SAKE CUP (sakazuki) by WAKAMIYA Takashi

Although traditional in its form of a finely turned wooden core on a splayed foot ring, this sake cup plays with the viewer’s expectations.  In place of the usual high-gloss lacquer finish, the artist adopts a crackled lacquer base coat in imitation of a ceramic glaze.  Over this is a finely drawn image, based on a design by Shibata Zeshin, showing two herons wading in a rice paddy.  Rather than working in maki-e it uses lacquer as a painting medium.

On the reverse, effectively swirling around the feet of the birds above, a shoal of tiny medaka fish – commonly found in flooded rice fields – circles the foot rim.

Finally, within the foot a dense nashiji, framing the artist’s signature in gold, strikingly counterpoints the crackled finish of the main body, reminding the viewer that, although innovative, the piece is firmly rooted in the Japanese lacquer tradition.