The three main Oribe styles belong to the same Seto/Mino tradition as the previous group. They get their name from influential and revolutionary chajin Furuta Oribe (古田織部), who was a student of Rikyū and succeeded him as being the leading aesthete and teaist in Japan. The extent of Oribe’s personal involvement with the ceramic styles that bear his name is debated. At the bare minimum, Oribe placed orders for distorted tea bowls from Mino (his hometown). At most, he personally designed or even helped make Shino, Setoguro, and Oribe chawan (which I find to be more likely). Either way, his influence had a profound effect on the shape (literally) of Japanese ceramic arts.
While those who came before him, such as Rikyū, Jōō, and Shukō pioneered the wabi aesthetic, praising the natural imperfection, humility, simplicity, and lack of artifice found in Korean bowls (and later in Raku chawan, in Rikyūs’s case), Oribe took this a step further: instead of natural imperfections, Oribe purposely distorted his bowls, manipulating them into various warped shapes. On top of this, he painted abstract or childish designs. This played into his aesthetic philosophy, called hyouge (ひょうげ/剽げ/へうげ) which roughly translates to ‘playful’, ‘charming’, ‘jocular’, etc.
