Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-17


bird or beast, the craftsman goes over II
with incredible patience, with instructive
skill, with the incest observation of nature,
| and by use of file and graver reproduces ex
actly the texture of skin or hair or feather
! to be indicated.
The skin Of the Csrvers.
ITO see the students of the art school al
practice carving Is among the worlds won
ders. Sitting fiat on earth with bit of fir
wood before them, their hard palm for NAL
let, using gouge and graver, they bring out
delicious pictures in low relief. Now it is
feathery sprays of young bamboo. now
flights of wild fowl over lakes and rice
fields; now cherry or plum gardens, all
wreathed in bloom; or Fuji San is seen
afloat in a sea of cloud. The wood seems to
grow plastic at their touch, yet all this ID
merely college exercise, repeated most days
OF the year.
TT is such training continued through
centuries that makes possible most things
here on view. That tall bronze, for example,
with its wealth of scaly, many spined
dragons, or the golden bronze censer, with
silver dove a-perch on the lidi Five and
30 years back it swung daily on the limb Of
q big, crooked pine that overhung the Sho-
gums temple. The Shotgun is memory
now So, too, are many of the Daimios,
six and thirty gold lacquered dishes To
the same old Daimios belonged those big,
round incense pots, whence came day and
nightly clouds of sweet smoke to lap their
pious souls in Elysium. In those days, too,
those precious temple tapestries hung high
on the walls
The Former Japanese Gentleman.
"Every Japanese gentleman rode saddle
very near as weighty as himself, and carried
pipe, pouch, inkhorn and medicine case
swung to his girdle by cord or chain with
On ivory netsuke togglewise ut its other
end. He carried also sword, o merciless
keen blade, two handled, with no guard,
and a scabbard of bronze or ivory, upon
which a poem or legend was pictorially
carved. His harikari knife was less than
half the sword length, but as highly orna-
mented and even more carefully guarded
For was it not the last resort of gentleman
if fate or the Mikado trowned?"
"All this the author of the "Japonica"
doubtless knew better than any other Anglo
Saxon. That he said nothing of it was due
perhaps to his wrapt and wondering look at
tall jar in cloisonne work, where pink
plum blossoms struggled in heavenly fash
ion over ground of tenderest gray. Step
ping back pace and shading his eyes with
one hand he said slowly:
"Never, 1 think, did human hands create
such quiet but satisfying beauty. 1t is the
6nesse of toll which produces these broadly
harmonious results. What feast of color
from surfaces polished like a lily leafi Old
things are not best in cloisonne. Sixty
Now with the gold stone ground, jewels are
not more splendid, the colors of the dewy
dawn no more tenderly translucent
Cz,-or R..t;n.
"Each of these magnificent pieces is q
creation. To realize it fully you must see
the artist at work. First the sheet copper is
beaten to shape, next he traces in the pat
tern, leaf flower, bird or landscape, then it
goes to the cunning artifcer, who spends
weeks, may be months or years, in fixing
over each line thread of fine gold wire,
bent exactly to its curve. Enamelling comes
next, figure and ground are filled, fired and
rubbed down five times before it reaches the
polisher, from whom it passes on to the
show room.
'sCloisonne, like most Japanese work. is
thing of infinite pains and patience,
though certainly the end crowns the work.
Namikawa, of Toxic, is a name that should
live. Of course to feel its value entirely
one must know his Japan more than super
ficially. It is much the same with pottery.
lection. Is trebly so to him who has slept,
eaten, dreamed in the shadow of Fuji San.
Much of the later Satsuma is superlatively
excellent, though lacking somewhat of the
sharp, clear outline and angles of the best
old ware. In Awata and other marks the
modern is preferable to all but the very
choicest old, though good piece of any
age will not disgrace cabinet.
Embroidery Is High Art.
Embroidery in Japan is not an accom-
plishment 1t rises to the rank of serious
art, which, like all the rest, is in the hands
of men. Sometimes dozen work for years
upon a single screen. 1 saw one in Yoko-
hama in which there was used above Sc, 900
worth of silk, gold, silver and pearls.
With us, very costly things are sometimes
the merest rubbish, artistically considered.
1t is not the case with this needle painting,
which had rise perhaps in religion and has
come to be somewhat of religion in itself"
Then the 'Light of Asia" wandered back
for last contemplation of his beloved
wrestlers, and did homage to the seven gods
of Japan in old crackle, and to the 16
forms of Buddha spread over delicious
ivory screen. Beyond it the eye lost itself
in the rich hues shed by intricate traceries
of gorgeous brocades, Of more gorgeous
kakemonos and caught the pellucid glesm
of carven crystal among the bronze and gold
lacquer. A little way off bit of enamel
showed white and gray doves, life size,
against the sky of spring. Another had
gold fish and sea wrack afoat in clear
blue sea.
His Opinion of Japanese Art
Tall Jars, taller bronzes, filed all the
floor space left vacant by the glass cases
full of carvings, bits of old blue and older
precious lacquers There was q small ar
mory of old inlaid matchlocks, pistols long
as your arm, queer clocks, prayer mills,
PRAYER gongs, bits of clouded Chinese porce-
lain and real old ivory crack1e, with boxes
of every sort ever shaped since Pandora was
sent down from Olympus to plague hapless
man.
Saturated with Oriental magni6cence, the
interviewer tiptoed up to the Light to ask,
sSir Edwin, which do you feel most deeply,
the art of Greece or that of Japan?"
With bow the Light answered, 'There
is one glory of the sun and another glory of
the moon"
Notwithstanding, the interviewer is still
in the dark. S. L. T.
TRIMMINGS WITHOUT HATE
A N.-Rrapch Df the Hi,1jners, Trada That