new additions...

[pchan]

I thought pen nib, but it could be a brush...once the doors to Japan were flung open by Perry, there was a huge influx of western influence into Japan as well as vice versa, so I was thinking a pen but I will ask my father in law about this, and kanji characters can be extremely complicated, some to me look like small paintings, very intricate with a certain number of strokes and usually in a certain order...but I see them through the eyes of a painter, not sure the natives think of them that way. So drawn or written, I suppose it depends who you ask....but even today school children learn calligraphy in school often with a brush. My father in law has an elder sister who teaches calligraphy so she is very knowledgeable on characters and may know about the ink well too. The Meiji era began when the Edo period ended in 1867 but I don`t think this milk glass dates that far back, looks to me to be 20`s or maybe `30`s....but thats just a guess. I`ll see the in law`s this week end and will ask then.