METAL INDUSTRY. 443 



We recognise in the artistic treatment of Japanese bronze vases 

 at least three periods, which naturally are less sharply distin- 

 guished in time than in fashions, following close upon each 

 other. 



The alloys of the old bronze vases and bronze castings generally 

 are almost always rich in copper, while lead and antimony appear 

 as only accidental constituents. Among their manifold forms 

 the broad long-necked flasks with cone-shaped bodies seem to 

 rule, also the shape of a mortar, among the forms of handles the 

 imitation of elephant's trunk. Generally the very tasteful decora- 

 tion is simple, and executed mostly in surface relief by chasing 

 and engraving. Arabesques and the elements of the Meander 

 in manifold combinations are the ruling designs ; clouds and 

 waves and small landscapes also appear. The principal effect is 

 w^rought by well designed alternation and symmetrical arrange- 

 ment. Inlaying and enamel are entirely wanting.^ A second 

 tendency of taste, which likewise originated in China, ruled in 

 Japan during the last century, and is still powerful there. It is 

 distinguishable from the first, not so much in the composition and 

 figure of the vases as in their ornamentation. A high relief ob- 

 tained by casting and chasing, with which the vases are often over- 

 grown and overloaded in wild confusion, something like the flowers 

 of our porcelain vases, which singly often show great artistic skill, 

 and which are often beautifully raised up on the well designed 

 dark background, but which confuse by their own fulness of deco- 

 ration and entirely conceal the character and form of the vase. 



The latest period, whose beginning does not date very far back 

 of the time when the country was opened by Commodore Perry, 

 indicates unmistakably great progress in Japanese bronze industry. 

 This is especially found in the tasteful arrangement of colours and 

 in a better sense of the right amount of ornamentation. The high 

 reliefs do not play such a prominent part, while inlaying and in- 

 crustation are combined very effectively with chasing and engrav- 

 ing. Such decorations on dark bronze containing lead have been 

 brought from the towns Kanazawa and Takaoka in Kaga and 

 Echiu, but are nov\^ also made considerably in Tokio. Kioto, the 

 old seat of Japanese industry, has not stopped behind ; here too, 

 the effort to accomplish a shading of tihe colours and choice 



^ These characteristics of tlie old Japanese bronze vases agree entirely with 

 those of the Chinese, in the Middle Ages. I have such a one in my posses- 

 sion made in the 15th century. It is only i8"5 centimeters high, has in general 

 a four-sided prismatic figure with a rectangle as cross section ; it increases in 

 width from the middle toward the top and still more toward the bottom, where 

 it is provided with rounded corners and ends with a small foot. Elephant 

 trunks as handles cover two-thirds of the narrow side from top to bottom. 

 The decoration consists of two sorts of Meander figures (I1J~IJ~IJ~I), which 

 are separated by a smooth band at the narrowest place. The inscription runs 

 in Sinico-Japanese : " Dai-Min Sen-Tok-Nen-Sei," i e. manufactured in the 

 Sen-tok period (1426-1435 A.D.) of the great Ming dynasty. 



