JAPAN
The Mito school was very active in the first half of the century. Several well-known experts were connected with it—as Kwaizantei (Motomichi) and his numerous pupils; Ontaiken (Motochska); Chōoken (Motonari); Tosuiken (Sadahisa), and others. The workshops in Aizu also turned out many specimens, but what has already been said of Mito and Aizu work in earlier times applies to the productions of the nineteenth century also: it was decorative rather than artistic. Many other names might be set down; notably those of Yoshioka Tadatsugu, of Yedo, whose pupils constituted a large and brilliant group; Tanaka Kiyohisa, of Yedo; Okano Kijiro, of Yedo, widely known under his art name of Tōriusai, whose reproductions of some of the choicest old masterpieces are probably treasured by many Occidental collectors as originals; Kawarabayashi Hidekuni (1860), of Kyōtō; and Oda Noaki (1830), of Satsuma, a splendid chiseller of decoration à jour. But the task of discrimination becomes exceedingly difficult in the nineteenth century, for although the general level of expert skill was higher than it had been in any previous era, few artists can be said to have attained conspicuous preeminence. An immense number of fine specimens were produced during the first seventy-five years of the century, and it is probable that if a careful examination were made of the best collections of Japanese sword-mounts in Europe and America, a great majority of the examples they comprise would be found to date from the epoch 1770 to 1780.
Special mention must be made of a group of five artists—Shūraku, Temmin, Riumin, Minjo, and Minkoku—who, in 1864, formed a guild (called go-nin-gumi) for the purpose of producing objects beyond the
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