Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/109

RV 87 recall. The one fault is excessive breadth of shoulders and consequent lack of grace. As to statues carved in wood, the most celebrated is that of the Eleven-faced Kwannon preserved in the temple Hokke-ji. Nine of the eleven faces form a circlet for the head of the goddess, and are divided into groups of three, one group smiling, the second ironical, and the third gentle; and placed above them all is a somewhat larger head breathing perfect calm. There has been attributed to this statue extreme beauty of composition and execution; but the very obvious faults of ill-proportioned limbs, a squat figure, and somewhat clumsily chiselled drapery disqualify the statue for such applause. It shows, indeed, little superiority to the bronze Kwannon of Yakushi-ji, cast about a century earlier.

If any confident judgment may be based on the articles in the Shōsō-in collection, it would appear that the applied art of Japan had already reached a high stage of development in the eighth century. The collection comprises more than three thousand specimens,—bells, swords, mirrors, desks, musical instruments, censers, objects of virtu, articles of costume, chess-boards, vases, glass utensils, tissues, paintings, books, and reliquaries. Many of them exhibit workmanship of remarkable delicacy and skill; so much so that a certain measure of credulity is required on the part of any one attributing them to Japanese artists and artisans. Yet when, in the year 756, the Emperor Shomu donated a majority of these objects to the temple Tōdai-ji, they were accompanied by a list in which it was recorded that several swords and screens were Chinese and that a reliquary and a screen were Korean, the inference obviously suggested being