Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/211

 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