Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/167

 Seimin's date was fully a century subsequent to that of Kame. He was born in Nagasaki in 1769, and though, before he moved to Yedo in 1805, he doubtless studied the methods which Kame and her father, Tokuye, practised so successfully in Genya-machi in Nagasaki, it does not appear that he gained any distinction until, having undergone a course of training in the workshop of an urn-caster in Yedo, he settled in the Kameido suburb and devoted himself to producing flower-vases, censers, and alcove-ornaments. Seimin had five pupils, Tōun, Masatsune, Teijō, Somin, and Keisai, and by this group of artists many brilliant works were turned out, their general features being that the motives were naturalistic, that the quality of the metal was exceptionally fine, that modelling in high relief was most successfully employed, and that, in addition to beautifully clean castings obtained by highly skilled use of the process, the chisel was employed to impart delicacy and finish to the design. Seimin preferred the golden coloured bronze, Sentoku, to all other alloys, and his specialty was the modelling of tortoises, just as Kame's reputation rests chiefly on her censers in the shape of quails, and Tōun is regarded as one of the greatest casters of dragons that Japan ever possessed. Seimin did not work for the general market: he aimed at producing chefs-d'uvres only, whereas the most renowned of his pupils showed more of the mercantile instinct. Masatsune, a slow and infinitely painstaking artist, shared Seimin's exclusive views, as did also Keisai and Sōmin; but Teijō, though much of his work is not inferior to that of Masatsune, often aimed at quantity rather than quality. These six men gave exceptional éclat to the first half of the present