Collecting Japanese Antiques by Alistair Seton (Tuttle). 

ISBN 0-8048-2094-5

If you are the type of person who hears the words ‘Japanese antiques’ and feels your eyes glazing over soporifically, then the thought of slogging through three hundred pages detailing the nomenclature of Japanese swords, the various uses of medicine chests and the history of regional pottery kilns might sound as interesting as reading the telephone directory. Backwards.

Yet even cultural philistines lacking any innate appreciation for the finer things in life must be bowled over by this marvelously erudite, sumptuously illustrated book. Perusing comments on the internet one can see that the weird subspecies known as Japanese Antiques Collectors have already proclaimed Alistair Seton’s tour de force to be a definitive must-have volume, but the reality is that this wonderful book is wasted on mere collectors. It deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in Japan, by anyone wishing to form a cultured appreciation of the world, nay by anyone with an appreciation of life itself, for its insights are profound and universal.

First the big question: why collect? Sitting in a cramped apaato with hardly enough room to swing a keitai and pondering how to afford your next meal at Yoshinoya, acquiring precious items from your local antiques dealer might not be top of everyone’s agenda. But as Seton points out, collecting items that take our fancy is intrinsic to human nature and part of the way we define our personalities and our interaction with the society around us. We are all collectors of things in one form or another, so why not refine our tastes and explore our interests while doing so? Rather than keeping money rotting away in a bank, why not invest some of it in making more beautiful and distinctive the world we live in? Seton persuades us that the quest for unusual items can also be a lot of fun.    

A resident of Kobe since 1972, Seton is the founding editor of Daruma, a quarterly magazine on Japanese antiques, and given the number of items in the book that are credited to ‘author’s collection’ I imagined him living in Shah-like splendour in a mansion that would make the British Museum look spartan. He is also an adept wordsmith and if occasionally the talk of gold screens, precious porcelain and silk kimonos gets too much to take in all at once then we are never more than a few lines from a bon mot by a writer who has such mastery and enthusiasm for the subject that he can afford to relax and keep us entertained by reference to the useful dildo potential of a long-nosed tengu mask or the best way to outwit a crafty dealer.

Quite apart from its use as a collector’s guide, the book is a treasure trove of information on Japanese art and history, always offering new and fascinating insights. In discussing musha (warrior) dolls, Seton observes that six core figures emerged during the Edo period. Some of these such as Minamoto Yoshitsune and Toyotomi Hideyoshi are well known, but more peculiar is Empress Jingu, a figure from Japanese mythology who is said to have conquered the Korean peninsula in AD 200 and who is always depicted with her minister Takenouchi no Sukune by her side. Jingu apparently utilized the powers of Ryujin, dragon king of the sea, to subjugate the Koreans without bloodshed and was supposed to be pregnant at the time, but to delay the birth tied a girdle of rocks around her womb for nineteen months and finally gave birth on her triumphant return to Japan in AD 201.

Seton guides us expertly through such predictable subjects as ceramics and furniture, but all the while arrests us with surprises. How about a senior priest’s folding chair to fill up that space by your balcony door? And if Japanese lacquerware does not intrigue, then read the chapter devoted to the delicate art of cloisonné. The process of applying molten glass of different colours to precious metal by making little squares with strips called cells was so labour-intensive and expensive, and mistakes so common, that costs were stratospheric. Yet in Japan it has been practiced since the eighth century and enjoyed a particular vogue before the First World War. The results are often spectacular. 

I also particularly enjoyed the story of how in the Edo period wearing swords was the sole prerogative of the samurai but self-defence was still a problem for ordinary people. So the solution was bokuto, wooden swords designed both to look like the real thing and be workman-like if it came to a fight.

With such a lavish and scrupulously researched book it seems churlish to make even the slightest criticism. But if there is one tiny matter that jars it is the imposition of American spellings on a writer who is clearly a most ebullient Scotsman. In his Daruma magazine, Seton retains the Japanese word order for names noting that there should be room in this world for little cultural differences – if only the American editors had quite the same respect for the native spellings in Seton’s deliciously luxuriant prose.

Damian Flanagan.

This review was published in Kansai Time Out in October 2005.