Lecture 2001-01-22

Japanese Netsuke: Treasured Miniatures

HIH Prince Takamado (ASJ Patron)

Venue: Canadian Embassy

Annual General Meeting

This being our annual general meeting, Dr. Berendt began by reporting some highlights and challenges of the past year, before calling for a motion to approve the annual report and Treasurer's report for the year 2000. He then yielded the floor to Prof. Patrick Carey who acted as temporary chairman to conduct the election of officers and  Council members for the coming year. The slate prepared by the Nominating Committee was approved in toto.

Summary of the January Lecture

As last year, we were greatly favoured in having our annual general meeting hosted by the Canadian Ambassador, H.E. Mr. Leonard Edwards, and Mrs. Edwards at the Canadian Embassy theatre, and in having one of our patrons as our speaker. On this occasion, H.I.H. Prince Takamado addressed us on "Japanese Netsuke: Treasured Miniatures". The theatre was well filled with some 150 attendees, among them the Ambassadors of Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand and Pakistan, as well as the wife of the British Ambassador and other distinguished guests. His Highness not only spoke to us, illustrating his presentation with slides, but he had brought with him and personally set out part of his own treasured netsuke collection, which were on display before and after the meeting proper. He had also arranged for a leading netsuke carver, Mr. Ryushi Komada, Chairman of the International Netsuke Carvers' Association, to come and demonstrate the making of netsuke and answer questions.

Dr. Berendt called upon the Canadian Ambassador H.E. Mr. Leonard Edwards to introduce our speaker. In so doing, Mr. Edwards first took the opportunity to welcome all those attending, and then paid a tribute to Their Highnesses as "working patrons".

Prince Takamado began modestly by explaining that he was not an expert on netsuke, just an admirer and collector. Like the other traditional art form, ukiyoe, netsuke were undoubtedly better known outside Japan than in the country itself. They had once been very popular, but then fell out of fashion, and it was visiting foreigners who found them interesting and started buying them and taking them back to their own countries. Ironically, it was precisely because netsuke and ukiyoe found a second home outside Japan that they were saved and studied; if they had remained in Japan it is quite likely that most of them would have been discarded and destroyed.

There were many difficulties relating to the study of netsuke. First, although netsuke were regarded as an art form, they were at the same time objects of everyday use, so that very few studies have been made of them in Japan. Many books had been published in Europe and the U.S., but the authors had suffered from having limited access to Japan and the Japanese language, while in Japan itself it was very difficult to study actual netsuke, as the majority of antique pieces had been carried across the oceans. As a result, there has been hardly any academic work conducted on the subject of netsuke, and those who have published books or have a wide knowledge of the subject are either collectors or dealers.

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His Highness then spoke humorously of his wife as the cause of his speaking on netsuke on this occasion. During her years of residence in England, she had seen netsuke in museums in London, and had found them interesting. After returning to Tokyo, she began buying contemporary netsuke, which were much cheaper than the antiques, and even bought old ones if they had some minor damage and were offered at bargain prices. When they met and became engaged she took him to her netsuke shop, and they went through hundreds of little boxes until he found one that caught his fancy and he decided to buy it as an engagement present. He got a shock when he discovered that it was thirty times as expensive as any gift he had ever bought for any girl! When he consoled himself with the thought, in 1984, that this would be the only netsuke he would ever buy, he little realized that he would now have a collection of nearly five hundred.

Prince Takamado then proceeded to an outline of the history of netsuke. Their origin was unknown, though clearly, as the Japanese kimono has no pockets, something was needed for carrying things around. The word comes from ne 'root' and tsuke 'attached', and it is supposed that woodcutters and charcoal makers first had a piece of tree root or twig tucked into their obi, with a string attached for holding their tools. The word netsuke is first attested in writing in Takarakura (The Treasury), published in 1671. There were other words used to describe netsuke, one of them being obiguruma, suggesting that it was a ring through which the obi -- a simple cord -- was passed. Later, when the obi became more elaborate, the netsuke became a small object which could be easily passed under the obi from below, with the attached object, typically an inro, hanging below the obi. By 1781 we find Inaba Tsuryu recording the first description of netsuke artists in the eight-volume Sokenkisho, and by the time of the Bunka and Bunsei periods in the early 19th century netsuke had reached the peak of their popularity.

With the opening of the country at the end of the Edo period, Western culture entered Japan. People started wearing Western clothes, and the need for netsuke gradually faded. At the same time, Europeans and Americans began to collect netsuke, which continued to be shipped abroad even after World War II. The most important book on netsuke, Netsuke no Kenkyu (A Study of Netsuke) was written by Ueda Reikichi and published in 1943; it contains names and brief descriptions of 1,300 artists from the Edo period onwards. This book was translated by the late Raymond Bushell, a noted collector and a member of the ASJ, and published in 1961 by Charles E. Tuttle under the title The Netsuke Handbook by Ueda Reikichi; it became a Bible for collectors and dealers abroad. Bushell also wrote several important books on netsuke. Two other American collectors, Robert and Miriam Kinsey, published two important books on modern netsuke, Contemporary Netsuke (Tuttle, 1977) and Living Masters of Netsuke (Kodansha International, 1984), and these books introduced and promoted contemporary netsuke to the world.

Netsuke came in a variety of forms. The first was the manju netsuke, round like a bun and carved in relief. Then there was the kagamibuta netsuke; this was like an old mirror, with the centre hollowed out and a metal disc placed over the hollow. In the case of netsuke, however, the metal cover could be removed to reveal another design below. One example that aroused particular admiration from the audience was taken from a scene in the story "Tsuru no Ongaeshi": the outer disc shows the husband peeping through a crack in the door, and inside was his wife, who was actually a crane, weaving cloth from her own feathers. A variant of the manju netsuke was the ryusa netsuke, which was partly carved away in the centre to make it lighter; one design shown in a slide was of tadpoles among water weeds. Then there was the men netsuke, a mask such as is used in No or Bugaku. Perhaps the most familiar form was the katabori netsuke, carved in the shape of human beings or animals. One amusing example was of a frog on a discarded straw sandal; here there was a pun on the word kaeru (frog/return), as a visitor to a shrine had cast off a sandal on returning home. Another exquisitely carved piece was of a kabuki actor, only 3 cm. tall but carved in such detail that it appeared much larger. A third was of a decidedly imaginary tiger, with a spotted tail. The last type was the sashi netsuke, designed to be stuck inside the obi from above and therefore long and thin, unlike all the others. The most suitable shape for the first five types was small and round, so as to be easily passed under the obi. A netsuke should also be light but not fragile; any part that stuck out, for example a samurai's sword, would be easily broken off. There was no limitation on the subjects portrayed. They could be living creatures, buildings or even surreal shapes. Some of the figures were taken from old stories or folklore. Contemporary netsuke sometimes turned to modern themes (for example a soccer football) and European or American carvers might introduce themes from their own culture, such as cowboy gear. Though they were not used now (though His Highness wondered whimsically if we might ever see them attached to mobile phones), they still had a hole bored through them somewhere for a cord to be threaded through, except in cases where the design itself provided a hole.

There was also great variety in the materials used. The most common was wood, including boxwood, ebony, Japanese yew, walnut (and walnut shells), mahogany and briar, which was a tree root. One piece represented a half-eaten umeboshi made of a tagua nut, with part of the stone in the centre made of copper; the kernel is known as Tenjin, and in this case when the copper was removed, tiny gold cherry blossoms were revealed. Animal products included tusks (elephant, fossil mammoth, fossil walrus, wild boar, warthog and others), antlers and horns, and also bones. There were marine products such as coral and mother-of-pearl, and, besides these, amber, stones, ceramics, metals, glass and plastic were also used. One fine contrast of tea ceremony styles was an understated chagama tea kettle, which opened up to reveal a tiny set of ostentatious golden tea utensils inside.

His Highness finally spoke of hineri, designs with a 'twist' in them. This could be simply a twist in the shape of the body, but often a fanciful or humorous element was involved. One piece, entitled "make-up", was of a shishi licking its hind paw, as if smartening itself up to go out on a date. Another was of a hippopotamus attempting to do a handstand -- the carving was somehow convincing, even though a real hippo would not have its hind legs waving in the air. This hineri feature was particularly evident in modern carvings. There were today some 50-70 Japanese carvers, and 30 from such countries as the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, the U.S.A. and Canada, who were communicating with the Japanese and bringing new influences. The Washington Convention of 1989 banning trade in ivory had first caused carvers to panic. It was not easy for them to change to other materials, and though some adjusted, others abandoned their avocation. Since then there had been a slight concession in the import of ivory from certain countries where the elephant populations had been restored, and the prospects were therefore somewhat brighter.

A brief time was allowed for questions. In reply to one, His Highness said that both in the old days and also today there were expensive netsuke and cheap ones. The asking price for one particular piece today was ¥48 million!

The meeting closed with a vote of thanks proposed by Mr. Hiroshi Sakamoto, who had done some research to establish whether this was the first time we had had a speaker on netsuke. He had found that on June 17th, 1975, the Fine Arts Committee had arranged "An Informal Evening on Netsuke" at which Richard Silverman had discussed modern carvers and exhibited a selection of old and new pieces. Then on February 19th, 1983, Raymond and Frances Bushell had invited a limited number of people to their home to see specimens of his fine collection and hear what had gone into their creation. So this was, in fact, the first occasion on which netsuke had been the theme of a general meeting.

The meeting was followed by a reception hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, and everyone had an opportunity to view Prince Takamado's netsuke and see the carver, Mr. Komada, at work. As in previous years, we were also grateful to Mr. Takeo Yamaoka for providing his gift of sake and masu.

Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 2", February 2001, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.