JAPAN
statuette-netsuke. But with that reservation his work merits high admiration, and is, further, more uniformly excellent than the work of the statuette sculptor. Wonderful skill is shown in producing effects of space and gradations of distance by varying the degree of relief or incision, and the most delicate elaboration of detail is found in combination with purity of design and directness of method.
The netsuke and the ōjime are not the only objects of beauty connected with girdle-pendants. Quite as much artistic skill was lavished upon the inro. This gem of workmanship properly belongs, however, to the category of lacquer manufactures, and will be again referred to in that context. The glyptic artist did not, as a rule, apply his talents to its decoration. But there are many exceptions; notably inro in ivory. Sometimes the whole surface of an ivory inro is covered with a deeply chiselled design of flying cranes, or a herd of monkeys, or a mob of horses. Sometimes it is made of strips of ivory woven after the fashion of a bamboo basket; sometimes of ebony or shitan (red sandalwood),[1] chiselled in landscapes, diapers, arabesques, battle-scenes, or mythological subjects; sometimes the inro itself fits into a thin metal shell, with decoration elaborately chased or chiselled in relief and pierced throughout so as to reduce the weight and show the inro within.[2] It would be an endless task to make detailed reference to the innumerable happy conceptions of the Japanese craftsman in this branch of his work. One of the delights of collecting Japanese objects of virtu is that surprises may always be expected. The repertoire of novelties is never exhausted.
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