Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/268

 chiselling, the commonest form is ke-bori, or "hair cutting," which may be called engraving, the lines being of uniform thickness and depth. Very beautiful results are obtained by the ke-bori method. But incomparably the finest work in the incised class is that known as kata-kiri-bori. In this kind of chiselling the Japanese expert claims to be unique as well as unrivalled. It is easy to see that the idea of the great Yokoya experts, the originators of this style, was to break away from the somewhat formal monotony of ordinary engraving, where each line performs exactly the same function, and to convert the chisel into an artist's brush instead of using it as a common cutting-tool. They succeeded admirably. In the kata-kiri-bori every line has its proper value in the pictorial design, and strength and directness become prime elements in the strokes of the burin, just as they do in the brush-work of the picture-painter. It may be said, indeed, that the same fundamental rule applied whether the field of the decoration was silk, paper, or metal: the artist's tool, be it brush or burin, had to perform its task by one effort. There must be no appearance of subsequent deepening, or extending, or re-cutting, or finishing. Kata-kiri-bori by a great expert is a delight. One is lost in astonishment at the nervous yet perfectly regulated force and the unerring fidelity of every trace of the chisel.

Low-relief chiselling does not easily lend itself to the production of striking effects, but the skill exhibited by many Japanese experts in this kind of work was even more remarkable than that of its great Italian master Donatello, and when combined with kata-kiri chiselling it gave exquisite pictures. Another variety much affected by artists of the seven-