JAPAN
Until its closing years the sixteenth century showed no marked progress in the process of lacquer production, a fact doubtless attributable in the main to the exceedingly disturbed state of the Empire. But when the Taikō had restored peace, and had inaugurated the fashion of lavishing all the resources of applied art on the interior decoration of castles and temples, the services of the lacquerer were employed to an extent hitherto unknown, and there resulted some very fine work on friezes, coffered ceilings, door-panels, altar-pieces, and reliquaries. At first, when, tranquillity having been established, the lacquer experts returned to Kyōtō from their retreats in the provinces, specimens produced by them showed defects of technique, and came to be classed for that reason under the name of Karasumaru-mono, Karasumaru being the locality of their manufacture. But the rapidly growing demand for fine work in architectural decoration soon raised the standard of skill, and all the processes of the Higashi-yama era were employed with newly added graces of design and excellency of finish. Surviving specimens do not indicate that decoration in the taka-makiye style (relief) was largely practised. The taste of the time found more faithful expression in a new fashion introduced by Anami Kwōyetsu (1590–1637), of which the characteristic features were remarkable boldness of decorative design, free use of conventionalised forms, and the employment of gold, silver, lead, and mother-of-pearl in solid masses. This style received fuller development at the hands of Ogata Kwōrin, who is accounted one of the greatest decorative artists of the seventeenth century. It must be confessed, however, that the mannerisms of Kwōrin are not always pleasing. His conventionalisms sometimes
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