Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/340



O special reference has hitherto been made to a class of experts who performed preparatory work for glyptic artists. These were called uchi-mono-shi, or hammerers. Sometimes their names were cut upon a specimen side by side with those of the chisellers, but, as a rule, their work, being of a subordinate character, received no such recognition. Nevertheless their skill was often remarkable. Using the hammer only, some of them justly claimed ability to beat out an intricate shape as truly and delicately as a sculptor could carve it with his chisels. Ohori Masatoshi, an uchi-mono-shi of Aizu ( 1897), made a silver cake-box in the form of a sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum. The shapes of the body and of the lid corresponded so intimately that whereas the lip could be slipped on easily and smoothly, without any attempt to adjust its curves to those of the body, it always fitted so closely that the box could be lifted by grasping the lid only. Another feat of his was to apply a lining of silver to a shakudo box by shaping and hammering only, the fit being so perfect that the lining clung like paper to every part of the box. Among the uchi-mono-shi now living, there is none that Japanese connoisseurs recognise as fully the peer of Masatoshi, but it must be confessed that the work of such men as Suzuki Gensuke and Hirata Sōkō does not seem capable of being sur-