Why is there a Japanese ceramic tradition in Vicenza?

The Italian pottery town ↓ /  When Japanese ceramics met Vicenza↓ / Kyoto and Raku ↓ / Raku in Vicenza ↓ / Explore the history ↓ / FAQ ↓ / Source and current information ↓

THE ITALIAN POTTERY TOWN WITH AN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY

Nove, in the province of Vicenza, has been producing ceramics for almost three centuries. Its place in the history of Italian pottery is documented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, whose collection includes a porcelain bowl and stand made here around 1765. The museum dates the establishment of a local ceramics factory to 1727 and the beginning of porcelain production to about 1762. The Guardian has also featured Nove’s contemporary ceramic scene.

By the 1970s, this Italian pottery town was hosting international gatherings where artists made new work and encountered different approaches to clay. The symposia of 1972, 1974 and 1978 brought together ceramicists from Europe, the Americas and Japan. Works made during those meetings became part of the collection at Nove’s art school. Among the participants in 1978 was a Japanese artist whose way of firing ceramics would make a lasting impression on a local potter.

WHEN JAPANESE CERAMICS MET VICENZA

Norio Shibata was a Japanese ceramic artist who completed his studies at the Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Technical Center in 1971. The biography published by Lithuania’s Panevėžys City Art Gallery records his participation in exhibitions and symposia across Japan, Europe and the United States from 1972.

At the 1978 symposium in Nove, Shibata built a kiln beneath a garden. Nico Toniolo, an Italian ceramicist trained at Nove’s art institute, remembered three underground chambers working together: one for the first firing of clay, one for maiolica, earthenware covered with a tin glaze, and one for Raku.

In his account, the encounter with Shibata, alongside exchanges with friends already exploring Raku, prompted his own research into its materials, colours and glazes.

Shibata also left an artwork associated with that year. The Veneto Region’s record of the school collection includes his two part work Negative & Positive, dated 1978.

KYOTO, MATCHA AND THE ORIGINS OF RAKU POTTERY

The Japanese ceramic tradition that fascinated Toniolo began in sixteenth century Kyoto. Raku is closely associated with Chōjirō, the potter whose tea bowls helped establish the tradition, and Sen no Rikyū, the influential tea master who favoured an aesthetic of simplicity known as wabi.

These bowls were made for chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony, in which matcha, powdered green tea, is prepared and served. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art explains that traditional Raku bowls are shaped by hand. Their contours and surfaces belong to an object intended to be held, examined and used for drinking tea.

The Raku Museum in Kyoto describes Chōjirō’s characteristic red and black glazes and preserves a detail that makes this history feel unexpectedly contemporary: the early bowls were called ima yaki, “now wares”. Their appearance was considered new and experimental.

Japan’s Tourism Agency describes how successive generations of the Raku family studied inherited pieces while developing their own styles. Within this tradition, a tea bowl could preserve an artistic inheritance and still be the work of an individual maker.

HOW JAPANESE RAKU BECAME PART OF VICENZA’S CERAMICS

Raku had already travelled beyond Japan before Shibata came to Nove. The Smithsonian traces its adoption by the American studio pottery movement to the 1950s. Toniolo’s experience in Vicenza belongs to this wider international interest in Japanese ceramics, with a particularly tangible local beginning in the garden kiln of 1978.

In the studio he developed in Marostica, Toniolo pursued his own interpretation through experimental glazes, colour and iridescence. His account explicitly describes a Western reinterpretation of the Japanese technique. Historic Kyoto Raku remains associated with the Raku family and Japanese tea culture; the work developed in Marostica belongs to the international practice that grew from it.

WHERE TO EXPLORE THIS HISTORY IN NOVE

The Museo della Ceramica e del Design belongs to the Liceo Artistico Giuseppe De Fabris, Nove’s art school. Its collection combines historic ceramics with contemporary work and pieces produced during the international symposia. It is the relevant address for enquiries about Shibata’s contribution to this chapter of Japanese art in Italy.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why is Nove famous for ceramics?

Nove is a historic Italian pottery town in Vicenza province. The Metropolitan Museum of Art documents a ceramics factory established in 1727 and porcelain production from about 1762. The town later hosted international ceramic symposia involving artists from Japan, Europe and the Americas.

What connects Japanese pottery with Vicenza?

One documented connection is the 1978 ceramics symposium in Nove. Japanese ceramicist Norio Shibata built an underground kiln that inspired local ceramic artist Nico Toniolo’s research into Raku.

Is Italian Raku the same as traditional Japanese Raku?

Historic Japanese Raku developed in Kyoto around tea culture. Toniolo describes his Italian work as a Western reinterpretation, with particular attention to experimental glazes and colour.

Can I see Norio Shibata’s ceramics in Nove?

The Veneto Region records his 1978 work Negative & Positive in the art school’s collection. Ask the Liceo Artistico Giuseppe De Fabris about present museum access and display before visiting.