Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/283



range of stitches, their ingenious methods and combinations, and the variety of effects attained with the needle and a few strands of colored silk, easily place the Japanese first among all embroiderers. Although China taught them to embroider, they far surpass the Chinese in design, color, and artistic qualities, while they attain a minute and mechanical exactness equal to the soulless, expressionless precision of the best Chinese work. They can simulate the hair and fur of animals, the plumage of birds, the hard scales of fishes and dragons, the bloom on fruit, the dew on flowers, the muscles of bodies, tiny faces and hands, the patterned folds of drapery, the clear reflection of lacquer, the glaze of porcelains, and the patina of bronzes in a way impossible to any but the Japanese hand and needle. Sometimes they cover the whole groundwork with couched designs in a heavy knotted silk, and this peculiar embroidery has the name of kindan nuitsuké. With floss silk, with twisted silks, with French knots, and with gold and silver thread, couched down with different colored silks, with silk threads couched, and with concealed couchings, a needle-worker attains every color effect of the painter; nor does the embroiderer disdain to use the brush, or to powder and spatter his designs with gold, nor to encroach upon the plastic art by his wonderful modelling of raised surfaces, rivalling the sculptor with his counterfeit faces. His invention and ingenuity are inexhaustible, and the modern craftsmen preserve all the skill of their ancestors. 267