Shino (glaze)

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This article is about the glaze. For other uses, see Shino.

Shino is a generic term for a family of pottery glazes. They tend to range in color from milky white to a light orange, sometimes with charcoal grey spotting. The term also refers to Japanese pottery made with the Shino glaze (see Shino-yaki).

The first Shino glaze was developed in Japan during the Momoyama period (1568-1600), in kilns in the Mino and Seto areas. The glaze, composed primarily of ground local feldspar and a small amount of local clay, produced a satiny white color. It was the first white glaze used in Japanese ceramics. Wares decorated with Shino were fired in the Ogama kilns used at that time. Ogama kilns were single-chambered kilns made from a trench in a hillside that was covered with an earthen roof. As the Ogama kilns were replaced by the multi-chambered Anagama kilns during the first decade of the 17th century, Shino was supplanted by the oribe glazes used in the newer kilns. Shino enjoyed a brief revival in the 19th century, but then faded into obscurity.

In the 1930s and 1940s, two Japanese potters, Toyozo Arakawa and Hajime Kato, developed the first modern Shino glaze by studying Monoyama Shino pots. Working independently, in 1974 Virginia Wirt, a student of Warren MacKenzie at the University of Minnesota, developed a glaze formula that also sought to imitate the historical exemplars. Her glaze, which added soda ash and spodumene to the base of felspar and clay, was the first American Shino.

Shino has since become one of the more popular glazes in American pottery studios. Many variations have spawned from Wirt’s original formula. Although many different colorants and fluxes can be added, creating a wide range of effects, Shino glazes in America are all characterized by the use of soda ash and by a high ratio of alumina to silica. Under certain firing conditions, the soda ash causes carbon to be trapped in the glaze, creating the characteristic grey spots or patches on the glaze surface.

The origin of the term Shino is uncertain. It may be derived from “shiro” the Japanese word for “white.” Or it may refer to Shino Soshin (1444-1523), a tea master.

[edit] Sources

• Richer, Lester (ed.). ‘’American Shino: The Glaze of a Thousand Faces’’, Babcock Galleries, 2001. ISBN 0-915829-71-1.
• Jacobson, Mel. "Black Shino", Ceramics Monthly, December 2000. Available on-line at [1].