Читать книгу Fables in Ivory - Adrienne Barbanson - Страница 10

AUTHOR' NOTE:

It was about twelve years ago that my interest was turned to netsuke, those masterpieces of miniature sculpture that I have here called "fables in ivory" more in the figurative than the literal sense, although it is true that many of the best netsuke have actually been carved in ivory. My interest has developed, I confess, into an ever-increasing enthusiasm. When I saw and touched my first netsuke (I say "touched" advisedly, for a genuine netsuke must be as agreeable to the touch as to the sight), I was extremely fascinated. This little object seemed charming to me, but I didn't know what it was. I began to study the subject and little by little acquired quite a collection of literature concerning netsuke. I followed the sales of Far Eastern objets d'art, searched the shops, spent hours with major and minor antiquaries, visited museums in various countries of Europe, in the United States, and recently in Japan. Item by item, during the course of years, I have acquired a collection of about five hundred netsuke.

A number of infinitely more important ones have passed through my hands, and I must add that each new netsuke has almost every time been a subject of research for me: the material from which it was carved, what it depicted, the legend or tale that inspired the artist, sometimes the deciphering of the signature, the era and the style in which it was created, and so forth. These researches led me naturally to set up a kind of catalog of my own collection. Then the great diversity and multiplicity of the subjects obliged me to devise a card index. As I assembled and classified my notes, I one day found myself in the process of writing an actual book about netsuke.

I worked hard, and the book threatened to become more and more important and more and more technical, aimed only at specialists. Now, in the course of these years of work, I arrived at several conclusions: first, that very few people, aside from Japanese collectors of objets d'art, knew the charming legends of old Japan; then, that even fewer people knew what a netsuke was, even though many of them might have several in a glass case in the living room; and, finally, that most of the photographs of netsuke in books hardly did justice to them. Some carvers of netsuke have achieved genuine masterpieces on a level with those of the great sculptors of every period and place, but often these little objects are unknown or slighted, since people do not take the trouble to study them attentively.

It was for these reasons that I decided to abandon my overtechnical book in order to assemble about forty legends among those best known in Japan and to illustrate them with enlarged photographs of netsuke of the sort that would enable readers to familiarize themselves with an art that "is so great within the small."

Special acknowledgments and thanks are due to my two close collaborators. Jean A. Lavaud, photographer of the Musée Guimet in Paris, did all the photography in this book, understanding precisely the spirit in which I desired to have photographic enlargements of netsuke made. Ralph Friedrich, poet and an editor with the Charles E. Tuttle Company in Tokyo, did by far the larger part of the work of translating this book from my French manuscript, at the same time supplying a number of interesting additions and helpful suggestions from his wide knowledge of Japan.

I take advantage of this note also to thank, first of all, the person who originally acquainted me with netsuke, and then, all those who inspired me to love, understand, and acquire them. My acknowledgment goes particularly to Felix Tikotin, of Wassenaar, the Netherlands, who was an excellent teacher. Equal thanks go to all those who generously loaned me netsuke for reproduction here, and especially to Georges Coedès, Curator of the Musée d'Ennery.

ADRIENNE BARBANSON LEFÈVRE-VACQUERIE

Garches, France