ARTWORK OVERVIEW

An irregular guinomi built around a coiled dragon in low relief. Deep olive-green Oribe glaze settles into the incised lines and gathers across the dragon’s body, while exposed cream and iron-toned fields carry floral, geometric and wave patterns. The reverse is dominated by a seigaiha-like wave panel, and the interior is dark and mottled. The faceted wall and uneven rim keep the vessel visibly hand-formed from every angle.

ARTIST CONTEXT

Makoto Yamaguchi approaches Oribe as a surface language rather than as a single glaze effect. In his Rimpa Oribe works, relief, incised pattern, exposed clay and saturated green are composed across an irregular vessel so that image and form develop together. The small scale of the guinomi intensifies this method: a complete pictorial field must be held within an object made for the hand.

ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION

Here, the dragon is drawn inward. Its circular body concentrates movement at the centre of the cup, while the surrounding fragments behave almost like shifting screens. As the vessel is turned, the coiled figure gives way to waves, floral units and the dark interior. The work moves between emblem and landscape, containment and release.

CURATOR’S SELECTION

We selected this guinomi because the dragon does not sit on the vessel as separate decoration. Its body follows the compression and folds of the form, while the glaze strengthens rather than obscures the relief. Among Yamaguchi’s dragon cups, this example has an especially concentrated presence: compact, dense and resolved without becoming static.

COLLECTOR PERSPECTIVE

This is a work for close, repeated looking. In the hand, its ridges and changes of plane are immediately present; under shifting light, the green glaze moves from olive to near black. Its scale makes it intimate, but the surface remains expansive enough to reveal a different balance each time the vessel is turned.