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Both inro and netsuke were fashion statements
par excellence during the late Edo era. As real-life items that
came to symbolize the esprit and breeding of their owner, inro
and netsuke were elevated to crafts of the highest quality and
refinement. Their production came to involve a kaleidoscope
of traditional artisans, ranging from painters, carvers and
lacquer craftsmen to engravers, mask makers and metal-casting
experts. In a sense, inro and especially netsuke encompassed
nearly the entirety of all Japanese craftsmanship, on canvases
of extremely limited size but of unlimited artistic potential.
As a result, even more than they were sought as articles of
functional practicality, they became treasured as works of exquisite
beauty, detail and taste.
Alas, like so much of Japanese culture, the destiny of inro
and netsuke was largely doomed after Japan opened to the West
in the mid-19th century. The succeeding Meiji period, with its
fascination for (some would say idolization of) everything Occidental,
led to drastic changes in dress style, and with those changes
the habit of tying inro or other items to the sash of one’s
kimono became increasingly irrelevant in everyday life, especially
that of Japanese males as they began adopting Western suits,
hats and neckties and abandoning their kimono robes in droves.
Sadly, the Japanese increasingly neglected these items that
once virtually equated to iki.
But precisely as the Japanese were losing interest in their
native culture and many of its finest artistic legacies, a force
from another source appeared on the horizon to pick up the slack:
Westerners. Early Western visitors to Japan during the Meiji
period seem to have mostly ignored inro, but they were attracted
to netsuke with a passion. They proceeded to purchase and collect
the cream of the netsuke crop, to the extent that today the
most expansive and admired collections of netsuke are predominantly
found outside the country of their origin. Netsuke, loved for
their ineffable wit and undeniable exoticism, are in private
collections and museums in all corners of the globe. And in
a highly uncanny way, even in this new role they serve as clear
expressions of the iki of the discerning person or entity lucky
enough to own them. |
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