Word: swords
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...image and technique. Such is the lesson of two fall exhibitions of Japanese art, seen at its utmost pitch of refinement. One is a selection of 235 works of the Rimpa school-scrolls, screens and lacquer-at the Tokyo National Museum, the other a show of inros, netsukes and sword guards from the Charles A. Greenfield collection at Manhattan's Japan House...
...sumptuary laws forbade merchants and samurai to wear excessively rich garments, so male vanity expressed itself in three special kinds of objects: inros, the tiny compartmented cases for carrying seals, or later medicine; netsukes, the carved toggles that fastened the inros to one's sash; and tsubas, or sword guards. The amount of craft lavished on these small things almost surpasses belief. So, often, does their sculptural quality: witness Issan's tiny, writhing red dragon netsuke. To complete his inro bearing the motif of a Chinese ship, Ritsuo (1663-1747) had to apply some 80 coats of lacquer...
...restored. Thus a war helmet and mask on Koma Kyuhaku's 18th century inro are complemented by a fierce little demon mask with ivory horns. In a sense, the extreme limit of aestheticization was reached by the makers of tsubas. Considered merely as an object, the 19th century sword guard of the blue-black copper alloy known as shakudo, inlaid with gold maple leaves (the gold patchy, as in autumn), is sumptuous enough. But the idea of dying with so delicate a work of art attached to one's stomach by two feet of razor-sharp steel could...
...someone bumps me on a New York City subway, I know it's not because I'm black, but because my feet are the big. And individuals can move up quickly in the City. It's an arena; and the only problem the block man has is that his sword is slightly shorter, and the edge of the sword is not as sharp. That means you have to have to have a tougher...
...bought his first yacht in 1953 and in 1960 won the first transatlantic solo yacht race. After his historic trip round the world, the first made with just one landfall, Chichester was given a hero's welcome in his native Plymouth and knighted with the sword of Sir Francis Drake. Despite age and ill health, he attempted to make his fifth solo Atlantic crossing two months ago, but had to turn back...