Gold Has Been
Used In Profusion, And Black, Dull Red, And White, With A Breadth
And Lavishness Quite Unique.
The bronze fret-work alone is a
study, and the wood-carving needs weeks of earnest work for the
mastery of its ideas and details.
One screen or railing only has
sixty panels, each 4 feet long, carved with marvellous boldness and
depth in open work, representing peacocks, pheasants, storks,
lotuses, peonies, bamboos, and foliage. The fidelity to form and
colour in the birds, and the reproduction of the glory of motion,
could not be excelled.
Yet the flowers please me even better. Truly the artist has
revelled in his work, and has carved and painted with joy. The
lotus leaf retains its dewy bloom, the peony its shades of creamy
white, the bamboo leaf still trembles on its graceful stem, in
contrast to the rigid needles of the pine, and countless corollas,
in all the perfect colouring of passionate life, unfold themselves
amidst the leafage of the gorgeous tracery. These carvings are
from 10 to 15 inches deep, and single feathers in the tails of the
pheasants stand out fully 6 inches in front of peonies nearly as
deep.
The details fade from my memory daily as I leave the shrines, and
in their place are picturesque masses of black and red lacquer and
gold, gilded doors opening without noise, halls laid with matting
so soft that not a footfall sounds, across whose twilight the
sunbeams fall aslant on richly arabesqued walls and panels carved
with birds and flowers, and on ceilings panelled and wrought with
elaborate art, of inner shrines of gold, and golden lilies six feet
high, and curtains of gold brocade, and incense fumes, and colossal
bells and golden ridge poles; of the mythical fauna, kirin, dragon,
and howo, of elephants, apes, and tigers, strangely mingled with
flowers and trees, and golden tracery, and diaper work on a gold
ground, and lacquer screens, and pagodas, and groves of bronze
lanterns, and shaven priests in gold brocade, and Shinto attendants
in black lacquer caps, and gleams of sunlit gold here and there,
and simple monumental urns, and a mountain-side covered with a
cryptomeria forest, with rose azaleas lighting up its solemn shade.
I. L. B.
LETTER IX
A Japanese Pack-Horse and Pack-Saddle - Yadoya and Attendant - A
Native Watering-Place - The Sulphur Baths - A "Squeeze."
YASHIMAYA, YUMOTO, NIKKOZAN MOUNTAINS,
June 22.
To-day I have made an experimental journey on horseback, have done
fifteen miles in eight hours of continuous travelling, and have
encountered for the first time the Japanese pack-horse - an animal
of which many unpleasing stories are told, and which has hitherto
been as mythical to me as the kirin, or dragon. I have neither
been kicked, bitten, nor pitched off, however, for mares are used
exclusively in this district, gentle creatures about fourteen hands
high, with weak hind-quarters, and heads nearly concealed by shaggy
manes and forelocks. They are led by a rope round the nose, and go
barefoot, except on stony ground, when the mago, or man who leads
them, ties straw sandals on their feet.
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