talking about old bonsai pots. He attributes imported Chinese pots to those specific eras and does not try to expand the use of the terms. Bjorn skips most of the history in favor of saying USING the pots became a fad of sorts in Japan in 70's and 80's. There's a difference. The stuff taken back to China for modelling and sale here in the U.S. are not referred to as either term, as they cannot "pass" for either term. They're simply new reproductions. Trying to sell a reproduction using those terms to describe it would be dishonest at worst, ignorant at best.
 

Toche

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But I'm not talking about that,
1 I'm giving you information about a color, that's the subject of the topic.
2 I'm talking about an import period.
Nothing more

dishonest, ignorant ?
I don't need to copy what's written on Wikipedia to give an answer.
Culture is like jam: the less you have, the more you spread.
 
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