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August 21, 1877 (Meiji 10)
Ueno Park, Tokyo
About 17 min read
On 28 March 1876 (Meiji 9), Dajōkan Proclamation No. 38, titled "Prohibition of Wearing Swords Except by Those in Full Court Dress and by Military and Police Officials on Duty" and commonly known as the Haitōrei, was promulgated. As a result, only those wearing full court dress and military and police officials on duty were permitted to wear swords; all other sword-wearing was prohibited. Debate over abolishing swords had existed since 1869 (Meiji 2), and the Sanpatsu Dattōrei of 1871 (Meiji 4) had already made the wearing and removing of swords a matter of individual choice. The direct trigger for the decision to prohibit, however, was a proposal submitted by Yamagata Aritomo in December 1875 (Meiji 8). The reasoning was that, with conscription in place and a police system established, individuals no longer needed to carry swords. The shizoku reaction was fierce; acts of resistance are recorded, such as carrying swords in bags or slung over the shoulder, and the edict also became a remote cause of the shizoku rebellions.
For swordsmiths and metal craftsmen, this proclamation meant, before anything else, the disappearance of the market itself, since demand for blades and sword fittings had rested on the samurai custom of wearing swords. The First National Industrial Exhibition, held the year after the Haitōrei, was thus the first national stage on which craftsmen who had lost the foundation of their livelihood were asked to which industrial field they would reconnect their skills.
The First National Industrial Exhibition was held for 102 days, from 21 August to 30 November 1877 (Meiji 10), in Ueno Park, Tokyo. It was proposed by Ōkubo Toshimichi, the first Home Minister, against the background of the government's experience at the Vienna World Exposition of 1873 (Meiji 6), where the Meiji government first participated officially. The word "Naikoku" in the name reflected Ōkubo's intention that the development and encouragement of domestic products be the primary purpose. The Satsuma Rebellion broke out six months before the opening, and some voices doubted whether the exhibition should proceed, but it was carried out as planned.
The venue covered a site of about 100,000 square metres, with a Main Art Hall, Agriculture Hall, Machinery Hall, Horticulture Hall and Animal Hall. A large clock was set above the former front gate of the Kan'ei-ji head temple, an American-style windmill about 10 metres high stood at the park entrance, and several thousand lanterns decorated the grounds. Exhibitors numbered more than 16,000, exhibits numbered 84,353, and visitors numbered 454,168. Following the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, exhibits were classified into six categories (mining and metallurgy, manufactures, fine arts, machinery, agriculture and horticulture) and judged on material, method of manufacture, quality, finish, utility, value and price. The government deliberately separated the event from the older image of the misemono and positioned it as a venue for encouraging industry, where Western technology met indigenous technology.
Awards were originally designed in five tiers: the honorary prize, first through third class, and certificates of commendation. However, immediately before the award ceremony, on Ōkubo Toshimichi's instruction, the grade designations were abolished, and the awards were reorganized according to the patterns stamped on the medals into three kinds, the Ryūmon shōhai (dragon-pattern medal), Hōmon shōhai (phoenix-pattern medal) and Kamon shōhai (flower-pattern medal), together with certificates of commendation. In textiles, Gaun Tokimune's garabō, which he exhibited, received a phoenix-pattern medal; it is known to have spread rapidly after the exhibition and to have contributed to the spinning industry during its transitional period.
The medals themselves survive as metalwork from the early Meiji period. The "Meiji 10 National Industrial Exhibition Medal (Phoenix Pattern)" in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum measures 5.9 cm in diameter and 0.35 cm in thickness, bears the inscription "Meiji 10 National Industrial Exhibition, Tokyo," and is recorded as having been made by the National Industrial Exhibition Office. This small disc conveys the atmosphere of an age in which craftsmen whose carving skills had been developed on sword fittings were absorbed into new demand for metalwork, such as medals, decorations and the prototypes of coinage.
The exhibition records and illustrations published by the National Diet Library and the National Archives of Japan document, for the most part, the core fields of shokusan kōgyō, such as spinning machinery, printing presses, farm implements and ceramics. No publicly available source has been found that identifies individually which swordsmiths exhibited which works or what awards they received.
Although the exhibition records themselves cannot be traced, how the people who sustained the sword world in this period conducted themselves can be followed through their individual biographies.
Kanō Natsuo was born in Kyoto in Bunsei 11 (1828) and, at the age of seven, was adopted as the son of the sword dealer Kanō Jisuke. At twelve he studied metal carving under Okumura Shōhachi, and at fourteen he studied sketching from life under Nakajima Raishō of the Maruyama-Shijō school; at nineteen, in Kōka 3 (1846), he became independent. He moved to Kanda in Edo in Kaei 7 (1854) and was known for the katagiri-bori technique. In April Meiji 2 (1869) he became an Imperial Household craftsman, and in July of the same year he was commissioned to carve the prototype dies for the new coinage. In Meiji 6 (1873) he completed the mountings for the Suiryūken, an imperial treasure sword. When the Haitōrei of Meiji 9 (1876) brought demand for sword fittings to an end, he turned to small metalwork such as tobacco cases and netsuke. Later, at the Third National Industrial Exhibition in Meiji 23 (1890), he received the first-class award for exceptional technique, became a professor at the Tokyo Fine Arts School, and was appointed an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigeiin), a system established that same year. He was granted the Junior Sixth Rank on 28 February 1894 (Meiji 27) and died in Meiji 31 (1898).
The Hundred Cranes Vase that Kanō Natsuo exhibited in Meiji 23 received the first-class award for exceptional technique, was purchased by the Imperial Household Ministry, and is said to have been displayed in the Paulownia Room of the Meiji Palace. A craftsman raised in a sword dealer's household, who had been drawn to metal carving by the beauty of tsuba and kozuka, had by the middle of the Meiji period come to stand at the center of the nation's art administration.
Among those who forged blades, the career of Miyamoto Kanenori offers a contrast. Born in Bunsei 13 (1830) at Ōgaki in Hōki Province (present-day Tottori Prefecture), into a sake brewery, his real name was Shigahiko. In Kaei 4 (1851), at the age of twenty-two, he went to Osafune in Bizen, but Yokoyama Sukenaga refused to take him as a student. He entered the school of Yokoyama Sukekane and trained there for seven years, and in Ansei 4 (1857) he became a smith retained by the Tottori domain. In Bunkyū 3 (1863) he set up a forge at Sanjō Horikawa in Kyoto, and in Keiō 2 (1866) he forged a sword for Emperor Kōmei, receiving the title Noto-no-kami the following year. In Meiji 1 (1868), during the Boshin War, he accompanied Prince Arisugawa and took part in the pacification of the Kuwana domain. After returning in triumph to Kyoto, he undertook a retreat of more than 130 days at Fushimi Inari Shrine, forging votive blades. However, after the Haitōrei of Meiji 9 (1876), orders fell sharply, and for a time he made a living by forging agricultural tools. The turning point came in Meiji 19 (1886), when he received a large commission for the sacred treasures for the periodic rebuilding of the Ise Grand Shrine: 66 tachi, 42 hoko and 3,800 arrowheads. The skill he demonstrated in fulfilling it was recognized, and on 4 April 1906 (Meiji 39), together with Gassan Sadakazu, he was appointed as the first swordsmith to be named an Imperial Household Artist. In Taishō 4 (1915) he forged the ceremonial sword for the Taishō enthronement ceremony (dairei), and on 24 October 1926 (Taishō 15), at the age of 97, he died and was buried at Somei Cemetery.
The National Industrial Exhibitions that followed were: the second, in Meiji 14 (1881) at Ueno Park, Tokyo; the third, in Meiji 23, again at Ueno Park; the fourth, in Meiji 28 (1895), at Okazaki Park, Kyoto; and the fifth, in Meiji 36 (1903), in Osaka. As the exhibitions were held repeatedly, the weight given to fine arts and crafts increased, and they took on a stronger character as venues for evaluating craft goods destined for export.
Viewed from the perspective of swords, the Meiji 10 exhibition marks "the moment, immediately after the sword lost its standing as a weapon, when Japanese craft was reintegrated into a national framework of evaluation." Carvers of sword fittings survived as art craftsmen, and swordsmiths survived amid new demand from shrine dedications and Imperial Household commissions. Through the Imperial Household Artist system of Meiji 23 and the appointment of swordsmiths in Meiji 39, their skills were repositioned by the state as "a tradition to be protected." The exhibition at Ueno marked the starting point of this redefinition, which took some thirty years from the Haitōrei.