The second of the modern schools is headed by Namikawa Sosuke of Tōkyō. It is an easily traced outgrowth of the second branch of the first school just described, for one can readily understand that from placing the decorative design in a Cloisonless Enamels. monochromatic field of low tone, which is essentially a pictorial method, development would proceed in the direction of concealing the mechanics of the art in order to enhance the pictorial effect. Thus arose the so-called “cloisonless enamels” (musenjippō). They are not always without cloisons. The design is generally framed at the outset with a ribbon of thin metal, precisely after the manner of ordinary cloisonné ware. But as the work proceeds the cloisons are hidden—unless their presence is necessary to give emphasis to the design—and the final result is a picture in vitrified enamels.
The characteristic productions of the third among the modern schools are monochromatic and translucid enamels. All students of the ceramic art know that the monochrome porcelains of China owe their beauty to the fact that the Monochromatic Enamels. colour is in the glaze, not under it. The ceramist finds no difficulty in applying a uniform coat of pigment to porcelain biscuit, and covering the whole with a diaphanous glaze. The colour is fixed and the glaze set by secondary firing at a lower temperature than that necessary for hardening the pâte. Such porcelains, however, lack the velvet-like softness and depth of tone so justly prized in the genuine monochrome, where the glaze itself contains the colouring matter, pâte and glaze being fired simultaneously at the same high temperature. It is apparent that a vitrified enamel may be made to perform, in part at any rate, the function of a porcelain glaze. Acting upon that theory, the experts of Tōkyō and Nagoya have produced many very beautiful specimens of monochrome enamel—yellow (canary or straw), rose du Barry, liquid-dawn, red, aubergine purple, green (grass or leaf), dove-grey and lapis lazuli blue. The pieces do not quite reach the level of Chinese monochrome porcelains, but their inferiority is not marked. The artist’s great difficulty is to hide the metal base completely. A monochrome loses much of its attractiveness when the colour merges into a metal rim, or when the interior of a vase is covered with crude unpolished paste. But to spread and fix the enamel so that neither at the rim nor in the interior shall there be any break of continuity, or any indication that the base is copper, not porcelain, demands quite exceptional skill.
The translucid enamels of the modern school are generally associated with decorative bases. In other words, a suitable design is chiselled in the metal base so as to be visible through the diaphanous enamel. Very beautiful effects of broken Translucid Enamel. and softened lights, combined with depth and delicacy of colour, are thus obtained. But the decorative designs which lend themselves to such a purpose are not numerous. A gold base deeply chiselled in wave-diaper and overrun with a paste of aubergine purple is the most pleasing. A still higher achievement is to apply to the chiselled base designs executed in coloured enamels, finally covering the whole with translucid paste. Admirable results are thus produced; as when, through a medium of cerulean blue, bright goldfish and blue-backed carp appear swimming in silvery waves, or brilliantly plumaged birds seem to soar among fleecy clouds. The artists of this school show also much skill in using enamels for the purposes of subordinate decoration—suspending enamelled butterflies, birds or floral sprays, among the reticulations of a silver vase chiselled à jour; or filling with translucid enamels parts of a decorative scheme sculptured in iron, silver, gold or shakudo.
V.—Economic Conditions
Communications.—From the conditions actually existing in the 8th century after the Christian era the first compilers of Japanese history inferred the conditions which might have existed in the 7th century before that era. One Roads and Posts in Early Times. of their inferences was that, in the early days, communication was by water only, and that not until 549 B.C. did the most populous region of the empire—the west coast—come into possession of public roads. Six hundred years later, the local satraps are represented as having received instructions to build regular highways, and in the 3rd century the massing of troops for an over-sea expedition invested roads with new value. Nothing is yet heard, however, about posts. These evidences of civilization did not make their appearance until the first great era of Japanese reform, the Taika period (645-650), when stations were established along the principal highways, provision was made of post-horses, and a system of bells and checks was devised for distinguishing official carriers. In those days ordinary travellers were required to carry passports, nor had they any share in the benefits of the official organization, which was entirely under the control of the minister of war. Great difficulties attended the movements of private persons. Even the task of transmitting to the central government provincial taxes paid in kind had to be discharged by specially organized parties, and this journey from the north-eastern districts to the capital generally occupied three months. At the close of the 7th century the emperor Mommu is said to have enacted a law that wealthy persons living near the highways must supply rice to travellers, and in 745 an empress (Koken) directed that a stock of medical necessaries must be kept at the postal stations. Among the benevolent acts attributed to renowned Buddhist priests posterity specially remembers their efforts to encourage the building of roads and bridges. The great emperor Kwammu (782-806) was constrained to devote a space of five years to the reorganization of the whole system of post-stations. Owing to the anarchy which prevailed during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries, facilities of communication disappeared almost entirely, even for men of rank a long journey involved danger of starvation or fatal exposure, and the pains and perils of travel became a household word among the people.
Yoritomo, the founder of feudalism at the close of the 12th century, was too great a statesman to underestimate the value of roads and posts. The highway between his stronghold, Kamakura, and the imperial city, Kiōto, began in his time to develop features which ultimately entitled it to be called one of the finest roads in the world. But after Yoritomo’s death the land became once more an armed camp, in which the rival barons discouraged travel beyond the limits of their own domains. Not until the Tokugawa family obtained military control of the whole empire (1603), and, fixing its capital at Yedo, required the feudal chiefs to reside there every second year, did the problem of roads and post-stations force itself once more on official attention. Regulations were now strictly enforced, fixing the number of horses and carriers available at each station, the loads to be carried by them and their charges, as well as the transport services that each feudal chief was entitled to demand and the fees he had to pay in return. Tolerable hostelries now came into existence, but they furnished only shelter, fuel and the coarsest kind of food. By degrees, however, the progresses of the feudal chiefs to and from Yedo, which at first were simple and economical, developed features of competitive magnificence, and the importance of good roads and suitable accommodation received increased attention. This found expression in practice in 1663. A system more elaborate than anything antecedent was then introduced under the name of “flying transport.” Three kinds of couriers operated. The first class were in the direct employment of the shōgunate. They carried official messages between Yedo and Osaka—a distance of 348 miles—in four days by means of a well organized system of relays. The second class maintained communications between the fiefs and the Tokugawa court as well as their own families in Yedo, for in the alternate years of a feudatory’s compulsory residence in that city his family had to live there. The third class were maintained by a syndicate of 13 merchants as a private enterprise for transmitting letters between the three great cities of Kiōto, Osaka and Yedo and intervening places. This syndicate did not undertake to deliver a letter direct to an addressee. The method pursued was to expose letters and parcels at fixed places in the vicinity of their destination, leaving the addressees to discover for themselves that such things had arrived. Imperfect as this system was, it represented a great advance from the conditions in medieval times.
The nation does not seem to have appreciated the deficiencies of the syndicate’s service, supplemented as it was by a network of waterways which greatly increased the facilities for transport. After the cessation of civil wars under the sway of the Tokugawa, the building and improvement of roads went on steadily. It is not too much to say, indeed, that when Japan opened her doors to foreigners in the middle of the 19th century, she possessed a system of roads some of which bore striking testimony to her medieval greatness. The Tōkaidō. The most remarkable was the Tōkaidō (eastern-seaway), so called because it ran eastward along the coast from Kiōto. This great highway, 345 m. long, connected Osaka and Kiōto with Yedo. The date of its construction is not recorded, but it certainly underwent signal improvement in the 12th and 13th centuries, and during the two and a half centuries of Tokugawa sway in Yedo. A wide, well-made and well-kept avenue, it was lined throughout the greater part of its length by giant pine-trees, rendering it the most picturesque highway in the world. Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty of shōguns, directed that his body should be interred at Nikkō, a place of exceptional beauty, consecrated eight hundred years previously. This meant an extension of the Tōkaidō (under a different name) nearly a hundred miles northward, for the magnificent shrines erected then at Nikkō and the periodical ceremonies thenceforth performed there demanded a correspondingly fine avenue of approach. The original Tōkaidō was taken for model, and Yedo and Nikkō were joined by a highway The Nakasendoō. flanked by rows of cryptomeria. Second only to the Tōkaidō is the Nakasendō (mid-mountain road), which also was constructed to join Kiōto with Yedo, but follows an inland course through the provinces of Yamashiro, Omi, Mino, Shinshū, Kōtzuke and Musashi. Its length is 340 m., and though not flanked by trees or possessing so good a bed as the Tōkaidō, it is nevertheless a sufficiently remarkable highway. A The Oshūkaido. third road, the Oshūkaidō runs northward from Yedo (now Tōkyō) to Aomori on the extreme north of the main island, a distance of 445 m., and several lesser highways give access to other regions.
The question of road superintendence received early attention from the government of the restoration. At a general assembly of local prefects held at Tōkyō in June 1875 it was Modern Superintendence of Roads. decided to classify the different roads throughout the empire, and to determine the several sources from which the sums necessary for their maintenance and repair should be drawn. After several days’ discussion all roads were eventually ranged under one or other of the following heads:—
I. National roads, consisting of—
Class 1. Roads leading from Tōkyō to the various treaty ports.