VARIOUS APPLICATIONS OF ART
Much that has been said above about the inro and the netsuke applies also to the pipe (kiseru), the pipe-case (kiseru-zutsu), and the tobacco-pouch (tobacco-ire). The pipe, from having originally been a ponderous clumsy affair, sometimes carried over the shoulder and serviceable as a weapon, gradually dwindled to tiny proportions, and began to command the attention of the decorative artist. It must be noted, however, that the aristocratic pipe is never a highly ornate affair. Its most approved form has always been a central joint of polished reed, carrying a long mouthpiece and a diminutive bowl, both of gold, silver, or one of the compound metals which the Japanese manufacture with such unique skill. The bowl and mouthpiece occasionally have decoration,—engraved or inlaid pictures, diapers or arabesques, translucid enamelling in cloissons, or chaste designs in low relief,—but in the great majority of cases the metal sections, with the exception of the end of the mouthpiece, have their surface uniformly hammered in one of the "stone-grain" diapers by-and-by to be described. There have passed into foreign collections a number of massive and comparatively large pipes,—sometimes made entirely of silver, or of the greyish white metal called shibuichi; sometimes having a central joint of reed—on the decoration of which the chisel of the sculptor has been employed to produce strikingly ornate effects. Such pipes are never used by gentlemen and ladies in Japan. They have always been the exclusive property of the wrestler, who loves to have everything colossal; of the professional gambler and the swashbuckling chevalier d'industrie; of the tōryō, who stands at the head of a guild of workmen in virtue of his expert muscles and courageous
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