ENAMEL INDUSTRY. ^C)7 



results. In clay-wares this is often combined with the common 

 decoration, and thereby pictures of flowers, butterflies, birds, and 

 other objects are produced, which are burned in with the muffle 

 colours, and then appear as surface reliefs. This fine addition to 

 the porcelain and Faience painting has been employed for a long 

 time with cobalt enamel on Seto-mono, and with several other 

 enamel colours on Banko-yaki and Awata-yaki. In Awatashippo 

 it heightens the charm of the many-coloured pictures which adorn 

 the above mentioned sunken medallions. 



Cast-iron vessels also, particularly water-kettles, have been 

 painted for the last fifteen years with opaque enamel colours at 

 Kanazawa, the industrial capital of Kaga. The Royal Industrial 

 Art Museum at Berlin has several fine specimens of this peculiar 

 and highly pleasing relief decoration. They are cast-iron kettles 

 and pans made by the Sano Nobuteri in Kanazawa, the inventor 

 of this peculiar kind of enamelling. 



Since 1875, Japan has made great technical progress in enamel 

 industry, as well as in the working and decoration of metals, and 

 has successfully overcome a number of difficulties with astonishing 

 skill. While the enamel colours were formerly used together in 

 the cells with their accessories, they are now treated more and 

 more after the European manner, and coloured glass flux is used 

 instead of pulverized mineral colours. This coloured glass is 

 stamped fine and, with the addition of water, ground to a fine paste; 

 the cells are then filled and it is again fused. In this way much 

 purer and more brilliant colours are obtained than was possible 

 formerly. In order to preserve the lustre it is necessary that the 

 last enamel colour, applied as a thin coating after the burning, 

 should not be further polished. The employment and shading of 

 transparent enamel, and the gradual toning of one enamel colour 

 into another, eg. from sky blue to evening red, are undoubtedly 

 among the most progressive steps in this department. As in the 

 inlaying of cast-iron vases and plates, so also in this enamel work, 

 the decoration of the open spaces which surround the many- 

 coloured pictures of cell enamel on the medallions, geometrical 

 figures, the Buddhist cross cramponee, the Greek fret, and other 

 straight-lined elements of decoration which are formed with thin 

 brass strips and filled with an enamel colour, are used in pre- 

 ference. Enamel pictures of uniform enamel covering and blue 

 or white colour are seen much oftener without a framing of all the 

 cells. 



The criticisms on the new works differ very widely in regard to 

 their artistic quality. Wherever the taste has been formed by the 

 dull but harmonious colouring of the older Japanese cell enamel a 

 departure from the old methods is observed with regret, and the 

 modern efforts are held in smaller estimation. They are regarded 

 as degenerate specimens, and one misses the old force in the com- 

 position, the delicacy in colour, and the care in execution. On the 



II. . K K 



