Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 7/Chapter 8
Chapter VIII
SCULPTURE ON SWORD-FURNITURE
(Continued)
One of the most illustrious artists of this century, or indeed of any century, was Kashiwaya Nagatsune (1750-1786), called in art circles Setsuzan or Ganshōshi. It is difficult to conceive a higher standard of force, accuracy, and grace than he attained. He seems to have worked almost entirely on shakudo and shibuichi bases, but he used gold, silver, and copper freely for decorative purposes. In his early days the objects that he preferred to chisel were frogs, snails, beetles, and so forth, and generally he added a tuft of the grass called tsukushi (a species of horse-tail). But he subsequently extended his range to dragons, figures, demons, masks, and other objects, and among his numerous works, all of which are highly valued in Japan, there is not one of inferior quality. His Deva Kings, chiselled in high relief in shakudo with gold decoration, may be compared to the celebrated wooden statues at the temple Kōfuku-ji. Japanese connoisseurs liken the nobility and purity of Nagatsune's style to "the moon rising over Obate mountain." In recognition of his exceptional talent he was honoured by the Kyoto court with the title of Daijo of Ichi-no-miya in Yechizen. His son, Nagayoshi, did not fall greatly short of Nagatsune himself in ability. Both worked in Kyōtō.
The only remaining names that need be especially referred to in the history of the eighteenth century are those of Kusakari Kiyosada (1790), generally known as Kusakari Hachisaburo, who is said to have been the greatest inlayer that ever worked in Sendai; Shichibei (1700) of Kyōtō, whose fame as an inlayer procured for particularly fine work of that nature the term Zoshichi; and Ito Kiyoyasu (1750) of Yedo, the first to become celebrated for the variety of inlaying called sumi-zogan.
NINETEENTH CENTURY
By more than one Western critic of Japanese metal-work it has been asserted that a period of decadence set in before the middle of the nineteenth century, and that all productions subsequent to the year 1835 or 1840 show evidences of deterioration. It would be very difficult to discover any valid grounds for such a statement, nor is it endorsed for a moment by Japanese connoisseurs. Everywhere dilettanti may be found whose estimate of the merits of a work of art ascends with the cycles that have elapsed since its production. But that kind of picturesque romance belongs to a special domain of æsthetic education, and while its contentions are partially admissible so long as they refer to a Sōmin, a Yasuchika, a Naomasa, or a Kinai, they must be set aside ruthlessly when they do flagrant injustice to the numerously peopled school of fine artists in metal who worked for Japan during the first seven and a half—not the first three—decades of the nineteenth century. And in speaking of the first seven and a half decades, it is not intended to suggest that the year 1875 saw the end of her artistic metal-work. On the contrary, the reader already knows that the art has merely developed new phases in modern times, and that not only are its masters as skilled now as they were in the days of the Goto, the Nara, the Yokoya, and the Yanagawa celebrities, but also that their productions must be called in many respects greater and more interesting than those of their renowned predecessors. If sword-mounts alone be considered, the year 1876 may be taken as the time of the art's demise, for in 1876 the wearing of swords was interdicted and purchasers of their furniture were at once reduced from hundreds of thousands of samurai and privileged persons, to a few scores of foreign curio-collectors. Thousands of grand specimens found their way at once to the melting-pot for the sake of the modicum of precious metal that could be extracted from them, and in an incredibly short time the multitude of master-pieces that must have existed in 1876 disappeared almost completely. The fate of that great assemblage of beautiful objects is indeed a mystery. Hundreds of skilled experts had been engaged continuously during five centuries on their production; millions of samurai had taken a pride in their possession, and the objects themselves were imperishable. Yet in less than thirty-five years they virtually ceased to be procurable in Japan. It is true that a considerable number went to Europe and America, and that an equal, or perhaps even a larger, number remained in Japanese collections. But what comparison can be set up between the petty fraction thus accounted for and the vast multitude that must have existed at the moment when the edict of 1876 went forth? This is one of the most curious pages of the iconoclastic chapter opened simultaneously with the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse. As the old order changed, the beauties it had bequeathed to the country were swept away with the blemishes it had begotten; and if the process was sometimes slow in the latter case, it was often almost miraculously rapid in the former. Incredible though the fact may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that when, about the year 1880, United States' collectors began to interest themselves keenly in Japanese sword-mounts, and to acquire them in the resolute manner of New York and Chicago, the supply of genuine specimens could not meet this fitful and comparatively paltry demand, and the forger drove a brisk trade for a season, casting where he could not chisel, and substituting flash and profusion of ornament for force and delicacy of sculpture. To-day, an amateur applying himself in Japan to make a representative collection of fine sword-mounts could not hope for more than very partial success. Those that are already fortunate in the possession of such objects may therefore congratulate themselves, for while in every other branch of Japanese art no serious break has occurred in the continuity of successful production, the sword-mount is altogether a thing of the past and will never again occupy the attention of great sculptors.
As to the assertion made above that sword-mount experts continued to work with undiminished skill down to the year 1876, a better illustration cannot be adduced than that of Gotō Ichijo. The reader will probably have observed that, in these records of centuries, no reference is made to the Goto family. It is not to be inferred, of course, that the omission indicates absence of merit or of celebrity. But at the outset considerable space was devoted to the Goto masters, and it has not seemed necessary to speak subsequently of the various experts born in the branches of the family; for although many of them were great carvers, they did not originate any new style, and the indications given in the appended list of Glyptic Artists are probably sufficient to show the Gotos' share in the development of the art. It may be explained here, however, that in addition to the principal family and its two great branches in Kyōtō—the Kami-Goto and the Shimo-Goto—there were in that city two minor branches; in Kaga a branch founded by Ichiyemon, a pupil of Kenjō, in 1610; and in Noto a branch founded in 1550 by Jinyemon, a pupil of Takujo. Gotō Yeijiro, afterwards known as Gotō Ichijō, was born in 1791 and died in 1876. The second son of the fifteenth representative of the principal family, he was adopted into the branch house of Hachirobei (art name, Kenjō), to whose hereditary pension of fifty koku of rice he succeeded in 1805, taking the names Mitsuyo and Hachirobei. When only nineteen years of age he received a commission to carve mounts for a sword belonging to the Emperor Kokaku, and he succeeded so well that the title of Hokkyo was accorded to him, together with a reward of twenty pieces of silver and five bundles of silk. In his thirty-fourth year he was invited to Yedo by the Tokugawa Court, received a house and a perpetual pension of ten rations, which was afterwards increased from time to time, until, in 1862, he attained the highest art rank, that of Hōgen. Ichijō had no less than fifty pupils, all of whom worked with considerable success. Among them was occasionally numbered Natsuo, who probably deserves to rank next to Ichijō among the masters of the nineteenth century. Ichijō has left it on record that in his youth he made a habit of praying at the shrine of Fushimi Inari that the deity would grant him skill. One night after his devotions, he fell asleep and saw in a dream a dragon carved by his illustrious ancestor, Gotō Yūjō. Thenceforth he had before his eyes a perfect model of a dragon. His workmanship, however, was finer than anything done by Yūjō. Japanese connoisseurs say that it combines the soft style of Gotō Kwōjō with the microscopic minuteness of Gotō Kenjō, and a story is told that a party of skilled experts being challenged to name the maker of a set of sword-mounts by Ichijō without seeing the name carved on the back, were divided in opinion as to whether the work should be ascribed to Kwojō or to Kenjō. These details furnish some indication of the career of a great Japanese carver, and of the honours extended to him. There was, indeed, no limit to the appreciation he received. Among the archives of Ichijō's family there is a letter addressed to the artist by Okubo Toshimitsu, one of the leading statesmen of the Restoration. It is couched in terms of the most profound politeness; it speaks of Ichijō's work as beautiful enough to "move the gods to tears;" it declares that the specimens just completed at the writer's request shall be treasured by him and his heirs so long as the house of Okubo lasts. The incentives that talent found in those days can thus be appreciated. Ichijō certainly deserved to be famous. He excelled in every kind of chiselling, though most of his finest work is in relief; he knew how to produce admirable decorative effects by combining metals of various colours; his range of motives was almost limitless, and the poetic feeling of some of his designs gives them a charm quite independent of their grand technique.
The difficulty experienced in attempting to set down any record of the metal-workers in the nineteenth century is that quite an embarrassing number of artists reached a standard entitling them to notice. The greatest do not stand as far above the general level as did the masters of preceding epochs, but, on the other hand, the general level in the nineteenth century was higher than it had ever been before. It can be said with confidence, however, that no school of experts contributed so much to the treasures of the time as did the representatives and disciples of the Ishiguro family. According to strict chronological order, this family should have been included in the annals of the eighteenth century, for its founder, Masatsune, who also must be called one of its greatest representatives, was born in 1757 and died in 1828. He is placed here, however, not only because much of the finest work of his mature years was executed in the nineteenth century, but also because all his successors and pupils flourished during the latter. The Ishiguro family carried the art to an extreme standard of elaboration. No subject was too intricate or too difficult for them, and it is probable that their works figure largely in foreign collections, for technical beauty and richness of general effect are qualities which appeal at once to the average dilettante. Masatsune had three art names—Jimiyo, Tōgakushi, and Jikokusai—and during his youth he called himself Koretsune. He is thus often confounded with his second son, Koretsune,—an equally great artist,—the confusion being augmented by the fact that among Koretsune's seven art names—Tōgakuski, Ritsumei, Shinryo, Hōgyokusai, Gishinken, Kounken, and Ichiyeian—the first was identical with one of Masatsune's. No less than forty-two experts belonged to the Ishiguro group, and every one of them contributed some good specimens to the treasures of the century. After Masatsune and Koretsune, the most renowned were Koresbige (art name, Ichio), a pupil of Koretsune; Koreo (art name, Hakuunshi), also a pupil of Koretsune; Yoshitsune (art names, Senyusbi, Gammon, and Tominsai), grandson of Masatsune; Masayoshi (art name, Jikosai), a student of Masatsune; Koreyoshi (art names, Jikakushi and Kwansai), son of Masayoshi; Yoshisato (art name, Jitekisai), a pupil of Masayoshi who worked in Hizen; Haruaki, who received the highest art title of Hōgen; Masahiro (art names, Gantōshi, Keiho, Kwakujusai, and Korinsha), a pupil of Masatsune; Masakiyo (art name, Jikiyokusai); Masaharu and Kiyonari (art name, Giyokkosai). All of these, with the one exception noted in its place, worked in Yedo.
With the Ishiguro experts must be bracketed, in point of technical skill, the three families of Omori, Hamano, and Iwamoto. The origin of these has already been spoken of, and it will be sufficient to note here the celebrities that they severally contributed to the nineteenth century, namely:—
THE OMORI MASTERS AND THEIR PUPILS IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Hidetomo; art name, Riuriusai. Yedo.
- Hideyoshi; art name, Ittokusai. Yedo.
- Hideyori. Hirado (Hizen).
- Hidenori. Hirado.
- Hidetomi. Sendai.
- Hidekiyo. Yedo.
- Kazutomo; art name, Kenkōsai. Yedo.
- Tomochika; art name, Riunsai. Yedo.
- Tomotsune. Yedo.
- Terumoto. Yedo.
THE HAMANO MASTERS AND THEIR PUPILS IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Shunzui, or Haruyori. Yedo.
- Jūzui, or Hisayori. Yedo.
- Shūzui, or Hideyori. Yedo.
- Kiuzui, or Hisayori. Yedo.
THE IWAMOTO MASTERS AND THEIR PUPILS IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Konju. Yedo.
- Kwanri (end of eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century). Yedo.
- Yeishu, or Yasuchika Shinsuke (end of eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century). Celebrated for Katakiri chiselling. Mito.
- Riyōyei, or Suzuki Kinyemon. Celebrated for carving fish. Yedo.
- Kwanjo.
- Shōho, or Buto Gempachi, marked his works Konkwan-mon. Yedo.
The productions of the four families, Omori, Hamano, Iwamoto and Ishiguro, stand to the masterpieces of the early metal-carvers in much the same relation as the genre pictures (ukiyo-ye), which had their development contemporaneously with the work of these families, stand to the paintings of the classical school. In reviewing Japanese pictorial art it has been shown that the popular school of painters, the Ukiyo-ye artists, were a natural outcome of the social evolution of their era, and that they reflected the nation's passage from the comparatively austere canons of a military age to the voluptuous ease and refinement of the later Tokugawa epochs. Similar evidence of the changes of the times might be expected to present themselves in the field of glyptic art. They do present themselves. The formal designs and uniform methods of chiselling à jour practised up to the middle of the fifteenth century represent the pure Chinese style, or, at any rate, were suggested by the classical spirit which then permeated every branch of the national civilisation. By and by, when the immortal painters Kano Masanobu and Kano Motonobu raised their art into a new realm of national inspiration, a corresponding impulse was felt in the domain of metal carving, and the Goto masters, shaking themselves partially free from classical fetters, began to seek decorative motives in the pages of recent history or among the natural objects that surrounded them. The work of the early Goto experts cannot, however, be assigned purely to any one academy. In their representations of historical scenes, warriors, and animals they followed the Tosa school with almost slavish accuracy. In their carvings of flowers, birds, and incidents from the daily life of the people, they took the Kano artists for models. And in their chiselling of dragons, Dogs of Fo, Kylin, phœnixes, and supernatural beings, they saw nothing higher than Chinese types. They preserved, indeed, a closer touch with the Chinese school than with any other, for each scion of the family and each student in its ateliers commenced his education by learning how to carve a dragon, and in every Japanese collection of Goto masterpieces the shishi, the kirin, and the ho-o repeat themselves persistently. But even Yūjō himself did not recognise any limit to his range of motives, and, as has been already seen, he and his descendants must undoubtedly be credited with having opened a new vista to their art. The Nara school was the next link in the chain of evolution. Faithful to the fashions of the era in which it had its birth, it made a still wider departure from the classical style than the Goto experts had attempted, and drew its inspiration from the Kano and the Tosa schools only, combining the strength, realism, and softness of the former with the decorative splendour of the latter. The Yokoya masters went a step farther. It is true that they may be said to have revived the Chinese spirit, since linear force, directness, and vitality became, in their hands, paramount elements of glyptic skill. But in that respect they stand to their own branch of art as the Kano painters stood to theirs; if they followed the technical methods of the Chinese school, they derived their motives chiefly from Japanese life and annals. Side by side with the Yokoya masters, and in many respects closely connected with them, the Yanagawa, Kikuoka, Kikuchi, Yoshioka, and Kikugawa families produced works which correspond with the pictures of the naturalistic school of Kyōtō, the Shijo academy, which had its greatest representative in Maruyama Okio. Then finally came the four families forming the popular school, the Omori, the Hamano, the Iwamoto, and the Ishiguro, to whom Gotō Ichijo must be added as an unsurpassed master of their style. It is difficult to convey in words any general idea of the luxury of decoration, delicacy of chiselling, poetry of motive, and, withal, simplicity of subject exhibited in the masterpieces of experts like Omori Teruhide, Iwamoto Konkwan, Hamano Noriyuki, Ishiguro Masatsune, and many of their disciples and followers, as well as their contemporary artists of the naturalistic school. Perhaps the best plan is to describe briefly a few specimens which may be regarded as fairly illustrative. Here, for example, is a kozuka by Ishiguro Koreyoshi. The metal is shibuichi and the ends are tipped with gold. It may be noted, en passant, that many of the finest kozuka produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have their ends and backs of gold, though the face is shakudo, shibuichi, or even copper. The kozuka in question is made throughout of shibuichi, except the gold-shod ends, but the back is richly inlaid with gold in the style called kiribaku (cut leaf); that is to say, tiny squares of gold are scattered evenly over the whole field. On the face is chiselled, in high relief, a hawk which has just lighted among the branches of a blossoming plum, and in the distance a sparrow is seen flying away. The hawk's grey plumage is excellently suggested by the patina of the shibuichi, and its feathers and crest are etched with a delicate damascening of gold. The plum blossoms are softly chiselled in silver, and the sparrow's russet colour is well rendered by the copper in which it is modelled. The reverse has this couplet engraved in cursive script:—
Gone to his death;
Tears for his tomb.
Yet from his bier
Stealeth spring's breath
Of wafted plum."[1]
Here, again, are two kozuka by Gotō Ichijo. The first is of copper backed with gold. On the face, beautifully modelled in medium relief, are two golden mummers of the New Year, dancing, instinct with life, and above their heads the conventional decorations of the season hang, incised. On the back these lines are engraved:—
Their gems of joy. Once more in truth
The jewel of a year's new birth,
Flashes the light of laughing youth
From fount and well. Each quickened tree
Gives pledge of leafy luxury.
A myriad signs of gladsome springs
And years untouched by pain or ruth
For you, my prince, this sunrise brings."
The second kozuka is of shakudo, wrought on both faces with fine-grained nanako. The design, chiselled in low relief and painted,—no other term applies to the skill of the manipulation,—painted with gold, silver, and bronze, is the rustic gate of a country cottage, overhung by pine-trees, and standing among feathery grasses of autumn. The tender restfulness of the picture is delightful. On the back are these lines:—
Beyond the reach of withering years,
Beyond the sound of falling tears,
To skies spring sunshine always fills
The music of our love notes thrills,
Through the linked branches of the pine."[2]
Reference may finally be made to a kozuka and a kōgai chiselled by Watanabe Hisamitsu, a prominent representative of the popular school. Here the designs correspond exactly with pictures by Kiyonaga or Utamaro. On the copper face of the kozuka, chiselled in relief, is the celebrated "lady of the green hall," Takao. She is magnificently apparelled, and gold, shakudo, silver, and shibuichi are used with the most refined skill to indicate the rich brocades and crêpes that she wears. On the kōgai the same courtesan is shown in gentle dalliance with the ascetic Daruma. The backs of the kozuka and kōgai alike are of shibuichi, carrying the following inscriptions:—
Buddha sells doctrine. The expounder sells Buddha. The priest sells the expounder. You sell your five feet of body to nurture the lusts of humanity. Green is the willow; crimson the flower; many-coloured the ways of the world."
"A thousand nights, a thousand eves,
The soft moon sails the lake above;
No trace of her caresses leaves,
In the cold depths no ray of love."
In this century the Hirata family—spoken of already as the first to employ vitrifiable enamels in the decoration of sword-mounts—had its greatest master in the person of Harunari. One of his pupils, Uchino Harutoshi (art name, Ichigenshi), was scarcely less celebrated, and four others helped, in a lesser degree, to perpetuate his fame. Later in the century Yedo produced an artist of the very highest skill, Kano Natsuo. He worked from 1850 to 1895, and certainly deserves to be called one of the most admirable chisellers of incised designs that Japan has known in any era. Natsuo learned the art, from Aoka Harutsura, of Kyōtō, himself a skilled expert; and Harutsura's teacher, Kajutsura, deserves to be mentioned as an exceptionally successful chiseller of insects. Natsuo's early works were chiefly chiselled in medium relief. His range of subjects was wide. He could represent a group of autumn flowers, a spray of plum, or a tiny insect as skilfully as a mythological figure or a historical scene. After fame and prosperity had come to him, he ceased to carve in relief, and confined himself to incised and kata-kiri chiselling, with results of which it would be difficult to write in too laudatory a strain. He did not easily accept an order or make any effort to produce largely. Genuine specimens of his work are therefore rare, and when one comes into the market, it is purchased by Japanese connoisseurs at a great price. Contemporary with Natsuo in the latter's early years was Honjo Yoshitane, of Yedo. He not only chiselled the mounts of swords but also forged their blades, and he is placed by his countrymen in the very foremost rank of artists. Yamagawa Koji, of Kanazawa (in Kaga), was another of the most prominent figures in the nineteenth century. He worked from 1830 to 1877, chiefly in the kebori and kata-kiri styles, and in his later years he received the name of "Kanazawa Sōmin" in recognition of his great abilities.
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 strength of other experts. Their style was chiefly kata-kiri, and in addition to sword-furniture they turned out a quantity of kana-mono, that is to say, minor metal work of all descriptions. These men were all of the highest force.