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In the artistic culture of Japan metal-work always occupied an important place. As early as the first centuries of our era, when
economic and cultural ties with the mainland were broadening, there began an intensive process of mastering casting and other
metal-working techniques.
The production of artistic work in bronze and iron received a new lease of life with the introduction of Buddhism into Japan.
Numerous bronze statues of deities were made, and bells and lanterns cast for the Buddhist temples which were built all over
the country from the sixth century on. Skilled craftsmen produced various bronze utensils for the temples: incense burners,
vases, all sorts of ceremonial vessels and reliquaries in which sacred scrolls were kept. The temples and palaces were adorned
with gilding, chasing, openwork carving and inlay of precious metals.
Cold steel of various kinds was made in large quantities from the twelfth century, when feudal clans embarked upon internecine
wars for supremacy in the country. Among the craftsmen of this time the blacksmiths and armourers occupied the place of
honour and they perfected the technique of forging and tempering swords. Special ceremonies accompanied the manufacture of
small arms. The secrets of their production were strictly guarded in the families of the famous armourers and were handed down
from father to son. The long, slightly curved Japanese sword katana (a two-handed weapon) was evolved in the tenth -
eleventh century and continued without change right into the nineteenth. Separate parts of the katana and the short sword
wakizashi, worn at the girdle, were already being richly adorned in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The most decorated
detail of the sword was the tsuba (the metal guard). Usually it was in the form of a circle or oval plaque with narrow apertures in
the centre, but there were also tsuba of more complicated configurations, such as notched or scalloped edges. The wooden hilt
of the sword, covered with leather and artfully plaited silk cord, was embraced at one extremity by an oval metal ring, and at the
other was crowned with a cap or pommel. Each of these small details of the hilt was also decorated. Relief metal ornamentation
was affixed on each side of the hilt.
The wooden scabbard of the short wakizashi was coated with valuable lacquer and had special narrow compartments for a
knife and a long needle, necessary objects for a military man during a campaign. The handles of these weapons were decorated
in the same style as the hilt of the sword. Later, the scabbard of the katana was also equipped with these fittings.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the armourers at the courts of renowned feudal rulers, the shoguns and the daimtjos,
manufactured swords with heavy forged iron tsuba, which they adorned with open-work carving, punching and flat, coloured
metal inlays in the form of silhouettes of birds, leaves and animals. Relief inlay was rarely encountered during that period.
In Kyoto and other cities workshops began to spring up in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries where highly skilled artists
worked, who decorated the Isuba and other parts of the sword with extensive thematic compositions and landscapes.
Nowhere in the whole world was cold steel adorned with such refinement, such a profusion of techniques and inexhaustible
imagination. The most eminent masters working in various parts of the country set up schools of their own, each one of which
was distinguished for its own artistic methods. Specially prominent towards the end of the fifteenth century was the school of
Kaneya Nidai, the leader of which was well known for reproducing on iron tsuba the mono-chome paintings of the celebrated
artist Sesshu (1420 - 1506) in engraving and low relief.
Nobuya (1486 - 1564), a master whose tsubas were no less famous, was the first to mark his work with his signature. The
foundation of the school of far-famed master Goto Yuzo (1480 - 1530) dates back to the early sixteenth century. He was the
first to use the technique of nunome-zogan ("linen-mesh" inlay of narrow strips of non-ferrous metals) which helped to evolve a
new style of decoration named iyebory (family engraving). The style was adhered to by all the masters of the sixteen
succeeding generations of the Goto school, right to the end of the nineteenth century. The search for new means of artistic
expression in the presentation of complicated compositions on the comparatively small surface of tsuba and also the ring and the
headpiece of the hilt forced the craftsmen to study the qualities of various metals and alloys with their variety of colour and
shades.
Gold supplied yellow shades, copper red, silver and steel white, and bronze a range of colours from light brown to various
shades, tinged with gold. Iron oxide supplied a warm brown shade. Various alloys cleverly combined in a single composition
created distinctive artistic effects. The shakudo, an alloy of copper, lead, tin and gold is distinguished for its deep black which
shades into violet in bright light. No less popular was the shibuichi, an alloy of copper and silver which developed an attractive
light-grey patina. Bluish tinges were obtained from an alloy of gold and silver, while a light yellow hue resembling that of brass
was achieved by an alloy composed of copper, zinc, tin and lead. The components of some alloys remain unknown as their
formulas were carefully guarded secrets.
The wealth of colour and shades enabled the artist to create whole pictures in metal, using the technique of inlay and hammering.
A special branch of artistic metal-ware is connected with the tea ceremony which became popular in the fifteenth — sixteenth
century. Massive cast pots and kettles of bronze and iron began to be manufactured, and whole families were engaged in their
production. But these artists never enjoyed such great respect as the armourers.
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