JAPAN
upper layers of a gold or silver alloy until the surface assumed the appearance of pure metal.[1]
Gold and silver, though here spoken of in some detail, played a subsidiary rather than a principal part in the manufacture of sword-ornaments, being used chiefly to pick out the details of the decorative design. The ground metals were iron, copper, and, above all, shakudo and shibuichi, two alloys invented by the Japanese and never used by any other people. Owing to the great beauty of the patinas that can be given to them, these alloys are uniquely excellent for art purposes.
Shakudo (literally, "red copper") is an alloy of gold with excess of copper, the approximate proportions being three per cent of gold to ninety-seven of copper. The alloy, when it emerges from the furnace, presents no special features, being simply dark-coloured copper. Its value for artistic purposes depends on the fact that a glossy black patina with violet sheen may be produced on its surface by suitable treatment. Mr. W. Gowland, who has devoted special research to this subject, says:—
The alloy has been long known to the Japanese, but there are no records of its first use, and the date of its origin cannot be even approximately determined. Perhaps the least doubtful of the earliest specimens known to us are the mounts of the sword of Ashikaga Takauji, who held the position of Shōgun from 1335 to 1337, which is preserved in the temple of Itsukushima. There may be earlier examples, but it was certainly not known in the ninth century. The oldest specimen of Buddhist art-metal work in the decoration of which shakudo appears, so far as I have been able to trace, is a reliquary containing fragments of the bones of St. Nichiren in the famous temple of Minobu (date 1580). In many temples there are statues of divinities and saints which are said to be
- ↑ See Appendix, note 33.
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