Meiji Era Metallurgy

"A Smith at Work." A plate accompanying the article in The Archaeological Journal, reprinted from Tales of Old Japan. Dobrée, Alfred, “Japanese Sword Blades.” The Archaeological Journal 62: 12, Second Series, 5. London: Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, March 1905. Accessed November 23, 2014 via Hollis+. Harvard University. Web.

“Mr. Gilbertson says: –

‘I look upon a well-finished Japanese blade as a marvel of mechanical skill and perfect workmanship, as delightful to contemplate as the grinding and polishing of a speculum or large telescope lens. No competent judge either of the workmanship of a sword or of its practical value as a weapon can fail to appreciate the extraordinary skill displayed by the Japanese swordsmiths or to comprehend the unique position occupied by a master smith of renown…’

“Gouse, the French authority on Japanese art, says: –

‘Japanese blades are incomparably the most beautiful the world has ever produced; those of Damascus and Toledo, as examples of the working and tempering of steel, appear beside them merely as the efforts of children…’”

Dobrée, Alfred, “Japanese Sword Blades.” The Archaeological Journal 62: 12, Second Series, 4 – 5. London: Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, March 1905. Accessed November 23, 2014 via Hollis+. Harvard University. Web.

In this woodblock print, "The Imperial Guard division based on Taiwan [is] crushing the enemy army after a furious fight," with officers "carrying traditional swords mounted in Western style," conscript troops, the "Imperial Navy's Rising Sun flag," and a "powerful battleship...These types of prints were produced immediately after the events they depicted and were effective instruments of propaganda in Japan's imperialistic expansion period." "Taiwan-tō kiryū konoeshidan Funsen Tekigun o gekihe," 1895. From The Japanese Sword, 118. Irvine, Gregory. The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum. First Edition. Trumbull, Connecticut: Weatherhill, Inc., 2000. Print.

Named after General Murata Tsuneyoshi, a gunsmith, the Murata-to were mass-produced swords made for non-commissioned officers and other lower-ranking members of the Japanese Army in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths, 42. Kapp, Leon, Hiroko Kapp, Yoshindo Yoshihara. First Edition. New York: Kodansha America, Inc., 2002. Print.

The situation of Japanese swordsmiths grew so dire that the Emperor Meiji, alarmed by the very real possibility that the art of swordsmithing could be lost forever, “appointed two swordsmiths [Gassan Sadakazu and Miyamoto Kanenori] as craftsmen to the imperial household in 1906 by awarding them the title of gigei-in.”(30) The Meiji government also worked to save the sword, establishing a system by which “valuable and important swords [could be designated as] national treasures.”(31) Furthermore, as the craze for modernization and Westernization subsided somewhat, the Japanese sword made something of a comeback in the new Meiji army despite its “associations with feudal Japan” and “incompatibility with a modern military.”(32) A new type of blade called the Murata-tō was “mass produced – stamped and ground, or forged out of cheaper modern steel. These factory or mill steel swords often had hardened edges or hamon and appeared to be very similar to traditional swords,” and served as a “mass-produced economical substitute” during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.(33) Additionally, as “a symbol of authority throughout Japan’s imperialist period when the conscript army was led, for the most part, by officers of samurai stock,” custom, finely-made swords were produced for higher-ranking officers (although they were often mounted in Western styles instead of traditional Japanese ones).(34)

Finally, the sword came to be appreciated not only as a military weapon, but also as a work of art. As evidenced by The Archaeological Journal article, many Westerners were intrigued and fascinated by the sword and its various trappings and fittings; “huge numbers of weapons and fittings were exported to the West” amid a larger “craze for Japanese art.”(35) In many ways, the Haitōrei Edict and the consequent influx of now-useless swords into Western markets was “a heaven-sent opportunity to collect.”(36) Europeans and Americans, reading academic journals like The Archaeological Journal, were fascinated by accounts of sword workmanship and quality. Meanwhile, the Japanese, caught up in nostalgic and nationalistic fervor for Japanese traditions and culture, also came to appreciate the difference between “art swords” – older traditionally-forged blades – and “army swords” – the cheap, easily-producible “supplied by arsenals through mechanic system, or by factories of unexperienced swordsmiths.”(37)

Even today, there are still a few who, despite all the threats to their trade, still make swords in the old ways. Yet looking at those elegantly curved blades, admiring their polished lethality, and thinking of the centuries of knowledge that created them, one cannot help feeling as if something has been lost. As Professor Inazo Nitobe wrote in 1905,

“The swordsmith was not a mere artizan, but an inspired artist, and his workshop a sanctuary…Every swing of the sledge, every plunge into water, every friction on the stone was a religious act of no slight import. Was it the spirit of the master or of his tutelary deity that cast such a spell over our sword? Perfect as a work of art, setting at defiance its Toledo and Damascus rivals, there was more than art could impart. Its cold blade collecting on its surface, the moment it is drawn, the vapours of the atmosphere; its immaculate texture flashing light of blueish hue; its matchless edge upon which histories and possibilities hang; the curve of its back uniting exquisite grace with utmost strength; all these fill us with mixed feelings of power and beauty, of awe and terror.”(38)