SWORD-FURNITURE
and devoted himself to machi-bori (literally, street carving), or working to general order. This step seems to have been inspired by pure pride of art: he desired to establish an entirely independent reputation for himself, and to owe nothing to the reputation of his family. Like Gotō Yūjō, who had obtained designs from the great painter Kano Motonobu, Sōmin sought assistance from two artists famous in his time and in all time, Tanyū and Hanabusa Itcho. His reproductions of the drawings of these masters by the kata-kiri and kebori processes were so admirable and striking that the public unanimously gave him the credit of having originated the "engraved pictorial style" (yefū kebori), though the conception of such work undoubtedly came from his grandfather Sōyo and was adopted by his father Sōchi. It is difficult to speak too highly of Sōmin's chiselling. There is life in everything that he produced. A spray of peony carved by him contrasts with similar work by other artists as a real blossom contrasts with a paper flower. Accurate examination of his floral work shows that the style of the petal and leaf carving is essentially his own, but that his stalks and branches combine the methods of the Goto and Soyo schools. Sōmin often worked in silver, especially in chiselling kozuka. It may be mentioned here that from the days of the early Goto masters it became a common custom to give a backing of pure gold to kozuka of high quality. Sōmin's work has always been so much valued by Japanese connoisseurs that few genuine specimens seem to have passed into foreign hands. A noble example was lately sold by the principal art auctioneers in London, but so little did they appreciate it that they grouped it with several ordinary
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