THE ART OF CASTING BRONZE IN JAPAN.' 



By W. GowLAND, A. R. S. M., F. C. S., F. S. A. 



Late of the Imperial Japanese Mini. 



The art of casting bronze lias been practiced by almost all nations 

 from very early times. In Europe at a remote period, long- before the 

 dawn of history, we have numerous examples of the skill of primitive 

 man as a founder of bronze. Weapons of defense and implements of 

 the chase are the chief specimens of his earliest work ; but later, when 

 other wants arose beyond the bare necessaries for his existence, we 

 find, together with these, objects for personal adornment and domestic 

 or ceremonial uses. 



In Asia the earliest practice of the art is shrouded in the mists of 

 extreme antiquity. Certain bronze figures from Chaldea are attributed 

 to a period not later than 2000 B. C, and, although of very archaic 

 form and rude execution, indicate that the casting of bronze must have 

 been followed in that country even for many centuries before that 

 remote date. 



In Japan the founder's art has a much less antiquity; it does not 

 extend back to these distant x^eriods; in fact, no remains of any 

 metal castings, even of weapons of defense, have been found there 

 approaching in age even those of the early Bronze period in Europe. 



The Japanese do not appear to have migrated to the islands they now 

 occui^y earlier than perhaps seven or eight centuries B. C, and the 

 aboriginees whom tliey found there were totally unacquainted with the 

 use of metals. Hence all objects of metal of the earliest times which 

 have been discovered are Japanese, and are not older than that time. 



The evidence afforded by tumuli and dolmens, and the remains found 

 in them of the early history and civilization of the Japanese, demon- 

 strates clearly that in prehistoric times there were two periods, which 

 are more or less clearly defined by the progress which they made in the 

 art of metallurgy, viz, a Bronze and an Iron age. The Bronze age 

 begins with the immigration of the race, and terminates about the 

 second century B. C. The Iron age then commences, and extends to 

 the present time. 



■From the Jounia] of tlie Society of Arts, No. 2215, Vol. XLIII, May 3, 1895. 

 Paper read before Society of Arts, London, April 23, 1895. 



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