glad to see this sparked some thoughts and discussion - looking at cool pots is great and all, but I think getting down to more context/framework for what exactly we are looking at and actually seeing or appreciating as different individuals is even more interesting. getting outside of certain clay's general properties and affect on tea and whether something is authentic or not to me is where things get really interesting - who is drawn to collecting what due to the way something feels in the hand, looks on the table, what sense it gives them...
@Bok thanks for putting this in to context a bit more. I had a feeling this would probably be the case about my generalization. I was sort of half-knowingly also ignoring things like what I'm sure are considered high-end or idealized pieces that would be in private collections, museums, so on. And yes, what kind of market or information one has access to is a huge part of this. So it seems what I'm drawn to then in particular would be commoner pots as well as just certain thicker forms and shapes, which there seems to be a good amount of overlap with but can also come from two very different places and not necessarily have anything to do with each other. I was very much going on gut feeling here. I don't want to form a historically mis-informed opinion here so this kind of info is very helpful and important.
I think some of where I was coming from with this is this idea of elegance tending quite often to mean thin, delicate, highly detailed... and while this can be a part of it for me this is far from the be all end all of elegance, or at least what I would consider as such. Translation as well as marketing speak with these kinds of aesthetic descriptions is obviously also a huge factor which we shouldn't take for granted and makes matters only more tricky when already discussing something so highly subjective. Especially around a term like 'elegant' - what someone else finds elegant (typically meaning it just
looks expensive) I might find cheap and tacky or a tasteless idea of what refinement is when it can supposedly be purchased.
I have particular aesthetic leanings that in ceramics at least tend to favor what I suppose would be categorized as wabi sabi, but I'm reluctant to use the term most of the time since I don't feel I have a deep enough cultural context or experience to feel I use the term totally correctly or full understand it enough other than westerner's loving to call everything that has some obvious deformation or imperfection as "wabi sabi". Reproduction or intentional production of such a thing is even more difficult to describe I think- whether it can actually even be done or not, and how to exactly talk about the difference between two instances of something when one is good and one is bad. As an artist I favor highly minimal and reductive work, and while I take no issue with industrially produced work and enjoy it and appreciate it as its own type of craftsmanship and artistry (Judd for example), seeing some aspect of wear, minor error, variation, or the artist's hand is even more appealing for me thought, especially in that context. Maybe this has to do with being raised by someone who worked as a craftsman. I feel like I'm always sort of chasing that fine line- where something has just enough error or variation or hand showing, but not so much as for it to look sloppy, and not so clean as to look like it could just be a CAD print-out. From my own experience I can say its damn near impossible to do consciously and get it right- sometimes the thing just works and happens, but if you try and force it (whatever
it is, I still can't say) it is pretty much guaranteed to look wrong or faked, and at least to me its usually very obvious when someone else does this. Whether in my work or in an object, painting, piece of clothing, functional thing, all I still can do is say whether something has
it or not, as in it possesses the correct combination of such properties for my particular taste.
But again an objects functionality over pure aesthetic appreciation adds another level. I have some vintage chairs I adore I picked up over the years of scouring flea markets and pieced together as a set- the old wood is worn, discolored, shows years of rough use, has a form that you just don't see now... and guess what- they are are not very comfortable. Are they bad chairs then?