Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/281



mals of lesser experts. Their horses are full-girthed, strong, and spirited. Their crows, even the blackest, have a peculiar light-hued mark at the stem of the feathers, and their white herons a gold point under the eye. The chiselling of the dragons' faces constitutes a special distinction, and the same remark applies to the Kara-shishi (Dog of Fo). Water from which a dragon emerges is always rough and has many wave-crests, but water above which the ama-ryo flies has few crests; and water over which the moon shines is calm, with only occasional ripples. The carp also springs from quiet water, and where flower-rafts are shown floating on a lake or river, the whole scene, from the placid water to the softly contoured rocks, is restful and smiling. Association of blossom-boats with beetling cliffs, angry waves, and swirling currents, is the false conception of a bad artist. Flowers and shrubs, however, do not appear much on the works of the Goto masters, or, if they appear, belong to a comparatively low grade of chiselling. Still there is a fine specimen of Yūjō's work that forms an exception to this rule. It is a kōgai of shakudo, having a single chrysanthemum carved in relief, and a tanzaku (tablet) on which the following couplet is inlaid with gold:—

Other exceptions are the following specimens, which, if the great masters' works be divided in three classes with three grades in each class, must stand in the first grade of the second class, (1) A kōgai by Yūjō, on which the design is a rain-pipe with a wistaria clasping it. The chiselling is in high relief, the creeper and the pipe are plated with gold, and the other parts are in shakudo. (2) A kozuka of shakudo by Yūjō, having for design a tuft of susuki (Eularia Japonica) in silver and gold under a shibuichi moon. The scene represents the Moor of Musashi. (3) A kōgai of shakudo by