Page 481

JAPANESE BRONZES
JAPANESE       BRONZES. BY       RAN-
DOLPH I. GEARE, NATIONAL MU-
SEUM, WASHINGTON, D. C.
HE bronze used by the Japanese in
        early times was either of Chinese
        or Korean origin, and from these
        peoples they derived much of their
knowledge of things artistic. Five kinds
of bronze were then recognized: Karakane,
made of copper and tin; Skakudo, of cop-
per, silver and gold; Shibui,
chi, containing five to fifty
per cent. of silver to copper;
Shirichiu (brass), from twen-
ty-five to fifty per cent. of
zinc to copper; and Seido,
composed of copper, lead and
tin.
  Prior to the Christian era,
Japan imported bronze mir-
rors and other objects from
China and Korea; but bronze
composed of metal from Jap-
anese ores was probably not
made much earlier than the
end of the seventh century,
A. D. The descendants of
Koreans, mingling with the
Japanese, were among    the
first native bronze manufac-
turers.  Swords and arrow-
beads were the first articles,
made by these craftsmen, and
later, objects of enormous size
were cast, such as the colossal
image called Yakusi Niorai
in the temple of Yakushi at
Nara, made about 700 A. D.
and believed to be the work
of the Korean monk Gio~i:
the great bell in the grounds of the Todai
temple at Nara, which measured thirteen
feet six inches high; the gigantic image of
Rochana, in the same temple, fifty-three
feet high, and said to contain five hundred
pounds of gold, sixteen thousand eight
hundred twenty-seven pounds of tin, nine-
teen hundred fifty-four pounds of mercury,
and nine hundred eighty-six thousand and
eighty pounds of copper.
   Japan was shaken by revolutions from
--------igure i. oyni
481
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