THE ART OF CASTING BRONZE IN JAPAN. 613 



perhaps true iu the details they give of individual artists, yet, broadly 

 speaking, they may be based ou facts, and that the Japanese owe to 

 Koreans, or probably rather to Chinese who may have come through 

 Korea, the first great advances which they made in the casting of bronze. 



Besides the intiuence which the neighboring countries — China and 

 Korea — had on the technique and motives of the Japanese bronze foun- 

 der, we have also abundant evidence of the influence of the art of more 

 distant regions. Among the treasures of the temple Horyuji (near 

 Kara, Yamato) are several Indian statues m bronze of Buddhist saints 

 and deities, and a curious ewer, which are said to have been iu the pos- 

 session of the temple from the date of its erection in the early part of 

 the seventh century. The characteristic pose of the figures, the model- 

 ing of their features, and their jeweled headdresses have been fre- 

 quently copied with more or less modification, and cau be distinctly 

 traced in many ancient Japanese statues, as well as in some of com- 

 paratively modern times. The ewer, a bronze casting of graceful form, 

 is decorated with figures of winged horses of the form of the Pegasus 

 of the ancients. According to Longperier (Gonse, " L'Art Japonais") it 

 is undoubtedly Sassauian and oi earlier date than the seventh cen- 

 tury. An illustration is given of it in the '' Handbook " of the ancient 

 articles in the temple Horyuji, which will be fauud ou the table. This 

 ewer is of special interest, as, by the kindness of my friend Mr. Alfred 

 Cock, I am able to show you a bronze incense burner, which has been 

 modeled probably during the last century from one of the pegasi with 

 which it is ornamented. Other bronzes of foreign origin are also to be 

 seen in tbe treasure houses of several of the ancient temples in Yamato. 



During the epoch, especially that part of it which has been styled the 

 "Kara period" (the seven reigns during which Kara was the caijital, 

 709-784), the great development in bronze founding was not the only 

 advance made in the working of metals, but the art of incised and 

 repousse work in gilt copper, which had been practiced during the 

 early Iron age, was brought to a stage of perfection beyond which it 

 has never passed. A specimen of this work will be found on the table, 

 and others are illustrated in the colored plates near it. 



The examj)les contained in the following list I have selected as rep- 

 resentative specimens of the art of bronze founding during this period 

 (seventh and eighth (centuries). 



Date 690 to 702 A. I). — Three bronze figures representing a Buddhist 

 trinity — Amitabha, Kwanyin, and Mahasthama — that of Amitablni 

 being about 9 feet m height. They resemble the Indian examples at 

 Horyuji in being originally gilt, but the bronze of which they consist 

 is of a different composition, not containing zinc as an essential con- 

 stituent. 



Date 690 to 702 A. D. — A colored seated image of Yakushi (the heal- 

 ing divinity), about C feet high, with two attendant deities, cast of a 

 coi)per-tin-lead bronze. 



All the above are in the temple Yakushiji in Nara. Illustrations of 



