Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/198

ART] ancient date in Japan. Its antiquity is not, indeed, comparable to that of ancient Egypt or Greece, but no country besides Japan can boast a living and highly developed art that has numbered upwards of twelve centuries of unbroken and brilliant productiveness. Setting aside rude prehistoric essays in stone and metal, which have special interest for the antiquary, we have examples of sculpture in wood and metal, magnificent in conception and technique, dating from the earliest periods of what we may term historical Japan; that is, from near the beginning of the great Buddhist propaganda under the emperor Kimmei (540–571) and the princely hierarch, Shōtoku Taishi (573–621). Stone has never been in favour in Japan as a material for the higher expression of the sculptor’s art.

The first historical period of glyptic art in Japan reaches from the end of the 6th to the end of the 12th century, culminating in the work of the great Nara sculptors, Unkei and his pupil Kwaikei. Happily, there are still preserved in the great temples of Japan, chiefly in the ancient capital of Nara, many noble relics of this period.

The second period in Japanese glyptic art extends from the beginning of the 13th to the early part of the 17th century. The great struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans had ended, but the militant spirit was still strong, and brought work for the artists who made and ornamented arms and armour. The Miyōchins, a line that claimed ancestry from the 7th century, were at the head of their calling, and their work in iron breastplates and helmets, chiefly in repoussé, is still unrivalled. It was not until the latter half of the 15th century that there came into vogue the elaborate decoration of the sword, a fashion that was to last four hundred years.

The third period includes the 17th, 18th and the greater part of the 19th centuries. It was the era of the artisan artist. The makers of Buddhist images and of sword ornaments carried on their work with undiminished industry and success, and some famous schools of the latter arose during this period. The Buddhist sculptors, however, tended to grow more conventional and the metal-workers more naturalistic as the 18th century began to wane. It was in connexion with architecture that the great artisan movement began. The initiator was Hidari Jingoro (1594–1652), at first a simple carpenter, afterwards one of the most famous sculptors in the land of great artists. The gorgeous decoration of the mausoleum of Iyeyasu at Nikkō, and of the gateway of the Nishi Hongwan temple at Kiōto, are the most striking instances of his handiwork or direction.

A little later arose another art industry, also emanating from the masses. The use of tobacco, which became prevalent in the 17th century, necessitated the pouch. In order to suspend this from the girdle there was employed a kind of button or toggle—the netsuke. The metallic bowl and mouthpiece of the pipe offered a tempting surface for embellishment, as well as the clasp of the pouch; and the netsuke, being made of wood, ivory or other material susceptible of carving, also gave occasion for art and ingenuity.

The engravers of pipes, pouch clasps, and the metallic discs (kagami-buta) attached to certain netsuke, sprang from the same class and were not less original. They worked, too, with a skill little inferior to that of the Gotōs, Naras, and other aristocratic sculptors of sword ornaments, and often with a refinement which their relative disadvantages in education and associations render especially remarkable. The netsuke and the pipe, with all that pertained to it, were for the commoners what the sword-hilt and guard were for the gentry. Neither class cared to bestow jewels upon their persons, but neither spared thought or expense in the embellishment of the object they most loved. The final manifestation of popular glyptic art was the okimono, an ornament pure and simple, in which utility was altogether secondary in intention to decorative effect. Its manufacture as a special branch of art work dates from the rise of the naturalistic school of painting and the great expansion of the popular school under the Katsugawa, but the okimono formed an occasional amusement of the older glyptic artists. Some of the most exquisite and