The Ceramic Art of Japan. Hugo Münsterberg

appeal as for their usefulness to the people who buy them.

      In the West, Japanese ceramics have been collected almost from the beginning of the period when the first direct contact between Japan and Europe was established. Interestingly enough, at different times very different types of Japanese wares have been admired by European and American connoisseurs. There are three distinct periods in the taste for Japanese pottery. The first comprises the last part of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, when the vogue was for fine Japanese porcelains of the Kakiemon and Imari variety. The second period, which was the last quarter of the nineteenth century, witnessed a veritable craze for things Japanese; this was when the first gaudy Satsuma ware and later the tea-ceremony paraphernalia found their ardent champions. The third period is the present, when simple folk ware and prehistoric ceramic sculpture are greatly admired.