# Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 7/Chapter 5

Chapter V
VARIOUS APPLICATIONS OF ART
In a previous chapter some account has been given of the origin and development of the sacred mime, of its connection with the bucolic dance, and of the gradual rise of the den-gaku and the saru-gaku. From the second half of the fourteenth century, when the Ashikaga Shōgun Yoshimitsu ruled in Kyōtō, the saru-gaku became an almost necessary feature of all social entertainments among the upper classes; and in the time of Yoshimasa (1449-1472) four families, Kwanze, Kamparu, Hōshō, and Kōngō, were publicly recognised as the possessors of all the best traditions and methods of the mimetic art. The great captain, Oda Nobunaga, and his still greater contemporary, Hideyoshi, the Taikō, were ardent patrons of the saru-gaku, dancing it themselves with the utmost earnestness. The Taikō, studied under Gōshō, the master expert of his era, and danced to the accompaniment of a song specially composed (the Akechi-uchi koya-mode) in commemoration of his victory over the traitorous slayer of Nobunaga. Thenceforth to be able to take a part in the saru-gaku—or the No, as these dances were usually called in later times—became an absolutely essential accomplishment of every feudal chief, court noble, or samurai of rank. It has to be remembered that although the Japanese are intensely fond of spectacular displays, ​the public theatre did not come into existence until the seventeenth century, and never, until quite recent times, was regarded as a proper resort for the upper classes. By way of compensation private theatricals had extensive vogue, not private theatricals in the Occidental sense of the term, but mimetic dances representing historical, mythological, poetical, and legendary scenes, or ideal renderings of natural phenomena. Such were the stately and picturesque no-gaku, supplemented by farcical interludes called no-kyōgen. From the sixteenth century the canons of refined hospitality prescribed that every one with aristocratic pretensions should be able to offer to his guests an entertainment of that nature, or to take part in it himself when bidden elsewhere. Nothing could exceed the magnificence of the costumes worn by the performers or the richness of all the accessories; and since complete disguise was absolutely essential to the realistic effect of such mimes, the mask possessed paramount importance. Reference may be made en passant to a misconception endorsed by more than one student of Japanese customs, namely, that the use of the mask in the theatre was a habit in Japan as it had been in Greece. The mask in Japan is not a theatrical adjunct, its employment is limited to the sphere of mimetic dances. The professional actor never wears a mask except for the purpose of figuring in the dances that often occupy the intervals of the drama. It is commonly believed in Japan that wooden masks were used at times as remote as the seventh century, and that the earliest of them represented the features of Uzume, the divine danseuse whose spirited performance drew the Sun Goddess from her cave. But the oldest surviving specimens date ​from the ninth, tenth, and twelfth centuries. They are preserved in a temple on the sacred island of Miyajima (now called Itsukushima), and they show that even in such remote eras the sculptor possessed great skill in delineating the human countenance under the influence of emotion. To later eras, however—the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—belong a wonderful series of masks which constitute a special outcome of Japanese sculpture. Every aristocratic household and every Buddhist or Shintō parish possessed a store of these masks. It is difficult to conceive any type of face, any display of passion, any exhibition of affection, of fury, of cruelty, of benevolence, of voluptuousness, of imbecility, that these masks do not reproduce with remarkable realism. Japanese catalogues set forth two hundred and sixty masks, each of which has a distinguishing appellation and is recognised as the work of an expert. The art of the sculptor was not exercised merely in modelling the features. His work was counted imperfect unless he fashioned the mask so that it could be worn by any one for a lengthy period without discomfort. There can be no doubt that the great success achieved in carving masks and the moving effect of their skilled use in association with the highly trained gesticulation and posturing, the splendid costumes and the weird music of the saru-gaku and the no-gaku, exercised a potent influence on the methods of the professional actor of the theatre proper. He did not wear an artificial mask, but he sought to mould his features into a mask-like picture of concentrated emotion, thus establishing a vivid link between his performance and the classic mime of aristocracy.
​Masks carved by celebrated experts are among the most valued treasures of aesthetic Japan. They are wrapped in silk and preserved in lacquered boxes with all the care appropriate to fine works of art; and they deserve such attention, for in this class of sculpture Japan stands unequalled and unapproached by any other country. Miniature reproductions of classic types, carved in ivory, wood, or metal, sometimes merely as examples of skilled sculpture, sometimes in groups of two or more to form netsuke,—presently to be spoken of,—and sometimes as ornaments for sword-furniture, are included in many foreign assemblages of Japanese art-objects, but the finest masks of the mimetic dance have seldom come within reach of Western collectors.
The names and dates of celebrated mask-carvers are these:—
| Nikkō | tenth century. Only a few masks by these experts are extant. |
| Mirokō | tenth century. Only a few masks by these experts are extant. |
| Yasha | tenth century. Only a few masks by these experts are extant. |
Bunzo—thirteenth century. A Buddhist priest. :
* Hibi Munetada (called Hibi because he worked at Hibi in Etchiu)—fourteenth century. Carved meagre faces skilfully. ||
* Echi Yoshifune—fourteenth century. ||
* Koushi, or Kiyomitsu—fifteenth century. ||
* Shakuzuru (called also Yoshinari and Ittosai, art name)—fourteenth century. Celebrated for faces of warriors. ||
* Ishikawa Riuyemon Shigemasa—fourteenth century. Celebrated for masks of women and children. ||
* Tokuwaka Tadamasa—fifteenth century. Specially skilled in planting hair. ||
* Sanko—fifteenth century. A Buddhist priest. ||
N. B. The above are distinguished as Jissaku, or "true sculptors."
* Soami Hisatsugu—fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (said to have lived in the time of Yoshimasa).
* Chigusa—sixteenth century. Celebrated for masks of deities.
* Fukurai Masatomo—fifteenth century. Masks of old men.
* Horai Ujitoki—fifteenth century. Masks of female faces.
* Haruwaka Tadatsugu—sixteenth century. Masks of young faces.
* Uwo Hyoye—sixteenth century. Masks of old men and demons.
N. B. The above, from Soami to Uwo, are called the "Six Sculptors" (Roku-saku).
INTERMEDIATE SCULPTORS ("CHIU-SAKU")
* Jiunin—sixteenth century.
* Miyano—sixteenth century.
* Sairen (a priest)—sixteenth century.
* Kichijo-in (a priest)—sixteenth century.
* Kaku-no-bo—sixteenth century. Had the art title of Tenka-ichi, and is counted an eminent sculptor.
* Boya Magoiiuro
* Boya MagoiiuroDansho date uncertain.
* Gunkei—twelfth century.
* Kasuga Tori—eighth century. A celebrated sculptor of Buddhist images who is supposed to have carved masks of Okina.
* Tankai Rishi (or Hōzan)—seventeenth century.
* Shimizu Rinkei—a pupil of Tankai.
* Shōun—(1647-1700).
THE DEME FAMILY
* Deme Jikan Yoshimitsu. Called also Ono, or Kizan or Sukezaemon—sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally an armourer of Echizen, he became a sculptor of masks after moving to Yamashiro. In 1595 received the art title of Tenka-ichi from the Taikō. Entered the Takugawa service and died in 1616. ​
* Deme Yukan Mitsuyasu—seventeenth century (d. 1652). Son of Jikan. Called also Sukezaemon.
* Deme Tohaku Mitsutaka—seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (d. 1715).
* Deme Tosui Mitsunori—seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (d. 1729). Called also Mokunosuke, Manku, and Mambi.
* Deme Hokan Mitsunao—eighteenth century (d. 1743). Called Hanzo.
* Deme Yusai Yasuhisa—eighteenth century (d. 1766).
* Deme Choun Yasuyoshi—eighteenth century (d. 1774). Called also Makunosuke.
* Deme Toun Yasutaka—nineteenth century. Called also Untaro.
* Deme Hanzo Yasukore—nineteenth century.
THE THREE "ECHIZEN DEME"
* Deme Jirozaemon Mitsuteru—sixteenth century.
* Deme Jirozaemon Norimitsu—seventeenth century.
* Deme Jirozaemon Yoshimitsu—seventeenth century. Called also Genjiro.
* Deme Gensuke Hidemitsu—seventeenth century. Called also Joshin, or Jokei.
* Deme Genkiu Mitsunaga—seventeenth century (d. 1672). Son of Jokei. Called also Ko-Genkiu (the old Genkiu) and Manyei.
* Deme Genkiu Mitsushige—seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (d. 1719).
* Deme Genkiu Mitsufusa—eighteenth century (d. 1758).
* Deme Genkiu Mitsuzane—eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (d. in 1812).
* Deme Naka Mitsuyuki—nineteenth century. Called also Taroyemon.
* Deme Gensuke Mitsuakira—nineteenth century.
* Deme Genri Yoshimitsu—seventeenth century (d. 1625).
* Deme Genri Toshimitsu—seventeenth century.
OTHER CELEBRATED MASK-CARVERS
* Izeki Kawachi Iyeshige—seventeenth century (d. 1646).
* Yamato Mamori (a pupil of Kawachi).
* Izeki Jirozaemon—eighteenth century. Had the rank of Kazusa-no-suke and was also called Chikanobu and Kiushiu. He was accorded the honorary title of Tenka-ichi.
* Omiva Yamato Bokunyu—seventeenth century (d. 1672). Had the honorary title of Tenka-icbi.
* Kodama Omi Mitsumasa—seventeenth century (d. 1624). Had the title of Tenka-ichi and was called also Manshō.
* Miyata Chikugo (a pupil of Manshō).
* Kodama Choyemon Tomomitsu—seventeenth century (son of Omi).
* Kodama Choyemon Yoshimitsu—eighteenth century.
* Senshu Yashamaru—fifteenth century. Had the rank of Tama-no-Kami and the additional name of Yorisada.
* Senshiu Yoriyoshi—fifteenth century. Had the rank of Iyo-no-Kami. This artist was the younger brother of the priest Sanko, mentioned above. The two Senshiu were the ancestors of the Deme family of Echizen.
* Ariyoshi Nagato nō Sbo—nineteenth century. A samurai of the Miyatsu fief, who attained distinction as a chiseller of masks.
Several amateurs gained distinction as carvers of masks, but no accurate list of their names has been preserved.
Belonging strictly to the category of costume, but elevated to the rank of art-products by the beauty of their workmanship and the wealth of fancy lavished on their modelling and ornamentation, the netsuke, ojime, kagami-buta, kana-mono, and kuda-kusari must be accorded a high place in any account of Japanese sculpture. The dress of the Japanese having no pockets, except the recesses of the sleeves, which could not be used for anything heavy, it has been the ​custom, from a remote era, to attach to the girdle various objects of every-day service. The most ancient of these is the kinchaku, or money-pouch. Of course in the days when media of exchange were practically limited to strings of copper cash much too bulky and cumbrous to be carried on the person, a money-pouch was a useless article to the middle and lower classes. But to aristocratic and wealthy folks, who made their payments with gold dust or coins of the precious metals, the kinchaku was more or less necessary. After a time, however, it ceased to be much employed as a monetary receptacle, its place being taken by a kind of pocket-book carried in the bosom. The kinchaku did not go out of vogue, however. It now became a part of a child's costume, and served to contain an amulet and a wooden ticket on which were inscribed the name and address of the child's parents, the little one being thus placed under the protection of heaven, on the one hand, and of kindly folks who might find it straying or in trouble, on the other. That is now the chief function performed by the kinchaku, though its original use as a money-bag is still perpetuated by old ladies. As part of a child's toilet it is often a very beautiful affair, made of richly embroidered silk or costly brocade, and the method of attachment to the girdle is simply by tying. But tradition says that when men used the kinchaku, they preferred to keep it in its place by the aid of a kind of button. The strings of the pouch being fastened to this button, the latter was passed under the girdle and brought out above it so as to offer an effective obstacle to the withdrawal of the pouch without the owner's cognisance. The pouch itself may have been a simple affair in ancient times. ​There is no information on that subject; but when the elaborate and beautiful character of Japanese costume at so remote a date as the eighth century is remembered, there seems reason to suppose that the quality and ornamentation of the kinchaku were not incongruous with the garments it accompanied. At all events it is known that by the middle of the seventeenth century the choice of material for the manufacture of the kinchaku and of the other objects suspended from a gentleman's girdle—objects known generically as sage-mono, or suspended things—had become a business demanding as much delicacy of judgment and causing as great a mental strain as a Western belle's selection of her first ball-dress. It is mentioned, in a Chinese record of old-time officialdom and its functions, that the duty of collecting various kinds of furs and skins in the autumn, and presenting them to the Imperial Court in the spring, occupied the constant attention of an important bureau. The Japanese Imperial Court was never sufficiently wealthy or sufficiently luxurious to follow that example; but the extraordinary development of refined taste among aristocratic classes under the feudal system is aptly illustrated by the fact that in records dating from the seventeenth century, no less than ninety-three different kinds of leathers and furs are enumerated and carefully described as orthodox materials for sage-mono. Of these, ten were of Japanese manufacture, the others being imported from China, India, Persia, Ceylon, Luson, Russia, Holland, and elsewhere. No attempt has ever been made to identify these leathers, and even if sufficient inducements offered, the task would scarcely be possible, seeing that many of the skins, after reaching Japan, were ​subjected to processes which must have effectually obscured their provenance. For example, one kind, having been macerated some ten times with juice extracted from the bark of the peach-tree, was then dyed with a solution of gall-nut and sulphate of iron, after which it was polished with a pumice-stone, treated with plum-juice, and finally softened by hand-rubbing. Reference to these materials is made here, not for the purpose of discussing their origin or characteristics, but solely because they illustrate the care and taste bestowed on the sage-mono. It must not be supposed, however, that all these curious and pretty materials were imported or manufactured for the sake of the kinchaku alone. The kinchaku is given a prominent place among the sage-mono because it seems to have been the oldest of such objects. In importance it was quite secondary to the tobacco-pouch and pipe-case. Tobacco-pouches and pipe-cases, however, are comparatively modern affairs. Whether the Japanese learned to smoke tobacco when Hideyoshi's troops invaded Korea, or whether they received it from their first Occidental visitors, the Portuguese, they certainly knew nothing of the virtues and vices of the leaf until the closing years of the sixteenth century, nor was it till the middle of the seventeenth that the pouch and the pipe began to assume the dainty and highly ornate forms now so familiar. Tobacco did not originally commend itself to polite society in Japan. Sir Ernest Satow, quoting from the family records of a certain Dr. Saka, describes that, in the year 1609, the dissipation of tobacco-smoking led to the formation of two associations in Edo (Tōkyō), the Bramble Club and the Leather-breeches Club. Their members were roistering blades ​who loved to indulge in the pastime known as "painting the town red," or, still better, to fight with each other, when the toughness of the leather-breeches" was supposed to be more than a match for the tenacity of "brambles." The pipes used by these swashbucklers were from four to five feet long. They thrust them into their girdles after the manner of swords, and employed them as cudgels when occasion offered. No transition could have been more signal than the passage from these monster pipes to the tiny little kiseru of later eras, which held about as much tobaceo as could be piled on the nail of a young lady's little finger, and were perfect bijoux in the matter of shapeliness and decoration. Even after several vain official attempts to check the spread of the tobacco habit had been abandoned as abortive and unnecessary, some time elapsed before polite folk began to carry pouches and pipes at their girdles, for smoking in the open air was not practised, and on entering a friend's home the visitor expected to have a tobacco-tray set before him, and would as soon have thought of smoking a pipe of his own tobacco as of taking from his sleeve a packet of tea and a teapot to brew his own beverage. Were it known exactly when the habit of attaching pipes and pouches to the girdle became fashionable, the origin of the beautiful ornaments connected with this class of sage-mono might be discussed with some confidence. But there are pictures extant which show that, as late as the middle of the seventeenth century, a lady's pipe—for by that time ladies had fallen victims to the seductive habit—was so long that it had to be carried by an attendant, and the inevitable conclusion is that the miniature pipe and its charming concomitants—​case, pouch, toggle (netsuke), cord-clutch (ōjime), and so forth—did not come into existence till the close of that century.
There is another girdle-pendant (sage-mono) long antecedent to the pipe and pipe-pouch,—a pendant to which some authorities assign a greater age than even that of the kinchaku,—namely, the inro. Originally, as its name implies, a little bag or wickerwork receptacle for holding the seal (in signifies seal, and ro, a bamboo basket) which in Japan took the place of a written signature, the inro was subsequently made of wood, lacquered black; and thereafter being converted into a tiny medicine chest, took the form of a tier of segments, each fitting into the other vertically, so that the whole, when put together, became a many-receptacled little box, from three to four inches long and two or two and a half inches wide, its corners rounded and its thickness reduced so that it was always handy and never obtrusive. There have been enthusiastic collectors of inro, both foreign and Japanese. It is a taste with which every virtuoso must sympathise, for as specimens of exquisitely artistic and infinitely painstaking decoration in lacquer, inlaying, and sculpture, these tiny medicine-boxes deserve unstinted praise. For the moment, however, attention may be directed to the appendages of the inro rather than to the inro itself. The edges of the two long faces carried a little cylinder, just large enough to admit a silken cord, the ends of which were passed, immediately above the inro, through an ōjime, or cord-clutch. There is reason to think that the ōjime was the first highly ornate appendage of both the inro and the kinchaku, for it occupies in the latter also the same place as in the inro and serves the ​same purpose. As a general rule it was simply a bead of some substance regarded as precious by the Japanese, though occasionally it was made of cloisonné enamel, porcelain (Chinese), gold, silver, shakudo, shibuichi, ivory, wood, or the kernel of a peach, microscopic sculpture being added in the case of the last seven substances. No less than sixty-four different kinds of minerals and other matters were used to form these beads when the beauty of the substance alone was relied on. Among them were coral (pink, white, and black), amber, lapis lazuli, pearl, rock-crystal, aventurine, agate, marble, garnet, malachite, the skull of the crane, and prehnite. These details are mentioned for the purpose of showing how large a measure of care was bestowed on the appurtenances of the inro, and how unlikely it was that the button in which the ends of the silken cord were united for passage through the girdle would have been less ornate than the bead just spoken of. In point of fact the button of the inro did assume the form of the beautiful object called netsuke (ne means "root" or "end," and tsuke, to fasten) as early as the end of the fifteenth century, when the dilettante Shōgun Yoshimasa set to the nation an example of luxury and elegance in almost every department of daily life. There has been circulated in Europe a theory that the introduction of tobacco in the sixteenth century called the netsuke into existence, its original use being to serve as a button for the tobacco-pouch; and it has further been suggested that the chiselling of the netsuke would never have been carried to such a degree of elaboration had not a great number of idol-carvers found themselves without occupation during the second half of the seventeenth century. The ​latter idea is based on the fact that the second Tokugawa Shōgun, Hidetada (1605–1623), in connection with his crusade against Christianity, ordered every household throughout the realm to furnish itself with a Buddhist idol, and that when the extraordinary demand thus created had been satisfied, the busshi, being without employment, turned their attention to chiselling tobacco-pouch buttons. But Japanese authorities are agreed that the netsuke became fashionable as an appendage of the inro long before the tobacco-pouch began to be suspended from the girdle. Another error which has found currency in the same context, and which has helped to build up the theory connecting the netsuke with the sculptor of Buddhist idols is that many netsuke-shi (makers of netsuke) lived and worked at Nara, the chief home of idol-makers. It is certainly true that Nara may be called the birth-place of Japanese sculpture, and that, from the twelfth century onwards, the name "Nara" came to be associated with religious sculpture, just as in later times pottery was called seto-mono after the place (Seto) of its chief production. It is also true that among the celebrated productions of Nara—the Nara meibutsu, as they are called—there have long been included miniature images known as Nara ningyo (Nara puppets) which might easily be supposed to have suggested the earliest form of the netsuke. But the Nara ningyo were not connected with the netsuke, and as for the assertion that many netsuke-shi lived at Nara and that the carver of Buddhist images turned his chisel to the netsuke in default of other work, it is enough to say that the records, down to the end of the eighteenth century, do not contain the name of more than two netsuke-czrvers who resided at ​Nara, and that they include only one sculptor of the busshi class. With exceptions so rare as to prove the rule, the netsuke-shi had their workshops in one of "the three cities"—Yedo, Kyōtō, and Ōsaka—and confined themselves mainly to ornamenting the appendages of sage-mono. Reference may be made here to another strange theory which has been advanced by more than one European writer, that many netsuke-makers were dentists whose skill in the use of the chisel was acquired by carving false teeth. In the long list of early netsuke-shi there are only two who were in any way connected with the dentist's profession.
It may appear that disproportionate attention is here devoted to the question of the origin of the netsuke and the ōjime, but the fact is that no objects of art found in Japan are more essentially Japanese, whether their range of fanciful motives be considered, or the extraordinary dexterity of their carvers, or their originality. India, borrowing the art from Persia, developed much skill in carving, piercing, and inlaying long before the Japanese netsuke came into existence, and the Chinese, from an early epoch, sculptured tusks and slabs of ivory in the most elaborate manner, carrying their craft to the extent of cutting puzzle-balls, one inside the other, out of a single piece of ivory. But the Japanese netsuke and ōjime belong to an entirely different category from the productions of India, China, or Persia. No one thinks of making a collection of the latter: half-a-dozen specimens suffice to illustrate the art of each country; a greater number would be wearisome. In the case of the netsuke, however, it is scarcely possible to possess too many. Inevitably the same subject is often repeated ​without marked variation of treatment; but the range of conception is so large, the motives display such a wealth of fancy, realistic, conventional, grave, humorous, and grotesque, that the collector perpetually finds some new source of admiration, instruction, or amusement. If Japan had given to the world nothing but the netsuke, there would still be no difficulty in differentiating the bright versatility of her national genius from the comparatively sombre, mechanic, and unimaginative temperament of the Chinese. These delightful statuettes often represent deities, figures from the myth-land of Taoism, Buddhism, and Brahmanism, demons, gnomes, and other subjects already found in the gallery of familiar sculptures. But they also represent scenes from the homely, every-day life of the people, so simply and realistically treated that they play in glyptic art the same rôle as genre painting does in pictorial. Their carvers drew further inspiration from the whole range of natural objects. Birds, animals, reptiles, leaves, flowers, fishes, and insects all were reproduced with extraordinary fidelity and artistic taste. The netsuke, the ukiyo-ye, and the chromo-xylograph, which have already been discussed, and the sword-furniture which will be presently described, prove conclusively what a profound sense of beauty and instinct of art must have permeated the whole mass of the Japanese people, and how the best qualities of the decorative artist were educated to such an extent as ultimately to become innate in craftsman and critic alike.
Ivory has been spoken of above as though it were the principal material of the netsuke. But the best work was done in wood—cherry-wood, boxwood, sandalwood (shitan), or ebony (kokutan). Bone, horn ​(deer, antelope, or ox), vegetable and walrus ivory, peach-stones, walnuts, and the skull of the crane (hōten) were also used. Perhaps the finest carving is to be found in cherry-wood netsuke, though those in boxwood derive special beauty from the silky texture assumed by the surface when carefully polished. Walnuts and peach-stones were generally chiselled in low relief, the favourite subjects being semin (Taoist genii), arhats (disciples of Buddha), the Seven Deities of Fortune, Benten and her children, and other motives involving a number of figures. The skull of the Chinese crane, which resembles snow-white wax marked with fine hair-lines, receives a certain mysterious admiration from ignorant Japanese, who, judging by its name,—the heavenly phœnix,—associate it with the fabulous hōō (phœnix). It has always been comparatively rare, and was a favourite material for carving masks, especially that of the jolly, sensuous goddess Uzume, or the fabulous Bacchanalian man-monkey, Shōjō—the blood-red plates on either side of the skull being cleverly brought into the scheme of the carving so as to represent the hair of the divinity or the monster.
The earliest carvers of netsuke were evidently influenced by considerations of utility. They saw that to serve its purpose of sustaining the girdle-pendant the netsuke should have greater length than bulk, and they accordingly took their designs from old legends telling of supernatural or monstrous beings,—flying dragons, lamp-bearing demons, the dragon god, the demon-slayer (Shōki), Kwan Yu (the Chinese god of war), the kirin, the Taoist genii, and such things. Their figure subjects were always amply draped, the nude being tabooed by the sculptor as ​well as by the painter. Great skill was exercised in the treatment of the drapery and the pose of the figure. But it was on the chiselling of the face that the artist expended most care, and the result justified his toil; for he succeeded in producing wonderful conceptions of the wrinkled recluse, the semi-savage and wholly appalling dragon-deity, the relentless yet beneficent demon-slayer, the malevolent ogre, the phrensied thunder-god, and the inane elf of the mountains. Very soon he extended his repertoire of motives. Masks naturally suggested themselves as capable of being grouped into various shapes, and netsuke of that form are often of the highest quality. Then followed carvings of the Seven Deities of Fortune, sometimes singly, sometimes grouped together; of saru-gaku dancers; of fishes and aquatic plants; of mermaids; of men in armour; of the twelve signs of the zodiac; of barn-door fowl, and so forth. Foreign influence, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, seems to have temporarily checked the development of Japanese fancy in this branch of art, for it became fashionable to use the handles of Chinese seals, and sometimes the whole seal, as a netsuke. The Japanese, when they obey their own instincts, are seldom guilty of a solecism. They would not have appended a seal to a tobacco-pouch as a proper adjunct. But if the fact be recalled that the inro was originally a receptacle for a seal and for a little box of vermilion-ink paste, it is easy to understand how Chinese seals came to be regarded as appropriate toggles for the inro, and how their employment in that capacity was extended to the tobacco-pouch. In Chinese work of this description there is a total absence of the naturalistic pathos, playful idealism, and human interest, which charac​terise the Japanese. The Chinese sculptor is not without humour, but his fancy seems to be always trammelled by grim practicality and narrow conventionalism. His influence upon Japanese sculptors was not wholesome, and they soon rebelled against it. Here, however, there is one point that attracts attention. The Chinese had a certain appreciation of the nude in sculpture. Among these seal-handle carvings—which, it must be remembered, were considered worthy of the finest workmanship that could be bestowed on them and of the costliest material available—nude female figures occur not infrequently. But it would be very difficult to determine whether grace of form or sensuous suggestion was the sculptor's objective in choosing such motives. His manner of treatment leaves the question exceedingly doubtful. At all events, he found no imitators in Japan. The nude never appealed to the Japanese sculptor. His realistic creed often appears in his manner of disposing the drapery of a peasant mother's dress or the skirts of a lady caught in a gust of wind and rain, but it is evident either that he failed to appreciate the exquisite curves of the female form, though in all other directions beauty and force of line constitute his special excellence, or that he associated the nude with the erotic. There is a pornographic side to his work, but it is of the most unequivocal character. He never stood upon that hazy border line of æstheticism and voluptuousness that runs through the whole of Occidental art from the times of Tanagra to the days of Giacometti and Hermann François.
By the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, the range of the netsuke​carver's motives had extended into the every-day life of the people, into the realm of birds, flowers, insects, shells, and all other natural objects, and into the sphere of history. It is hopeless to attempt any classification. Nor, indeed, would anything be gained by such an effort. The netsuke derives its value, in the first place, from the skill of the sculptor; in the second, from the nature of the motive. It would be as impossible to lay down hard-and-fast rules for the collector's guidance as to construct a useful formula for judging the merits of a picture. Many people attach great importance to the age of a netsuke, and, possessing specimens which they believe to be old, are complacently confident that nothing new can be good. That is a pure delusion. A netsuke gains nothing from age. It is true that ivory, like bronze, develops in time a patina, a soft-brown glow, which is justly prized. But the same colour can be produced by "treatment," the same superficial texture by friction, and, as a matter of fact, both are produced abundantly in the workshop of the forger. On the other hand, there are a score of artists in modern Japan who can carve a netsuke not inferior in any respect to the best types of former times. The skill has not been lost; it is merely exercised in other directions. Age, then, is valuable solely as an assistance to identifying the work of celebrated masters who flourished in past centuries. Imitations were less frequent in former eras than in the present, and if a netsuke bearing the signature of Miwa, of Tomochika, of Issai, or some other great expert, is unquestionably old, its age becomes a partial justification for crediting the genuineness of the signature. Only partial, however, for from the time—a hundred and fifty years ​ago—when the names of netsuke-carvers were first thought worthy of historical record, their works began to be copied, even to the signatures, and though a little care should guarantee the collector against mistaking for old masterpieces the begrimed, medicated, and comparatively rough forgeries of modern times, a combination of age and the cachet of a renowned master does not prove that the work is not an imitation, and should never be deemed sufficient evidence of excellence. Quality is everything. There must be not only delicacy and finish, together with strength of line and accuracy of detail, but there must also be eloquent vitality, simple directness of treatment, grace of conception, and, in a majority of cases, an element of humour. Certain favourite designs have been produced again and again,—a group of rats or rabbits; Shōki, the demon-slayer; an imp hiding under Shōki's discarded hat; the fight of the three blind shampooers; a wild bear among reeds; Watanabe and the demon; Daruma roused from his pious reverie by a rat; a monkey with its paw caught by a giant clam; an old man sneezing; a mountain elf (tengu) emerging from an egg-shell; the fight between Benkei and Yoshitsune ; Urajima and the casket of longevity; New-Year mummers (manzai); groups of tortoises; saru-gaku dancers; the Dog of Fo (shishi) and peonies; a boy peeping through the mouth of a shishi mask; a cicada on a dead twig; a snail crawling on its shell; a peasant woman carrying a child; wrestlers; Otafuke, the vulgar Venus, washing her neck at a tub; Kagura dancers; monkeys and peaches; a bee on a gourd; the Lady Tokiwa and her three children journeying through the snow; an owl on a decayed stump; a ​puppy dog and a dragon-fly; the badger-bewitched pot; a rat gnawing a candle; a cicada shell on a walnut; the Seven Wise Men in the bamboo grove; frogs in all kinds of positions; a cock perched on a tile or a drum—each and every one of these used to exist by scores in Japan before dilettanti from Europe and America came to carry them away. But among a dozen specimens representing the same motive a little accuracy of observation will soon enable the connoisseur to recognise that one is incomparably superior to the other eleven. There is no special difficulty in carving rats, or rabbits, or cocks and hens, or imps, but the difference between a group of rats or rabbits by Rantei, for example, or Terutsugu, and the same group chiselled by a modern copyist who manufactures for the Western market, is that in one case the animals are instinct with life and motion; in the other, they are tame and nerveless. The same criticism applies throughout. Even a tortoise by Tomokazu is a vital, crawling creature, just as the discarded shell of a cicada by Rakuchika is seen to be a mere shell before its hollowness has been observed. No wise collector will trouble himself about names and dates until he has first become convinced that a netsuke has artistic claims to such attention.
For the satisfaction of collectors special mention may be made of a variety of netsuke which has caused some perplexity, though as an object of art it has no merit whatever. The subject is an uncouth figure, from three to six inches high and therefore of unusually large dimensions, wearing a strange costume and obviously intended to represent a foreigner. The material is generally of lacquered wood or bone, but in rare instances ivory is used, and the size of the netsuke ​has induced some persons to suppose that it did not serve for supporting a girdle-pendant. But, as will be seen just now when pipes and pouches are spoken of, there are certain classes among the lower orders of Japanese who affect everything on a large and obtrusive scale. These persons found a big ponderous netsuke quite to their taste, and were moreover pleased that it should have a rude, portentous aspect. The carver, therefore, had recourse to the popular idea of a foreigner,—a Dutchman for the most part,—and endeavoured to impart to the figure a suggestion of all the solecisms of dress and manners that the outer barbarian was supposed to perpetrate. If the average Japanese connoisseur be asked to identify these grotesque figures, he replies off-hand that they are Nam-ban-jin, or "southern barbarians," a term originally applied to all aliens coming from regions southward of Japan, but ultimately used with special reference to the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Dutch. But the fact is that the Japanese recognised several conventional types of half-civilised outsiders, and often borrowed the characteristics of three or four to form a specially unlovely and confused compound. There was the "Orangai" of the Amur region with his sack-like garment of woolly hide, his feathered and furred cap, and his Chinese face. There was the "Ezo-jin," with his hirsute visage, monstrous features, semi-Occidental costume, and savage aspect. There was the "Dattan" of Tartary, a ferocious edition of the "Orangai," with voluminous ears, repulsively ugly features, fur-bristling robes, bow of vast strength and arrows three feet long. There was the "Taiwan-jin" of Formosa, with whiskers, moustache, and imperial ornamenting a vacuous face; his costume a ​skull cap, a necklace, and a loin cloth; his weapon a spear. There were the people of "Kochi" (Cochin China) and Tonkin, with tonsured pates, long robes, expansive pantaloons, bare feet, and a peculiar kind of short, double-barbed spear clasped in their arms. It would appear that a general idea of these various "barbarian" characteristics floated in the mind of the Japanese sculptor, and that he combined them according to the dictates of his fancy when required to carve netsuke for the portly pouch and ponderous pipe of the professional stalwart.
A word must be said about the general form of the netsuke. Speaking broadly, there are only two kinds. There is first the netsuke whose shape is determined by that of the object represented. This is the most frequent and also the finest type. The netsuke is then a statuette, and the modelling must be perfect from every point of view. The second kind may be called the "button netsuke" (known in Japan as manju or riusa). It is either a solid circular disc of ivory, wood, or bone, covered, more or less profusely, with designs sculptured in high or low relief; or it is an unornamented disc of the same materials framing a metal plate to which alone the decoration is applied. The chiselling of these metal plates (kagami-buta) fell to the task not of the netsuke-maker but of the goldsmith (kinzoku-shi), to whom there will presently be occasion to refer. As to the first kind of button-netsuke, it varies greatly in size, some being as much as three inches in diameter, and others not more than one inch. The common size is about an inch and a half. In the case of these netsukes the artist had to decorate a surface only; a much easier achievement than the chiselling of the ​statuette-netsuke. But with that reservation his work merits high admiration, and is, further, more uniformly excellent than the work of the statuette sculptor. Wonderful skill is shown in producing effects of space and gradations of distance by varying the degree of relief or incision, and the most delicate elaboration of detail is found in combination with purity of design and directness of method.
The netsuke and the ōjime are not the only objects of beauty connected with girdle-pendants. Quite as much artistic skill was lavished upon the inro. This gem of workmanship properly belongs, however, to the category of lacquer manufactures, and will be again referred to in that context. The glyptic artist did not, as a rule, apply his talents to its decoration. But there are many exceptions; notably inro in ivory. Sometimes the whole surface of an ivory inro is covered with a deeply chiselled design of flying cranes, or a herd of monkeys, or a mob of horses. Sometimes it is made of strips of ivory woven after the fashion of a bamboo basket; sometimes of ebony or shitan (red sandalwood), chiselled in landscapes, diapers, arabesques, battle-scenes, or mythological subjects; sometimes the inro itself fits into a thin metal shell, with decoration elaborately chased or chiselled in relief and pierced throughout so as to reduce the weight and show the inro within. It would be an endless task to make detailed reference to the innumerable happy conceptions of the Japanese craftsman in this branch of his work. One of the delights of collecting Japanese objects of virtu is that surprises may always be expected. The repertoire of novelties is never exhausted.
​Much that has been said above about the inro and the netsuke applies also to the pipe (kiseru), the pipe-case (kiseru-zutsu), and the tobacco-pouch (tobacco-ire). The pipe, from having originally been a ponderous clumsy affair, sometimes carried over the shoulder and serviceable as a weapon, gradually dwindled to tiny proportions, and began to command the attention of the decorative artist. It must be noted, however, that the aristocratic pipe is never a highly ornate affair. Its most approved form has always been a central joint of polished reed, carrying a long mouthpiece and a diminutive bowl, both of gold, silver, or one of the compound metals which the Japanese manufacture with such unique skill. The bowl and mouthpiece occasionally have decoration,—engraved or inlaid pictures, diapers or arabesques, translucid enamelling in cloissons, or chaste designs in low relief,—but in the great majority of cases the metal sections, with the exception of the end of the mouthpiece, have their surface uniformly hammered in one of the "stone-grain" diapers by-and-by to be described. There have passed into foreign collections a number of massive and comparatively large pipes,—sometimes made entirely of silver, or of the greyish white metal called shibuichi; sometimes having a central joint of reed—on the decoration of which the chisel of the sculptor has been employed to produce strikingly ornate effects. Such pipes are never used by gentlemen and ladies in Japan. They have always been the exclusive property of the wrestler, who loves to have everything colossal; of the professional gambler and the swashbuckling chevalier d'industrie; of the tōryō, who stands at the head of a guild of workmen in virtue of his expert muscles and courageous ​masterfulness; and of that peculiar clan of stalwarts, represented in feudal times by the otoko-date, a genuine redresser of wrongs and champion of the weak, but in modern days by the greatly degenerate sōshi, who aims at being a political reformer, but seldom rises above the level of a hireling bully. The pouches that accompany these big pipes are of correspondingly large dimensions, and have metal clasps which, as specimens of fine glyptic work and clever designing, deserve the special attention that collectors have bestowed on them. The same remark applies to the clasps of smaller pouches, carried by every-day folks. But as the chiselling of these objects falls to the task of the maker of sword-furniture, they will be further noticed in the latter context.
The pouch itself was generally of leather, fur, skin, or some rare textile fabric. There were nearly a hundred recognised varieties of choice material, each having its duly defined points, and each designated by a special name. Attention may be directed here to a feature which will be further illustrated by-and-by,—the extraordinary wealth of nomenclature presented by the Japanese vocabulary of decorative art. How many kinds of leather, or cloth, or silken fabric, suitable for the cover of a tobacco-pouch or a pocket-book, could an American or European expert indicate by means of a terminology that would be immediately intelligible to the person addressed? A score and a half would probably exhaust the list. Yet, in a well-known Japanese work compiled at the close of the eighteenth century, no less than ninety-three varieties are separately designated and described. There is, of course, no occasion to enter into any ​detailed account of the nature and appearance of these materials. What is interesting is to note, first, the lesson taught by their great variety,—the immense care bestowed by the Japanese upon an article comparatively so unimportant as the tobacco-pouch,—and secondly, that they were the means of introducing some distinctly foreign elements into Japanese decorative art. For the great majority of these materials were imported, from India, from Holland, from Persia, from China, from Siam and other countries, and the designs impressed, woven, or embroidered upon them not only were emphatically alien, but also in many instances represented bizarre conceptions, crudely worked out, and falling far below the standards of decorative excellence to which the Japanese had themselves attained. But there has always been in Japan an affection for the quaint and the archaic. It owes its origin to the cult of the tea-clubs, and its effect upon the art of the country was in some respects vitiating. Thus in the case of these imported leathers and stuffs, when the materials themselves were not actually employed, their designs were occasionally taken by the glyptic artist as the most appropriate motive for decorating the surface of the pouch or the pipe-case, and the result is that these objects, when made of wood, ivory, horn, or bamboo, sometimes present a style of decoration without any Japanese affinities and with very little to recommend it from an artistic point of view. On the whole, however, the use of hard substances—bamboo, ebony, shitan, betel-nut, palm, ivory, or horn—for the manufacture of pouches was exceptional. In the case of ivory, a favourite though seldom practised method was to cut ​the material in fine strips and weave them in basket meshes, the technical difficulty constituting the chic of the article. An ivory, ebony, or bamboo surface carved so as to be indistinguishable from basket work was also prized, and, for the rest, many quaint and pretty methods of sculpture and decoration were employed; but, on the whole, the tobacco pouch itself, apart from its appendages, was the least ornate of the girdle-pendants.
The pipe-case (kiseruzutsu) is another of Japan's glyptic triumphs. M. Gonse justly says that there are few objects on which Japanese artists have expended more consideration and taste. In form it is very simple—a slightly flattened tube, the upper portion of which slips into the lower in such a manner as to be gripped more tightly the further it is inserted. The material is ebony, bamboo, sandalwood, horn, ivory, lacquered wood, and sometimes metal. Carved with exquisite care and taste in high relief, elaborately engraved, inlaid with various substances, or overlaid with applied ornaments, the pipe-case is unquestionably a charming specimen of decorative art. It must not be supposed, however, that richness and profusion of ornamentation are regarded as evidences of excellence in Japan. M. Gonse, in an outburst of enthusiasm, refers to a pipe-case in the Goncourt collection as le roi des étuis à pipe passés, présents et futures, and describes it thus: "It is a bamboo tube, the rotundity slightly flattened, covered with a flight of dragon-flies. One cannot imagine anything more marvellously captivating, more sumptuous than this decoration, half in relief, half incised, enriched with enamel, with mother-of-pearl, and with coloured ivory; with gradations and effects of ​background, obtained by the contrast between dragonflies simply sculptured and dragon-flies of enamel and mother-of-pearl in the foreground." Such work is doubtless very beautiful to Western eyes, but a classical Japanese connoisseur would turn from it with disdain. Some thirty years ago, there lived a sculptor, named Hashi-ichi, then in his old age. His specialty was to imitate bamboo: to reproduce in boxwood, in ebony, or in shitan the joints, the texture, the graining, and all the other characteristics of the bamboo. If one of Hashi-ichi's unadorned pipecases together with M. Gonse's "king of past, of present, and of future pipe-cases," were offered to a Japanese connoisseur, he would choose the former unhesitatingly, for the profuse decoration which appeals to Occidental eyes represents a comparatively modern period of Japanese art, and is not always in harmony with the best Japanese canons. Some specimens there are, indeed, in which wealth of design and purity of conception are happily combined, and the decoration is nobly rich without any hint of meretriciousness. But seldom, very seldom indeed, did a Japanese craftsman of the first class attempt to build up designs with such a mélange of substances as mother-of-pearl, coloured ivory, and enamel. In operations of that patchwork, dovetailing, finikin kind there was no room for vigour and directness of line or strength of chisel, nor could the decorator look to satisfy the highest canon of his art,—large effect with small effort. It will be readily understood that the pipe-case, the netsuke, the tobacco-pouch, and its appendages and ornaments were all en suite, all formed part of the same decorative scheme. They do not necessarily lose interest or ​beauty by separation, though sometimes the story their design tells does not bear to be divided into fragments. There is nothing to be added in this context to what has already been said about the range of the netsuke-carver's decorative motives. The same craftsman undertook the chiselling of the netsuke and the pipe-case, and derived his designs from the same sources.
Mention may be conveniently made here of two objects which, although they have no connection with girdle-pendants, received their decoration from the hands of the latter's craftsman. They are the kiyōji-tate and the kōgō. The kiyōji-tate, though a very beautiful little affair, may be dismissed with a few words. It is a miniature vase, from three to four inches high, generally hexagonal in section, used for holding the delicate silver instruments of the incense-burning pastime. Made of silver, gold, silver-gilt, and sometimes shakudo or shibuicbi, its sides are almost invariably chiselled in reticulated diapers, scrolls, or arabesques, but it owes its attraction rather to grace of form, highly finished technique, and delicacy of decorative design than to excellence of sculpture. The kōgō is a tiny box for holding cakes of incense. Like the inro, it belongs primarily to the domain of lacquer manufacture. But there are many specimens in metal or ivory with sculptured decoration, incised or in relief, of such fine design and choice workmanship that they deserve to be classed among the best chefs-d'œuvre of glyptic art.
Who were the men that carved these beautiful objects, so essentially Japanese, and what inspiration led the glyptic artist in the seventeenth century to make a departure analogous to that made by the ​pictorial artist of the Toba-ye in the twelfth? There is no escape from the general conclusion that Japanese art derived its motives and its methods from foreign sources, but, on the other hand, both in sculpture and in painting it shows developments which owe nothing to alien suggestion, and must be placed to the sole credit of Japanese genius. That distinction has already been noted with regard to the Ukiyo-ye (genre-picture), and its truth in the realm of sculpture is established partly by the works of Jōchō and his successors in the religious school, and completely by the carving of netsuke and girdle-pendants in general. The netsuke is a combination of the Toba-ye and the Ukiyo-ye. It shows all the humour of the former without the grotesque exaggerations of form, and it has all the naturalistic graces and human interest of the latter. There is nothing exactly corresponding to it in the sculpture of any other country, and one imagines that the first appearance of such an object ought to be historically recorded. But the difficulty that confronts the student in tracing any school of Japanese pictorial art to its source, presents itself in the case of the netsuke also: public attention was not directed to the new departure until its success had become conspicuous, and in the meanwhile the pioneers had passed out of sight and memory. There is a vague Japanese tradition that the first sculptor who made a specialty of netsuke-carving was one Ri-fū-ho of Kyōtō. He is said to have flourished from 1625 to 1670. "Ri-fū-ho" is not a family name or a personal name. It is one of the professional appellations which Japanese experts generally take. Nothing is known of the man or of his work. He is referred to also as "Hinaya," and some English writers have ​assumed that the latter was an alternative name. But "hina-ye" signifies "a maker of hina;" that is to say, of the puppets set up at the Girls' Fête on the fifth day of the fifth month. These little figures did not call for much exercise of glyptic skill. Their costumes and all the accessories of the various characters they represented were of the most accurate and elaborate nature. Processions of feudal chiefs with every miniature squire and man-at-arms caparisoned exactly as he would be in life, and with all the paraphernalia of travel reproduced microscopically; wedding ceremonials, from the feast with its refined conventionalism when the loving-cup was exchanged, to the bride's first return to the abode of her parents; scenes from the history of filial piety or from the pages of mythology, folk-lore, or fable; in short, an endless repertoire of subjects offered itself for the choice of the maker of hina, and since these little figures with their accompaniments are exact reproductions of Japanese costume, customs, weapons, armour, household utensils, and what not, they are greatly and deservedly prized by foreign collectors. But they cannot be called works of art: they are simply the most elaborate and naturalistic dolls ever made in any country. Generally the figures were of wood, but in the choicest specimens ivory was used for the faces, hands, and feet. Sums corresponding to many hundreds of sovereigns were occasionally expended upon these hina by great and wealthy families, in order that some pet daughter might celebrate her fête with sufficiently triumphal delight; for it must be observed that the little ladies, wearing gala frocks, visited each other's displays of hina during many days, and that the "grown-ups" of the district ​took scarcely less pride and pleasure in this feature of the fête. Nothing was more natural than that a maker of hina should turn to the more artistic but somewhat cognate pursuit of netsuke-carving. For the rest, however, nothing can be predicated about the traditional Ri-fu-yo. No specimens of his work are known to have survived, and if he took the elaborate hina as a model, his immediate successors did not follow his example. According to an appendix to the Sōken Kishō (Treatise on Sword-Furniture), compiled by Michitaku and published in June, 1781, the first carver of netsuke was the well-known painter Tosa Mitsuoki, who died in the year 1691. He had the rank of Hōgen, and his art name was Shūzan. The Sōken Kishō says of him:—
   Hōgen Shuzan lived at Shima-no-uchi in Ōsaka. All the netsuke carved by this artist are coloured. Many imitations have been made, but none has the qualities possessed by works from the artistic hands of the skilled painter.
   Note by Kinshi Hōzan, son of Shuzan: "My father, who is artistically known as Hōgen Shuzan, was called Mitsuoki, or Tansenso, and enjoyed a high reputation as a painter. He was very fond of carving, and loved to reproduce, with due alterations of enlargement or reduction, the quaintest and most unusual figures shown in the Sankaikyo (shapes from the mountain and the ocean) or the Ressaiden (annals of Rishi). In fact, any figure that he fancied took shape under his chisel. His scheme of colouring was so excellent that ordinary folks can have no conception of it. But as he ceased to carve after reaching middle life, his works are very scarce and of correspondingly high value. Ina Michitaku, a friend of mine, who has been recently engaged compiling the Shōken Kishō, with an appendix on netsuke, has asked my permission to publish some of my father's carvings, together with those of some other artists. I desire to comply with his wishes, but unfortunately these old and ​rare carvings are not to be obtained easily, being preciously treasured up by their possessors. Hence there is nothing at hand really suitable for publication. I have thought, however, that since my father carved only as a pastime in the intervals of his work as a painter, his reputation will suffer no injury by letting the public see even such mediocre specimens of his glyptic work as happen to be available. Hence I have sketched a few and sent them to my friend."
It will be observed that already in the year 1781 the netsuke carved by Shūzan were very scarce, that all his works were coloured (from which it may be inferred that the only material employed by him was wood), and that imitations were numerous even during the lifetime of the immediately succeeding generations. Indeed, the fact that a netsuke carries the name of one of the early celebrities ought generally to inspire distrust, and to suggest possibly the work of an inferior craftsman without either reputation or skill to justify the use of his own name.
It is frequently alleged that no good netsuke have been made in modern times: a conception derived, doubtless, from the fact that after the opening of the country to foreign intercourse in 1857, the netsuke ceasing, on the one hand, to be valued by the Japanese themselves, and becoming, on the other, an object of curiosity and admiration to foreigners, hundreds of inferior specimens were chiselled by inexpert hands, purchased wholesale by treaty-port merchants, and sent to New York, London, and Paris, where, though they brought profit to the exporter, they also disgusted connoisseurs and soon earned discredit for their whole class. But it was a mistake to conclude from ​these parodies that the sculptor had lost his old ability. He still retained it, though its exercise was circumscribed, and in Tōkyō, Ōsaka, and Kyōtō netsukes of high quality continued to be produced. During recent years the artists have turned their attention to a somewhat different class of object, the okimono, or statuette, but it is not to be supposed that they are a whit inferior to the old-time experts in conception and execution. The collector may be satisfied that a netsuke bearing the signature of a comparatively modern artist is not necessarily inferior to a genuine specimen by Seibei, Tomtoda, Miwa, or Issai.
The passing reference already made to Nara ningyo (puppets of Nara) requires to be briefly supplemented. Visitors to the celebrated temples of Nara find for sale there some roughly chiselled wooden figures, two or three inches high, generally representing the old couple of Takasago and a few other familiar motives. The figures are painted in two or three colours. They can scarcely be called art objects, but belong rather to the category of toys. Yet they are connected with a once flourishing industry which occupies a prominent place in the history of Japanese wood-carving. In 1588, when the Taikō had the honour of receiving a visit from the Emperor in the newly constructed "Palace of Pleasure" at Fushimi, 1 he ordered the sculptors of Nara to exert their utmost skill in producing a congratulatory carving which should stand in the alcove of the reception chamber. The form of such an object was limited by tradition to the shimadai, or "island-stand," a motive derived from the Japanese cosmogony in which the creator and the creatrix, Izanami and Izanagi, are ​supposed to have begotten the island of Onokoro, when the male and female principles first came into active existence. The divine feat is represented in art by a gracefully shaped stand, more or less elaborately decorated, on which are placed two figures of an aged man and woman, as well as a group of plum, bamboo, and pine trees, with accessories in the shape of cranes and tortoises. The figures are the spirits of the ancient pine-trees of Takasago and Sumiyoshi, and the whole combination is emblematic of longevity, prosperity, happiness, and undying affection. The Taikō's commission to prepare this alcove ornament was given to Yemon Tazayemon, a sculptor of Nara, and the shima-dai there produced—Nara-dai, as it is often called—is popularly said to have been the origin of the afterwards celebrated Nara-ningyo. But here, again, the student detects a tendency common in Japanese art-annals, the tendency to mistake the first public recognition of an industry for its origin. The plum, the pine, the bamboo, the tortoise, the crane, and the spirits of the ancient trees, of Sumiyoshi and Takasago, had symbolised long life, prosperity, and enduring conjugal love for centuries prior to the building of the ill-fated Momoyamagoten at Fushimi, and innumerable shima-hai had been prepared for wedding ceremonies before Hideyoshi gave a commission to the Nara sculptors. Indeed, close examination of the records shows that Nara-ningyo were manufactured as early as the year 1135, on the occasion of the first great Kasuga festival, when the image of the god Waka-miya was moved to a new shrine; and tradition says that in their origin—which was not later than the middle of the tenth century—​these little figures partook, of the nature of amulets, having been carved out of the old timbers of the sacred bridge leading to the temples, when the bridge was renewed for the first time. It was an article of popular faith that all these little figures were made from bridge-wood which had been hallowed during long years by the tread of priests and the passage of festival processions, but since the bridge did not require renewing more than once in fifty years, whereas every pilgrim visiting Nara carried away one of the images, faith must have been substituted for fact in an immense number of cases. Let the timber be what it might, however, the sculptor had to observe one rule unfailingly: he was required to fashion the object with a minimum use of the chisel. Perfect success in that respect was supposed to be attained when the tool was never applied a second time to the same place. Thus the Nara-ningyo stood to sculpture in the same relation as that of the Indian-ink sketch to painting. These figures do not appear to have attracted much attention in æsthetic circles until the Taikō's example, as described above, being followed by the nobility as well as by wealthy commoners, gave a great impulse to the art of the himono-shi. From that time the chiselling of Nara-ningyo became a flourishing industry, the range of motives being gradually extended and the colouring executed with care and taste. Some of these figures were richly lacquered, and when thus decorated they received the name of Negoro-ningyo. In the early part of the nineteenth century, an expert sculptor named Okano Hohaku gave a wider range to his art by chiselling characters from the classic mimes,—the bugaku, the gigaku, ​and the nogaku,—and in 1830 Kambayashi Rakkiken, a cha-no-yu celebrity, who resided in Uji, attracted attention by chiselling representations of girls engaged in the processes of tea-manufacture. These Uji-ningyo, as they are called, often stand on a very high plane of artistic feeling and technical skill.
The latest development of figure-sculpture in Japan prior to the Meiji era was the Asakusa-ningyo, so called from the name of the place (Asakusa in Yedo) where the sculptor, Fukushima Kagan, lived, and where his works were usually exhibited. The Asakusa-ningyo was generally a life-size figure, representing some historical or mythical character. Draped in appropriate garments, these ningyo were grouped so as to form traditional scenes, and admission to the gallery where they stood could be obtained on payment of a small fee. This was the Madame Toussaud's of Japan. Generally the ningyo were modelled in clay, but whatever the material, they were little better than large puppets, raised above doll level by the clever modelling of their faces and hands. Such a branch of technical sculpture would scarcely deserve notice save for its association with Matsumoto Kisaburo (1830–1869), who is frequently spoken of by Western connoisseurs as the greatest wood-carver of modern Japan. Certainly he was the most realistic, for he carved human figures with as much accuracy as though they were destined for purposes of surgical demonstration. Considering that this man had neither education nor anatomical instruction, and that he never enjoyed an opportunity of studying from a model in a studio, his achievements were remarkable. He and the craftsmen of ​the school he established, completely refute the theory that the anatomical defects commonly seen in the work of Japanese sculptors are due to faulty observation. Without scientific training of any kind, Matsumoto and his followers produced works in which the eye of science cannot detect any error. But it is impossible to admit within the circle of high-art productions these wooden figures of every-day men and women, unrelieved by any subjective element and owing their merit entirely to the fidelity with which their contours are shaped, their muscles modelled, and their anatomical proportions preserved. They have not even the attraction of being cleanly sculptured in wood, but are covered with thinly lacquered muslin, which, though doubtless a good preservative, accentuates their puppet-like character. Nevertheless Matsumoto's figures marked an epoch in Japanese wood sculpture. Their vivid realism appealed strongly to the taste of the average foreigner; a considerable school of carvers soon began to work in the Matsumoto style, and hundreds of their productions have gone to Europe and America, finding no market in Japan. The greatest of these modern experts is Yamamoto Fukumatsu. He reaches the level of Matsumoto Kisaburo.
Midway between the Matsumoto realistic school and the pure Japanese style of former times, stand a number of wood-carvers headed by Takamura Kōun, who occupies in the field of sculpture much the same place as that held by Hashimoto Gaho in the realm of painting. Kōun carves figures in the round, which not only display great power of chisel and breadth of style, but also tell a story not necessarily drawn from the motives of the classical school. This de​parture from established canons must be traced to the influence of the short-lived academy of Italian art established by the Japanese Government in 1874. In the forefront of the new movement are to be found men like Yoneharu Unkai and Shinkai Takejiro, the former of whom chiselled a figure of Jenner for the Medical Association of Japan when they celebrated the centenary of the great physician, and the latter has carved life-size likeness effigies of Princes Arisugawa and Kitashirakawa who lost their lives in the war of 1894-1895. The artists of the Kōun school, however, do much work which appeals to emotions in general rather than to individual memories. Thus Arakawa Reiun, one of Kōun's most brilliant pupils, recently exhibited a figure of a swordsman in the act of driving home a furious thrust. The weapon is not shown. Reiun sculptured simply a man poised on the toes of one foot, the other foot raised, the arm extended, and the body straining forward in strong yet elastic muscular effort. This carving emphasises the advantage of not working from a model. A posed figure could not possibly suggest the alert vitality and high muscular tension of the swordsman. A more imaginative work by the same artist is a figure of a farmer who has just shot an eagle that swooped upon his grandson. The old man holds his bow still raised. Some of the eagle's feathers, blown to his side, suggest the death of the bird; at his feet lies the corpse of the little boy, and the horror, grief, and anger that such a tragedy would inspire are depicted with striking realism in the farmer's face. Work of that nature has close affinities with Occidental conceptions. Its chief distinguishing feature is that the glyptic character is preserved at the ex​pense of surface-finish. The undisguised touches of the chisel tell a story of technical force and directness which could not be suggested by perfectly smooth surfaces. To subordinate process to result is the European canon. To show the former without marring the latter is the Japanese ideal. Many of Kōun's sculptures appear unfinished to eyes trained in Occidental galleries, whereas the Japanese connoisseur detects evidence of a technical feat in their seeming roughness.
Architectural decoration in Europe and America ought to provide much employment for the Japanese wood-carver. In his own country temples, shrines, and mausolea used to offer a wide field for his chisel; but since feudalism fell and since the State turned its back upon religion, the greatly reduced revenues of sacred edifices barely suffice for their support and leave no margin for their embellishment. There has not, however, been any diminution of the old glyptic skill and originality. On the contrary, at least as much talent as ever is now available. Formerly a large part of the decorative sculpture for temples and mausolea was done in sections, which were afterwards pieced together with nails and glue. Examples of that method may be seen in some of the most effective carvings of the Nikkō mausolea. The head and neck of a phœnix, for instance, are sculptured in three or four segments, and the tail-feathers in five or six. Elaborate chiselling in relief on a solid ground was seldom attempted in wood, admirable as was the work of that kind achieved in metal. But at glyptic exhibitions in Tōkyō during recent years beautiful specimens of solid carvings in relief have been shown. Such work, if judiciously applied ​to the interiors of foreign buildings, must be highly attractive, and the cost would be comparatively small, for a very slender remuneration still satisfies the Japanese art artisan. Intelligent enterprise should find an opportunity here.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 21.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 22.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 23.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 24.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 25.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 26.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 27.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 28.
* ↑ ​Note 21.—Shitan is a favourite wood in China and Japan. It is the material used by the Chinese for making reading-desks, book-cases, vase-stands, and many other objects of furniture or decoration. In its natural state its colour is red, but before it emerges from the workman's hands it is stained black, and under the friction of use it develops a beautiful glossy surface. It is hard, close-grained, and almost knotless, being thus specially adapted for carving.
* ↑ ​Note 22.—This device has been utilised in recent years for making metal (silver or shibuichi) cases to contain match-boxes.
* ↑ ​Note 23.—From about the year 1830 the use of huge tobacco-pouches obtained much vogue among the artisan classes. Generally these pouches had silver chains for attaching the netsuke, which was of the button (manju) variety and proportionately large. Sometimes the silver chains numbered as many as fifty, and to such an extent was this extravagance carried that a man wearing clothes worth ten yen would have a tobacco-pouch worth one hundred yen.
* ↑ ​Note 24.—In families whose ancestors had the honour of serving the Tokugawa Court, there are preserved and treasured long rolls of brocade consisting entirely of tobacco-pouch covers sewed together. These serve primarily to illustrate the extraordinary variety and beauty of the stuffs used for covering pouches, and incidentally to record the long service of the families possessing them, for each pouch was a New Year's gift from the Shōgun.
* ↑ ​Note 25.—The shima-dai itself is generally of pure white-pine, and the trees, crane, and tortoise which it supports are of silver and gold; but the figures of the old man and the old woman are invariably wood-carvings.
* ↑ ​Note 26.—Such chiselling was called itto-bori, or "single-stroke carving."
* ↑ ​Note 27.—Manufacturers of all small wooden objects were generically called himono-shi.
* ↑ ​Note 28.—From the close of the seventeenth century, worshippers at the shrines of Sugi-no-Mori Jinja in Yedo fell into the habit of presenting an image of clay or wood on the occasion of making a vow or returning thanks to the deity. There were eight houses where these images were manufactured, and where, also, the puppets used in festival processions were modelled, the material employed for the latter being usually a variety of paper called mino-gami, which can be worked up to the consistency and strength of planking. The nature of these puppets will be apparent from the fact that the most remarkable among them were the Denshichi-migyo which had movable eyes. They derived their name from that of their maker, Takeoka Denkichi, who, in 1873, constructed with mino-gami an exact copy of the Kamakura Dai-Butsu for the Vienna Exhibition. The Takeoka family, now represented by Takeoka Gohei, were inspired by the example of Matsumoto Kisaburo to effect great improvements in the manufacture of these puppets.
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