Yayoi Pottery 2d century BC - 1st century BC Tokyo National Museum, Japan

Some characteristic forms of Yayoi pottery can be seen here. The pots' elegant form, slender appearance, and burnished reds are all characteristic. Yayoi pots were thrown on the slow wheel, a much different technique from the Jomon hand-formed pots. This difference in technique goes some way towards explaining the difference in form, since a flamboyant, Jomon-stle decoration would be quite awkward on a wheel-turned pot. Still, the difference in aesthetic between Jomon and Yayoi pottery can hardly be exaggerated. Such a large divergence has even led some to question whether the Jomon should qualify as "true" Japanese.

If Yayoi style represents the earliest expression of that elegant simplicity which characterizes so much of Japanese art, it seems decidedly minimalist compared to the subsequent elaborations of, for example, raku tea bowls or the Toshogu Tokugawa mausoleum. Even these later developments, however, tie ultimately to a Yayoi rather than a Jomon root aesthetic. One finds asymmetry as well as baroque decorativeness in Edo art, but seldom both in the same place. (The wildness of, say, Kunisada's ukiyo-e seems to derive from a different path, namely, India - China - Kamakura.) In any case, it seems safe to say that the symmetry and purity of Yayoi can be recognized as an essential embodiment of Japanese artistic feeling. The Jomon style, for all its vigor and beauty, has not had such an influence.