Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/111

RV 89 that they were rare articles of foreign provenance, and that they indicate nothing beyond the refined taste of the Japanese of that epoch.

Two specimens of art workmanship may, however, be specially referred to as indisputably illustrative of eighth-century Japanese skill. One is a gong framed in the coils of four dragons, which rise from entwining a pillar poised on the back of a Dog of Fo, the whole in bronze; the other is a richly lacquered drum, set in a frame of gilt bronze chiselled à jour in a design of dragons and phoenixes, and surmounted by a radiant sun. The Japanese obtained the dragon and the Dog of Fo (shishi) from China, as well as the idea of using the latter by way of pedestal; but there are points about this beautifully designed bronze gong which prove its Japanese provenance, and the central decorative scheme on the lacquered drum—a triple combination of the male and female principles—is essentially Japanese. To the makers of such objects a high degree of artistic and technical attainment must be conceded, though there is not sufficient reason to credit them with the varied exercise of skill shown by the Shōsō-in specimens.

Among Japanese commentators and antiquarians there is a tendency, followed by several foreign students also, to detect strong traces of Chinese and Korean influence in the works described above, and even to attribute some of the best of them to Korean or Chinese sculptors. But before accepting such a theory this question has to be answered: If a Korean or a Chinese expert working in Japan before the close of the eighth century was capable of modelling figures like the four Deva Kings and the Brahma of Tōdai-ji, why did none of the numerous Chinese and