Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/218

 beauty by separation, though sometimes the story their design tells does not bear to be divided into fragments. There is nothing to be added in this context to what has already been said about the range of the netsuke-carver's decorative motives. The same craftsman undertook the chiselling of the netsuke and the pipe-case, and derived his designs from the same sources.

Mention may be conveniently made here of two objects which, although they have no connection with girdle-pendants, received their decoration from the hands of the latter's craftsman. They are the kiyōji-tate and the kōgō. The kiyōji-tate, though a very beautiful little affair, may be dismissed with a few words. It is a miniature vase, from three to four inches high, generally hexagonal in section, used for holding the delicate silver instruments of the incense-burning pastime. Made of silver, gold, silver-gilt, and sometimes shakudo or shibuicbi, its sides are almost invariably chiselled in reticulated diapers, scrolls, or arabesques, but it owes its attraction rather to grace of form, highly finished technique, and delicacy of decorative design than to excellence of sculpture. The kōgō is a tiny box for holding cakes of incense. Like the inro, it belongs primarily to the domain of lacquer manufacture. But there are many specimens in metal or ivory with sculptured decoration, incised or in relief, of such fine design and choice workmanship that they deserve to be classed among the best chefs-d'œuvre of glyptic art.

Who were the men that carved these beautiful objects, so essentially Japanese, and what inspiration led the glyptic artist in the seventeenth century to make a departure analogous to that made by the