Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/379

 to which the lacquerer mainly devoted his attention, everything that has been said of his art applies to it, nor does it call for any separate discussion.

A frequently published assertion is that modern Japanese lacquerers are far inferior to their predecessors, and that nothing now produced will support comparison with the work of bygone times. That is an error. There has not been any loss of skill. Shibata Zeshin, who died in 1891, was, perhaps, as great an artist in lacquer as ever existed, and there are men living to-day who have all the skill of the best eras. The only change is in the conditions of production. Fine lacquer is exceedingly costly. It demands not only great outlay of expert toil, but also the use of very expensive materials. The Japanese art-artisan, however, is generally poor; or, at any rate, his circumstances are too humble to warrant the expenditure of large sums on specimens which have the less chance of finding a purchaser the higher their price. All the finest pieces of former times were produced to order, whereas at present few persons are disposed to give a commission, the tendency of those that can afford to possess rich lacquer being rather to seek old specimens of which the durability is already guaranteed, than to take the risk of having new made. But there has been abundant proof that the experts of the time can do quite as skilled work as any of their predecessors did.

In the manufacture of Japanese lacquer, three distinct processes have to be noted. The first is the extraction and preparation of the lac; the second, its application, and the third decoration of the lacquered surface.