JAPAN
à jour. Guards of the former class have the surface covered with an engraved floral scroll (karakusa), among which are leaves and blossoms (generally of the Paulownia or the evening gourd) in slight relief. These works plainly show the influence which the Goto family's methods had already exercised upon the fashion of the time. In the guards with pierced decoration, the commonest designs are a network pattern (ami-gata) or a kikko diaper (tortoise-shell tessellation), and occasionally verses of poetry occur, the ideographs cut right through the metal so accurately and delicately that each character seems to be written by a skilled penman with white ink on the russet patina of the iron. Among specimens of Nobuiye's guards preserved in Japan, the sacrifice of solidity to decorative design is carried farthest in one which has in the centre a torii (sacred bird-perch) within a frame of mokko-gata (four-arched outline). The torii alone is solid, all the remaining space within the frame being cut out. Another remarkable guard by the same maker, which the inscription shows to have been forged for the notorious Anayama, has the surface covered with deep pitting, the depressions and elevations alternating on the two faces. All the guards of the Miyōchin experts, from Munesuke to Nobuiye, are slightly rough to the touch, though they present the appearance of finely finished work. This peculiarity—called by the Japanese moyashi, or fermentation—is the result of the patina-producing process. It need scarcely be said that the patina was a point of the greatest importance. The most prized variety had the colour of the azuki bean, or dark mahogany.
The chisellers of guards with decoration à jour
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