The cutting edge of high technology is undeniably more the stuff of modern Japan than the samurai sword, but several venerable swordsmiths designated 'Living National Treasures' still forge the world's finest blades, just as they did centuries ago. Although obviously diminished, the proliferation of traditional arts and crafts in modern Japan is astonishing. With the introduction of the three-piece suit in the 1870s, inrō (the little tiered medicine boxes hanging from the kimono belt) may have gone the way of netsuke (the amazing miniature sculptures used to toggle them) but the skills of the craftsmen making them remain very much alive, albeit for different applications. Workshops in Kanazawa and Kyoto still make exquisite painted, embroidered or tie-dyed silk textiles; craftsmen all over Honshu and Kyushu continue to produce outstanding ceramics. Japanese lacquerware finds few rivals worldwide; many modern Japanese, whether serious calligraphers or just for writing seasonal greetings, keep a lacquer writing box complete with brushes and ink-stone. Notwithstanding the ferro-concrete urban sprawl, the wooden Japanese house still exists—in many cases just as an interior in a high rise apartment. Some people continue to paint traditional screen doors and, during the summer months especially, everyone likes to sprawl on the cool, comfortable smoothness of the tatami floor.
Many of those old Japanese objects have not lost their relevance, and continue to define the country producing them. People living outside Japan or those interested in its culture travel thousands of miles to the country not to see cars, computers and home entertainment equipment, but to visit the Japan that still uses those 'things Japanese'. Among the Japanese themselves, plenty would happily agree that many such objects remain signifiers of their culture, even if they have never seen them.
To foreigners, these things are the faint embers of a cultural love affair that started burning in the 19th century. It was fired first from woodblock prints, brought to the notice of Europe by France's Goncourt brothers and the impressionist painters. Then it burned all the more fiercely among those travelling to the hitherto hermit nation shortly after its doors first creaked open to the outside world. Believing that such exquisite items could only come from some kind of Fairyland, many of those early lovers of things Japanese were perhaps blinded and naive. However warped their perceptions, the 'things Japanese' they so loved remain, and often flourish. Today, often sought by antique collectors, some are just the stuff of fond memorabilia, but many remain topical and are in everyday use.
House and Garden
Coming from homes designed to shut them off from the outside. Western visitors to Japan of a century or more ago were impressed. Light, airy and made of wood and paper, the traditional Japanese house merely enclosed the space outside, on to which it opened out. The furnishing was sparse, decoration minimal. From the veranda there was a landscape garden to contemplate, a pleasure more feasible now in the nearest park or temple precinct. Wooden houses and shops are becoming rare in modern Japan. Yet even in high-rise urban neighbourhoods, the past lives on often in the lacquerware and fine china the inhabitants reserve for special occasions, in the tatami matting, paper doors, screens and futon bedding. And out on the balconies, the gardens survive in the types of plants tended, and the proliferation of bonsai trees.
Shikki
漆器
lacquerware
Although they abhorred cluttering their stark interiors, when the wealthy Japanese set out to impress visitors, they did it often with lacquerware. Writing boxes, trays and tableware, tea caddies and boxes for incense requisites or bentō (packed lunches), chests for travelling or storing special clothes (see right): all of these were exquisitely decorated by master artisans. Black, red, yellow or multicoloured, the gleaming lacquer often enhanced elaborate designs made from powdered gold and silver (maki-e) or inclusions of metal and mother-of-pearl. Japan knows a thing or two about lacquer, as Europeans were aware long before it opened its doors to the outside world; during the 18th century, English furniture makers simply called the process 'japanning'.
The Japanese call items so treated nuri-mono (coated things), but the term referring more specifically to the craft itself is shikki, which translates more closely. It had long been assumed that the technique made its way into Japan via the ancient Sino-Korean connection; there are fine examples of 1,300-year-old lacquerware in the temple treasure houses of Nara. But archaeological sites in Japan have recently yielded lacquered wooden fragments; carbon dating puts them in the middle of the neolithic Jōmon period (10,000-300BC).
Called urushi in Japanese and used in most of East Asia, the substance itself comes from the sap of a tree (Rhus vernicifera). Tapped like latex, it is filtered and heated before being used to coat various materials, especially wood or leather. Unlike other varnishes, it requires no solvent. Resistant to heat, water and natural corrosives, its hardness is such that it was used to coat the leather breast-plates on samurai suits of armour.
Shikki production is typically a community venture. In Narai, in Nagano prefecture's Kiso Valley, local artisans work in teams as they have done for 300 years. Some deal with woodwork, including bowls, trays, boxes and furniture. Bowls are coated with red or black lacquer by artisans seated on the floor of a workshop occupied by their forebears for generations. After several coats, the objects may go on to be decorated by painters before being lacquered again. Following each application, they are turned overnight in a clockwork drying cabinet. The lacquered products must always remain in a humid environment; perhaps high precipitation and humid summers partly explain why Japanese lacquerware is quite as good as it is.
The Japanese brought a peerless degree of refinement to lacquerware. There are centres all over Japan, including several among the sub-tropical Okinawan islands famous for their bold, colourful designs. Out of several claimants for being the first producers, Fukui prefecture's Echizen-shikki is said to have originated during the 6th century. Going back to the Heian period (792-1185), Kyoto's Kyō-shikki is one of the most beautiful, and many fine pieces were made for the tea ceremony between the 14th and 16th centuries. Like many Japanese crafts, shikki is regarded as having reached its apogee during the 18th century. It was then that the technique known as maki-e was at its most exquisite and extravagant.
With many craftsmen following in the footsteps of their forebears, shikki is alive and well and the range greater than ever. Fabulously expensive lacquered chests are still being wrought by renowned traditional masters, alongside innovative items in bold modern designs. And the soup accompanying any Japanese meal will always be served in a lacquered bowl. You see them piled high on the shelves of local supermarkets in red and black and patterned with gold. Cheap, cheerful and, more often than not, made of plastic.
Tansu
箪笥
wooden chests
Some Japanese