Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/290

 to the outline of the guard some quaint shape, or to weld it in such a manner that the surface presented the appearance of wood graining, or to decorate it with designs chiselled à jour. As to the first method, nothing need be said: it was a device within the range of the most ordinary skill. But the wood-grain (mokume) surface must be classed among the remarkable achievements of the Japanese armourer. It seems impossible to determine when this curious tour-de-force had its origin. The oldest examples of it spoken of by Japanese connoisseurs are from the hands of Miyōchin Munesuke, who worked from 1154 to 1185 Munesuke is generally regarded as the founder of the great Miyōchin family of armourers. He was, in fact, the twentieth representative, the founder having been Munemichi, who flourished in the seventh century. But Munesuke stands so far above all his predecessors that he justly deserves to be called the father of Japanese armourers. He is the first of the Judai, or ten great generations of Miyōchin experts, ending with Muneyasu in 1380. It was he that forged Yoshitsune's magnificent suit of armour. Many of his iron guards are fine examples of the mokume-ji, or wood-grain forging which has already been described. Munesuke marked these guards Shinto go-tetsu-ren, or "five-times-forged iron of the sacred way," and it may here be added that, in common with the great experts of his family, the ideographs used in his inscriptions for guards are of the kind called kabuto-ji, or "helmet characters;" that is to say, the grass script (sosho) with curled strokes; an ornamental style of writing always employed in marking helmets. From the time of Munesuke down to the present era the production of wood-grain effects