Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/233

 had a perpetual place in the girdle, and possessed, moreover, a value which seems romantic until something is learned of its really wonderful capacities. The sword itself, not being an object of art, will not be discussed here, great as is the interest otherwise attaching to it. What has to be spoken of is sword-furniture. There it was that the Japanese worker in metals won his crown of skill. In the decoration that he lavished on the guard, the hilt, and other parts of the sword's mountings, he gave to the world peerless specimens of sculpture in metal and of metallurgic processes. There is nothing in the cognate work of any other nation that surpasses, perhaps nothing that equals, the masterpieces of Japan in this line. The scarabs of Etruria have been mentioned as in some degree parallel, just as the Tanagra statuettes have been classed with the netsuke. If it be permissible to place on the same artistic plane a terra-cotta figure cast in a mould and a carving in wood or ivory, then also it may not be extravagant to compare the pictures sculptured and painted—no other term can be justly used—on metal by decorators of Japanese swords to the intaglios of Etruscan gem-cutters. These are matters of taste not profitable to discuss, nor will any one who has had an opportunity of examining a really representative collection of Japanese sword-furniture experience the least difficulty in forming a final opinion. He will recognise that he is dealing with pictorial art applied to metal, and the longer he studies the subject the greater the charms it develops and the more numerous the surprises it affords. This eulogy is not intended to imply that there are to be found among articles of Japanese sword-furniture monumental specimens of decorative