Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/217

 background, obtained by the contrast between dragonflies simply sculptured and dragon-flies of enamel and mother-of-pearl in the foreground." Such work is doubtless very beautiful to Western eyes, but a classical Japanese connoisseur would turn from it with disdain. Some thirty years ago, there lived a sculptor, named Hashi-ichi, then in his old age. His specialty was to imitate bamboo: to reproduce in boxwood, in ebony, or in shitan the joints, the texture, the graining, and all the other characteristics of the bamboo. If one of Hashi-ichi's unadorned pipecases together with M. Gonse's "king of past, of present, and of future pipe-cases," were offered to a Japanese connoisseur, he would choose the former unhesitatingly, for the profuse decoration which appeals to Occidental eyes represents a comparatively modern period of Japanese art, and is not always in harmony with the best Japanese canons. Some specimens there are, indeed, in which wealth of design and purity of conception are happily combined, and the decoration is nobly rich without any hint of meretriciousness. But seldom, very seldom indeed, did a Japanese craftsman of the first class attempt to build up designs with such a mélange of substances as mother-of-pearl, coloured ivory, and enamel. In operations of that patchwork, dovetailing, finikin kind there was no room for vigour and directness of line or strength of chisel, nor could the decorator look to satisfy the highest canon of his art,—large effect with small effort. It will be readily understood that the pipe-case, the netsuke, the tobacco-pouch, and its appendages and ornaments were all en suite, all formed part of the same decorative scheme. They do not necessarily lose interest or