730 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889 



Confucianism, to have absorbed the original spirit and hero-worship of 



the Japanese, and to have borrowed .something from Buddhism itself. . 



Bronze work resembles other Sinico- Japanese art in its apparent 

 lack of distinctiveness, its seeming unity of impression on those who » 

 have not studied it well. As the individuals of an Asiatic or African 

 people seem to be all alike until familiarity with them develops as great 

 differences, man from man, as we find in Europe, so a close examina- 

 tion of Japanese bronzes brings one to the point where the work of the 

 different epochs betrays different characteristics, and individual work- 

 men in metal emerge from the common herd of designers and casters 

 into artists of renown. In the east great respect is paid to tradition 

 in art. Families of artisans have inherited certain ways of work. Ke- 

 ligion has been powerful enough to counteract the impulse to be orig- 

 inal by deviating from the models of the past. Difficult as the ques- 

 tion must be until some one resident in Japan, having access to the 

 temples and museums under government control, and yet acquainted 

 with the contents of public and private collections in Europe, shall 

 found a system of the history of Japanese bronzes, it is possible to dis- 

 tinguish three grand epochs. 



The first is represented by the meager yields of grave-mounds. An 

 early wave of conquest appears to have come from the south, favored 

 by the prevailing winds and currents, and brought the men of bronze 

 weapons and implements, before whom the native race, perhaps the 

 hairy people called Ainus, perhaps a mixture of this people with set- 

 tlers from Korea who had iron weapons, gradually receded toward the 

 north. The second is the great religious epoch, started with a wave of 

 Buddhism from Korea about the time that Europe was settling down 

 after the conquests of the heathen, when missionaries were sallying 

 out from Borne on the one side, and Ireland on the other, and things 

 were shaping themselves for Charlemagne to found his empire. To 

 this epoch belong the gigantic Buddhas at Kara and Kamakura. The 

 third period is associated with the political supremacy of the Tokog- 

 awa clan, and runs from about 1600 nearly to our day, say 1868. The 

 Japanese are now in the fourth period, where they are profoundly in- 

 fluenced by the western world in their arts as well as in their polity, 

 and, as many native and foreign observers think, very unfortunately 

 influenced. 



From considering Japanese bronzes to have a marked family like- 

 ness, one soon learns to note the greatest distinctions among them. In 

 general, one may say that intricate design and bold combinations of 

 high and low relief, technical knowledge in founding, and fantastic 

 subjects, belong to the third or flourishing epoch lately ended. Not 

 that very beautiful, simple, big work is lacking to the present century, 

 but it does not represent the rule. 



But however we may distinguish, however we may, according to tem- 

 perament or training, prefer on the one hand the big sober work of 



