Embroideries and Curios
mets and swords, such as are to be found nowhere else.
Tokio and Osaka rival the Kioto makers of the finer modern metal-work, all three cities having been equal capitals and centres of wealth and luxury in the feudal days, when the armorer was the warrior’s right-hand. The descendants of the ancient metal-workers of Kioto still labor at the old forges, and marvels of art, as well as of patient labor, come from the various workshops of the town. Both old and new designs are employed to beautify new combinations of metals, but at the present day the metal-workers’ art expends itself on trifling things. Instead of adorning armor and weapons and fashioning their exquisite ornaments, the artists’ taste and skill must be lavished on vases, placques, incense-burners, hibachis, water-pots, and flower-stands, and the countless cheap trifles and specimens of bijouterie made for exportation. In the coloring, cutting, and inlaying of bronze the Japanese are unrivalled; but for the great metal-work of the empire the student of native art must visit private collections and the treasures of the great curio-shops.
Feudal life invested swords and armor with their high estate, and gave the armorer his rank, The fine temper of the old blades has long challenged European admiration, and the sword-guards, the knife-handles, and the minute ornaments of the hilt are beyond compare. Sentiment, legend, and poetry glorify the sword, and the edict of 1871, which forbade their use as weapons, increased their value as relics, and brought thousands of them into the curio market. In rich and noble families they have always been treasured, but collections of fine blades are found in other countries as well, and the names of Muramasa and Masamuné and the Miochin family, are as well known as that of Benvenuto Cellini to connoisseurs of metal-work anywhere.
275
