Earthenware Pots and Haniwa - C (Clay Sculptures)

Toru Mabuchi

Haniwa, which translates in Japanese to “circle of clay,” are unglazed funerary figurines from the Kofun period (3rd to 6th century AD), depicting people and animals with the contemporary clothing and decorations of the time. Their intricate details were well preserved, which led to their use as an archival record of the fashion, jobs, and spiritual and military ranking of an otherwise sparsely recorded era. They would be arranged in a circle above a tomb, held in place by mounds of earth.

Here, Mabuchi has depicted one such clay figure posed among pots. The stylized, Modernist shapes and colors chosen by the artist are indicative of his view on the figures, as less a symbol of grief than of celebration. This print is illustrated in Contemporary Japanese Prints, by Kawakita, plate 148, page 175.