12 Kokeshi Faces 12面こけしの顔

All kokeshi enthusiasts have personal reasons why they find their little wooden cylindrical friends to be appealing. As I've explained before, I'm convinced that it's all in the face. Below we have twelve faces from twelve different craftsman from the eleven kokeshi families. They are all beautiful, and as you'll notice they all have completely different personalities. Examine the simplicity -- just a mouth, nose, eyes, and eyebrows. Absolute genius. There's no shading along the nose, no laugh lines or forehead lines, no eyelashes, no philtrum, no ears, no nostrils, no chin. Only one of them has cheeks, hinted at with a light dusting of red. Rather, what we are looking is really the purest essence of a face. This, in my opinion, is also the essence of the kokeshi, for you can have a kokeshi head and it's still basically a kokeshi, but if you just have the body you only have a brightly painted piece of wood. Well, see what you think.

This beauty is an Owani kokeshi 大鰐こけし, a branch of the Tsugaru type 津軽系こけし, created by Mr. Hasegawa Kenzo 長谷川健三さん. That mouth is really stunning.

A Togatta kokeshi 遠刈田系こけし by Mr. Waguma Satoshi 我妻敏さん.

This handsome face is a Kijiyama kokeshi 木地山系こけし by Mr. Takahashi Yuji 高橋雄司さん. I like how the wood grain in the center has become part of the nose. 

A very striking, almost Buddha-like face on a Yajiro kokeshi 弥次郎系こけし by Mr.  Sato Yoshiaki 佐藤慶明さん.

Here we have a much more stylized face. This is a Sakunami kokeshi 作並系こけし by Mr. Suzuki Akira 鈴木明さん.

We don't have many Nanbu kokeshis 南部系こけし in our collection, but here's a nice one by Mr.  Takahashi Kinzo 高橋金三さん.

One of my all-time favorite kokeshi faces is this seemingly bored Zao kokeshi 蔵王系こけし by Mr. Ishiyama Kazuo 石山和夫さん.

This is the one with cheeks that I mentioned above. Actually, it's just a bit of ruddiness that suggests cheeks, so its within the kokeshi minimalism that we expect. This is a cute Yamagata kokeshi 山形系こけし by Mr. Aida Eiji 会田栄治さん.

This magnificent face looks severe to me. I love it. The mouth is wonderful, and look at how the eyes have been brought to life with the end of a brush stroke. This is a Hijiori kokeshi 肘折系こけし by master craftsman Mr. Sato Shoichi 佐藤昭一さん.

This face is whimsical, and somehow also looks chubby. It's a Tsuchiyu kokeshi 土湯系こけし by Mr. Jinnohara Yukinori 陣野原幸紀さん.

A perfect face. This is a Naruko kokeshi 鳴子系こけし by Mr. Kakizawa Koretaka 柿澤是隆さん.

And finally, while I already showed a Zao above I couldn't resist throwing in  a picture of an Abe Shin'ya 阿部進矢kokeshi. His faces are utterly unique within the traditional kokeshi world with their wide set eyes and tiny mouths.