Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/404

 accuracy, and not with any intention of criticising an author whose knowledge, considering the circumstances under which it was acquired, must be pronounced remarkable, and who has brought so much light to bear on every branch of Japanese art.  —Runinaga and Yoshishige are described by tradition as the first really skilled artists of Kaga. Their personal names were respectively Jiro and Goro, and their carvings were known as Jiro-saku and Goro-saku.  —A kozuka by Toshihisa was sold fifty years ago for a sum which would now represent 1200 yen. It was made of iron, and the design, chiselled in high relief, represented the Chinese celebrities Liu Pei, Chu Koh-liang, and Kwan Yu.  —Not to be confounded with the Okamoto family of Kyoto, founded by Harukuni in 1740, the second representative of which is the celebrated Naoshige, known in the art world as "Tetsugen."  —The meagre nature of the information contained in Japanese records with regard to the Kinai experts is remarkable. They are spoken of merely as "Kinai," neither their family names nor their dates being given. The writer of these notes caused special investigations to be made in Yechizen, and found that the first Kinai was called Ishikawa, the second Takahashi, and that the family was a branch of the Miyōchin. The tomb of Ishikawa Kinai shows that he died in 1680, and that of Takahashi Kinai, that he died in 1696. There is in Yechizen a tradition that the feudal chief of the province ordered the second Kinai to carve a pair of iron menuki in the shape of mandarin ducks. Kinai did not complete the work until three years had passed, and, almost immediately afterwards, one of the menuki was lost during the chief's journey to Yedo. Kinai, being required to replace the missing menuki, chiselled a substitute in one day, and was then severely rebuked for having previously taken three years to accomplish a work which could easily have been finished in as many days. His answer was: "Put those two menuki in water and observe the difference." That being done, the new menuki sank at once, but the original one floated, so delicately had it been chiselled.  —It has been found by measurement that lines cut in guards of iron shakudo, etc., have a width not exceeding 3/100 of an inch. The tool used for such work is scarcely imaginable.  —Yoshitsugu's personal name was Kichiji, and he received the appellation of "Kichiji Kinai" from contemporary connoisseurs, who placed him on the same level as the great Kinai.  —Not to be confounded with Masu-ya. There were <section end="Note 44" />