Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 7/Chapter 3
Chapter III
JAPANESE APPLIED ART (Continued)
Second Period — From the Ninth to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century
With the transfer of the capital from Nara to Kyōtō, at the close of the eighth century, began the Heian epoch, marked at the outset by the founding of large monasteries, especially those of Hiyei and Koya, and by the spread of esoteric Buddhism. This was the time when the Tang dynasty of China, ruling an empire that touched the boundaries of Persia and included Korea, Mongolia, and Tartary, developed a civilisation such as Asia had never previously witnessed in historical eras, and furnished models of literature, art, and administration which the eclectic genius of Japan was not slow to adopt. Yet the early part of the epoch did not produce any remarkable sculptures. The tendency of the artist was to devote attention solely to the ensemble of his statues, and to sacrifice accuracy of form on the altar of idealism. Japanese connoisseurs ascribe this tendency to the influence of esoteric Buddhism. Sculpture, they say, falling entirely into the hands of the priests or passing under their control, aimed uniquely at giving outward expression to the moral attributes associated with each divinity, and paid little attention to anatomical accuracy or technical excellence. Thus the ninth century and a great part of the tenth are distinguished as a period of amateur work, when religious zealots, insufficiently instructed in the art of sculpture, modelled statues with majestic and beautiful faces, but neglected truth of proportion and decorative accessories. Emergence from that imperfect conception of artistic purpose was due to Kōshō, who worked at the close of the tenth century, and above all to his son Jōchō, whose genius made the beginning of the eleventh century one of the most notable epochs of Japanese sculpture. There is a curious resemblance at this point between the history of pictorial art and that of sculpture in Japan. In the former, Kawanari, the immediate predecessor of Kanaoka, figures as a great painter, the first really great painter of his country, and the originator of an art impulse which culminated, some sixty years later, in the celebrated Kanaoka. But none of Kawanari's typical pictures survive, and Kanaoka's skill also is known by tradition only. So in sculpture the annals speak of Kōshō as the leader of a renaissance carried to a high altitude immediately afterward by Jōchō. But there are no specimens of Kōshō's work, and the greatest of Jōchō's perished almost immediately after their completion. What these men achieved for art was to add virility to the idealism of their immediate predecessors, and to insist upon accuracy of proportion, skill in the use of the chisel and the attainment of decorative effect. Living in a time of excessive refinement and voluptuousness, their style necessarily reflected something of this mood. Thus the bodies of their figures are full, and the contours rounded; the faces are circular rather than oval, the eyebrows are finely pencilled, and the folds of the drapery soft and flowing. It remained for the sculptors of a later era to rescue the art from these traces of effeminacy and carry it to its point of culmination. To Jōchō and his school, however, belongs the credit of having clearly indicated the route along which their country's artists were to travel to greatness. Of the kind of work that Jōchō was privileged to execute an idea is furnished by annals describing the temple Hōjō-ji, built by the celebrated Fujiwara Regent Michinaga. Upon the statues for that edifice, unfortunately destroyed by fire thirty-seven years after its completion, Jōchō expended the efforts of a lifetime. The principal idol, an effigy of Dainichi Nyorai sitting upon a hundred-petalled lotus, measured thirty-two feet in height; and grouped about it were a Shaka, twenty feet high, and numerous other figures nine feet in height. All these were in wood covered with gilding. In each of the five great halls stood a Fudo, twenty feet high, and four statues of Taison, sixteen feet in height. In the Amida hall were nine gilded statues of Mida, each sixteen feet, and the Shaka hall was peopled by a hundred effigies of the Buddha. There was, indeed, no lack of employment for the religious sculptors of that superstitious era. The four Emperors Shirakawa, Horikawa, Toba, and Shutoku (1071 to 1141) built six great and many small temples, and the sculptors Ensei, Chōen, Inkaku, Kenyen, Kōjō, and Incho filled them with statues. But it will readily be conceived by any student of Japanese history that art could not escape the influences which carried society to the extreme of sensuous luxury in the closing years of the Fujiwara epoch. By degrees the sculptor, abandoning the virile style of the Jōchō school, made delicacy and refinement his chief aims, and by excessive striving after grace, fell into effeminacy and pettiness. To his demons as well as to his divinities he gave a mien soft as that of an infant, delicate as that of a woman, and even his monsters looked benign and gentle. Following also the example of the Sung artists of China, he sought extreme elaboration of detail and magnificence of decoration, so that some of his effigies became dazzling coruscations of gold and gems. The contrast between Jōchō's style and that of the artists at the close of the Fujiwara (or Heian) epoch is well illustrated by the great sculptor's statues of the Four Deva Kings, preserved in the Hokuyendō at Nara, and the Senju Kwannon (many-handed Kwannon) preserved in the temple Chōmei-ji.
Kōshō, Jōchō, and their descendants and chief pupils are generally known as the "Nara Busshi," or "Buddhist sculptors of Nara," though they lived in Kyōtō, and though most of their best work was executed for temples in Kyōtō or in localities remote from Nara. They are also spoken of as "Masamune no Busshi," the prefix "Masamune" being intended to indicate that they exhibited as sculptors talent not inferior to that of Masamune as a swordsmith. The names of the best-remembered sculptors of the Heian epoch are:—
780 to 950
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Kōun priest). | ||
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Kōbō Daishi (priest). | ||
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Dengyō Daishi (priest). | ||
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Shishō Daishi (priest). |
960 to 1185
|
960 | ||
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970 |
| Kōshō (987–1011). | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jōchō. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kakujō. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Raijo. | Injo. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kojo. | Inkaku. | Inchō. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Kōchō. | Insōn. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
N. B.—Jōchō received the art title of Hōkyō (bridge of the law), being the first sculptor to be so honoured. His most illustrious descendants had the same title. They worked in the Seventh Avenue (Shichijō) of Kyōtō, and were consequently termed the "Seventh Avenue Academy."
| Seichō. | |||||||||||
| Chōsei (pupil of Seicho). | |||||||||||
| Ensei. | |||||||||||
| Chuen. | Chōen. | Kenyen. | |||||||||
| Chōshun. | |||||||||||
N. B.—Chōsei had the art title of Hōin. He and his descendants worked in the Third Avenue (Sanjō) of Kyōtō, and were called the "Third Avenue Academy."
Ganku (priest).Myojun (priest).
From the time of the establishment of military feudalism (1192) by Yoritomo at Kamakura until the days (1580) of Hideyoshi, an interval of nearly four centuries, may be regarded as the Kamakura epoch from the point of view of the sculptor's art, and may also be regarded not only as the greatest period of the art, but also as the final era of vigorous originality in religious sculpture. The greatest masters of the time are generally said to have been Kwaikei and his pupil Unkei, but undoubtedly the finest surviving specimen of sculpture in wood is from the chisel of Jokaku, a pupil of Unkei, and among all Japanese sacred effigies in bronze, the noblest and most majestic is the Dai-Butsu of Kamakura, modelled and cast by Ono Goroyemon in the year 1252. When Kwaikei and Unkei began to work, the samurai had become the nation's type of admirable manhood, the bushido was regarded as comprising all the canons of chivalrous morality, and the doctrines of the Zen sect of Buddhism had been accepted by the educated classes as the philosophy of irreproachable life. These facts are illustrated by the works of the era. The round, sleek shapes of the Jōchō school are replaced by nervous, energetic forms instinct with strong, martial vitality. The sculptor, knowing nothing more worthy of imitation than a stalwart soldier, goes to human life for inspiration, and models the muscles and contours of his statues with unprecedented anatomical fidelity. Every stroke of the chisel bites deep and direct. The drapery is simple. The attitudes are carefully studied. The faces are profoundly expressive. For the first time strict rules are elaborated, and are so carefully followed in determining proportions that this feature alone suffices to differentiate the school from all its predecessors.
It is only within recent times that exhaustive researches and intelligent criticism have accomplished a clear classification of many great sculptures which for centuries stood comparatively neglected at Nara and elsewhere. As a striking illustration of the confusion previously prevailing, the case may be quoted of two magnificent life-size statues in wood preserved at the temple of Kofuku-ji. The subjects are Brama and Indra, the Deva Kings (Ni-ō). These deities are usually placed in niches flanking the outer gate of Buddhist temples which they are supposed to guard. The sculptor's constant aim is to give prominence to the fierce energy, implacable resolve, and superhuman strength which are the chief attributes of the demon-quelling guardians, and the success achieved in the Kofuku-ji figures is unequivocal. Time has almost completely obliterated the pigment[1] that once covered them, and has produced other defacements, so that the images now present a battered and mutilated appearance. But nothing could destroy the grandeur of their proportions or impair the majesty and dignity of their pose. Their anatomy is perfect, and had they emerged from the ruins of some Grecian city, they would be known and admired by every Western student of art. These statues have hitherto been attributed to a nameless Korean immigrant sculptor at the beginning of the seventh century, and they are still so attributed by more than one standard author. If such an identification were admitted, hopeless confusion would be introduced into the whole history of Japanese sculpture. Work which is essentially Japanese and which unmistakably proclaims itself to be of the Unkei school in the thirteenth century, would become that of a Korean artist seven hundred years earlier, and it would be necessary to admit that, by some inexplicable freak of fate, a Korean visiting Japan at a time when sculpture in Korea, Japan, and China was still in its infancy, produced a masterpiece unapproached by any Korean or Chinese worker in any era, and presenting all the most obviously characteristic features of the best school of Japanese sculpture in the thirteenth century. There is no occasion to do such violence to reason and history. The figures are from the chisel of Jōkaku, a pupil of Unkei. Two other statues of Deva Kings may be instructively examined side by side with Jokaku's masterpiece. They are colossal images twenty-six and one-half feet high, which stand beside the gate of Tōdai-ji. Awe-inspiring and stupendous, they have been taken by nearly all subsequent sculptors as a classical type of the Two Guardians, and they well deserve that distinction. But the exaggerations which the artists (Unkei and Kwaikei) have resorted to in order to emphasise special attributes reduce the figures to a lower plane of achievement than the supreme eminence on which Jōkaku's Devas stand. The "Watch Dogs" of Tamuke-yama shrine are another example of Tōkei's bold imagination and powerful chisel. His conception of these superhuman animals is at once original and grand. Kōkei, a contemporary of Kwaikei and Unkei, left some works which are particularly interesting as examples of the realistic spirit animating the artists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the great care which they bestowed on all the accessory details of their sculpture. Kōben's "Demon-lantern-bearers" of Kofuku-ji are justly celebrated, and side by side with the savage perplexity of one imp and the vacuous stolidity of the other, may be placed a statue of Monjushiri, dating also from the thirteenth century, which, as a type of serene and contemplative benevolence, ranks not far below the Kamakura Dai-Butsu. This last magnificent specimen of religious sculpture is among the first objects towards which the traveller turns his feet on arriving in Japan, and perhaps among all the charmed impressions he carries away from that fair country, none survives longer than his memory of the majestic benignity and ineffable repose breathed by the noble statue.
Outside the sphere of purely supernatural motives, the Japanese religious gallery contains some sculptures which may be justly compared with the celebrated busts of Perikles, of Homer, of Sophokles, and other famous men of old. Not that there ever was such a thing as a bust among Japanese sculptures. That curious outcome of Roman practicality would have greatly offended Japanese taste. Yet the sculptures here spoken of may be compared to the bust in one respect, namely, that they derive their characteristics chiefly from the face. Such works are Unkei's statue of Vimala-Kirtsi Japanese Yuima, a contemporary of Gautama; the figures of Muchaku and Seshin in the Kofuku-ji at Nara, the statue of Seitaka-dōji at Hozan-ji, and a few others. These are not likeness effigies, though their remarkable realism suggests that idea. It is possible that the artists were assisted by Chinese pictures, but however that may be, these sculptures compel admiration as great creations of art. The supernatural endowment of the soul within, the almost divine characteristics of these immortal teachers and preachers of Buddhist mysteries, are here eloquently revealed by some subtlety of the sculptor's art which speaks of the men's achievements and not merely of their personality. Unfortunately such works are very rare in Japan. Of likeness effigies there are several, but ideal creations of art outside the domain of deities and demigods are exceedingly few, and the excellence of those that exist render this paucity the more regrettable.
Portrait statues, in the Roman sense of the term, do not seem to have suggested themselves to the Japanese sculptor. He chiselled a few likeness effigies of celebrated personages—founders of sects or temples, renowned warriors and great administrators—and some of this work shows the suggestiveness that distinguishes refined sculpture from mere accuracy of imitation. But the likeness effigy was not for the purpose of setting up in public. It was hidden away in a mausoleum or a shrine.[2]
From the fourteenth century a strong tendency to substitute elaboration for idealism made itself apparent. The sculptor, while preserving something of the serenity of the Jōchō school, lost the vigour, energy, and austerity of the Unkei ideal, and wasted his strength upon an infinity of ornamentation executed with the utmost delicacy. He reverted also to the graceless dumpiness of the early workers, and sought vainly to compensate this radical fault by such artifices as elongated drapery and innumerable pendants. A fourteenth-century statue of the Eleven-faced Kwannon preserved at a temple in Kyōtō illustrates this depraved style. From the fifteenth century commenced the custom of covering religious statues with lacquer carrying magnificent decoration in gold. Independently of the principal images perpetually exposed to public gaze in temples, there had always been preserved minor statuettes enclosed in shrines called zushi, or butsugan. These shrines and the images they enclosed now became objects of great splendour and beauty, the exterior of the receptacle richly lacquered, its hinges and metal mountings elaborately chased, its interior refulgent with gold foil and profuse carving, while the statuette itself, mounted on a delicately sculptured pedestal, sometimes offered a contrast of plain white wood or dark bronze, and sometimes outshone the shrine in grandeur.[3]
The names of the most eminent sculptors from the end of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth are as follows:—
SEVENTH AVENUE, OR WESTERN SCHOOL
From the End of the Twelfth to the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century
Kwaikei, Kōkei (teacher of Unkei), Kaikei, Unkei (son of Kaikei), Tōkei (son of Unkei), Jokaku (pupil of Unkei), Koun (priest), Kanyen (son of Koun), Kōben, Kōshō, Kōyō, Kōson, Kōyu.
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Kōshun (thirteenth in descent from Jōchō), Kōyei (son of Kōshun), Kōtan (son of Kōyei), Kōkitsu (son of Kōtan), Kōyei (son of Kōkitsu), Kōshin (son of Kōyei) Kōrin (son of Kōshin).
THIRD AVENUE, OR EASTERN SCHOOL
From the End of the Twelfth to the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century
Jōyen, Senyen, Inko, Injin, Inbo, Inken, Inku, Inso, Inshu, Injo, Inchu, Inyu, Unga, Unshō.
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Shunkei (priest), Rwaiken, Eiyen, Kōshū (son of Kōrin of the Western School), Kōsei (son of Kōshū), Kōsei (son of Kōsei).
N. B. Many of the above artists had titles bestowed on them in recognition of their skill. Such titles were Hōgen (eye of the law), Hoin (sign of the law), and Hōkyo (bridge of the law).
The vast majority of the glyptic works executed in early and mediæval times were intended for temples. The same remark applies, as already seen, to pictorial art, but in the case of sculpture it may be illustrated by reference to historical records. Thus, in the reign of the Emperor Shirakawa—eleventh century—three thousand sacred images were ordered by his Majesty for enshrining in temples; in the thirteenth century the Emperor Kameyama placed thirty-three thousand images in the Sanjusangendo in Kyōtō, namely, a thousand figures of the Goddess of Mercy (Kwannon), each five feet high, with thirty-two thousand smaller effigies mounted on the foreheads, hands, and halos of the larger figures; and in the seventeenth century, the Shōgun Hidetada issued an edict requiring that every household throughout the land must possess a Buddhist image. Several times, too, in the annals of early eras, references occur as to scarcity of the precious metals—among which copper was included—owing to extravagant piety on the part of sovereigns and nobles, who did not hesitate to throw vast quantities of coin into the melting-pot when the service of heaven called for such sacrifices. From the twelfth century, however, wood became the material commonly used for statues. They were usually covered with gold foil, and it is easy to conceive the magnificently imposing effect produced by such a concourse of gilded images as those of the Sanjusangen-do; a forest of glittering figures, rising tier upon tier in the solemn obscurity of a vast hall, three hundred and eighty-nine feet long and fifty-seven feet high. Of course this lavish multiplicity of production could not fail to stifle originality of conception. Where the object was to inspire awe by means of a countless concourse of deities, it would have been essentially faulty art that certain figures should detach themselves saliently from the phalanx. Thus, although the names of such celebrated sculptors as Unkei, Kōkei, Shichijō, and Kōyei are associated with the carving of the principal images in the Sanjusangen-do, it cannot be said that any of the effigies stand on a high plane of glyptic art. No two are precisely alike. The sculptors were careful that each should be invested with sufficient individuality to avert the impression of mere iteration. But beyond that feat, which is achieved chiefly by mechanical means,—diverse arrangement of the figures' hands and of the emblems held in them,—there is nothing to relieve the monotony of type and execution.
In Europe and America there is a general tendency to dismiss the ancient sculpture of the East, including that of Japan, as barbaric in character, without any sentiment of idealism and with little or no regard for material beauty. A high place is indeed conceded to Japanese decorative sculpture, but it is held that in the more important branch of the art she never emerged from the barbaric or indigenous stage. That verdict must surely be based on ignorance of the work done by Japan's ancient and mediæval sculptors; ignorance not at all surprising when it is remembered how inaccessible are representative examples of her art and how few have made any serious attempt to study them.
It has been shown above that sculpture owed its origin in Japan to Buddhist influence. Whatever preceded the advent of Buddhism was too crude to deserve consideration. Buddhism came to Japan from India through China. The art of sculpture that it brought to China in its train did not receive any notable development in the latter country. It retained its Indian characteristics. The style was semi-barbaric; symbolism took the place of idealism; the power and attributes of divinity were expressed by distortions of the human figure or by colossal dimensions, and statuary never assumed shapes of beauty. The motives of the art were purely religious. It was an agent for enforcing a supernatural creed, not a medium for producing types of beauty.
In Japan, on the contrary, the art made great advances, but without any material change of direction. The sculptor rose to much higher ideals, but his types remained the same. He continued to be bound by a rule which naturally grew out of such a system,—the rule that all essentially human features should be avoided as far as possible. The influence of that rule was radical. It created at once an essential difference between the object of sculpture as conceived in Greece and endorsed in Europe, and its object as pursued in the East. The Grecian sculptor kept the beautiful always in view. Whatever elements of beauty and symmetry were discernible in the human form, these he sought to combine for the creation of his divine ideal. But the Japanese sculptor had nothing to do with beauty. His aim was to represent certain attributes which are virtually independent of graces of form, being essentially intellectual. What a statue of the Buddha has to suggest is majestic serenity and eternal, passionless repose. Something of that idea may be contributed by the posture of the limbs, but nothing by a display of nude symmetry. It is not possible to tell how Pheidias would have sculptured a Buddha had the task been assigned to him, but neither his chryselephantine Zeus nor the Jupiter of the Vatican suggests that any Grecian or Roman artist could have produced a figure expressing more perfectly the attributes of Buddha than they are expressed by the Dai-Butsu of Kamakura. If this noble figure be examined closely, a combination of Egyptian and Grecian elements is found. It has the colossal size of Egyptian statues, and it exhibits also plain evidences of attention to the perpendicular and horizontal lines suggestive of eternal stability. On the other hand, the graceful beauty of the contours and the harmonious flow of the drapery belong to the domain of Grecian rather than of Oriental art. Still more characteristic is the Japanese sculptor's manner of representing Kwannon (Kwan-yin), the Deity of Mercy. The traits to be emphasised are limitless benevolence, a spirit elevated beyond the range of any ignoble sentiment, and profound sympathy guaranteed against anxious emotion by assurance of omnipotence to save. That combination of traits is scarcely conceivable in either male or female of the human species. Therefore the Kwannon of the Japanese sculptor does not seem to belong to either sex. It has the gentle graciousness of a woman, the placid resolution of a man, and the ineffable purity of a sexless being.
Human intelligence has never conceived an intelligent, sentient being in any shape other than human. The gods and goddesses of the Greek sculptor were merely perfected types of human beauty, and the logic of his canon is easily appreciated. The Japanese sculptor, however, conceived for his deities countenances which, though in no sense repellent or unnatural, do not conform with the ordinary attributes of comeliness. The chief point of divergence is an enforcement of the line of the eyebrow. It is in the countenance that nature shows special beauties of profile, and one of the most graceful is the curve of the eyebrow, which is often so finely treated in Greek statues. This the Japanese sculptor emphasised, so that while its grace of form was much enhanced, the face received an etherealised expression, removing it from the normal human type. His treatment of the ear constituted another distinction. Appreciating the potentialities of its elaborate conjunction of curves, he exaggerated them, as in the case of the eyebrow, and thus produced a feature which helped materially to differentiate the face. In short, his interpretation of the aspect of divinity was to give salience to those elements of the countenance which, in his opinion, distinguished it specially from the animal type. Another point in which his method differed from that of the Greeks was that whereas the latter avoided any expression of emotion, since it interfered with the repose and dignity of their ideal, the Japanese sculptor frankly represented, and even emphasised, the emotions by which his semi-divinities were supposed to be animated. His figures of the Deva Kings are conspicuous examples. Not merely the expression of their faces, but also every limb and every muscle is instinct with fierce energy and implacable purpose. Such works, though splendidly vigorous and imposing, are not "beautiful" in the Grecian sense of the term, and consequently find no parallels in Grecian sculpture. But it is surely extravagant to allege that they sin against the principles of glyptic art. If Grecian masterpieces suggest that all violent expression should be excluded from the province of sculpture, and that where truth cannot be combined with beauty the former must be subordinated to the latter, does it follow that the canon is final and conclusive? An answer seems to be furnished at once by some of the Japanese sculptor's representations of the Deva Kings, the Four Maharajas, the deities of thunder and storm, and other cognate creations. These statues do not satisfy the standard of classical beauty, but they command profound admiration, and just as perfect Grecian sculpture is an ideal combination of all the highest elements of beauty presented by the human form, so these Japanese sculptures are ideal combinations of all the qualities that typify superhuman strength, resolution, and supremacy. They are great works, not to be excluded from the art gallery because they depart from classic conventionalism, but rather to be admitted as proofs that the convention is not final.
Such works prepare the student to find that the duty of subordinating truth to beauty did not impel the Japanese sculptor to invent graceful or picturesque representatives of human passions and excesses. Instead of devising Satyrs, Nymphs, Fauns, Centaurs, Mænads, and so forth, to typify the lower instincts of humanity, he interpreted the spirit of vice and mischief as an ugly demon, not indeed as hideous as the Satan of Christian art but still a monster. It is scarcely credible that even the Greeks, though shrinking from everything repulsive, would have failed to sculpture a devil had they believed that the doomed are tortured and that their sufferings are superintended by such a being. But since they entertained no such belief, since their conception of the eternal consequences of sin was very trivial, there is no reason to infer that they excluded the demon from their art gallery merely because his ugliness disqualified him for admission. The truth is that they never conceived him. Buddhism, however, introduced a devil to Japan with appropriate furniture of horns, claws, and fangs. But he did not find a place in the gallery of sacred sculpture, nor did any of the celebrated artists of ancient or mediæval Japan attempt to chisel a demon, if the deities of thunder and tempest, who are certainly demoniacal types, and the impish lantern-bearers of Kasuga, be excepted. On the other hand, if the devil's place in Japanese sacred sculpture was almost as rare as that of the Harpies in Grecian art, it is not to be assumed that he was ostracised because of his ugliness. He figures prominently in Japanese secular carving, which dates from a later epoch, and there can be no question that in the eyes of the Japanese his ugliness had a beauty of its own, as indeed all fully developed types have.
Nevertheless it is necessary to conclude that, on the whole, the range of the art sculptor in Japan was narrow. He was the exponent of a system of religious belief rather than of the heroic and the pathetic in humanity. He had no rich source of motives like that wide domain peopled by Grecian imagination with mythological heroes and heroines, with Dryads and Hamadryads, with Nymphs and Fauns, with Naiads and Nereids, with Satyrs, Centaurs, and Minotaurs, representatives of noble and tender fancies or picturesque vices. In the field of minor sculpture—netsuke and sword-furniture—he drew from a large repertoire of motives; from the pages of history, of legend, of folk-lore, and of every-day life. But such work dates from a comparatively late period. In all his early and mediæval sculpture the types were few, and his treatment of them ultimately became conventional and uninteresting. This requires a word of explanation. At first sight it seems as though the large population of the Buddhist and Shintō pantheons should have furnished practically unlimited motives. The Indian creed with its broad liberality of eclecticism, and Taoism with its numerous excursions into elf-land and gnome-kingdom, appear to offer a mine sufficiently rich for any artist. But religion made from these a strict selection, and prescribed almost invariable methods of treatment. The Nine Phases of Amitabha, for example, a formula suggesting varied developments, signifies, after all, nothing more than nine images distinguished solely by the positions of their hands and fingers. The legion of genii that exercise supernatural power in mystic regions of space appear to invite an endless play of poetic and artistic fancy. But their orthodox representatives, whether in painting or sculpture, are generally paltry in conception and disappointingly deficient in the dignity of apotheosis. It fared with the sculptors of Japan as it had fared with those of Byzantium. Bound by conventions which religion, not art, dictated, and which superstition enforced, they did not venture to follow ideals of their own, or to introduce strongly subjective elements into their work.
It will further be observed that the cardinal point of difference between Japanese and Grecian methods was that in Japan the divine nature was never allied with the human form, and thus the attributes of the former found no expression in the beauties of the latter. Japanese deities were always draped wholly or partially. The Deva Kings and demoniacal beings in general had much of the body exposed, because a display of muscular force entered into the artistic conception of such statues. But a nude Buddha or a nude Kwannon would have been an intolerable solecism in Japanese eyes. The peculiar conditions that directed artistic attention in Greece to the graces of the human form did not exist in Japan, where exposure of the person was permitted to the lower orders only, and then for purposes of toilsome labour or ablutions. That the nude should be tabooed in art under such circumstances was inevitable.
Before continuing the story of the development of sculpture, it will be well to speak briefly of the physical character of Japanese bronze, and of the methods adopted in modelling and casting.
"Bronze" is known in Japan as kara-kane (Chinese metal), a term clearly indicating the source whence a knowledge of the alloy was derived. It is a copper-tin-lead compound, the proportions of its constituents varying from seventy-two to eighty-eight per cent of copper, from two to eight per cent of tin, and from four to twenty per cent of lead. It also contains small quantities of arsenic and antimony, as well as zinc, varying from a trace to as much as six per cent. There is a tradition that some ancient bronzes had a considerable admixture of gold, but no analysis has showed more than an occasional trace of the precious metal, and not more than two per cent of silver has ever been found. Lead was excluded from bronze destined for the manufacture of swords and other weapons in which strength and hardness were essential, but it always found a place in bronze intended for artistic castings. An interesting fact is that the ancient bronzes of Egypt, Rome, and Greece were alloys in which the principal constituents varied similarly, though these Occidental bronzes differed from the Japanese in being entirely free from arsenic and antimony. It must not be assumed, however, that the presence of the latter metals in Japanese bronze of later times was due to defective processes, whatever may have been the case formerly. The cause is to be sought in the addition of a pseudo-spiese (called shirome); an alloy of copper, arsenic, lead, and antimony, obtained as a by-product in separating silver from copper by liquation with lead, a process introduced into Japan by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, but subsequently altered by the Japanese so that "the results achieved with it far surpassed in economy and in completeness of separation of the respective metals anything that had been accomplished in its original form."[4] Alone shirome is worthless, but the Japanese discovered that by employing it as a constituent of bronze, the latter obtained greater hardness without impairment of fusibility, so that it took a sharper impression of the mould. From the early part of the seventeenth century shirome was constantly added to bronze destined for ornamental or useful castings, since, in addition to the advantages mentioned above, it facilitated the production of a deep gray patina, which was thought specially suitable for silver inlaying. Competent experts have decided that Japanese bronze is eminently adapted for art castings, not only because of its low melting-point, great fluidity, and capacity for taking sharp impressions, but also because it has a particularly smooth surface and readily acquires a rich patina.
Concerning the quality of Japanese bronze, Mr. W. Gowland, in a paper read before the Applied Art Section of the Society of Arts, makes the following interesting remarks:—
The chief characters on which the value of the Japanese copper-tin-lead alloys, as art bronzes, depend, may be briefly stated as follows:—
1. Low melting-point. This is of especial importance to the Japanese founder, owing to the fusible nature of the clays and sands of which his crucibles and moulds are made.
2. Great fluidity when melted compared with the sluggishness of copper-tin bronzes.
3. Capability of receiving sharp impression of the mould.
4. Their contraction on solidification is not excessive.
5. Their peculiar smooth surface.
6. The readiness with which they acquire rich patinas of many tints when suitably treated.
The advantages resulting from the above properties will be obvious to all artists in bronze. They are chiefly the result of the use of lead as one of the chief constituents of the alloys. The low melting-point of these bronzes, their fluidity when melted, and the facility with which they acquire certain patinas are indeed entirely due to the use of this metal. The fine velvety surface and sharpness of the castings depend in a great measure on the structure of the mould and its comparatively high temperature when the bronze is poured into it, although partly also on the influence of the lead. These alloys are, however, not without some disadvantageous properties, and these are also due to the lead which they contain. They are often low in tenacity, and offer but little resistance to bending and torsion when compared with simple copper-tin bronzes, even when they contain sufficient tin to enable them to hold more lead in solution than they would otherwise do. Their use is hence almost limited to the production of objects of art. And even for those art castings, such as, for example, large equestrian or other statues, where a considerable strain has to be borne by certain parts, their use is unadvisable. But in most art castings of moderate size—and even in many of colossal proportions, where the position of the centre of gravity of the mass does not cause excessive tension in any part—it is not necessary that the metal of which they are cast should possess great tenacity; for all such, these alloys are eminently adapted, and especially so, as by no others can the work of the artist's hand with all its delicate and masterly touches, be so readily and perfectly reproduced.
The above remarks apply to the ordinary bronze of temple images and utensils. There is also a yellow bronze called sentoku because the first specimen of it reached Japan in the Shuntish (sentoku, in Japanese pronunciation) era of the Ming dynasty. According to Japanese traditions, this alloy was accidentally obtained when the Chinese melted together the bronze and gold vessels of the conquered Mongols. But gold does not enter into the composition at all; the presence of the precious metal is ignorantly imagined because of the golden colour of the alloy. Copper, tin, lead, and zinc, variously mixed by different experts, are the ingredients. Its beautiful golden colour and glossy texture made it a favourite material in some workshops, and it is largely used in modern times. One very charming variety has a surface like aventurine lacquer (nashiji, or "pear ground," as it is called in Japan): that is to say, specks or flecks of gold seem to float up from the depths of the metal. This effect is obtained by heating the alloy many times in the furnace, and sprinkling it while hot with sulphate of copper and nitric acid.
With regard to the method of casting, Mr. Gowland's description of a typical operation witnessed by himself is this:—
The bronze was melted in a cupola furnace. Charcoal was used as fuel, and the blast was produced by a "tatara" (kind of bellows) worked by eight persons.
From an early hour in the morning, and whilst the melting was proceeding, the foundry staff was engaged in preparing the moulds for the reception of the metal by heating them to redness. This was effected in the following manner: The mould was placed on five or six bricks, to raise it above the earthen floor of the melting-room. Its ingates were closed with stoppers of clay, and conical tubes were fitted over its air outlets to prevent any fuel from falling into them. A wall of fireclay slabs was now built up around it, the slabs being kept in position by hoops and bands of iron and an external luting of clay, a space about three inches wide at its narrowest part being left between the inside of the wall and the outside of the mould. A charcoal fire was then made on the floor below the mould, and the space between the wall and the mould was completely filled with burning charcoal which was mixed with fragments of bricks and crucibles to prevent the heat from becoming too intense. The interior of the core was also partly filled with the same mixture, and two clay tubes were fitted above it to serve the purpose of chimneys. The temperature of the interior was regulated by partially or entirely closing the upper openings of these tubes with tiles. The mould was kept at a red heat for more than two hours, by which time the metal was nearly ready. The wall of clay slabs and the draught tubes were now rapidly taken down and the fire was raked away. The bricks supporting the mould were carefully removed and the holes through which the wax had run out stopped up with fireclay. During their removal the floor below was sprinkled with water and softened by shovelling, and on this the mould was allowed to rest. Large stones were now piled around its base to steady it, and the stoppers were removed from the ingates. The ingates, of which there were seven—four about the middle of the mould and three at the top—were fashioned in the form of small cups of fireclay, about two inches in diameter, each having three apertures half-inch in diameter opening into the channel leading into the mould.
The mould was now ready for receiving the metal. On looking into it through one of the ingates it was seen to be at a dull red heat. The bronze was then tapped into four iron ladles, each of which was held by a workman, and a small quantity of wood ashes was thrown upon its surface. The workmen then took up their positions opposite the lower ingates, and on a signal being given poured the contents of their ladles simultaneously into the mould. The quantity of metal had been very accurately estimated as it just reached about half-way up each ingate. These ingates were then closed with clay stoppers luted in with fireclay. Three of the ladles were filled again and poured in the same manner as before, but into the upper ingates, completely filling the mould. During pouring very finely powdered rice bran was thinly sprinkled on the metal as it flowed from the mouths of the ladles. The mould was allowed to stand for six hours before breaking it from off the casting. Several other smaller moulds were then filled in a similar manner, and as one ladleful of metal was sufficient to fill each, they had only one ingate and one air outlet. Whilst the bronze was being poured into them they were rather vigorously tapped with a short stick to dislodge any air bubbles which might have adhered to their sides.
For castings of very large size ladles are not used, but the bronze is run from one or more cupola furnaces, first into a receptacle lined with fireclay, and then from this through an aperture in its bottom into the mould. The outflow is regulated by means of a plug, so that a considerable depth of metal is always retained in the receptacle in order that scoriæ and oxidised scums may be prevented from entering the mould. To prevent oxidation as far as possible, the surface of the metal is kept carefully covered with a layer of charcoal or of partially carbonised straw.
A subsidiary but often necessary part of the founder's work, and one in which the Japanese exhibit very great skill, is the repairing of any defects that the castings may show on their removal from the moulds. Thus, for example, occasionally the rim or other part of a vase may be imperfect, owing to the retention of air in the mould when the metal was poured in. In this case the imperfect part is carefully remodelled in wax on the defective casting, a clay mould is made over it in the usual way, and the wax is melted out. A certain quantity of metal is then poured in and allowed to run out until the edges of the defective part have been partially melted, when the outlet is stopped and the mould allowed to fill. When it has solidified, the clay mould is broken away and the excess of metal filed off.
Handles and ornamental appendages, which have been separately cast, are frequently attached to objects in this manner. Separate parts of complicated groups and often figures are similarly united, and often this is so skilfully done that it is impossible to say whether the whole is a true single casting or is composed of several pieces which have been separately cast.
Rude as the appliances and methods of the Japanese art founder, which I have just described, may seem to us, he has produced with them castings in bronze on all scales, which, with all the modern equipments of our foundries, it would be difficult for us to excel. The simplicity, adaptability, and portable character of his appliances have been of special advantage to him in his remarkable achievements in colossal castings. Thus, when a huge image of a Buddhist divinity or a bell of unusual weight was required for a temple or any locality, the whole of the operations were conducted on the spot. Temporary sheds for the modelling were erected in the temple grounds. The furnace and blowers were transported thither in segments; sometimes the latter were even made by the local carpenters. If the casting had to be made in one piece, the necessary number of cupola furnaces, each with its blower, were erected around the mould. The cost of the blast was nil, as the services of any number of eager volunteers, from the crowds which congregated at the temple festival on the day of casting, were readily obtained for the meritorious work of treading the blowing-machines. In this way the great bells and colossal images were cast.
It may be interesting to note here, that the methods of heating the mould and of repairing defective castings were in use in Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and doubtless at a very much earlier date. They are described by Theophilus in his valuable treatise, "De Diversis Artibus," written in the early half of the eleventh century, and his description is practically identical with that I have just given of them as they are practised in Japan.
What is here stated about the subsidiary processes employed for uniting the parts of colossal figures or complicated groups, has a special bearing on the work of ancient Japanese casters. The great image of Lochana Buddha at Nara is fifty-three feet high. It is in a sitting posture. Were it standing erect, it would measure 138 feet, approximately. Tradition says that the metals used were 500 pounds of gold, 16,827 pounds of tin, 1,954 pounds of mercury, and 986,180 pounds of copper; but the statement is evidently inexact, since it omits lead. The gold and mercury served, of course, for gilding purposes only. This figure was cast not in one piece, but in a number of segments,—plates measuring ten inches by twelve superficially, and six inches in thickness. The same method of construction was adopted in the case of the huge Amida at Kamakura, which has a height only three feet less than that of the Nara Dai-Butsu. History tells that the plan pursued by the early Greeks, as illustrated in the Spartan statue of Zeus described by Pausanias, was to hammer bronze plates over a model and subsequently to rivet them together. Not until the sixth century before the Christian era was the art of hollow casting discovered. Now, although the huge images of Japan, like the very much smaller statues of ancient Greece, were finally built up with plates of bronze, these plates were not originally hammered into shape: they were cast. The building-up process was evidently resorted to because it would have been scarcely possible to cast such gigantic figures in situ, neither could the mechanical genius of the age have furnished any means of transporting and elevating upon its pedestal an image weighing five hundred and fifty tons, as the Nara Dai-Butsu did. It is thus apparent that the Japanese of the eighth century understood and practised with marked success the process which is regarded as the highest development of the caster's art, namely, the employment of a hollow, removable core round which the metal is run in a skin just thick enough for strength without waste of material. The object was first roughly modelled in clay on a hollow wooden core. Then, over the clay, a skin of wax was applied, and in this the artist worked all the details, whether of form or of decoration. Thereafter a thin layer of clay was applied with a brush, and when it had dried, other layers were similarly superposed, until coats of coarser clay could be added so as to obtain the requisite strength of mould. Then the mould was dried slowly by means of gentle heat, and the wooden core having been removed, the wax was melted out, leaving a hollow space into which the molten bronze could be poured, the outer envelope and the inner skin of clay being ultimately broken up and removed. A bronze casting obtained by this process was evidently a shell without any break of continuity, whereas for great images, like the Dai-Butsu of Nara and Kamakura, it was necessary to cast the shell in a number of small and easily manipulated segments. Records say that the plan pursued by the artists of the Nara Dai-Butsu was to gradually build up the walls of the mould as the lower part of the casting cooled, instead of constructing the whole mould first and making the casting in a single piece. On that supposition it appears that the mould was constructed in a series of steps ascending twelve inches at a time, and as the head, which with the neck measures some twelve feet in height, was cast in one shell, it follows that the body must have been made in forty-one independent layers. The labour and risks of such a process are evidently enormous.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 14.
Note 14.—Indra and Brama are generally coloured red and green, respectively.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 15.
Note 15.—It is significant that painting also was not applied to purposes of portraiture in Japan. A few artists made portraits of themselves, but the professional portrait-painter had no existence.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 16.
Note 16.—These zushi have been carried away in great numbers to form articles of decorative furniture in foreign houses, for which purpose they are now expressly manufactured. It is a fancy which to Japanese eyes appears as incongruous as the use of a reredos for an over-mantle or of a monstrance for an epergne would seem to Occidentals.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 17.
Note 17.—Gowland, in the "Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry," Vol. XIII.