GOLDEN DAYS
Nammikawa, the first _cloisonné_ artist of the world, has his home, his
workshop, and his little garden in a quiet corner of the Awata district.
Most visitors never pass beyond his ante-room, as Nammikawa holds his
privacy dear, and that small alcove with the black table gives little
hint of what lies beyond. The more fortunate visitor follows the master
through a dark recess to a large room with two sides open to the garden,
and a tiny balcony overhanging a lakelet. He claps his hands, and big
golden carp rise to the surface and gobble the mochi thrown them. In that
little paradise, barely sixty feet square, are hills, groves, thickets,
islands, promontories, and bays, a bamboo-shaded well, and a shrine,
while above the farthest screen of foliage rise the green slopes of
Maruyama.
A Japanese friend, who described Nammikawa as “the most Japanese and
most interesting man in Kioto,” took us to drink tea with him in this
charming garden, and, on the hottest afternoon of a hot Kioto summer, we
noted neither time nor temperature until the creeping shadows warned us
to depart. Old Japan seemed to re-live in the atmosphere of that garden,
and a cha no yu was no more finished than the simple tea-ceremony the
master performed there. By the old etiquette a Japanese gentleman never
intrusted to any servant the making of tea for a guest, nor allowed the
fine art of that simple, every-day process to be exercised unseen. The
tea-tray, brought and set before the master, bore a tiny jewel-like
teapot of old Awata, and the tiny _cloisonné_ cups with plain enamelled
linings were as richly colored as the circle of a tulip’s petals, and
smaller far. With them was a small pear-shaped dish, not unlike our
gravy-boats, a beautiful bronze _midzu tsugi_, or hot-water pot, and a
lacquer box holding a metal tea-caddy filled with the finest leaves from
Uji tea-gardens. Taking a scoop of yellowed ivory, carved in the shape of
a giant tea-leaf, our host filled the little teapot with loosely-heaped
leaves, and having decanted the hot water into the little pear-shaped
pitcher to cool a little, poured it upon the tea-leaves. Immediately he
drew off the palest amber fluid, half filling each cup, and presented
them to us, resting on leaf-shaped stands or saucers of damascened metal.
The tea was only lukewarm when we received it, but as delicate and
exquisitely flavored as if distilled of violets, as rich and smooth as a
syrup, the three sips of it constituting a most powerful stimulant. In
the discussion of tea-making that followed, our Japanese mentor explained
to us that to the epicurean tea-drinkers of his country, boiling water
was an abomination, as it scorched the leaves, drove out the fine
fragrance in the first cloud of steam, and extracted the bitterness
instead of the sweetness of the young leaves. “It may be well enough to
pour boiling water on the coarse black tea of China’s wild shrub,” said
this delightful Japanese, “but the delicate leaf of _our_ cultivated
tea-plant does not need it.”
With the tea our host offered us large flat wafers of rice and fancy
confections in the shape of most elaborate asters and chrysanthemums, too
artistic to be eaten without compunction. The cups were refilled with the
second and stronger decoction, which set every nerve tingling, and then
only were we permitted to see the treasures of Nammikawa’s creation. From
box and silken bag within bag were produced vases, whose lines, color,
lustre, and brilliant intricacy of design made them beautiful beyond
praise. They were wrought over with finest traceries of gold, silver, and
copper wires, on grounds of dull Naples yellow, soft yellowish-green,
a darker green, or a rich deep-red, wonderful to behold, the polished
surface as even and flawless as that of a fine onyx.
One by one some smaller pieces were brought in, in little boxes of smooth
white pine, beautifully made and joined. Nammikawa opened first the
cotton wadding, then the inevitable wrapping of yellow cloth, and lastly
the silken covers, and handled with a tender reverence these exquisite
creations of his genius, every one of which, when placed on its low
teak-wood stand, showed faultless. For two years his whole force was at
work on the two sixteen-inch vases which went to the Paris Exposition,
and four years were given to the Emperor’s order for a pair for his new
palace. These bore the imperial emblems, and dragons writhed between
chrysanthemums and through conventional flower-circles and arabesques,
and the groundwork displayed the splendid red, green, russet, mottled
gold, and glistening avanturine enamels, whose secret Nammikawa holds.
For it is not only in his fine designs, but in the perfect composition
and fusing of his enamels and the gem-like polish that this great artist
excels all rivals.
[Illustration: IN NAMMIKAWA’S WORK-ROOM]
In another garden, concealed by a bamboo hedge, is the tiny laboratory,
and the one work-room where less than twenty people, all told, execute
the master’s designs. One etches these patterns on the copper base,
following Nammikawa’s delicately traced outlines; another bends and
fastens the wires on the etched lines, and a third coats the joinings
with a red oxide that, after firing, unites the wires more firmly to
the copper. Others dot the paste into the cell-like spaces, or sit over
tubs of water, grinding with fine stones, with charcoal, and deer-horn
the surface of the pieces that have been fired. Nammikawa adds the
master-touches, and after conducting the final firing, himself gives them
the last incomparable polish, after his men have rubbed away for weeks.
These workmen come and go as they please, working only when the spirit
moves them, and doing better work, the master believes, when thus left
to their own devices. All of them are artists whose skill is a family
inheritance, and they have been with Nammikawa for many years. The most
skilful of these craftsmen receive one yen a day, which is extravagant
pay in this land of simple living, and shows in what high esteem they are
held. A few women are employed in the polishing and the simpler details,
and, while we watched them, were burnishing a most exquisite teapot
covered with a fine foliated design on pale yellow ground. This treasure
had been bought by some connoisseur while the first rough filling of
paste was being applied, and he had bided his time for a twelvemonth,
while the slow processes of filling and refilling the cells, and firing
and refiring the paste had succeeded one another until it was ready for
the first grinding.
Fifty or sixty small pieces, chiefly vases, caskets, and urns, three and
four inches high, and ranging in price from thirty to ninety yen each,
are a whole year’s output, and larger pieces are executed by special
order at the same time with these. Nammikawa does not like to sell to
the trade, and has been known to refuse the requests of curio merchants,
making his customers pay more if he suspects that they are buying to
sell again. It is his delight to hand the precious article to its new
owner, enjoining him to keep it wrapped in silk and wadding, and always
to rub it carefully to remove any moisture before putting it away. He
cautions visitors, when they attempt to handle the precious pieces in his
show-room, not to touch the enamelled surface with the hand, the metal
base and collar being left free on each piece for that purpose. Nor must
two pieces of _cloisonné_ ever be knocked together, as the enamel is
almost more brittle than porcelain. Curiously enough, this great artist
uses no mark nor sign-manual. “If my work will not declare itself to
be mine, then the marking will do no good,” he says; and, indeed, his
_cloisonné_ is so unlike the crude and commonplace enamels exported from
Japan by ship-loads for the foreign market, that it does not need the
certification of his name.
Nammikawa has the face of a saint, or poet—gentle, refined, and
intellectual—and his beautiful manner and perfect courtesy are an
inheritance of the old Japan. His earlier days were not saintly, although
they may have been poetical. He was a personal attendant of Prince Kuné
no Miya, a brother of Prince Komatsu, and cousin of the Emperor, and was
brought up in the old court life with its atmosphere of art and leisure.
The elegant young courtier was noted for his gayety and improvidence.
He remained in Kioto when the court moved northward, and all at once
ceased his dissipations, even putting aside his pipe, to devote himself
to experiments in the manufacture of _cloisonné_, for which he had always
had a passion. In his laboratory there is a square placque, a bluish
bird on a white ground diapered with coarse wires, which was his first
piece. One can hardly believe that only fifteen years intervene between
this coarse, almost Chinese, specimen of his work, and the vases for the
Emperor’s palace. From the start he threw himself into his profession
with his whole soul and spirit. Incessant experiments in the solitude of
his laboratory and work-room at night, and the zeal and patience of a
Palissy at the furnace, conquered his province. He is still constantly
studying and experimenting, and always fires his pieces himself, keeping
long vigils by the little kiln in the garden.
Hurry and money-making he despises. Gazing dreamily out into his garden,
Nammikawa declared that he had no ambition to have a large godown, a
great workshop, and a hundred workmen; that he always refused to take
any large commissions or commercial orders, or to promise a piece at any
given time. Neither good art nor good work can be commanded by money,
he thought, nor did he want his men to work faster, and therefore less
carefully, because greater prices are offered him for haste. It was his
pleasure, he said, to take years for the execution of a single piece that
might stand flawless before all connoisseurs, and receive its just reward
of praise or medals. The latter are dearer to him than any sum of money,
and in his own garden he finds happiness with them.
There is a Nammikawa of Tokio who is not to be confounded with this
Kioto artist. The Tokio enameller has an entirely different style, a
simple design thrown in a broad style upon an unbroken groundwork, easily
distinguishing his work from any other; but Nammikawa of Tokio deals
directly with the trade, even contracting with foreign curio dealers for
seasons of work, and makes replicas of his exquisite pieces by the score
for them. Imitators of his style have arisen, and already many cheap
pieces, copying his best models, can be purchased in foreign cities.
The idling most delightful of all in Kioto is going over and over again
to the same places, doing the same thing repeatedly, and arriving at that
happy and eminently Japanese frame of mind where haste enters not; time
is forgotten, days slip by uncounted, and limits cease to be. The spring
days, when the rain falls in gauziest mist—the rain that is so good for
young rice—or summer days, when the sun scorches the earth and burns
one’s very eyeballs, seem to bring the most unbroken leisure and longest
hours in any agreeable refuge.
Sitting on Yaami’s veranda, with the great plain of the city wreathed
in mists or quivering in heat, I have recognized my indebtedness to
Griffis, Dresser, Mitford, Morse, and Rein, those authorities on all
things Japanese, not to mention Murray and his ponderous guide-book,
whose weight and polysyllabic pages strike terror to the soul of the
new-comer. Griffis I read, until Tairo and Minamoto, Hideyoshi and
Iyeyasu, grew as familiar as William the Conqueror and the Declaration of
Independence; Dresser’s text and illustrations were a constant delight
and illumination, explaining the incomprehensible and pointing to hidden
things; and Morse’s _Japanese Homes_ laid bare their mysteries, and made
every fence, roof, rail, ceiling, and wall take on new features and
expression. Rein’s is the encyclopædia, and he the recorder, from whose
statements there is no appeal, and to him we turned for everything. It is
only on the sacred soil that the student gets the true value and meaning
of these books; while nothing so nearly expresses and explains the charm
of the country as that prose idyl, Percival Lowell’s _Soul of the Far
East_, nor so perfectly fits one’s moods on these long, leisure days, and
Mitford’s _Tales of Old Japan_ are of ceaseless delight.
In this Japanese atmosphere the traveller feels what he misses through
his ignorance of the vernacular, and is even inspired with a desire to
study the language; but a little skimming of the grammar usually brings
down that vaulting ambition. It is easy to pick up words and phrases
for ordinary use, as all servants understand some English, and every
hotel and shop has its interpreter. Upper-class people, whom one meets
socially, always speak English, French, or German. Scholars declare
that the mastery of the language takes from twelve to thirty years, and
the compiler of the standard lexicon modestly says for himself that
forty years is not enough. With a few most illustrious exceptions, no
foreigner, who has not learned Japanese almost before his own tongue,
has ever been able to grasp its idioms so as to express himself with
clearness and accuracy. The whole theory and structure of the language
are so different from and so opposed to European speech—so intricate and
so arbitrary, that the alien brain fails to grasp it. The lower, middle,
and upper classes have each a different mode of expression, and the
women of each class use a still simpler version. He who learns the court
language cannot make himself understood by shop-keepers or servants. He
who has acquired coolie-talk insults a gentleman by uttering its common
words and inelegant expressions in his presence.
As if the differences between the polite and the common idioms and names
for things did not make verbal complications enough, the imperial family
and their satellites have a still finer phraseology with a special
vocabulary for their exclusive use. Saké, or rice brandy, becomes
_kukon_ at court; a dumpling, which is a _dango_ in the city, becomes an
_ishi-ishi_ when it enters the palace-gates; and a shirt, or _juban_,
is transmuted to a _heijo_ on an imperial back. Well-bred women say _o
hiya_ for cold water, and men always call it _mizu_. A dog not only gets
the honorific prefix _o_, but if you call him, you say politely _o ide_,
just as you would to a child; while the imperative _koi! koi!_ (come,
come,) is polite enough for the rest of the brute creation. Children say
_umamma_ for food, but if you do not say _omamma_ instead, nesans will
giggle over your baby talk.
Dialects and localisms contribute still further to confusion of tongues.
A hibachi in Kioto is a _shibachi_ in Yokohama, as a Hirado vase is a
_Shirado_ one. When you inquire a price, you say _ikura_ for “how much”
in Yokohama, and _nambo_ in Kioto. All around Tokio the g has the sound
of ng, or gamma nasal, and this nasal tone of the capital is another
point of conformity with the modern French.
Everywhere in Japan an infinity of names belongs to the simplest things.
Twenty-five synonyms for rice are given in Hepburn’s smaller dictionary,
all as different as possible. Rice in every stage of growing, and in
every condition after harvesting, has a distinct name, with no root
common to all. Endless mistakes follow any inexactness of pronunciation.
The numerals, _ichi_, _ni_, _san_, _shi_, _go_, _roku_, _shichi_,
_hachi_, _ku_, _ju_, are easily memorized, and learning to count up
to one hundred is child’s play compared to the struggle with French
numerals. It is not necessary to say “four times twenty, ten, and seven,”
before ninety-seven is reckoned; that is simply _ku ju shichi_, or nine
tens and a seven. Twenty is _ni ju_, thirty is _san ju_, fifty is _go
ju_, and so through the list. The ordinal numbers have _dai_ prefixed or
_ban_ added, and “fourth” is then _yo ban_. That _ichi ban_ means “number
one,” and _ni ban_, “number two,” surprises people who had supposed
that Mr. Ichi Ban and Mr. Ni Ban owned the great Japanese stores that
used to exist in two American cities. After learning the plain cardinal
and ordinal numbers, the neophyte must remember to add the syllable
_shiki_ when mentioning any number of animals, _nin_ for people, _ken_
for houses, _so_ for ships, _cho_ for jinrikishas, _hai_ for glasses or
cups of any liquid, _hon_ for long and round objects, _mai_ for broad
and flat ones, _tsu_ for letters or papers, _satsu_ for books, _wa_ for
bundles or birds. Any infraction of these rules gives another meaning to
the intended phrase, and the slightest variation in inflection changes
it quite as much. If you want three _kurumas_, you say “_kuruma san
cho_,” and five plates are “_sara go mai_.” To say simply _saiyo_ (yes),
or _iye_ (no), is inadmissible. The whole statement must be made with
many flourishes, and frequent _de gozarimasus_ adorn a gentleman’s
conversation.
If a curio dealer asks whether you wish to see a _koro_, and you look
for the word in the lexicon, you find that koro means, according to Dr.
Hepburn’s dictionary, time, period of time, a cylindrical wooden roller
used in moving heavy bodies, the elders, old people, tiger and wolf,
_i.e._, savage and cruel, stubborn, bigoted, narrow-minded, a road, a
journey, a censer for burning incense, and the second or third story of a
house. So, too, _kiku_ may mean a chrysanthemum, or a compass and square,
a rule, an established custom, the moment or proper time; fear, timidity,
and a score of other things. The chief compensations of the language
are its simple and unvarying rules of pronunciation, every syllable
being evenly accented, every vowel making a syllable, and, pronounced as
continental vowels are, giving music to every word.
The written language is the study of another lifetime. Having the Chinese
written language as its basis, the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans can
all understand one another in this form common to all, though not in the
spoken tongue. It is common to see Chinese and Japanese coolies writing
characters in the air, in the dust, or in the palms of their hands, and
seeming to make themselves intelligible in this classical sign language.
The written language has the katagana, or square characters, and the
hiragana, or “grass” characters, the latter simpler and more nearly
corresponding to our script or running hand.
The efforts of scholars are now turned to Romaicising or transliterating
the Japanese sounds and characters, and expressing them by the common
alphabet of Latin and Anglo-Saxon people, basing it on phonetic
spelling. Volapuk, the new universal language of all nations, offers
great difficulties to the Japanese, for although Schleyer, its inventor,
kindly left out the _r_, which the Chinese cannot pronounce, he left in
the _l_, which is a corresponding stumbling-block for the Japanese, who
is seldom a natural linguist.