JAPAN
metal-work worthy to be classed with objects such as the silver altar of the Florence baptistery, the candelabrum of the Milan Cathedral, the mediæval rejas of Spanish churches, and many of the other magnificent achievements of European artists in metal. The two classes of work are not comparable. One might as well place in the same category the dancing maidens of the walls of Herculaneum and the most delicate miniature paintings on ivory. It has, indeed, been asserted that the extraordinary labour of mind and hand lavished by the Japanese artist upon objects the biggest of which can be enclosed within a circle three inches in diameter, justifies the criticism that he belonged to a nation great in little things and little in great things. But if the Japanese sculptor of sword-furniture is to be accused of moral smallness because he applied himself to the production of tiny ornaments, the same charge may be preferred against Benvenuto Cellini, since so much of his fame rests on his enamelled jewelry. Whatever quality of mind the fact indicates, it is indisputable that the Japanese artist or art-artisan is the most conscientious in the world. He loves to expend the finest and most patient effort upon the least conspicuous portions of the object he ornaments, partly because loyalty to his art dictates such a sacrifice of labour, and partly because he thus enters a kind of noble protest against any suspicion of decorative ostentation which the beauty and richness of his work might otherwise suggest. That habit of craftsmanship is well illustrated in sword-furniture. The delicacy of chiselling and infinitely careful finish betowed on every detail delight the connoisseur as much as they astonish him. Admirable as is the netsuke-carver's work, the art of
208
