Page 408 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

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the Monk Saigyo, 13th century). Daikoku-ten, God of Plenty, on the right.
The hako oi — hako meaning "box/' or "chest" On early bronze-decorated of the metal is thick
— is of two types: a four-legged wooden case, or and the designs are comparatively simple. Later
box, with decorative metal fittings, and a three- examples exhibit more thinly cut and elaborately
legged version decorated with lacquer (see cat. detailed metal work.
253). The of from Matsuo-dera, shown here, is
four-legged; some of its gilt bronze fittings are
purely decorative, others, such as the pagoda or
the Wheel of the Law, symbolic of Buddhism.
Upper doors open to reveal a shelf holding five
seated Buddhist statues. Side panels at the same
level open outward to reveal paintings. Deco-
rating the lower shelf, which contains other reli-
gious implements, are gilt bronze appliques of
Monju, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, on the left and
PORTABLE SHRINE (Oi)
i6th century
Japanese
carved lacquered wood
l
4
75.0 x 51.5 x 84.8 (2^/2 x 2o /4 x 33 /ioj
Chuson-ji, Iwate Prefecture
Shugendo monks used this three-legged type of
carrying case as a kind of backpack for the trans-
port of Buddhist sutras and ritual implements. Its
face —the outward, visible surface when carried
on the back—was usually elaborately decorated.
Here a comprehensive and fantastic landscape is
dominated by a camelia bush. At the base of the
camelia, literally and figuratively overshadowed
by it, are symbols of pine, cranes, and a turtle,
all alluding to long life or immortality. These
emblems of longevity are mutually consistent in
scale, but all are dwarfed by the camelia. Other
design elements include a quince pattern and a
rose-like flower pattern. The doors are vertically
hinged.
These raised decorative elements were rendered
by the Kamakura bori technique, a simpler, less
time-consuming, and hence less costly version of
the Chinese carved lacquer process, devised to
meet the Japanese demand for objects in the
"Chinese taste/' Chinese carved lacquers were
created by the infinitely painstaking process of
coating a wooden form with multiple thin layers
of lacquer, sometimes in several colors, then carv-
ing through the layers to precise depths to pro-
duce the design. In the Kamakura bori technique,
known from about the fifteenth century, the carv-
ing was done in the wood itself and lacquer was
then applied over the carved decoration. Here the
tinted lacquers make up a color scheme called
koka-ryokuyo (red flower-green leaves). The
inside of the Of also is decorated. Oi with Kama-
kura bori decoration were particularly popular in
northeastern Japan, in areas such as Iwate, the
source of the work seen here. j.u.
j.u.
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