ENAMEL INDUSTRY. 489 



If the enamel is to serve as decoration merely, it is treated like 

 painting colours. The pulverized mixture of its constituents is 

 ground to a fine paste with water and laid upon the groundwork 

 with a little stick or brush, and then fused at a moderate heat in a 

 small furnace. This enamel decoration is usually executed in 

 several colours, like the polychromatic painting of clay-wares. As 

 the enamel colours may be both opaque and transparent, they 

 furnish a very rich palette which makes it possible to imitate the 

 appearance of several ornamental stones, thus giving rise to the 

 Japanese name Shippo, for enamel, and Shippo-yaki for enamelled 

 metallic vessels.^ 



Enamel decoration is an art which has been practised by many 

 civilized people in ancient as well as in modern times, and in which 

 the Japanese especially show marvellous skill. While other nations, 

 especially the Chinese, have contented themselves with decorating 

 metals only in this way, the Japanese have succeeded with equally 

 good results in using it on hard-burned clay-ware (porcelain and 

 Faience). But before I describe more closely the manner in which 

 the Japanese produce their enamel, I will make some general 

 observations on the varieties of enamel and its introduction. The 

 several processes of enamel decoration are grouped in two classes : 



I. Bound enamel, also called incrusted or imbedded enamel. 

 This is a mosaic work in which the single enamel colours and con- 

 stituents of the decoration are separated from each other by a 

 narrow metal band. In its manufacture a network of metallic 

 cells is made on the foundation, either by casting, hollowing out 

 or soldering, which corresponds to the contour of the single parts 

 of the picture. The cells are then filled, either entirely or partly, 

 with the several enamel colours, and then comes the fusing or 

 burning, in which the thin cell walls prevent the overflow of the 

 different enamel colours ; and after being rubbed down make the 

 contour of the different parts of the enamel picture sharply dis- 

 tinct. 



This bound enamel is again divided into : 



a. Cell enamel, or cloisonne enamel (incrusted enamel), in which 

 the cells are formed separately of narrow metal bands correspond- 

 ing to the pattern of the decoration, and then soldered to the 

 foundation. 



b. Pit enamel, or enamel champleve (embedded enamel). In 

 this variety the cell walls are parts of the groundwork itself, and 

 are produced, like the enclosed hollows, by casting or carving 

 out. 



In both these varieties of enamel the fused colours fill up the 

 cells completely after the rubbing and polishing, so that the deco- 



^ Shippo-yaki signifies "The Lurned ware of the seven costly things" 

 (Shippo, see p. 424), because gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, coral, agate, rock 

 crystal, and peails are imitated to a certain degree and can be combined in 

 this kind of cell-enamelling. 



