"Sensational art finds are both desired and feared: desired because they become a form of pleasure and capital; feared because they displace something or somebody. Japan has had its share of such moments."
So writes Professor Richard L. Wilson in his new book, "The Potter's Brush," which catalogs the extensive collection of the Edo Period ceramic artist Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Wilson is the world's leading authority on this important figure in Japanese art and he has published a three-volume set on the original Kenzan and all the fakes and imitations that abound, thus the concern in the opening lines of his book. Wilson is also the author of "Inside Japanese Ceramics," another fine book that takes up more of the practical side of ceramic-making, Wilson having been a working potter in the past.