Jinrikisha Days in Japan
In the earlier uncommercial times little distinction was recognized in the comparative value of metals. Their fitness for the purpose required, and the effectiveness of their tints and tones for carrying out ornamental designs, were what the artist considered. One metal was as easily wrought by him as another. Iron was like clay in his competent hands, and he moulded, cut, and hammered as he willed, using copper, gold, silver, iron, tin, zinc, lead, and antimony simply as pigments, and combining them as a painter would his colors. The well-known shibuichi, or mixed copper and silver, and shakudo or mixed iron, copper, and gold, are only general names for the great range of tints and tones, shading from tawniest-yellow to darkest-brown and a purple-black, and from silver-white to the darkest steely-gray. Silver and gold were inlaid with iron, the harder metal upon the softer, and solid lumps of gold, silver, and lead are found encrusted in bronze in a way to defy all known laws of the fusion of metals. While good and even marvellous work is still done, the old spirit is gone, and the objects of to-day seem almost unworthy the art lavished on them.
The magic mirror is still manufactured in Kioto, and although the tourist is often assured that it does not exist, innumerable specimens prove that the face of a common polished steel mirror, of good quality, will reflect the same design as that raised in relief on its back. With small mirrors ten inches in diameter, as with the largest, in their elaborate lacquered cases, one may throw, with a ray of sunlight, a clear-cut image on wall or ceiling. The pressure of the uneven surface at the back, the varying density of the metal, and the effect of polishing, all combine to give this curious attribute to these kagami, which are gradually giving place to foreign glass and quicksilver.
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