SWORD-FURNITURE
men, just as the critic of pictures judges the authenticity of a painting by the force, directness, and delicacy of the brush strokes. This becomes more easily comprehensible when it is remembered that vigour and grace of line-drawing are the prime essentials of fine art in the eyes of a Japanese, and that his almost instinctive appreciation of those qualities in a picture equips him with a special standard for judging the excellence of sculpture such as is found upon sword-furniture. The Japanese dogu-bori used thirty-six principal classes of chisel, each with its distinctive name, and as most of these classes included from five to ten sub-varieties, his cutting and graving tools aggregated about two hundred and fifty. This fact alone suffices to suggest the delicacy and elaborateness of his work.
There are certain technical facts a knowledge of which is necessary not only to the connoisseur of sword-ornaments, but also to the student of Japanese metal work in all its admirable developments. In the first place, the nature of the metals employed has much interest, as well for the sake of the insight it affords into the metallurgical ingenuity of the Japanese as for its bearing upon this branch of the country's art.
Japan did not at any time possess an abundance of gold. The principal source of supply was river sands, and in washing out the precious metal processes were employed which, though apparently rough, have been proved by Western experts to be profitably applicable to gravel yielding only six cents worth of gold per cubic yard.[1] If the descriptions of Japan penned by Koempfer and other early writers were accepted
- ↑ See Appendix, note 29.
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