HS5 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library N 7350.H33 Japanese art / 3 1924 023 314 770 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023314770 JAPANESE ART Art Lovers' Series The Madonna in Art Cturist in Art Asgels in Art Saints in Art Heroines of tlie Bible in Art CUld Life in Art Love in Art Shakespeare in Art Music in Art Japanese Art A History of Americaa Art. 2 vols. Beautiful 'Women in Art. 2 vols. L. C. PAGE & CX)MPANY 200 Summer St., Boston, Mass. Skunso. — Typical Woman of the Ukio-ye School {See page 113) JAPANESE ART By SADAKICHI HARTMANN Author of A History of American Art," " Shake- speare in Art," etc. Illustrated BOSTON L. C. PAGE & COMPANY MDCCCCIV Copyright, igog By L. C. Page & Companv (incokforated) All rights reserved Published September, 1903 Colonial $tns Electrotypad and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A, TO THE MEMORY OF PREFACE [N compiling this book for publi- cation, its purpose should be clearly understood. It is not so much a book for experts and connoisseurs — too much has been written in that strain — but for those persons who would like to become more intimately acquainted with Japanese Art, but have been deterred from doing so by the want of a book which would accomplish this, without obliging them to turn specialists. This is the first history of Japanese Art which attempts to popularize the sub- ject. I have endeavoured sincerely and sympathetically to reproduce all its lead- ing phases and characteristics, and to VI PREFACE show its gradual growth from the archaic period to our modern time, bearing in its evolutions such a striking resemblance to the art of Europe. As in the latter, so in the former, primitive art was a religious art, and in both the feudal period was fol- lowed by a renaissance. In the seven- teenth century, the glorious epoch of the Fukugawa Shogunate corresponds to the age of Louis XV., while in the eighteenth century the classical ideal was followed by a realistic tendency in both Japan and Europe. The great difficulty lay in knowing what to omit. Japan was very fertile in the production of artists — the famous Hay- ashi's collection mentions over four hun- dred representatives of the Ukio-ye school alone, and the necessary limitations of space, among other reasons, made it impos- sible to exhaust the list of all those worthy of mention. I have paid slight attention PREFACE Vll to the peculiar habit of Japanese artists of changing their names several times during their professional career, — as it would test the memory too severely, — but invariably, except in a few cases, mentioned the name by which they were best known. Nor have I devoted much space to biograph- ical notes and the Japanese titles of the artists' works, as they would only confuse the reader. My sole aim was to show what the lead- ing schools and their foremost exponents have actually accomplished, with particu- lar stress on those of their accomplishments which appeal most strongly to our West- ern sense of aesthetics, and to also give the layman an opportunity of coming into touch with the infinite variety and grace of Japanese pictorialism. I hope that this book will be welcomed by all those interested in the culture of a country where, apparently, for centuries. Vlll PREFACE all worked in harmony, pursuing the same ideals and following the same methods of ornamentation, in order to produce a na- tional art : the art of Old Japan. The Author. CONTENTS CHAPTER FAGB I. Early Religious Painting II II. The Feudal Period . . . . 37 III. The Renaissance 60 IV. The Realistic Movement . 104 V. The Influence of Japanese Art on Western Civilization . IS4 VI. Japanese Architecture and Sculp- ture 174 VII. The Ornamental Arts 216 VIII. Modern Japanese Art 2S3 Bibliography 279 Index 283 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Shunso. — Typical Woman of the Ukio-ye School (See page US') .... Frontispiece Chang - Yueh - hu. — Kakemonos or Wall Picture of Bodhi-Dharma Crossing the Sea on a Reed i8 HoYEN (Modern School of Kanaoka). — GoA- dtss TS-viSiDXion {See also page 122) . . . 32 Yamoto - TosA School Autumn Flowers . 40 MiTSUNOBU. — Prince and Princess ... 48 Late Tosa School. — Orchard in Spring . . 53 MoTONOBU (Kano School). — Mountain Stream - 65 Massanobu. — Portrait of the Actor, Ichikawa Danjuro 70 Mokk£. — A Tiger 79 KoRiN. — Character Portrait .... 96 Moronobu Morning Toilet . . .• .108 KUNIYOSHY A Renin 126 Kiyonaga. — Picking Iris 131 KuNiSADA. — On the River 133 OuTOMARO A Yedo Beauty .... 136 HiROSHiGE. — A Landscape . . . .138 HiROSHiGE. — A Rain-Storm . . . .141 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE HoKUSAl. — View of Mount Fusiyama . .149 Sketches of Cranes for Decorative Work 157 Silk Embroidery for a Screen . . -158 Bronze Sword - Guards and Corner - Pieces i 67 ToRii 189 Pagoda 196 Dai-Butsu, Asakasa 207 Bronze Vase 239 Bronze Vase 243 Lacquer - Work 249 Kiosai. — Council in the Dragon Castle . . 257 Hokkei. — Landscape 265 Sessei. — Bronze Relief of Goddess Benten . 270 JAPANESE ART CHAPTER I. EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING The Kanaoka School (7th-ioth Century) |ODS and goddesses, with large halos against dark blue back- grounds, strange divinities, smil- ing serenely, garbed in soft, flowing draperies, seated on thrones cushioned with lotus flowers, and surrounded by- mythological attributes — such are the pictures that have come down to us from the earliest period of Japanese art. Just as in Italy religious painting, be- fore giving place to the more realistic art 12 JAPANESE ART of the successors of Masaccio, had incar- nated in the work of Fra Angelico its ideal and mystical tendencies, so Japan embodied in the decorative panels of its temples its ancient ideals of pure and native beauty. In the eighth century, when the city of Nara was made the seat of the Mikado's government, Japan was by no means in an archaic state. The authority of the crown had become greatly extended, the power of the hereditary local chief- tains broken, and a system of government instituted with prefects, who held oflfice subject to the control of the Mikado. Learning, which in Japan meant the study of the masterpieces of Chinese antiquity, had made progress. Schools had been established, and a university, comprising the four faculties of history, of the Chinese classics, of law, and of arith- metic, was founded. This, it will be EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 1 3 observed, was for the benefit of the official classes only. It was not until many cen- turies later that education reached the common people. There were also teach- ers, mostly Koreans, of medicine, paint- ing, and the glyptic art. The colossal bronze statue of Buddha, and some re- markable sculptures in wood, which are still to be seen at Nara, testify to the skill which the Japanese had then acquired in the last named art. The first written book which has come down to us in the Japanese, or indeed in any Turanian tongue, the Kojiki or " Rec- ords of Ancient Matters," was completed in 712; and at the court of Nara there existed a regular hereditary corporation of " reciters," similar to the bards of Britan- nia and Ireland, who recited "ancient words" before the Mikado on solemn occasions. Of even greater importance were their 14 JAPANESE ART achievements in architecture. This art was intimately connected with Buddhism, a cult which demanded stately temples and pagodas for its due exercise. The in- creasing authority of the court also re- quired edifices more befitting its dignity, and more in consonance with the gor- geous costumes and ceremonials adopted from China, than the old sovereign palaces, which were only temporary, every Mikado having built himself a palace in a new locality. China was in those days not as unpro- gressive, prosaic, sordid in temperament, and mercenary in aim as it is to-day (or as we suppose it to be). Its ancient civi- lization, its copious and, in many respects, remarkable literature, and a history which even then went back thousands of years, exercised a commanding influence on the surrounding countries. It played the part of Greece to the Eastern world, and there EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 1 5 is no department of Japanese national life and thought, whether material civilization, religion, morals, political organization, lan- guage, literature or art, which does not bear traces of Chinese influence. Beyond China lies India, which has furnished an important factor in mould- ing the Japanese character, namely. Bud- dhism. If, in regard to Japan, China takes the place of Greece and Rome, Buddhism, with its softening and humanizing influ- ences, holds a position similar to that of Christianity in the Western world. The alternate preponderance ' of these two powers is an interesting feature of Japa- nese history, and we shall see that it has not been without effect upon its art. The island mountaineers, in continual touch with the mainland, through numer- ous immigrations from Korea to Japan, which extended over centuries, received the gifts of Chinese and East Indian art 1 6 JAPANESE ART and culture with open arms and utilized them to the best advantage. It gave life to their religious and philosophical ideals, to their myths, their poetry, and their art. From this, however, it must not be inferred that the Japanese have been only borrowers and copyists. If this were true, if there had been no first individuality, waiting to apprehend and restate the for- eign influences, no mere change of atmos- phere would have galvanized into life a new culture and a new art. The Japanese would have passed from idol to idol, with the unintelligent submission of savages, and with a benumbing indifference to principles. But Japan, in fact, has ever and anon renewed her youth; and with each outburst of creative efforts the influ- ence of Chinese traditions has become fainter and fainter, and the qualities of the national character more and more pronounced. EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 1 7 The isolated, situation and the elongated shape of the Japanese islands, something like that of a narrow crescent severed from the mainland, have helped the land of the rising sun to give birth to a privi- leged race, fit for all refinements, and gifted with the noblest and most artistic sensibility. The oldest written documents of the Japanese, those of the- eighth and ninth centuries, make no allusion to any style of pictorial art previous to the fifth cen- tury. Modern investigation, however, has pronounced a Buddhistic altar-piece in the temple of Horiuji, at Nara, the most an- cient pictorial relic. The first painter mentioned was a Chinese, by the name of Shinki, who is said to have come to Japan during the reign of the Emperor Yuriaku (457-479). A little later Suki, a descendant of the Chinese emperor. Wen Ti, came to Nippon and was natu- I 8 JAPANESE ART ralized. "The brush of his son became famous in the days of Emperor Buretsu " (499-506, A. D,). About three hundred years later, a descendant of Shinki, Nau- riu, as he is sometimes called, obtained the title of " Painter of Japan " from the Mikado, The city of Kyoto became the centre of art. It gathered under its palace roofs' and temple eaves all the art those days produced. It became the home of Bud- dhistic culture, and gave birth to the re- ligious school of painting. Kukai, better known as Daishi, the " illustrious apostle of Buddhism," painted four of the seven images of high priests that have become historical. The painters Kabenari (853) and Minamoto-no-Nabu were employed in the temples, and Kavenaka executed a number of panels for the imperial palace. The Buddhist monks chiselled from three to five thousand images every year. t 4: 4 -? Ji- '- Chang- YuEH-HU. — Kakemonos or Wall Picture of Bodhi-Dharma Crossing THE Sea on a Reed. EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 1 9 Chirography was raised to the dignity of a fine art. Mathematics had many expert exponents. The study of astronomy was taken up with new zeal, and the art of healing made considerable progress. The . Minamotos made their age wonder at their musical gifts, and the writing of poetry became a favourite pastime with the ladies of the court. In the ninth century the temples and palaces were filled with renowned pictures, both by natives and Chinese. Kanaoka, who typifies the earliest style of Japanese painting, spent long years in studying them. He became famous about 850- 859. In 880 he decorated the screens and walls of the Kyoto palace with the portraits of Confucius and other Chinese philosophers. A few years later he painted a serial of the ancient sages and poets of Japan for the audience-chamber of the Mikado's palace. 20 JAPANESE ART His sacred pictures, Japanese divinities in the beatified attitudes of India, tip- toeing on waves, wrapped in clouds, or sitting cross-legged, weighed down by heavenly meditations, are said to have been very numerous. Very little of it, however, has been saved, nor have his successors been more successful in that respect. The secular enemy of Japanese temples, fire, has des- troyed nearly all, and those few that have been preserved are altered in colour by exposure and oxidation. Only the deep clear blue, so often seen in the old Bud- dhist pictures, consisting of pure lapis lazuli, ground up into a pigment, is to-day as brilliant as it was of yore. This lapis lazuli blue is really the most characteristic colour of Japan. The first vivid colour-impression a stranger receives as he walks through the streets of Yeddo or Yokohama is this peculiar EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 21 blue. The top-heavy roofs of the build- ings are mostly covered with blue tiles, and the same colour-note dominates in the popular costume and the sign-boards of the shops. There is, in places, a sprinkling of light blue, white, and red; but the remainder is blue — green and yellow being almost completely absent. Of Kanaoka's painting, scarcely a dozen specimens remain. One can still be seen at the temple of Nieinai; another, repre- senting the god Fudo, enveloped by flames, with a big wand in his hand, at the temple Dayuyi at Tokyo. Also the ancient temples at Nara and in the province of Bizen contain examples of his work. There is consequently no reason to doubt his great talent. Various legends tell of wonderful feats accomplished by his brush. One of the best known of these stories, reminding one of Zeuxis's grapes, which were so 22 JAPANESE ART naturally painted that the birds came to pick at them, is as follows : "The rice-fields were nightly devas- tated by some unknown horse, which by day could on no occasion be tracked. One night, however, it was resolved among the peasants to lie in wait for the animal. As soon as darkness came, it did not fail to make its appearance, but it was swift and artful, showing no willing- ness to allow its capture. Then a des- perate pursuit commenced, which seemed to be without end. — The chase grows wilder and more furious. Suddenly, how- ever, the animal disappears through a temple door, his hunters follow him ; they search everywhere around and cannot find him, until in the wall, in a celebrated picture, which hangs in its accustomed place, they see the fiery beast, who has just reentered his frame, entirely covered with foam, and still panting from his frantic race. EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 23 " The horse had been so wondrously portrayed by Kanaoka, and, indeed, with such an appearance of real life, that he became a living thing, and returned each night to liberty amongst the fields." The only Kanaoka that can be seen outside of Japan is at the Louvre in Paris. It bears the date of the second half of the ninth century, and was brought over in 1882 by a Japanese amateur. The museum authorities at first refused to consider it, but finally consented to admit it. It rep- resents Dsijo, the god of benevolence. With his plump body half naked, his head shaven, his eyes half closed, he is gazing into space. It appears that he has been dreaming thus for a very long time, and that he will never rouse himself again to the sensations of reality. This being is isolated from the rest of the world ; he has entered Nirvana. It is a work of art manifestly primitive. 24 JAPANESE ART and yet not crude, as were, for instance, the ancient mural paintings of Egypt, which represented personages in profile while the eyes were seen as if from a front view. The drawing, although not ana- tomically correct, is marvellously sure and pure in its line composition. Infinitely removed from mere prettiness, from empty abstraction as from realistic curiosity, there is in its line idea an exhaustless wealth of languid grace and eastern deliciousness. One could not change a single line by a hair's breadth without changing the poise of the whole. The colouring is harmonious, reminding one slightly of faded tapestry and the deep, satiated tones of the Primitives; but that is more the work of time than of the paint- er's brush. It would be extremely diificult to trace the origin of this peculiar art. It is not, as yet, genuinely Japanese; its composi- EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 25 tion is too symmetrical for that, and the flow of the lines not rapid and instantane- ous enough. The Chinese painters of the Tang dynasty painted in a more rigid and pompous manner. The conception of the picture is purely Buddhistic. In Benares you may run across similar pictures, but their treatment is generally more elabo- rate. The Hindu perceives chiefly the multitudinous and diverse, and everything in his art is complex and exaggerated, and, for the lack of leading lines, irregular. The picture of Kanaoka, on the contrary, is as simple as early Byzantine work, and as soft and graceful as Persian painting. It is therefore possible that the begin- nings of Japanese art were strongly affected by Persian influences. That there was an exchange of ideas between Persia and Japan in those remote days, is known from ancient chronicles, which report that " Persian and Japanese em- 26 JAPANESE ART bassies met at the court of the Middle Kingdom." Although rarely rising to greatness and freedom of expression, the work of this period has a never-failing tenderness and purity, a cheerfulness and sincerity, a re- finement of feeling, which gives an elevated pleasure to the student who approaches these relics in a less critical than appre- ciative mood. They possess a living, self- withdrawn quality of expression which gives them a pecuHar religious grace — not ecclesiastical unction, but the devout- ness of the heart. The painters devoted themselves chiefly to religious subjects, but among their works were also occasional portraits, figures of animals, and landscapes. Most of this work was executed on the walls, ceilings, and sliding screens {skoyi) of the Bud- dhistic temples. But also the more up-to- date vehicles for pictorial expression, to EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 27 which we have become accustomed, were already in use, namely, kakemonos (wall pictures), makimonos (scroll pictures) and gakus. The kakemono is an oblong piece of silk, framed in stripes of brocade, and mounted on a long narrow strip of canvas with wooden rollers. The makimono is a scroll with rollers, intended to be examined by hand, and the gaku a picture framed in Western fashion. Kanaoka originated a different style of technique for each of these mediums, fully realizing that each would need an individ- ual treatment of its own. He founded the imperial school of Yedoreko, and had many pupils ; the most illustrious ones being, as is so often the case with Japanese artists, members of his own family, his two sons, Atima and Kateda, and his great-grandson, Hirotaka (987-1012). The latter was a priest as well as a painter, and is said to 28 JAPANESE ART have been the first painter who depicted the Buddhistic hell. One of his composi- tions, on a large scale, remarkable in its power of characterization, is still shown to visitors of the temple of Tchiorakouyi, in the province of Omi. From all over the country, particularly from the province of Hida, artisans, who were at once architects, carvers, and car- penters, came flocking to Kyoto, among them Suminawa, who surpassed his brother artists in skill to such an extent that the people of Kyoto called him " the carpenter artist of Hida." Temple after temple was built, and not less than thirteen thousand images were painted, by imperial decree, during the reign of Mikado Genwa (859- 876). Kyoto must have been an extraordinary city in those days. Elsewhere, religion and art were only parts of the public life, at Kyoto scarcely anything else was to be EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 29 seen. It occupied thousands of enthusi- asts, whole streets were turned into studios and workshops, and the population of idols and images is said to have been as nu- merous as the human population. The Shiba temple at Tokyo still gives a faint idea of this era of religious splendour. With erudition, a Western mind may be able to reproduce for itself the ideas and sentiments, the sequences of images and emotions which formed the soul of a Bud- dhistic painter or architect. We can imag- ine the intense impression it must have created in those days, when religion occu- pied every moment of man's thought, as even to-day we feel bewildered at its traces. At first sight, one scarcely knows what all these forms represent. They only seem a confusion of lines, curving, interlaced, entangled by chance. By degrees shapes are discernible — gods, genii, dragons. 30 JAPANESE ART dolphins, animals and flowers, waves and flames, all elements thrown together, piled one over the other like a living heap. Everything seems endlessly complicated, some divinities have half a dozen heads or more, the pla,nts extend in every direction, the flowers are entwined and twisted into each other. Everything is multiple in this inundation of divinities, in this confusion of chapels, altars, sacred lanterns, statues of animals and huge lotus flowers. This characteristic appears again in the strange architectural constructions, where one curve grows out of another, as a leaf out of a leaf; and where gods innumerable, bodies of quadrupeds and of submarine creatures, half tortoise and half mon- key, abound, crushing each other, rising in quaint geometrical shapes of diverse forms. The creation of symbols is an entire world by itself. The Japanese mind. EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 3 1 which is otherwise so correct and well ordered, has run wild. All our mental habits are set at naught by this multitu- dinousness of apparitions. A sensation of bewilderment and vertigo overcomes us as we look at those endless processions of gods, divinities, mythological person- ages, genii and demons, at these hairy, extravagantly shaped creatures with elon- gated arms and legs, with enormous crani- ums (like Fukuruja, the god of wealth), at these eight-headed dragons twisting and writhing in vapours or flames, at these strange bodies of quadrupeds, unknown to the zoology of a Cuvier or Agassiz. Fairy castles, inhabited by wicked demons, rise fata-morgana-like in the mist, jewel- ornamented sea-shrines sparkle in the depth of the waves, and dragon-guarded caves open before one's astonished eyes. The Japanese of nimble apprehension, with a turn for neatness and elegance even 32 JAPANESE ART in his pleasures, is fond of listening to stories, and it matters little to him whether they are told to the eye or ear. Whether tattooed on the back of a foot-runner, pounded out by punch or hammer in metal, enamelled in cloisonne or niello, embroidered, inlaid, or painted, his eye delights to read the familiar, fancy-tickling lore. The artists have taken advantage of this predilection for symbols. They have elab- orated them into a sort of artistic short- hand, and classified them into groups, by means of which they are able to tell many a long story with utmost brevity. And they never tire of telling the story in the same way. Benten, a female personification of virtue, is represented as a beautiful woman playing a lute. Kwannon, the goddess of the sea, sits among jagged rocks at the shore, outwardly the type of peace and contemplation, inwardly ranging with rest- 4 HoYEN (Modern School of Kanaok a).— Goddess KWANNON. EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 33 less eye the treacherous expanses of ocean, from whose disaster and death, by her supreme will, she rescues the helpless marines. Futen, the wind-imp, Uves aloft, as he loosens and opens his ever-plethoric wind-bag, setting into motion zephyrs, breezes, cyclones, or tornadoes. Raiden, the thunder-god, busy with his drums, is always partially hidden among clouds. A number of genii with quaint, uncouth names, invariably performing the same antics, can be recognized at the first glance. One of them conjures miniature horses out of a gourd ; another floats on a hollow trunk; a third one never tires of looking at a waterfall ; a little old man is persistently depicted riding an ox ; a beg- gar amuses himself by emitting his spirit out of his mouth; another one tramps about, accompanied by a toad which gen- erally sits on his head ; and the best known of all these curious personages invariably 34 JAPANESE ART rises from a river on the back of a winged carp. This fairy world furnished the artist with a most fascinating repertoire, to which, with slight deviation, he has re- mained faithful to this very day. Space does not permit to tell of all the creatures in Japanese mythology. In many instances, they are the epitomes, expressed in graphic symbols, of past myths, or of real struggles and conquests, the memory of which survives in imagina- tion but not in chronology. Japan is largely indebted to Buddhism for its art symbols. The symbolism of Gautama is like an immense vegetation, with ever-increasing branches, an inextri- cable network of offshoots, all growing vigorously and unrestrained, covering all of men's thoughts with its ornamental fretwork. Buddhism, however, became in Japan EARLY RELIGIOUS PAINTING 35 never as intense as in India. Its rites did not become tyriannical, and its meta- physics did not worry and confuse the people. The Japanese, being rather sen- timental than passionate, and more in- genious and inventive than profound, found himself incapable of leading the languid life of the Hindu. He was too active and receptive for that. His vora- cious appetite for knowledge did not allow him to deny his ego. The incense, which in India was stupefying, giving to scenes a certain unreality and the character as of a dream, was in Japan merely a veil, that embellished and spiritualized actual- ity. The Nipponese imbued the violent emo- tions and overwhelming meditations of Buddhism with the gentler spirit of the myth and folk-lore of their original faith, of Shintoism, which is the simplest creed imaginable, teaching little more than rev- 36 JAPANESE ART erence for the supernatural powers that created and govern the universe of man. It is impossible to understand the evo- lution of the Japanese race and the indi- viduality of their art without Shintoism, for Shintoism lives not so much in books, rites, or commandments, but in the heart of the nation, of which it is the highest emotional expression. For, underlying all the surface crop of foreign superstitions, myths, and magic, there thrilled always this mighty spiritual power, which en- dowed everything with its elusive subtlety and buoyant geniality, and which taught the Japanese to feel the throb of their own national life whenever foreign impact threatened to sweep away native idols and precedents. CHAPTER 11. THE FEUDAL PERIOD The Yamoto and Tosa Schools (1000-1400) * lEXT to Buddhism, feudalism was the special patron and stimulus of the Japanese artist. A glance at the arms and armour of a feudal lord shows how his full equipment summoned most of the fine arts to the service of the warrior caste. The harness of hide and chain armour, silk and steel, brocade and lacquer; the helmet and breastplate of chased gold and silver; the dragon insignia of cast and chiselled metal; the silken banner, woven, em- broidered, or painted, with the ancestral blazon; the polished triumphs of the 37 38 JAPANESE ART quiver and arrow-maker's art; the double bow, of wood and cane; the sword-rack from the gold-lacquerer's hand; the swords, "the samurai's soul," with their hilts and handles encrusted with orna- ments of precious metals; the bear-skin shoes and tiger-skin sheath; the shark- hide grip, and curiously wrought dirk scabbard, made a panoply to which the masters of many arts contributed. In 1050 a noble of the court, Moto- rtiitsu, founded a new national school of painting, the Yamoto, which two cen- turies later, when it became the official art school, adopted the name of Tosa. It pretended to separate Japanese art from all foreign influences. Times had changed ; the different branches^ of fine and liberal arts had- made rapid strides toward perfection, and bore the impress which native influences had stamped upon them, /in dancing- and music, in archi- THE FEUDAL PERIOD 39 tecture, in the cut and pattern of gar- ments, in literature, the Japanese had created a world which was distinct from anything foreign, and which was all their ownf] Although Chinese inspiration gave birth to the Yamoto school, the latter developed into something entirely different from anything Chinese. In other words, it created a school of Nipponese pictorial art, in which it would be hard to^find a touch of Chinese influence, as far as the choice of subject is concerned, for its principal merit lay in the faithful repro- duction of Japanese feudal life. It was a troublous period, marked by furious combats and other warlike events, of acts of Trengeance, secretly planned and fulfilled by treachery. The spirit of chiv- alry developed itself to an extreme point, and during all this period of blood and fire, of frenzy and dark passions, the code 40 JAPANESE ART of honour and the scorn of death arrived at that pitch, which has called forth the admiration of the universe, and which was maintained until the very last years of Old Japan. ' The Yamoto-Tosa school has repre- sented these multitudinous phases of fever- ish agitation, the bitter contests by sea and land, the prdudTrhTeh of warriors, the tournaments, single combats, warlike ad- ventures of generals, heroic actions and hairbreadth escapes of the warrior caste, with a host of minute details of dress, cere- monials, and pompous' processions ; but it has also shown the daimyo (feuda Llord) returning to his home in^tinies of peace, applying himself in his castle gardens to all the tender and poetic inclinarfoiis, that a long period of ungoverned passion had been unable to banish from his soul. This style has been called ornate. The writers who apply this epithet generally Yamoto - TosA School. — Autumn Flowers. THE FEUDAL PERIOD 4 I refer to the peculiar monotony in the rep- resentation of the human figures. No matter how vigorously they are drawn, they look like dolls and automatons, not like real living beings. They are mere flourishes, often of not more importance than the courtly honorifics which are scrawled all over the picture. There is much excuse , for this. The Yamoto school was merely a means to glorify the nobility^ Most of the personages depicted were_ personages of rank, living daimyos, or their ancestors, in delineating whose actions a more realistic style would^have been o ffensiv e. The student finds it irri- fating and tiresome at first, but soon gets accustomed to it. In truth, such depic- tion was in entire conson ance with, t he elaborate ceremonial, the imposing but cumbrous costume, and much else of the rather artificial ^ife of tEe~Ja; of that timg. 42 JAPANESE ART The painters' contemporaries, no doubt, found these pictures quite easy to under- stand;, but since then the institutions, manners, and customs have changed so much as greatly to obscure their meaning, not only to Western students, but to the Japanese themselves. Piles of commen- tary by native connoisseurs have been accumulated over it, and their interpreta- tions are often so inadequate, that writers of a later date have found it, in turn, neces- sary to write critical works, almost entirely taken up with correcting the errors of their predecessors. It is almost impossible for foreigners to form an accurate opinion of this school. It is very imperfectly represented in Euro- pean and American collections. True enough, pictures of the Tosa school are quite often offered for sale, but they are invariably products of a later date. Specimens of the eleventh, twelfth, and THE FEUDAL PERIOD 43 thirteenth century can no longer be pur- chased, even if one were willing to pay their weight hundredfold in gold. They are in the possession of old Japanese fam- ilies, and most jealously guarded. Even of the more modern exponents of the Tosa school, as Mitsunobu (died, 1525), Mitsu- oky, and finally Mitsuyoshi, authentic pic- tures can seldom be seen. In the eleventh century the artist fami- lies of.. Minamoto and Mptomitsu were most prominent; in the twelfth century we encounter the names of Toba Soja, the horse painter and originator of Japa- nese caricature, which had such a great revival in the seventeenth century, and the two great colourists, Tamehissa and Nobuzane. In the thirteenth century Tsoutenaka became the leader of the imperial school o£_Xo.sa. _ His contempo- raries were Takatshika, who decorated the temple of Kassouga, which was fin- 44 JAPANESE ART ished by his descendants in the four- teenth century, the two Buddhistic priests, Ono Sojo and Seyin, and Soumiyoshi, "painter of the imperial court." Subjecting the work of the Yamato and Tosa " schpolsl to "a _ close .analysis, one realizes at once that_ the Japanese principles of composition are notably different from ours. First of all, the Japanese never uses f rames .. Frames serve to us as boundary lines for a pictorial representation similar to those to which we are subjected in look- ing at a fragment of life out of an ordinary window. The frame clearly defines the painter's pictorial vision, and concentrates the interest upon his canvas even to such an extent that all other environments are forgotten. The Japanese artist never uses solid, elevated " boundary lines " to isolate his picture, but, on the cojitrary, tries to make his picture merely a note of superior THE FEUDAL PERIOD 45 interest in perfect harmony with thfi-rest of the^feakemono, which, again, is in per- fect harmony with the wall in which it is placed. He simply uses strips of beauti- fully patterned cloth to set off the picture, and endeavours to accentuate its lines and colour notes by the mounting and the momentary environments, for the Japa- nese does not understand our way of hanging pictures in inadequate surround- ings. He subordinates everything to^ his inherent ideas of harmony, and is perfectly aware that all the accessories of a room, as the colour of screens, the form of vases and lacquer^cabinets, etc., must harmonize with the picture, in order to reveal its true significance. This has been called "decorative." "Japanese art is decorative," our critics have repeated over and over again. What a meaningless phrase ! Art, whether Japanese, European, or American, is deco- 46 JAPANESE ART rative only when it has been designed to decorate something useful. But these Mitsunobus decorate nothing. The kake- monos are self-contained expressions, and only because an ordinary interior would jar with their subtle charms, the Japanese find it necessary to supply special sur- roundings for them. They called forth a superior style of interior decoration, but are not decorative themselves, unless the word decorative is used in a sense synony- mous with beautiful. Of course, any one familiar with Japa- nese art knows that it neglects, or is indif- ferent to, the mystery of chiaroscura, the persuasiveness of linear perspective, and the logic of local colour. And yet they convey depth of space, an effective scale of relative importances in colour, and the purity of atmosphere, as well as we do. Their neglect of linear perspective is a most peculiar trait, for one cannot con- THE FEUDAL PERIOD 47 ceive such close observers as the Chinese and Japanese being unable to see, for instance, that a road appears to diminish as it recedes from the eye. Why is this ? That intricate laws of perspective want study, that even the vanishing lines of two sides of a house may not be percep- tible to the ignorant, may be possible, but the merest child sees that a road is nar- rower at the end than at the beginning where he stands. Then, again, although the anatomy of each bird, beast, and fish is as closely observed as to its general characteristics, distance is indicated only by diminishing the objects depicted ; and the armour, and each detail of the cos- tumes of the soldiers a mile off, are painted with as much minuteness as that on the men who are in the immediate foreground. Another striking:_peculiaEity:,is_ the lack of form knowledge. The Japanese painters, 48 JAPANESE ART not only those of the Yamoto-Tosa school, but to this very day, have never drawn a prqper human face or body, as we under- stand it. Take, for instance, a warrior or court lady, by Mitsunobu. The represen- tation undoubtedly has its merits. It is, despite the frugality of its colouring, an example of most perfect flesh painting, " after its kind," which for modelling re- minds one of Holbein. There is all the apparent flatnesSj._the_wan;t . of _strange effects of light and shade, and the intense individuality of expression, and yet the drawing, precise as it is, is neither anatom- ically nor proportionately correct. This seems tFe^niore^'aStomshing to us as the Japanese men and women are by no means shy in appearing naked, which, after all, offers the best opportunity for studying the human form. It must be noted, how- ever, that their religious belief regards the body as a vile carcass, of no worth what- ^ • ■'■«^: THE FEUDAL PERIOD 49 ever, . -.destined to rot and waste away. This, in connection with canons as rigid and indisputable as those of the ancient Greeks, which exactly told the painter how to paint, may explain much of this mannerism in the eccentric "drawing of drapery," or - the- -features of the human face. In treating the folds of a woman's dress, for instance, they had to make them either " undulating as the waves of the sea," or "angular as the edges of rocks," etc. European art, both painting and sculp- ture, went through a continued course of development. Naturally, I mean develop- ment as regards knowledge of anatomy, of form, of colour, and of general tech- nique. As regards sentiment, perhaps there was more decadence than progress, arriving from a change in feeling and in faith, without a corresponding change in subject. The Greeks, as the Italians, 50 JAPANESE ART passed through the same phase of art, continuing to produce subjects long after all faith in them had passed away. Hence, the decadence in Greek art in the early centuries of our era, and in ItaHan art in the seventeenth century. But as soon as men perceived their error, and deter- mined to paint what was around and about them, art revived and their tech- nique improved. The Flemish schools, the Spanish, and later on the French and English, even our American school, all show progress in that respect. In Japan there had been nothing analagous to this. The subjects have been changed, but the technique has always remained true to certain rules and regulations ; and it would be difficult to state whether the Tosa, Kano, or Ukio-ye masters were the greater draughtsmen or colourists. With this, I do not wish to imply that the Japanese artist does not study from THE FEUDAL PERIOD 5 1 nature. On the contrary, he has derived all the fuiidamental ideas_ of his pictorial conceptions^ so different from ours, from a close study of nature. The Japanese are on by far more intimate terms with nature than we are, and "nature walks" have always been one of the most popular means of instruction in the education of their children. But the artist never drew directly from nature. He merely looked at objects, absorbed all their peculiarities, and then went back to his studio to combine the facts of nature with certain conventional- modes of treatment, in his opinion best suited to the purpose. In the thirteenth centuryrflow'ef, animalr and still life painting came into fashion. The Tosa masters never learned to equal the Chinese in the faithful reproduction of the hair of a beast, of the down of feathers, the veining of petals, or the dust on a butterfly's wing, but they gave play 52 JAPANESE ART to a fancy of their own, and added chainns, which the miniaturists of the Celestial Kingdom had never dreamt of. In the beginning, satisfied with closely and minutely imitating natural objects, and creating a pictorial illusion, as far as that is possible without the application of light and shade, they soon strove for a less con- ventional treatment, which, several cen- turies later, developed into the decorative style, absolutely individual with the Japa- nese, which rather suggests than imitates the. external facts of nature. At the start, their attempts were very feeble, almost childish. They were seriously handi- capped by the literature of regulations, regular codes laid down by savants, as to how subjects should be represented, but the idea that the movement of plants, their peculiar way of standing in the air, etc., were more important for the general appearance of objects than a mere study THE FEUDAL PERIOD 53 of form and texture, gradually induced them to break away from formalism. They tried to imbue a fragment of nature, uninterestingTn-itsgl£r3iKitli-a peeticandea. In the representation of a basket of moun- tain flowers, for instance, they ventured to introduce the poetic suggestion of a mountain in the background. 'These experirnents resulted, many centuries later, in the combination of panoramic views with ostentatious details, as practised by Okyo and other masters, who used the delicate structure of a flower or plant as foreground, and connected the latter with the landscape behind it by a few broad effects or a wilful emptiness. If a Japanese wishes to give the impres- sion of an orchard in spring, he does not paint the whole scene as a Western painter would do, but simply suggests it by a twig in delicate bloom, with the graceful silhouette of a waning moon behind it. 54 JAPANESE ART The Tosa school gave the first impulse toward this conciseness of expression, which is also a characteristic of Japanese poetry, which has reached in the kaikai, a stanza consisting of seventeen syllables, its extreme limit of brevity. Although no great qualities can be claimed for these poetical forms, it must be admitted that the Japanese poets have made the most of their slender resources. It is wonderful what melody and true sen- timent they have managed to compress within these narrow limits. In the same manner the Japanese painters learnt to pro- duce a truly admirable effect by a few dex- terous strokes of the brush. The masters of the Tosa school, however, recognized this only theoretically. They had not yet the calligraphic dexterity to practise it. The school has become famous for its conscientious details, the elegance and beauty of its lines and touches, for its THE FEUDAL PERIOD 55 brilliant andLbarrgonioLUS-colouring, which reminds one of Persian emaille painting. The brightest and the strongest hues, red, blue, green, white, and gold, are em- ployed in all their intensity. The greater part of the space to be covered is broken up by variegated daubs and patches, while some broad mass of leading colour is always interposed at definite intervals to impart solidity to the whole. Their works; virile anH mplndramatir ^^ they are at times, are full of grace jiid bea uty and s eem the natural manifestation of serene, contented, and happyminds.i Their gift of colour, fragrant and fragile as plum and cherry trees in bloom, is all their, OJsai. And it is this exquisite gift of theirs which constitutes the principal charm of their work. Fine and true though their feeling for beauty and flow of lines will always be found, their compo- sition is somewhat awkward. But in 56 JAPANESE ART colour they never strike a false note. In their exquisite blending of tints, one can easily read the delight in all loveliness which characterized that particular part of their history, shadowed only now and then by strange misgivings one feels in their work, when they depict the blood-stained life of the daimyos. In these pictures the artists seem conscious of the doom that hung oveJ^ the'Teudal time, and this knowledge clouded their delineations, giv- ing them a strange fascination that is irresistible. Religious painting had not ceased to exist, but Buddhism had greatly changed. It aspired to worldly power, and the three thousand monasteries which at this time dotted the slopes of Hiyeisan, a mountain northeast of Kyoto, were a very material embodiment of Buddhist influence. Not content with mere spiritual weapons, the inmates of these establishments were THE FEUDAL PERIOD 57 always ready on the smallest provocation to don armour over their monastic frocks and troop down to the streets of Kyoto, to place their swords on whatever scale of the politics of the day seemed to them most expedient. A priesthood to whom a practical knowledge of war and warlike accomplishments was vital was not con- ducive to the production of important religious paintings. The Japanese nobleman, moreover, had more than a mere tolerance for other creeds. Although in the main either a Buddhist or Shintoist, he also took more than an ordinary interest in the Confucian moral philosophy and even in Taoism, that mass of vague speculation, attributed to Laotze and his disciple Chwang Chow. The primitive style of Kanaoka conse- quently languished. Temples, of course, were built ; all sorts of mythological crea- 58 JAPANESE ART tures carved out of huge blocks of wood, and colossal figures of Buddha con- structed, but the painters, either retained by the daimyos or roaming about in a vagrom way from castle to castle, began to look at Buddhism in a somewhat cyn- ical way, and depicted the deities in a rather disrespectful manner. They be- came satirists, like Lucian in his " Dia- logues of the Gods." The castle of the feudal lord became to the artist what the monastery had been before. He became one of the daimyo's retainers, and was clothed, fed, and lodged by him, the only return expected from him being the production of the best work in his power. And, although the daimyos often fought for years at a time in the very streets of Kyoto, setting fire to temples and reducing to ashes many of the art treasures which were once the glory of the ancient capital, the artists THE FEUDAL PERIOD 59 could work in perfect security behind the castle walls, and dream their twilight dreams, all fragrant with the flowers of nature and art. The Japanese artist led an ideal existence, simply living for art's sake. Many of their greatest painters may be said to have known nothing of money. With this golden leisure and freedom from, care,- their power was increased ten- fold ; and thus has been developed- not merely a patience altogether marvellous in the most minute and complete finish- ing of every detail, not merely a technical excellence^eldom equalled and never sur- passed, but a power of delineating life, and a sensitiveness to decorative and emotional suggestion, which placed the Japanese in the front rank of the artists of any age or country. CHAPTER III. THE RENAISSANCE The Kano School (1400-1750) IN misty mornings in spring, the Dai-mouji Mountain, which stands just back of the "Silver Temple " at the east side of Kyoto, looks exactly like a massive silver hieroglyphic. The mountain bears upon its slope a peculiar artificial landmark, resembling the Chinese character signifying " dai," or great, formed by a series of excavations, in which the snow still lingers, while the surface of the mountain is bare. This colossal character of white snow might readily be taken as a S5mibol of Japanese art, for the manipulation of the 60 THE RENAISSANCE 6 1 painter's brush is strictly calligraphic. Japanese writing in itself is a sort of painting. Some of the characters of the written language resemble the trees and bridge posts as drawn by certain artists. And do not the gateways of the Japanese temples — these quaint constructions, con- sisting of two pillars that support horizon- tally a lintel with projecting ends and a tie beam — remind one involuntarily of some colossal Chinese letter, which has been painted against the sky with four sweeps of vermilion by a giant brush .'' The child, learning to write, draws these pictorial signs with a brush, hold- ing the paper, which is absorbent, in his hand. Thus, the whole arm works, motion being got from the shoulder, the elbow, and the wrist alike. One can readily imagine what influence this method of writing has in fostering the power of a child to seize the outlines of natural form. 62 JAPANESE ART It learns unconsciously to draw with a free hand. Our children learn to write with a hard pen or pencil; and with the same hard point they make their first attempts at drawing. The young art student suddenly finds a yielding brush placed in his hand. No wonder that he is awkward, and in its manipulation abso- lutely incapable of competing with a Japanese, who already as a child has learnt the value of touches. The calligraphic dexterity, as displayed, for instance, in the cranes of Saitoshy, is an inheritance with the Japanese artist. His fingers work almost mechanically, as he delineates a flying bird, the vegetation of mountains, the colours of the sea, the shape of branches, or the spring-burst of flowers. Generations of skilled workmen have given him their cunning, and revive in the marvels of his brush work. What was conscious effort in the beginning THE RENAISSANCE 63 became unconscious, instinctive, almost automatic, in later centuries. At the close of the fourteenth century, the Chinese were still the foremost painters of the Eastern world. China reached its prime during the Sung dynasty (961-1280). It had been an era as conspicuous for the development of great individualities, innovating statesmen, constructive phi- losophers, inspired poets, and original artists, as that of any period of European civilization. No wonder that a great wave of Chinese influence passed over the Japanese islands, deeply affecting it in every conceivable way. Not only laws and sciences, but the material civilization, and, most of all, the thoughts of the nation, as expressed in its philosophy and literature, profited by Chinese teaching and example. Inspired by the great artists of Hang- chow, a new school, with the aim of tech- 64 JAPANESE ART nically equalling the Chinese masters, was founded, destined very soon to sur- pass the former native schools in merit and renown. In Kanaoka's time, the painters had devoted themselves princi- pally to the representation of gods and heroes ; during the feudal period warfare and still life had become the leading sub- jects; now animals and landscapes came more in evidence. The figure painter, Cho Densu (135 1- 1427), also known by the name Meitshyo, and his two pupils, Josetsou and Shubun, who in turn had two pupils, Sotan and Kano Massanobu, were the principal in- stigators of the movement. As each of these men taught, there existed for a few years, as rivals of the Tosa school, almost as many distinct schools. But, if the chiefs differed from one another in the nature of their genius, they had adopted the same manner, the same subjects, the THE RENAISSANCE 65 same general principles ; so that they soon became blended into one school — the school of Kano. The leading character- istic of this school was the absolute sub- ordination of colour to design. In the beginning, the school was de- voted entirely to black and white, with an occasional use of bistre or some other faint colour as uniting half-tone. In its later development, it made use of colour, and tried to rival the Tosa painters in a lavish application of gold and brilliant tints. It can even be said that in Yeitaku and Korin the Kano school produced colour- ists almost as great as Nobuzane in the thirteenth century. Cho Densu, a Kyoto priest, was the great revivalist of the Kanaoka school. He devoted himself entirely to sacerdotal art. He was one of the few Japanese painters who attempted pictures of a heroic size. His " Death of Sakia," still 66 JAPANESE ART existing at one of the Kyoto temples, and copied innumerable times by artists to this very day, measures about nine by thirteen feet. It is considered by native critics as one of the masterpieces of an- cient art, and favourably impresses one by the breadth of its composition, the firm- ness of its brush work, the harmony of its colour, and the grandeur of its sentiments. Cho Densu's work, although inferior to Kanaoka in line conception, is as pro- found and highly intellectual in achieve- ment as anything ever produced by a Japanese brush. It almost rises to sub- limity. Very little is known of Josetsou, except that he was a Chinese by birth, and a priest for many years previous to his taking up landscape painting as a pro- fession. Of his fellow student, Shubun, on the other hand, many examples have remained. THE RENAISSANCE 67 which prove him to be a great technician. He abolished the use of the fine, round, and pointed brushes of the Tosa school, and constructed brushes with broader and flatter surfaces. He had a powerful, vital touch, full of personality. His line, a di- rect outcome of the study of Wutaotz, celebrated as the greatest painter of China, varied with each object drawn, without losing the strength and boldness of his own individuality. He tried to sug- gest with every stroke of his brush the leading line-characteristics of houses, rocks, trees, marsh grass, etc. His pupils, Sotan and Kano Massa- nobu, perfected his methods, and Saomi wrote a hand-book on painting which has become classical. Another great man of this movement, according to native authority, was Ses- shin (1421-1507). A biographer informs us that : 68 JAPANESE ART " He did not follow in the footsteps of the ancients, but developed a style peculiar to himself. His power was great- est in landscape, after which he excelled most in figures, then in flowers and birds ; and he was also skilful in the delineation of oxen, horses, dragons, and tigers. In drawing figures and animals, he com- pleted his sketch with a single stroke of the brush, and of this style of working he is considered the originator." He painted on white silk panels, toned down to a light brown tinge, exclusively with Chinese ink. His work is remark- able for leaving certain portions of his pictures entirely unpainted. He arrived at great perfection in this style, and often, as, for instance, in the neck and breast of a bird, gave the illusion of modelling by means of an entire absence of touches. In his winter landscapes, he made use of the silk ground itself to give a faithful THE RENAISSANCE 69 rendering of the whiteness of snow, cover- ing trees and roofs. In his earlier years he went to China, and, full of zeal, sought a teacher among their most renowned masters. His dex- terity astonished the Chinese artists, who found but little to teach him. He was ordered to the court at Peking to paint before the emperor, and, to the great sur- prise of the sovereign, he produced upon a piece of silk a dragon, surrounded with clouds, with three or four splashes of his brush. Disgusted with the instruction he had received, he returned to his native land, resolved to take in the future lessons only from the mountains, rivers, and trees. And it is especially in mountains, rivers, and trees that his disciples followed his lead. His line is angular and rugged, vibrating with the nervous force of the artist's hand. The subjects preferred by the Kano 70 JAPANESE ART masters were the portraits of legendary- personages, romantic landscapes, soi-disant Chinese, and animals and plants, generally endowed with a symbolical or emblematic meaning. Saints of all orders find their place in the works of> the Kano school, but instead of mystic beings, throned in ethereal regions, they show us a succes- sion of gods, belonging to the common round of life, or affecting asceticism which appears far from austere. The Kano school at the start had no reformatory aspirations. It was simply meant for a return to the religious period. Cho Densu endeavoured honestly to paint in the manner of the early Buddhistic painters, and to see life through primitive eyes. But the school, as is generally the case with revival movements, proved to be a renaissance. The fifteenth century, when Sesshin and Kano Massanobu painted, is con- Massanobu. — Portrait af the Actor, Ichikawa Danjuro THE RENAISSANCE 7 1 sidered the purest, the most classical period of Japanese art. It was one of those supreme occasions when the human soul, raising itself for a brief period to rare heights of fusion, has struck out at a white heat for the revelation of pure art. The opponents of this school, of course, reproached it for the almost superstitious respect its artists paid to Chinese art and Chinese civilization in general. But these painters' adoration for China was merely a pretext for their own idealization of art. They had their own ideals ready in their minds, but found it necessary to fortify themselves with a code of precise rules, and, as China could furnish them, they went to the painters of the Hangchow period for inspiration and instruction. And there is no doubt that, without the Chinese influence, that vigour of lines, that spontaneity of touch, which reveals the painter more plainly than the object 72 JAPANESE ART painted, which appeals to the manlier side of one's nature, which, like a simple verse of Omar, knocks the gate of the king- dom of mystery ajar, so that one's imagina- tion might tiptoe and take a peep into the mystic beyond, would have been dwarfed in the Japanese painter. Let me now try to initiate my reader into a few of the technical mysteries of the artist's profession, which is the leading characteristic of this school. The Japa- nese painter easily could carry all his worldly artistic goods in a handkerchief, and has done so invariably, even to this very day. There is first a small roll made of fine bamboo, which serves as porte-crayon, in which are brushes of various sizes; then the Chinese ink-dish ; three or four small bowls in which the colours are mixed, one for each colour; two or three small parcels containing fresh supplies of paint; two THE RENAISSANCE 73 large bowls of water, a plate, and a piece of paper laid out upon the floor. In the parcels are some small sticks of brown and indigo, some red dye, a lump of gam- boge, and a quantity of small white pel' lets. These colours, with the Chinese ink, make up the palette. The white is only mixed just before being used, and considerable skill is necessary both in the mixing and the use of it. The pellets are first crushed and ground very fine with a small glass pestle, and then mixed with melted gelatine, the whole, with a little water, being afterward ground and rubbed into a thick paste till all traces of grit have disappeared. The pigment thus prepared is quite useless when it once becomes dry and hard ; it has, therefore, to be mixed afresh for every picture; but to the care with which it is prepared are due both its brilliancy and its perma- nence in the picture. This durability is 74 JAPANESE ART essential, as the pictures are kept rolled, and it is only after very many years of rolling and unrolling that the white be- gins to show signs of perishing or peel- ing. The power of manipulating white, not in simple body colour only, but in thin washes, is an inheritance from the Chinese. Those who are familiar with the oldest Buddhist pictures will be famil- iar with the filmy veil which often falls from the head of a divinity, and is pro- duced by the thinnest possible wash of white laid on over all the other colours, without blur or running of any kind. The paper is slightly toned, and made in small pieces about the size of a sheet of foolscap. If larger pieces are required they are joined with rice paste. It is in the rapidly absorbent quality of this paper that Japanese artists have found most of their difficulties, and it is from the methods adopted to overcome these difficulties that THE RENAISSANCE 75 most of the essential characteristics of Japanese art have sprung. The absorb- erice is midway between blotting and unglazed papers; what has to be done must, therefore, be done quickly; correc- tions are almost impossible. Also washes of colour as executed by our Western water-colours are out of the question. But the Japanese gets at grada- tions of colour in his own way. The peculiar shape of the brushes enable a supply of water to be held in reserve at the hinge, the full tone required only being taken up at the point. The side of a feather, for instance, is being drawn. Directly the gradation is wanted, a little pressure brings the thicker part of the brush into play, the water escapes, and shades off the tone to the required light- ness. A regular trick is used in painting a melting mist around the moon. To get this, the circle of the moon is struck in 76 JAPANESE ART with a compass, one leg of which holds a brush full of water. This is passed around the silhouette of the moon, whereby any hard line is prevented. The fleecy cloud which obscures the moon is obtained by first damping the whole sheet of paper, and putting on washes of water, colour, and again water before it is quite dry. It is obvious, however, that with these methods very little colour can be used, and thence come these pale, misty moon- light effects with which we are so fa- miliar. The semi-absorbent quality of the paper has compensated for the many difficulties which are set in the artist's path in two ways: to the lines, drawn with a brush full of Chinese ink, it imparts a certain crispness, and, moreover, it compels rapid work, which necessity has produced a cer- tainty of touch and a dexterity of exe- THE RENAISSANCE 77 cution, wherein lies much of the secret of the motion which Japanese artists so greatly excel in portraying. The pictures are, however, invariably painted on silk prepared for work by being rubbed over with a fine powder, which makes the surface very much like that of the paper. The brushes are, of course, of various sizes, but those with which the ordinary black and white pictures are painted are about the thickness of the little finger at the hinge, with hair about an inch and a quarter long and running to an exceed-- ingly fine point. This peculiar construc- tion allows the finest as well as the broadest strokes to be executed with the same brush. And now, having described his mate- rials, let us see the artist at work. The paper lies on the floor, with weights at the four corners. The artist kneels in 78 JAPANESE ART front of it. The usual position of the brush is perpendicular to the paper, the thumb pressing it firmly against the first joint of the second finger and the third joint of the first finger close to the middle joint. The first finger itself presses lightly against the brush and helps to, guide it; the little finger rests on the paper, and the left hand is placed below the right wrist as a rest; when a freer play of the arm is necessary, both rests are withdrawn. The brush is held very long, the fingers being usually three to four inches from the paper; when the strokes are very bold, the brush is often held at the end. The axis of the lines is therefore either at the point of the little finger, the wrist, the shoulder, or the knee. In drawing large subjects, the whole body is moved and becomes the reticulated joint, working from the knee as a ful- crum. ^ ^ ^ ^f .^ 1 '^ tS ^ ^. M Mokk£ — A Tiger. THE RENAISSANCE 79 The students did not draw from nature, but devoted day in and day out during an apprenticeship of eight years to a most exacting study of old masters. The student began by making a careful study of some picture, by a Chinese master like Mokke or Bunjin Jen, after which he made several copies from his own copy, and, when he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with every detail and every stroke of the original, he made a final copy which was submitted to the teacher's judgment. Then the next picture was treated in the same way; then the next, and so on. These repetitions of the same subject may be vain from view-point of originality, from the view-point of accuracy their value can hardly be overrated. This method of instruction has been carefully worked out to the smallest detail, and made subject to rule. For every line in a bird's back or 8o JAPANESE ART claw, a certain position of the hand and a certain inclination of the brush have been found to be necessary, and they must be learnt, acquired, and remem- bered. The curves and swells cannot be accomplished in any other way. For every broad mark in the body or the wing, a certain intensity of colour at the point of the brush and a certain quantity of water to be held in reserve at the hinge, a cer- tain pressure of the fingers holding the brush and a certain motion of the entire arm, are necessary, or the colour will not shade off properly, and there will be a series of hard smudges instead of ani- mated feathers. There is no other way of getting these feathers, just as there are no other lines which will tell so simply of the bird's flight in the air. And as the desired accuracy, to which a hairbreadth's deviation of a Hne proves fatal, can only be acquired by practice, the long appren- THE RENAISSANCE 8 1 ticeship entirely devoted to a free appli- cation of the brush explains itself. But when these and a hundred of other minute instructions are learnt and re- membered — and he has to learn and master them until every trick and device has become second nature to his hand — the student may paint a bird cleaving the air as well as any master. There is no doubt that such minute training lops off ruthlessly all buds of genius but the very strongest, and that the artists who survive are few and far between. But those who do survive are veritable wizards of the brush. No Euro- pean master, to be sure, can vie with them in putting so much information, life, and humour into the same space of paper with so small an expenditure of labour. None of our water-colourists can realize with a few marvellous strokes, dabs, and sweeps of the brush such astonishing re- 82 JAPANESE ART suits as Motonobu (the son of Massa- nobu), Sauraku, Yeitoku, Takonobu, known as the father of three great paint- ers, Tanyu, Naonobu, and Yasunobu, better known as Yeishi, and Tchiokuvan, whose delineations of birds, in pure black and white without any gradations, remind one involuntarily of Durer's woodcuts. Motonobu (145 2-1490) was a most vigorous manipulator of the brush. He could give the effect and general appear- ance of any object with a few strokes of the brush, but each stroke tells, and each curve has a meaning. This capacity of expressing much with very little apparent effort is shown in the figure of a bird perched on a melon. A few strokes ex- press the turn of the bird's body, and the shape of the fruit. But if any man should ever be envied for the felicity and precision with which he handled his brush, it is Tanyu (1601- THE RENAISSANCE 83 1674), the greatest technician of them all. He was the impressionistic delineator of horses, of dragons, submarine creatures, and various beasts of the mythological zoology. His masterpiece, four lions painted in Chinese ink on wooden panels, can still be seen at the temple of Nikko. Also his two coloured dragons at the principal gateway of the same temple have aroused the admiration of many a connoisseur. A collection of his prin- cipal works, published the end of the eighteenth century, gives a fair idea of his remarkable talent. He was a virtuoso of curves. His style can be recognized at the first glance by the peculiar slap-dash quality of his line. The suggestiveness of his line, sometimes ranging from hair- breadth to the width of an inch, has never been surpassed. He could draw a horse in three or four sweeps of the brush ; the body of a crane he realized in two strokes. B4 JAPANESE ART and he seldom used more than three or four dozen lines to finish an entire pic- ture. Japanese art was now in the possession of many of its leading characteristics, as the calligraphic dexterity of brush work, the wilful neglect or exaggeration of detail, the grotesque division of space, and the economic manipulation of back- grounds which apparently look empty, and yet enhance the pictorial aspect to a rare degree. Also another quality, perhaps the most important of all, namely, the principle of repetition with slight varia- tion, had successfully been put into use. This peculiarity of composition pos- sesses the principal elements of pictorial art. Its object is not to execute a perfect imitation of reality (only bad works of art do that) or a poetic resemblance of life (as our best painters produce), but merely a commentary on some pictorial vision, THE RENAISSANCE 85 which sets the mind to think and dream. If the Japanese artist wants to depict a flight of cranes, he draws a half-dozen or more, which at the first glance look alike, but which on closer scrutiny are each en- dowed with an individuality of their own. He foregoes perspective and all other expedients ; he simply represents them in clear outlines in a diagonal line or sweep- ing curve on an empty background, and relies for his effect upon the repetition of forms. A Western artist would expand this, at least, into a picture with a land- scape or cloud effect as background; to the Japanese artist, working in the narrow bounds prescribed by custom and tradi- tion, all such attempts would appear futile ; he knows that such an event can- not be expressed more forcibly than by simply depicting the objects with only a slight variation in their representation. The first form introduces us to the 86 JAPANESE ART subject, its appearance and action; the second accentuates the same impressions and heightens the feeling of reality by a slight variation in its appearance and action; and every following form, resem- bling at the first glance a silhouette, is simply a commentary upon the pre- ceding one; and all together represent, so to say, a multiplication of the original idea. And in the same manner as they treat lines and masses, they vary colour schemes, which often resemble each other, but are, nevertheless, endlessly varied in shade and line. And not only the elements of composition are guided by the law of repetition, but also the crea- tive power of the artists. As inexhaust- ible as it seems, one will find that they have always treated certain lines of sub- jects. For instance, they have painted a crow sitting on a snow-covered fir THE RENAISSANCE 87 branch, with the full moon behind, a thousand times; but every painter who has handled the subject has tried to lend it a new individuality. Only the subject remains the same. Treatment and con- ception are invariably changed with the personality of the artist. They have real- ized, by a never tiring study of variation, that a beautiful idea always remains a beautiful idea, and that it takes as much creative power to lend a new charm to an old theme as to produce and execute an apparently new one, which, after all, may prove an old one. The year 1603 marks the beginning of that wonderful political organization known as the Takugawa Shogunate. For years the local nobles, or daimyos, defy- ing all control by the government, had engaged in continual struggles with one another for lands and power, and a lament- able condition of anarchy had been the 88 JAPANESE ART result. Takigawa Yyeyosu, the greatest warrior and statesman Japan has seen, after a sharp struggle, which ended in the defeat of his opponents, in the battle of Sekighara, finally succeeded to the su- preme authority, and caused himself to be appointed Shogun («'. e. regent) by the puppet Mikado of the day. By the organization of this remarkable system of feudal government, — the dy- nasty of Shoguns which lasted until 1867, — under which the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity for two and a half centu- ries, Yyeyosu solved for his day and country the problem which will occupy politicians to the end of time, of the due apportionment of control and local author- ity. At no previous period of Japanese history was the power of the central govern- ment more effectively maintained in all es- sential matters, although in other respects the daimyos were allowed a large measure THE RENAISSANCE 89 of independent action. Under this re- gime Japan increased amazingly in wealth and population, and made great progress in all the arts and civilization. As a consequence, the new capital of Yedo (Tokyo) rose rapidly to importance. To the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury, the old city of Kyoto, which had always enjoyed the presence of the Mi- kado and his palaces, had been consid- ered the centre of culture and of art, but now Yedo became her rival, and gathered unto her all the fruits of learning, of liter- ature, and of art. The daimyos and their retainers, the samurai, compelled by regu- lation to live a part of the year in Yedo, increasing its population to at least a million, materially helped to bring about this displacement of the artistic and liter- ary centre of Japan, They were all fond of luxury and an easy-going life, ever hungry for delights of the eye ancf elegant go JAPANESE ART pleasures, and as it is only necessary in this accommodating world to express a need when somebody provides a means to satisfy it, the new city was soon over- crowded with curio-shops, workshops of artisans, and artists' studios. K^oto continued to be a place of some artistic activity, it even developed an ex- clusive "palace literature and art," but Yedo attracted to itself all the rising talents of the country, and became the cradle of a new form of art. The higher degree of civilization, which was rendered possible by an improved administration and a more settled government, included a far more widely extended system of edu- cation than the country had ever known before. And not only were the humbler classes better educated, the culture, which for so many years had belonged almost exclusively to the noble and knightly class, had worked its way into the hum- THE RENAISSANCE 9 1 bier huts, and had created in the masses a certain appreciation of the beautiful. They also had grown more prosperous, and could indulge in the luxury of buying books and works of art. Artists no longer addressed themselves exclusively to the cultured class, but the people generally. The result was a sin- gular form of art, vacillating between new and old ideals, trying to please the com- mon people by the introduction of demo- cratic elements, without offending the nobler class of society. They began to paint pictures of a popular tendency, like the " Hundred Cranes " and " Thousand Carps," showing us cranes in every imaginable position, flying, fixed in the air, standing, eating, swimming, — and all faultlessly drawn, — or a shoal of carp, as one might see it through the glass of an aquarium, floundering about it in all kinds of posi- 92 JAPANESE ART tions, twisting and twirling about, and fading away in the distant water. They also entered the field of carica- ture, and endowed animals and inanimate objects with human features. They rep- resent tortoises as warriors on a march. Delicious is the rendering of the clumsy reptiles' efforts to run. They show us a group of frogs, out on a picnic. Some have on hats, some carry fans, while others smoke and dance and otherwise disport themselves. Another picture shows us a cat, tortured by rats, or a man dragged in bonds by wolves, hares, rabbits, etc. Their fox pictures are also very quaint, parodying as they do a Japanese marriage and other functions of social life. It was, however, not before the end of the seventeenth century that regular schools began to be formed which broke away from the traditionary teachings of THE RENAISSANCE 93 the followers of the Tosa and Kano schools. The age of the Takugawa Shogunate could pride itself on having lent en- couragement to three distinct schools of painting, and a fourth one that just came into evidence. The Buddhistic school had no great exponent, but there were still many men who adhered to Kanaoka's and Cho Densu's principles. The Tosa school was represented by the miniaturist Mitsuoky, (1616-1691), the greatest flower painter Japan has produced. His ideals were purity of hne and purity of colour. His flower pieces were models of elegance, and invariably endowed with some tender sentiment. The austerity of mediaevalism has yielded to the sweetness and fancy of a triumphal epoch, losing thereby nothing of its dig- nity, but gaining something of gentleness and tranquillity. 94 JAPANESE ART The Kano school was in its prime. Tanyu was famous all over Japan. His brother, Naonobu (i 607-1 651), laboured for years to combine energy with delicacy of touch, and at last succeeded. He is one of the most individual of all the artists of his race. His picture of a monkey groping for the sun is one of the best known pictures of Japanese art. Yeishi, the youngest man of the illustri- ous Takanobu family, painted women with a greater refinement and a more thorough understanding of drapery than they had ever been painted before. What a flapping parody in comparison is the grace of a Japanese lady in the canvas of one of our latter day artists, christened " La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine ! " A renown equal to that of these three men was enjoyed by Shioukada, also called Shojo, who died in 1639. He favoured THE RENAISSANCE 95 large compositions and pale, flat tints. His washes were remarkably pure and expressive. They sometimes cover a sur- face of several square feet, and yet are perfectly even, melting almost unnotice- ably into the background. His works have been published in two volumes in Yedo, 1804. In the fifteenth century the artists had created a new style, while thinking they were imitating classic models, but it was not before the latter part of the sixteenth when the real renaissance set in and the classical ideal was followed by a realistic tendency. The sixteen years of the Genroku pe- riod ( 1 688-1 703) which have been com- pared to the age of Pericles, the days of Louis XV., and the Venetian prime, were the heyday of Japanese art and culture. Art and culture seemed to have every- thing their own way. There were masters 96 JAPANESE ART in every branch of art. Bashio wrote his poetry; Chikamitsu, who has been com- pared to Shakespeare, had his plays per- formed in Yedo. Pottery was represented by Ninsei and Kenzan, architecture by the great Zingaro, sculpture by Ritsuo, and the metallurgic art by Somin. The great genius of the period was Korin (1661-1716). He was one of the first to break away from the classical ideals. There was about him not a trace of arbitrary rules or traditions. Whatever he imagined he produced immediately in a wild improvisatore fashion without troubling himself how it was done, as long as it produced an effect. He was a great colourist. His sketches in black and gold (gold powder being sprinkled over certain parts of the drawing), a style introduced by Sotatsu fifty years before, are wonder- ful feats of execution. Although best known as a painter, he also achieved great i3$^H£^ < A H ' as O Vi. M H O < < X u O THE RENAISSANCE 97 triumphs as a lacquerer. He has to be classed in the list of those eccentric geniuses who, by the very excess of their individuality, fail to put their real talent at its full value. Of an equally radical but more practi- cal mind was Okyo (i 732-1 795), the painter of morning mists, of cranes, fish, little dogs, stags and apes. He estab- lished the so-called " natural " in Shijo school about 1750. He was a great stick- ler for truth, resolved to paint directly from nature, without trying to embellish his work. But he could not escape his genius ; he was a poet by nature, and his interpretations became poetical even against his will. His compositions pos- sess a charming delicacy, a gracious ease, a naturalness of attitude; but they are conceived in a superficial manner ; neither he nor his school were ever able to represent the inner life, or the pro- 98 JAPANESE ART found character of the subjects they attempted. The strength and violent passions, which had stamped the earher art, were in it lacking. Okyo and his pupils shunned the sterner moods of nature, as well as the deep and tragic elements of human life. But what of pure soul there should be in infinite delicacy breathed through their work. They drew again attention to the infinite fertility of landscape mo- tives that hide among the pine-topped islands; they proved that in the facile Japanese brush lay still unsuspected ten- dernesses. The Daijo temple of Kameizan was en- tirely decorated by him and his pupils. Every room carries out a certain idea. The "room of mountain and water" is devoted to streams and mountains. The wall is of gold ground and rusty russet. The breath of nature seems to come ring- THE RENAISSANCE 99 ing through the pine-needles, and the purity of the sparkling waters seems to wash all vulgar elements out of the human soul. In the "room of agriculture," he painted upon sixteen panels the history of rice — from the sowing and planting in the field to the harvest and the gathering. In the " peacock room," he lavished all his skill on a pair of peacocks under two pine- trees. A native critic said of this decora- tion : " No king, I do not care how great and rich in power he be, could cram under a crown one-tenth of the imperial airs and splendour which Okyo painted into the majestic carriage of these two peacocks." The " room of ambassadors " is the joint work of the two favourite pupils of Okyo, Yamanato Shurei and Kamaoka Kirei. On one side a warrior's messenger ap- proaches the king's castle, on the other the queen is granting an audience to the ladies of the embassy. lOO JAPANESE ART How seriously Okyo, after all, took his art, is shown by the following story, known to every educated person in Japan, and with which I conclude this chapter, as it is typical of the patience and per- severance which Japanese artists, par- ticularly of this period, have always demon- strated in the pursuit of their vocation : The favourite resort of the wild boars was also the favourite haunt of Okyo. The cave in the rock, which the stream had dug with its crystal chisel, found itself, on a fine summer day, converted into a nature-made studio for the master. Day after day, he sat in his cave-studio, always looking out at the tremulous pat- terns which the sun, sieving through the pine-needles, wove upon the ground and on a boar, all covered with mud, taking his siesta in a royal fashion. For hours and hours he watched the sleeping boar, and, finally, on a fine summer twilight THE RENAISSANCE lOF hour, he gathered his courage and took up his brush. I do not know how many sketches, how many studies, he made of the boar; I do not know how many hours — at the close of day when the mountain silence was full of the whisperings of pine- needles — he had spent in his cave-studio. One night, the hunters of Hozu village were very much surprised to welcome a strange guest around their evening fire. The strange guest spoke to them of the life of the mountain, of his love for the folks of the woods: he told them how much he had envied their open-air occu- pation. At last, he took out from the breast folds of his kimono a roll of paper. When he unrolled it, the hunters saw a picture of the wild boar. " What do you think of it ? Is it the picture of a dead boar ? Do you think it is dead ? " the visitor said. Without a word, the hunters looked I02 JAPANESE ART upon it. They seemed a little puzzled at first, and then a bolder one among them gave voice to the common sentiment: " Why, yes, I guess it is dead." And the visitor went away. Almost every day, the hunters saw the same stranger around their evening fire. And every night the pine flames and the eyes of the hunters kindled upon a clever picture of a dead boar. The visitor asked them the same question every time, and the hunters gave him answers that were different neither in words nor intent. And sadly always, the visitor went his lonely way into the shades of night. But one night he came ; brought with him, as usual, the picture of a boar. He asked the same old question of the hunters. But the hunters did not give him the wonted answer. "Why, no!" they said, "this boar is alive; it's asleep, that is all." THE RENAISSANCE 103 And light came into the eyes of the visitor, and he made his way all through the village of Hozu. In every cottage the answer which was given to him was the same. And in the man who went away from Hozu village, in the fading hours of that night, one could see the very picture of triumph, of an exceeding great joy. And that is the story they tell. Now Okyo knew very well that those hunters of Hozu village, without the thinnest taint of academic culture or of schooling, could tell at a single glance, and that, too, at the distance of many a yard, whether a boar is dead or alive. And when the con- sensus of opinion told him that his picture was the picture of a sleeping boar, he was quite sure that he had achieved, for the first time, the feat of painting the fine and very delicate distinction between death and sleeping life. CHAPTER IV. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT The Ukio-ye School (i 700-1 867) OWARD the middle of the sev- enteenth century the first faint traces of an influence of West- ern pictorial art became palpable. The artist Iwasa Matahei was probably one of the first who got interested in occi- dental laws of composition, his knowl- edge being gathered largely from stray copper engravings which the Portuguese and Dutch traders had brought with them to Japan. Also Okyo made various at- tempts in imitating the Dutch; he even copied several engravings for a rich ama- teur of Nagasaki. 104 THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT I05 Although these experiments had at the start no decided effect on the Japanese style, they helped to free it more and more from the shackles of Chinese tra- dition. The artists were initiated into the laws of perspective and foreshorten- ing, first put in practice by Kokan of Nagasaki (i 747-181 8), and became ac- quainted with the study from nature and life as practised by Western artists. Shi- bukohan, Oado, and the lacquerer Kenzan became the most ardent champions of this innovation. Iwasa Matahei, who became famous about 1640, only changed his range of subjects. He was the first Japanese painter who ever tried to represent sub- jects which predecessors deemed un- worthy of art: the scenes of every-day life. One of the common people, without rank and without pride of blood, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the study of I06 JAPANESE ART the many entertaining phases of the life of common people. The idyl of a rustic love, the sports of children, the dance, the songs, the festivals of simple village folks, the display of crowded market-places, and also the somewhat shadier sides of life, real and full of soft tints — these appealed to him, overwhelmed his enthusiasm, and captured his dreams. His brush covered large and various fields, and his ink dishes compassed great possibilities of colours. He caught the samurai and the market-men at their merrymaking under the cherry-trees in spring, and it is hard to tell in words how much of grace and unstudied elegance he put into the poses and movements of dancing-girls, and of that entertaining class of women whom we call the geisha to-day. He took rich red, green, yellow, and black, and made them dwell in perfect harmony on his silk, although THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 107 his colouring is not of the simplest, striving more for richness than the ele- gance of monochrome. Toil was the only reward for his work. Without vanity, ever refusing to take him- self seriously, like our American painter, Gustav Verbeck, always fond of making fun of any ambitious dreams that might have sprouted in his head, he wished that he, and he alone, might be satis- fied. To-day kept on becoming to-mor- row, and always he went on without taking thoughts as to his food or rai- ment. He was always satisfied as long as his stomach did not cry to him too loudly. The reason why it is so very difficult to find a kakemono with his signature upon it, is because he could so rarely persuade himself that it is worth any man's while — his least of all — to sign his name to the work that came from his brush. This lack of signature I08 JAPANESE ART has been an eternal regret to the critics of latter days. But this absence of sig- nature has really made his work better recognizable than that of many other artists, and at the same time has told over and over again a very eloquent story of the high ideals held by Matahei, which he had ever striven to attain, which had made him always dissatisfied and un- happy, and which also made him a better artist as the days grew. Matahei exerted a considerable influ- ence upon succeeding generations, and his principles, carried out by two men of genius, Moronobu (1638-1714) and Hana- busa Itcho, who both became famous by their genre paintings, gave rise to the Ukio-ye or " common " school. This, however, was not fully established until fifty to sixty years later, about 1700, by the contemporaries of Okyo, the great artist who, although not fully in sym- MoRONOBU. — Morning Toilet. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT lOQ pathy with the Ukio-ye painters, dealt the death-blow to the Kano school by his innovations. About 1680, wood-engraving came into vogue. It greatly helped to popularize art. The artists, unable to satisfy the demand for kakemonos, welcomed the process of reproduction with enthusiasm, and many of them turned illustrators. Many phases of life they never had dared to represent on a kakemono could be expressed with impunity in the new medium, as the oribons {i. e. picture- books) and serial prints only appealed to the middle classes. The nobility had no use for them ; they were " vulgar crea- tions," unfit to be handled by a lady of rank. They never bought them, and even to-day do not rank them highly. Moronobu, who made a specialty of illustrating the historical events that had happened in different provinces and no JAPANESE ART towns, worked almost exclusivel}'- for the engravers. He was the first, also, who represented actors in art. Itcho, on the other hand, had no device to multiply his productions. He was a painter pure and simple. He is remarkable not only for the spirit and gaiety which is character- istic of a great many of his paintings, but also for his method, in which one must admire the expressive use of the brush. The history of wood-engraving is, to a large extent, the history of the Ukio-ye school itself, and our Western knowledge of Japanese art would be very deficient if we had to depend solely on "wall pictures." In the beginning only black and white single sheets were produced. Moronobu and Husuyuma Moro were the leading exponents of the Diirer-like woodcuts. After" awhile, they began to colour the THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT III prints with reddish orange, and called them the " tan " prints. Torii Kiyonobu ( 1 664-1 729) and Kiyamasa made draw- ings for this kind of prints. A little later they mixed a kind of glue, called nikawa, with the Chinese ink, to give the effect of varnish. They also used gold paint, and called them " lacquer prints." Okumura Massanobu (1690- 1768), whose short curves almost possessed the purity of Greek line, Nishimura Shigenaga (1697- 1756), and others, had some of their best efforts reproduced in that way. In the Kyoto school, about 1 740, they tried poly- chrome prints for the first time, and the prints thus reproduced in light green were called " rose prints." This curious combination of two fragile tints with black outlines was explored to the best advantage by Kiyonobu, Ichi- gawa Toyonobou (1711-1783), and Torii Koyomitsu (i 735-1785). This work be- 112 JAPANESE ART longs to the best Japanese colour-printing has produced. About 1765, an engraver by the name of Kinroku for the first time produced prints which passed through four or five impressions, and Suzuki Haronobu (I7I8- I77o) and Buntcho have been interested in this type of prints. Colour has probably never been used in a more refined and more raffine manner than by these artists. The tints they applied were merely hints at colour. They were of a paleness which set one to dreaming without paying atten- tion to what the picture represented. And because these prints were exceedingly fair to the eye, and attractive, the people of the time called them niskikie, which means "brocade pictures." Although at the end of the eighteenth century, Nishikawa, Soukenobu and other artists of Kyoto were trying to cope with the painters of the Yedo brocade pictures, they did not THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT II 3 succeed in outshining them, and from that time on, the brocade prints of Yedo be- came one of the famous products of the city. The prints of Koriusa, Shighemassa and Shunsho mark a transition period. They strove for more colour, but still hesitated to use it in its full strength. It was left to Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815) to accomplish this. He returned to the ideals of the Tosa school. The colours he relied upon were the following: Clear yellow, dark chestnut, red-brown, clear orange, mastic white, silver white, vermilion, brilliant violet, black, and brown lacquer. To heighten the brilliancy of their effect, he introduced the device of passing a rice paste upon the wood block each time before spreading the colour. Other artists besides the painter have contributed to bring about the perfection 114 JAPANESE ART of these colour prints — artists whose names, except in the rarest instances, have perished with them even in Japan, Work equal to theirs is common enough there, but is rare enough here to merit something more than a passing notice. First, there is the artist engraver. What finished pieces of workmanship are the blocks he cuts! How the lines sweep from his knife with the same unerring grace with which they sprang into life from the brush ! Never a quiver, or shake, or tremble, to rob them of a particle of their dexterous force. Look at the faces of any of the women and see how steady are the lines of the contour, and how wonderfully fine and clear those of the hair as it leaves the forehead. And then there is the artist printer, who spreads the ink upon the blocks so carefully that every line comes clearly from the hand-pressing, not one of them THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT I15 smudged or blurred. Really, I am not sure whether the place of honour should not be given to the printer. He might have marred the work of the engraver, and spoilt the effect the painter sought for, his methods of printing being the crudest and most unpatentable; yet, in- stead of marring, he has added beauties, and left the mark of his own individuality upon the print. His methods were per- fect, and perfectly simple. In their chromo-xylographs, the faults of register are very few and far between — even the magnifying glass fails to reveal any places where one colour-block has in printing been allowed to envelop another — the reason being that this method of printing did not permit any faults of register. To know whether an old print is authentic or not, one has simply to study the register; if it deviates only a hair- breadth from the space allotted to it, its Il6 JAPANESE ART authenticity becomes doubtful. I would advise print collectors to purchase only prints with an absolutely perfect register. No price is too high, as such prints will steadily increase in value; while the others are really, artistically as commer- cially, unprofitable possessions. In contrast to the Western principle of pressing the block on the paper, and thus obtaining the impression, the Japanese, dispensing with the mechanical means of a press, lays the paper on the block, and pats the paper with simple tampons or "barens." He can regulate and modify the pressure at end where he wishes, and thus obtain the gradated tints and half- tones that are so important an element of the charm of Japanese colour prints. When the colour in the picture is shaded, he also shades the tone in the block for every printing, and reproduces it in one pressure. In prints of the highest class THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT II 7 two or three colours will often be found shaded in this way. Herein lay the chance for the printer to use his mind as well as his hand, and to prove himself also an artist, and not only a workman. The value of these colour prints, on which so much art was lavished, was entirely underestimated. They sold so cheaply, that the purchasers handled them rather roughly ; they were absolutely care- less about their preservation, to such an extent that prints of masters who flour- ished from 1 720-1 750 are now unpro- curable, even in a tattered condition. Sometimes the single sheet prints were preserved in books, whence they occa- sionally emerge with their colours almost in primitive purity. But they were more often posted on screens, especially on small screens which sheltered the hibachi (charcoal stove) from the too frequent drafts of a Japanese house. Rain, wind, Il8 JAPANESE ART dust, smoke of tobacco and of charcoal, each took a share in their destruction. They perished soon, and were soon re- placed. The stock was plentiful, was, indeed, being augmented daily, and the price was ridiculously small. In a land so brimful of art as Japan, it was not surprising, perhaps, that such conceptions did not hold a very high place. But to the rest of the world, which has not, or never had, any popular art to speak of, it is only natural that they quickly appealed to us as not the least among the niany art marvels which Japan had in store. The pages which have been allotted to me are not numerous enough to permit an excursus on all the masters and pupils of the great Ukiyo-ye school. Compara- tively few can be mentioned. The reader may have been astonished at the similarity of names of certain artists. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT II9 This is, however, easily explained. It is customary for pupils to introduce a char- acter of their master's name into their own. This greatly simplifies the study of Japanese painting, as, for instance, all those who were privileged to take into their names the kuni of Toyokuni, the vigorous depicter of stage life, — Kuni- mara, Kunisada, Kunimasa, — have men- tally as well as technically something in common with Toyokuni, who himself took toyo, like Toyohami, the painter of night festivals, and Toyoshiri, the depicter of animated crowds, from his master, Toyo- haru. One is in that way able to trace relationship between the different artists. The class of artists who have the char- acter Yei — Yeishi, Yeiri, Yeizan, and Yeisen — was devoted almost exclusively to the charms and graces of Japanese womanhood. The linear beauties of these representations impress one like a nautch, I20 JAPANESE ART like some languid Oriental dance, in which the bodies undulate with an almost imper- ceptible vibration. Everything is aerial here ; it is a world of visions, of fragile, fairy creatures, separated from the rest of the world by mysterious garments, which enwrap them and seem to float around them like a dream. Amber faces, very pure outlines, the eyelids and eyelashes singularly long, dark eyes, surcharged with languor and vague passion, and at the same time serious, and with the dig- nity of well-bred women. They pass their days, idly reclining, wrapped in their silken draperies, in which you can see the pine, the bamboo, the crane, and the turtle worked in gold and silk, amusing themselves with their flowers, their gold- fish, and their miniature gardens. Or one of them takes her samisen and fills the empty, screen-encompassed space with some sad and confused melody. We see THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 121 them arranging their hair in one of the fourteen classic styles known to the Yedo belle, darkening their lips, or arching their eyebrows with tiny sticks of grease paint before curiously shaped mirrors, reflecting the nonchalant expressions of their faces. And their garments, stiff and cumbersome, flash in sun and moon-coloured hues. The Japanese artists see in woman a glorification of all beautiful things. They even have studied the natural grace of willow, plum, and cherry trees to find the correct expression of her movements and poses. The Shijo school was strongly in evi- dence in the latter half of the eighteenth century. There were Yosen ( 1 75 2- 1 8 1 8), Goshen, the landscapist, and Sosen (1747- 182 1 ). The latter became known for his pictures of monkeys. He devoted his whole life to the study of animals, and his pictures are high priced in England 122 JAPANESE ART and America. Goshen was one of the great colourists of the new school, and had many pupils, among them Hakkei, the painter of insects and butterflies, Lenzan, the depicter of birds, and Sho- hizan, whose twigs of cherry blossom were sufficient to make him immortal. Besides these were Seisen, Gakurei, Zaitu and Kaikatei, Kioko, Kuokudo, and Tetsusan. Perhaps the most talented of Okyo's followers was Nishiyama Hoyen, who died in 1867, at the age of sixty-four. Religious painting, which had ceased to be great since the sixteenth century, received in his grace and tender spirit- uality its final efflorescence. His painting of the sea-goddess, Kwannon, which all great artists, Chinese and Japanese, have represented, is not as grand and over- powering as Monotobu's. But it is a thoroughly sweet and womanly Kwannon, THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 23 an expression of the more gentle and feminine moods in Buddhism, correspond- ing to the worship of the Holy Virgin in Catholic countries. " Clothed in a single robe of spotless white, enveloping her like a thought, dominating her head like a crystal crown, she sits among the jagged rocks of a shore, the great overshadowing spirit of pity, love, and providence." In this work Hoyen has given us no pictorial repetitions. It is a new pictorial creation, built on a new thought. But Hoyen did not only deal success- fully with the human figure and serious religious work, he also realized in his landscapes the highest possibilities of his style. The debasement, the exaggeration, the appeal to vulgar feeling, the domi- nance of the comic, which often deface the accomplishments of modern Oriental art, are in Hoyen utterly lacking. Almost alone among his contemporaries, he kept 124 JAPANESE ART his eyes fixed on the spiritual heights of the Tosa and Kano masters, while pre- serving perfect originality. The painters of the Ukio-ye school had rather a hard time in the meanwhile. They were dependent on publishers and print-sellers, and many of them led a rather precarious existence. They ac- cepted whatever commission fell into their hands — now drawing for the engravers sketches that appeared in albums, now "decorating the panels of a temple or mansion, now dashing off a rough colour sketch at the rate of a few cents a sheet, now wandering off into the country with some congenial spirit to enjoy life entirely after their own fashion, and to take what chance might throw in their way. The reformatory work that had been begun by Moronobu and Itcho was con- tinued by Miyagawa Chosun. He did not restrict himself to the narrow limits THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 25 of the later Kano pigments, reds, yellows, blues, and greens, but enriched them all with a new scale of strange browns, olives, purples, and grays. He drew his figures very much like Moronobu, only less harsh in outline, while his back- grounds were treated in the dashy style of Sesshin. The eighteenth century was an age of splendid patterns in garments, large sweeping areas of patterns, as distin- guished from the finely diapered garments of the Genroku period, and Chosun was very fond of drawing them, as they lend themselves so easily to colour schemes. He put in a dash of colour here and there where one least expected it, a trick he had learned of Korin and Kenzan. His favourite subjects were street scenes of Yedo. His best known works are " Hun- dred Poets," "Fans," and "Mirror of Beauty," perhaps the most beautiful pic- ture-books ever produced. 126 JAPANESE ART Other painters who greatly helped the popular movement were Teisan, the two brothers, Torii Kiyonobu and Torii Kiyo- mitsu, Buntcho, Toyokusi, Haronobu, and Soukenobu. Kiyonobu (1664-1729) became famous for his arrangement in rose and green. He exhausted these two colours com- pletely. No European artist to my knowl- edge has ever balanced these two colours so perfectly. Buntcho (i 765-1 801), re- tained all his life by a prince, indulged in historical researches, and the depiction of actors, very original both in design and colour feeling. Ever since Chikamitsu's dramas had become popular, there had been a rage for actor prints. Nearly all artists devoted some sheets to this hith- erto so degraded profession. Toyokuni, and later Kuniyoshy (i 796-1861), seemed particularly adapted to this work. The violence of dramatic gesture, although KUNIYOSHY A RONIN. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 27 exaggerated almost to the verge of the ridiculous, are masterly rendered by them. Kuniyoshy, in particular, was a wild, unrestrained talent, with an imagination that was neither to bend nor to break. His fantastic landscapes were a positive rejection of all the theories and estab- lished rules of astheticism. His illustra- tions of the " Forty-seven Ronins," the national drama of loyalty and revenge, made him popular all over the islands. Two pupils of Buntcho, Totsugen and Bumpo, became very popular through their numerous albums of caricatures. Soukenobu created a peculiar type of woman, plump young girls with round and laughing faces. They were unlike those of any other Japanese artist. Seated or standing under flower branches, at the bases of graceful trees, walking in, the fields or flowery garden bowers, they always have a grace of their own. He is 128 JAPANESE ART the poet of the Japanese young girl, deco- rated with fans, in a long robe which winds from her feet in undulating folds, in the landscape of a dream, peopled with fairy birds caroling to the gods. Suzuki Haronobu (1765) was more of a revolutionary spirit. He endeavoured to remove the stigma of vulgarity which still clung to his school. " Though I work in prints," he proudly exclaimed, " I shall style myself hereafter 'master painter of the national school of Japan.' " He possessed a governing spirit, ideas of his own, and irreverence for the con- ventions, thanks to which he was destined to become the admirable painter he was. He was the loving delineator of the domestic life of the middle classes. He had very curious ideas of form, but his line had a beautiful flow and swing to it. He saw everything in colour, and was able to invest a morsel of nature with its "l THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT ^ 1 29 natural harmony of light. It wasr really he who introduced atmosphere into |apan- ese painting. By the power of Wiental isolation, of concentration in himsMf, of absorption of his faculties in nature ^nly, and by the positive rejection of all theories and established rules of aestheticisil^l of all that had not for its motive the uv- ing present, his eye refined itself to all me swift reflections, the subtle quiverings, tfce fleeting effects of light in nature. H^s hand grew, at the same time, more suppl| and strong in its grasp of the unforeseen and unexpected aerial effects which re vealed themselves to him; while his p^l-'*'' ette became clear, joyous, luminous, fluent with sunlight and permeated by the brightness of the sky. His favourite col- ours were green, purple, and low-toned oranges. Independent of the realistic movement worked Tchikuden and Hoitsu. Tchi- 13° (^ JAPANESE ART kuden\ became known in Europe by a mastei^iece of natural simplicity, an eagle percho^d on a rock, overlooking the sea. Although replete with personal qualities, one y:an trace in him the influence of the Kaifo school. loitsu (17 16-1828) a daimyo by birth, painted for pleasure. He studied in many stgdios, but found that the ideals of the T/)sa school, with a few modifications, wfere best suited to flower painting, which y^% his specialty. He had a very tal- ented pupil in Kiitsou. The morning- glories, full of dew, with a suggestion of tWp waning moon behind, are deliciously rendered. In their delineations of flowers, these two painters succeeded in reviving all the graces of their delicate organism, the almost inexpressible tenderness of their fleeting forms, the living brightness and glory of their colours, and even the THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT I3I unsubstantial exhalations of their per- fumes. Toward 1795, when Kiyonaga, the son of Kiyomitsou sprang into sudden fame, the Ukio-ye school had become a school of national importance. It had proven its worth, and prejudice concerning it had grown less strong. They had gone forth into the streets of Yedo, elated with love for their native city, and quivering with inspiration. They were fascinated by the inexhaustible va- riety of her sights and scenes, and they had allowed their vagabond fancy to ab- sorb the splendour of light and colour which pervaded all these scenes of popu- lar life. They had learned to look at objects in a more rational way ; their knowledge of form had marvellously im- proved; they did not longer disregard shadows entirely, and, if their perspective is incorrect from our point of view, it is 132 JAPANESE ART wilfully SO, for the landscapes on some of their lacquer trays of that period show that even inferior artists had mastered it. Kiyonaga (i 752-1818) led the Ukio-ye to greater height of technical perfection than^it had ever reached before. He was a direct forerunner of Hokusai, one of the greatest draughtsmen in a time when good draughtsmen were the rule. His brush- stroke has a tremendous vigour, as shown in his paintings. He revelled in air and action. Picnic parties, groups at the tem- ples, dances, crowds on holidays were his special forte. Human forms leaped as if alive from his restless brush. He left behind him a remarkable series of works. One volume is devoted to landscape, another to flowers, a third to fishes, and several others contain, in very ani- mated outlines, sketches of ordinary life. He was very careless in detail; his ink simply rained down on the paper, and Kunisada., — On tUWiver THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 33, gained outlines and accents entirely bjr the certainty of his hand and eye. He cared only for the general appearance of objects, treating everything in silhouette, and with sketchy modelling. Many other artists could be mentioned as Kunisada, Nagahura, the embodiment of elegance, Ganka, Shigenaga, Shosizan, Torei, Morofusa, Morinaga, Motonaga, Tsunenobu, the painter of peacocks and giant chrysanthemums, and his pupils Tchikonobu and Minenubo, Taigado and Bunlei, two belated Kano painters, and many others. But one must refrain. As said before, it is impossible to mention them all. Each one had some distinguishing trait. Their works, painted or engraved, charm at first sight by the variety of subjects and atti- tudes which can be found in the reproduc- tions of no other period. The greatest merit of the Ukio-ye 134 JAPANESE ART school, however, is that it has given us three great artists, in which almost the whole of Japanese pictorial art seems to be summed up for the Western world, — Outomaro Kitagawa (1753- 1805), Hiroshige (i 797-1868), and Ho- kusai ( 1 760- 1 849). Outomaro is known as the greatest painter of Japanese women. He cared less for severity and purity of expression than his predecessors. He disdained the round and stumpy figures of Chinese origin by Soukenobu, and the robust and sculpturesque women of Kiyonaga; he sacrificed everything to delicacy of treat- ment. The shades of expression in his women are so delicate and transient, the impression of their charm so fleeting, their features and their type so hovering between prettiness and ugliness, that even his crones seemed as if they might once have been pretty as the prettiest maidens, THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 35 whose grace the slightest touch of change would mar. He also had a larger conception of his subject. He did not merely strive for external beauty. He represented the Japanese woman in all the various phases of her domestic life, and with a keenness of observation which almost borders on psychological insight. He represented her in her babyhood, carried on the back of her mother, as child, as young girl, plajdng the samisen, or studying the " Collection of One Thousand Leaves," as sweetheart under the plum-tree, as young wife going through the tea cere- mony, as mother, as adultress or adven- turess, and finally in her old age. He penetrated as far as it is possible to go into the feminine mode of life. He was also very fond of depicting the life of actresses, of geishas, and the in- mates of the green houses of the Yoshi- 136 JAPANESE ART wara. This is probably the reason why so many critics have called him a sen- sualist. To me he is the most ethereal of painters. True enough, he was a man of easy morals, and greatly addicted to pleasure, who spent the largest part of life in the Yoshiwara, and finally died of constitutional exhaustion at the age of fifty. But his art he took seriously. He eliminated everything that might have appeared fleshly or physical. He used geishas and courtesans as models because they seemed more graceful to him, and because he could study them at leisure. In his pictures women, even if they represent courtesans, look invariably like princesses, ^sthetically dissatisfied with the small size of his countrywomen, he drew them taller and slenderer, and imbued their elongated shapes with in- finite tenderness and grace. His serial "Silk-worms," in which he depicted the %5.x^^ m^ [#■ -^^ ^s '?: -t- #1 '',■ ' OO .5?. ■ a^ ®;. t ^-^J OuTOMARO. — A Yedo Beauty. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 37 " Forty-seven Ronins," as represented by the most beautiful women, is the master- piece of his career. The workmanship of these pages is exquisite, and the beauty and delicacy of forms and flowing lines has never been excelled. Not content with the representation of figures and scenes in single engravings, the artists of this time produced compo- sitions spreading over several leaves. Outomaro was particularly fond of trip- tychs. As a colourist, he ranks with the best of the Ukio-ye school. His colour schemes were mostly conceived in four tints, a deep black, a tender white, a pink of the colour of rose-leaves, and a sombre, melancholy violet. Outomaros are oftener offered for sale than any other colour prints, but com- paratively few are authentic. He was a very prolific artist, but, as he enjoyed a great reputation in his own lifetime, 138 JAPANESE ART he became somewhat unscrupulous. In order to increase his production he em- ployed a certain number of pupils to work with him, whose works were signed with his name. Moreover, after his death his widow married one of his pupils, who signed the name of the dead man to his own work, and, in addition, the publishers themselves appear to have long continued to employ others of his pupils who always made use of his name. The number of prints signed with the name Outomaro is enormous. But all of these are very far from possessing the charm, the elegance, and the high qualities of those which are really due to the master. Hiroshige, generally regarded as the foremost landscape painter of Japan, was born at Yedo and was a pupil of Toyo- hiro. His earliest work was a series of views of Mount Fusiyama, dated 1820. His masterpieces, however, including the Hiroshige. — ^ Landscape THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 39 "Go-jiu-sen Eki Tokaido" ("Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido "), were published after 1845, in the decline of his life. He died of cholera during the great epidemic of 1858. Hiroshige's favourite subjects were the scenes of every day in and around Yedo, and along the picturesque highway con- necting Yedo with Kyoto. He had settled down with the determination to conquer the beauties of nature within the vicinity of his native town. These he knew from childhood, and they appealed to him most strongly. Nearly every artist had already painted the Tokaido, but Hiroshige tackled it in an entirely novel manner. Like Monet he was satisfied with one subject, but represented it in all hours of the day, in all seasons of the year, and in all conditions of the atmosphere. He completely exhausted the subject. Two artists of considerable talent, Shunchosai 140 JAPANESE ART and Settan, who, some years later, treated the same subject in a similar manner, had nothing new to add. Their works re- semble topographical handbooks; they lack Hiroshige's power of invention, his keen observation of traffic and animated crowds, his firm pencil and instinct for colour. He was the first landscape painter who gave to his foreground figures almost as conspicuous a part as the landscape itself. He was an innovator in many respects. He had picked up a few ideas upon the European theories of perspective, and constantly made use of them. His van- ishing-points were not always in the right place, but on the whole his compo- sitions greatly gained in reality by these experiments. He also recognized the existence of projecting shadows, and in- troduced faithful reflections of the moon and lanterns into his pictures, an accom- THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT I4I plishment which Avas sternly tabooed by the older artists. He also drew birds, flowers, and carica- tures, but they are mediocre productions. His originality only revealed itself in his landscape works. His " Fifty-three Sta- tions of the Tokaido," printed in colours, and his " Pictorial Description of Yedo," in twelve volumes, and " Views of the Tokaido," both printed in black and pale blue, are of permanent value. The ap- pearances of rain, mist, and wind, the frigidity of the snow-laden streets and fields, the vague colours of night, have rarely been more faithfully represented. It is life, in fact, which fills his picture with virile spirit, and breathes into them a new and astonishing vitality. It is the life of the air, of the water, of odours, and of lights; the ungraspable and invisible life of the spheres, synthesized with an admirable boldness and an eloquent au- 142 JAPANESE ART dacity, which are the product of delicacy of perception, and the indication of a superior comprehension of the great har- monies of nature. The nuptial gaieties of the spring, the burning drowsiness of summer, the anguishes of the autumn on its bed of purple, under its canopies of gold; the splendid and cold bridal vest- ments of the winter — in all of them life is resuscitated and triumphant. And in all this resplendency of nature, nothing is left to the chance of inspiration, however happy, nor to the hazard of an accidental brush-stroke, however facile and spirited. His colouring was as simple as it was superb. A sea painted apparently with one sweep of indigo, lined with moun- tains expressed in a few daubs of violet, and some calligraphic flourishes in red and green, representing a bridge and trees, were sufficient to produce an ex- quisite colour harmony. Two charming THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 43 colours which are very noticeable in his landscapes are the green of oxidized metal, as seen at old weather-beaten temple gates, and the deep crimson of lacquer. They are a little difficult to reproduce with our Western colours, but I am informed that cobalt green renders the former, and Rubens madder, with dragon's blood for the shadow, the tone of the lacquer almost exactly. The greatest exponent of the realistic school is Hokusai, a pupil of Shunsho, who, dying at the age of eighty-nine, left behind hundreds of kakemonos, and eighty serial works in over five hundred volumes. All the sterling qualities of his pred- ecessors seem to have concentrated in this fertile genius. The " Mangwa," a collection of sketches in fourteen volumes, and the " One Hundred Views of Fusi- yama," which have made his name familiar 144 JAPANESE ART to the Western world, fail to give a com- plete idea of his genius. They bear witness to his marvellous versatility, to the virility of his line-work, and to the harmony of his colours, but they do not compare with his paintings, especially those which represent the human form and the tranquil scenes of popular life. The visitor to Japan encounters Hoku- sai's types at every step. He has immor- talized his countrymen, walking about in straw rain-coats and immense mush- room-shaped hats, and straw sandals: bareheaded peasants, deeply burned by wind and sun ; patient mothers with smil- ing bald babies upon their backs, toddling by upon their high wooden clogs; and robed merchants squatting and smoking their little brass pipes among the count- less riddles of their shops. The " Mangwa " is a universal kaleido- scope, where everything and every type THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 45 of being jostle each other in a pictur- esque confusion, an endless panorama in which nothing escapes the keen analysis of the artist and observer. There are a set of fat people, and a set of lean people, a procession of drunkards, beggars, and studies of old men and women, national heroes, fabulous animals, demons and apparitions. He has sketched all the curious antics of which gymnasts and acrobats are capable. He has reproduced the masks of the ancient religious, the No dances, masks with exaggerated ex- pressions, masks of demons, or animals and grotesque personages. We see coun- try folks at their daily avocations. He introduced us into the workshops of artisans — wood - carvers, smiths, metal workers, dyers, weavers, and embroiderers pass review. He only held aloof from the theatre and the Yoshiwara. Notwithstanding the directness, some- 146 JAPANESE ART times a little rude, of his method, no one has analyzed nature, the character and details of things, and the living appear- ance of figures, with more ease, intelli- gence, and penetration. Like all great artists, he was never sat- isfied with his work. He wrote at the age of seventy-five these humourous and heartfelt words : " From my sixth year on a peculiar mania of drawing all sorts of things took possession of me. At my fiftieth year I had published quite a number of works of every possible de- scription, but none were to my satisfac- tion. Real work began with me only in my seventieth year. Now at seventy- five the real appreciation of nature wakens within me. I therefore hope that at eighty I may have arrived at a certain power of intuition, which will develop further until my ninetieth year, so that at the age of one hundred I can proudly THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 47 assert that my intuition is thoroughly- artistic. And, should it be granted to me to live one hundred and ten years, I hope; that a vital and true comprehension o£ nature may radiate from every one of my lines and dots," (You see, Hokusai is more modest than some of our Western artists !) Hokusai was as proficient in land- scapes as in figures. His serial of Eleven Waterfalls shows his fidelity to and re- spect for nature. The movement of the water, the outline of the rocks ; the local colour and particular details of each scene, are marvellously rendered. Study, it matters not what picture of Hokusai's and you will see that even the smallest details of which they are com- posed are logically in sympathy with one another, that even the smallest blade of grass and slenderest branch are dependent on the width and length of the composi- 148 JAPANESE ART tion. The exquisite grace by which we are charmed, the force we feel, the strength of construction which they bring before us, the splendid poetry which stirs our souls with admiration, proceed from this exacti- tude. We truly seem, in the contempla- tion of these pictures, to scent the odour of the earth, and to feel the lightest breath from heaven. The breeze from the sea brings to one's ears the sonority of the wide waves, or the softly murmured sound of ripples on the beaches of creeks and gulfs of silver and blue. We see appear successively the banks of the bay of Tokyo at all seasons and all hours: her fields joyous with the gaiety of the har- vest; the same fields, sad and desolate, with naked trees under the cold gray sky of winter ; on frosty days irradiated by the sun into the shimmering splendour of a dust of diamonds; in fogs, thick and heavy, where the vapour expands in waves ■;i,^w» •:>!?"'!•;, HoKUSAi. — View of Mount Fusiyama. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 49 which are visible and veritably moving. In the blossoming trees upon the banks of the stream one finds a beauty truly Japanesque. His breaking up of the ice in the stream, where, driven by the cur- rent, it is piled up against its banks in quaint and dismal forms, is at once tender and tragic. But, above all else, he was the painter of the Fusiyama, the sacred mountain "of which all poets and women of the island dream." It appears in nine out of ten of all his landscape compositions. No matter what his theme, the snow-covered summit of Fuji appears somewhere in the distance. He has shown it to us at all the different hours of the day, through the seasons and the ever-changing phenomena of light. We see it reveal its rough out- lines in a cloudless sky, through the meshes of a netted sail, in the rays of the setting sun, in rain and snow storms, through reedy 150 JAPANESE ART shores where the wild geese cackle, and as a ghostly silhouette against the nocturnal sky. Monef s " Rouen cathedrals " and "Haystacks" are merely child's play in comparison to these profound studies. A Japanese writer has described his ver- satility in the following charming manner : " I rose from my seat at the window, where I had idled the whole day long — softly, softly. Then I was up and away. I saw the countless green leaves tremble in the densely embowered tops of the trees ; I watched the flaky clouds in the blue sky, collecting fantastically into shapes torn and multiform. I sauntered here and there, carelessly, without aim or volition. Now I crossed the Bridge of Apes and loitered as the echo repeated the cry of wild cranes. Now I was in the cherry grove of Owari. Through the mists, shifting across the coast of Miho, I descried the famous ponies of Suminoye. THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 151 Now I stood trembling upon the bridge of Kameji and looked down in astonish- ment at the gigantic Fuki plants. The roar of the dizzy waterfall of Ono re- sounded in my ear. A shudder ran through me. It was only a dream which I dreamed, lying in bed near my window, with this book of pictures by the master as a cushion beneath my head." It is always the same thought that guides Hokusai through these multiplied aspects of nature. He seizes upon the characteristics of a field, of a bit of the ocean, of a rock, a tree, a flower or figure, in its most individual expression, in its passing charm of motion and harmony of colour. Study these kakemonos, colour prints, and sketch-books, in the order of their dates, and you will each time see that the painter's methods improve, that his sensibility to the mysteries of nature becomes more developed, that his eye dis- 152 JAPANESE ART covers new and unknown forms and effects; but you do not feel from his work any hesitation in his art, any uncer- tainty of a mind seduced yesterday by one ideal, and to-day troubled by another. His step is always in advance, in the same direction, firm, resolute, and unwavering ; one might say that he was urged forward by some irresistible force of nature, so regular and powerful is the impulse which carries him along. Ever since the day when Hokusai took up the brush for the first time, he felt, even when he was not yet perfectly sure of himself, what he wanted to do, and he did it by processes of his own, travelling along a straight path toward conquest, without deviating an instant from his route, and without losing himself in pur- suit of vague ideals or confused aspira- tions. Endowed with a robust moral nature and a healthy intellect, fortified by THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT 1 53 a life of constant intimacy with nature, there was in him no trace of that contem- porary malady so fatal to artistic produc- tion and development, restlessness. The contentions of opposing schools and the caprices of aestheticism made no impres- sion upon his mind of bronze, vibrantly nervous, and delicately impressionable to all emotions as it was. He was all of one piece in the subtle and complicated mechanism of his genius, admirably con- stituted to receive the most different sen- sations, to create the most opposite forms. He was the contemporary of some mighty names, yet there scarcely was to be found among them all a spirit more thoroughly original ; and surely, when the petty conflicts of passing taste are laid at rest for ever, it will be found that this man has written his signature, indelibly, on one of the principal pages of the universal history of art. CHAPTER V. THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART ON WESTERN CIVILIZATION •HIRTY to forty years ago Japa- nese art was almost unknown to the Western world. Previous to the London International Exhibition of 1862, the Land of the Rising Sun was absolutely unrepresented in the European museums and art galleries. Only at The Hague there was a small collection of natural and industrial products, which, however, afforded but little informa- tion. The first appreciator of Japanese art was probably Louis XIV. In his old age, 154 THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 55 he is said to have taken a fancy to " idols, pagodas, and stuffs painted with flowers," that came to the court of Versailles from the Far East, in chests of cedarwood. They probably reached Trianon, as they did the Dresden court, via Maceo. The Portugese missionaries in the six- teenth century, and a century later the Dutch merchants allowed to occupy a factory at Nagasaki, were in the habit of shipping a few articles for Europe, chiefly lacquer cabinets and dinner sets made to order after European models. They were exhibited and sold in shops and bazaars, and can still occasionally be met with in old country houses and curiosity shops in England, Holland, France, and Spain. The workmanship of these articles, mostly Hitzen ware, painted in blue, red, or blue and gold, was exceedingly rough, and as unlike the superior native work as can be well imagined. The Portuguese mission- 156 JAPANESE ART aries do not seem to have fonned any idea of the artistic originaHty of the " bar- barians " whom they had come to convert ; and the Dutch merchants never knew, save in a very imperfect manner, Japanese art properly so called. Up to the latter half of the nineteenth century, the major- ity of the Western public remained in ignorance of the fact that there was in Nippon a national art quite independent of Chinese art — an art having, as that of Greece, of Italy or of the Netherlands, its history, its schools, its monuments and masterpieces, and great masters. The London exposition of 1862, with its " Japanese court," opened up this sealed book to the Western world. It came as a surprise; one had not expected such exquisite workmanship, and importers and scholars at once set out to explore the unknown realms of Eastern industry. The London display was followed by ^'^»r,-'- ' ' m ^.i'*^ ^f j^ i:cv.r^^c>i'n-;v'T^ ^^^^^^^^^-lv^ j:^;^.^^ V, j-s"-£; Sketches of Cranes for Decorative Work. THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 57 the exhibits which Prince -Satsuma sent to the Paris Exposition of 1867. A few years later the magnificent collection of bronzes, wood-carvings and pottery, formed by M. H. Cernuschi during his travels in Japan, China, Java, Ceylon and India, created a sensation, and the art treasures of Japan were pronounced the most perfect. They were regarded as a new revelation in the decorative arts. A number of able writers and energetic scholars — America, England, France, and Germany seemed suddenly to compete in turning out Japon- ists — began to make special studies of one or the other branch of art, often devoting their whole lifetime to the inves- tigation. The Japanese government con- tributed matchless collections, carefully selected on a large scale, to the Vienna Weltausstellung of 1875, and the whole nation, seized with a fever for European 158 JAPANESE ART material accomplishments, yielded up its ancient treasures with a readiness which was afterward repented of. The occasion was a rare one, and the London importers, as those of every Con- tinental capital, did not fail to profit by it. Everywhere Japanese silks, embroideries, bronzes, art pottery, lacquer, and carved wood and ivory, were displayed in the shop windows. Large consignments of Japanese goods arrived almost monthly in the various European ports; large special sales were the order of the day. In twenty years these " promoters " almost drained Japan, taking away all they could lay their hands upon, and sending the treasures pell-mell to Paris, to Hamburg, to London, or to New York. Everybody seemed surprised at the va- riety and richness of these " novelties ; " even the faults in perspective and model- ling enchanted the enthusiasts, as a pro- Silk Embroidery for a Screen THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 59 test against the too rigid rules exacted in Western art. A perfect furor for everything Japanese swept over Euro- pean countries ; Paris in particular went mad with Japomania. There was hardly a house in the Monceau Park district, which had not furnished some rooms with Japanese lacquer-work, bronzes, and tapestries. Edmond and Jules de Goncourt be- came its champions, Zola invested thou- sands of francs in Japanese curios. And among the artists who appeared at the sales, one encountered celebrities like Alfred Stevens, Diaz, Fortuny, James Tis- sot, Alphonse Legros, Whistler, ' Carolus Duran, and the engravers Bracquemont and Jules Jacquemart The artists realized that this nation of the Far East had a complete and con- nected artistic development, that, at cer- tain periods of its history, it had produced l6o JAPANESE ART works in which none of the elements of great art were lacking, and that in certain respects Japanese art was even superior to their own. European artists have equalled the Japanese in clever grouping, vigorous action, force of expression, passion for form and colour, and even in sketchy fig- ure delineation without the appliance of shadows, but they have never reached that unlimited suggestiveness which even the most insignificant Japanese picture-book contains. This suggestiveness had con- quered modern art. It came at the right time. Too much philosophy had been written in Europe ; everything, from the most commonplace to the most sublime, had been collected, catalogued, commented upon, raked up merely for the sake of raking up barren knowledge. It now became necessary to remove the dust and cobwebs that had THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART l6l settled on it, and infuse new life by puri- fying, remodelling and developing that heap of knowledge. And what could ac- complish this better than Japanese art? Its influence was -everywhere felt. It called forth, for instance, the short story literature, in which Andersen, Turgenjew, Verga, and the modern French and Scan- dinavian writers are masters, — a tendency toward brevity and conciseness of expres- sion, which suggests a good deal more than it actually tells. Its law of repetition with slight variation, we can trace in Poe's poems, the work of the French symbolists, and, above all else, in the writings of Maurice Maeterlinck, that quaint combi- nation of Greek, mediaeval, and Japanese art reminiscences. Its influence is also palpable in the descriptive music of to-day, in the com- position of the Neo-Wagnerian school, which prefers tonal impressions to theo- 1 62 JAPANESE ART retic development, and does away with the finished fonns of classic masters, with conscientious treatment of counterpoint, graceful codas dying away in clear sounds, or pedal notes with correct harmony. The younger composers, affecting gro- tesqueness, which is natural to the Japa- nese, endeavour to surprise their listeners by introducing a dissonant interval when a consonant interval is most expected, or breaking a phrase which is supposed to end in an easily eligible cadence, in the midst of a bar. Polyphony calls attention to four or five different sides at once, an impression such as one received looking at a Japanese colour print, in which half a dozen different colours strike the retina simultaneously. The Japanese influence is naturally most evident in painting; in the noc- turnes of Whistler; in Manet's ambition to see things flat; in the peculiar space THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 63 composition of Degas, Skarbina, the Ger- man secessionists, and the poster painters ; in the parallelism of vertical lines as prac- tised by Puvis de Chavannes, and the parallelism of horizontal lines in D. W. Tryon's landscapes; in the frugal Kano- school-like colouring of Steinlen's Gil Bias illustrations, which have caused a revolution in modern illustration ; in the disregard for symmetrical composition of the impressionists ; in the eccentric draw- ing of the symbolists; and in the serial treatment of one phase of nature, as practised by Monet, Nearly two-thirds of all painters who have become prominent during the last twenty years have learnt, in one instance or another, from the Japanese. It is a strange coincidence that modern painting, just after succeeding in freeing itself from the fetters of classicism that had barred its development for so many 1 64 JAPANESE ART decades, should embrace, scarcely having reached maturity and self-reliance, the si- renic charms of Japanese art. In the landscapes of Hiroshige and Hokusai the artists discovered not only a new and natural choice of subjects, but also a new and natural treatment. They learnt to understand the modesty of nature and to dare to represent it with the simplest means. For the first time, they noted the values of space, the grace and force of sil- houette, the effectiveness of unframed composition, and the beauty of fugitive impressions, which impressionism taught at the same time, by a scientific applica- tion of unmixed colours. I am also convinced that the pre- Raphaelites have borrowed their method of perspective, which makes all landscapes look as if they had been painted from an elevation — the mountains towering up behind one another — and teaches THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 65 them to avoid difficulties by the intro- duction of clouds in all sorts of incon- gruous places, from the Japanese. (Some of Kiyonaga's compositions have a strange resemblance to those of Strudwick, Dever- ell, Burne-Jones, just as Takehasa Shun- chosai seems to have been a forerunner of the Tachists.) Some critics will no doubt shake their heads at this, and refer to my statement that Japanese art was not known in Europe when the pre-Raphaelites began their work ; true enough, it was not as popular as it is now, but a few rare pieces had found their way to England, and, falling into the hands of these dreamy painters, undoubtedly had impressed them deeply, a good deal more than they would do now, when Japanese bric-^-brac can be found in every house. Even the variety stage has profited by the Japanese movement. I realized it 1 66 JAPANESE ART when I saw the Barrison sisters. They were an object-lesson that might have in- terested any student of art. There were five pretty, gay ladies of fascinating lean- ness and awkwardness k la Chavannes, who could neither sing nor dance, but were simply drilled by a manager to expound- ing in coquettish movements and attitudes a French-Japanese code of frivolity, and who thus unconsciously expressed the Japanese principle of repetition with slight variation. But as no other Amer- ican critic, not even J. G. Huneker, has dwelt upon their eesthetic value in this respect, I may after all have been mis- taken in my judgment. Indisputable, however, is the influence of Japanese pictorialism on our interior decoration. The most striking feature of all Japanese interiors, to the average foreigner, is the total absence of furniture. Neither tables, chairs, beds, nor wash- Bronze Sword -Guards and Corner - Pieces. THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 67 stands appear; the reason being that the first two are scarcely ever used, that the futan or bed consists of a thick, soft, quilt which is always rolled up and stored away in a cupboard during the day, while the wash-stand is almost superfluous in a country where the commonest labourer often takes five baths a day, and would die of shame if he bathed less than three times daily. Ewers, it is true, are used for the hands, but, like the bed and all other furniture, are concealed in cup- boards, so that the general appearance of a Japanese room is somewhat bare. The Japanese, who hide every nail in the woodwork of their houses under bronze shields of the most exquisite workmanship, have also taught us sim- plicity in domestic surroundings. They have shown us that a room need not be as overcrowded as a museum in order to make an artistic impression; 1 68 JAPANESE ART that true elegance lies in simplicity, and that a wall fitted out in green or gray burlap, with a few etchings or photo- graphs, after Botticelli, or other old mas- ters, is beautiful and more dignified than yards of imitation gobelins, or repousse leather tapestry, hung from ceiling to floor with paintings in heavy golden frames. We have outgrown the beauty of Rogers statuettes, and tired of seeing Romney backgrounds in our portraits and photographs. The elaborate patterns of Morris have given way to wall-paper of one uniform colour, and modern furniture is slowly freeing itself from the influence of former historic periods, and trying to evolve into a style of its own, based on lines which nature dictates. Whistler and Alexander have taught the same lesson in the back- ground of portraits. Everywhere in their THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 69 pictures we encounter the thin black line of the oblong frame, which plays such an important part in the interior decoration of to-day, and which, like the kakemono, invariably conveys a delightful division of space. A lady artist, interested in interior deco- ration, remarked to me one day, in a most nonchalant manner : " I think it is entirely wrong to decorate the walls of a public building with human figures. It might be done like the Alham- bra ; that is one way. And my studio — that is another," and she made a sweeping gesture about her. I gazed about the studio in silent won- der as to what my hostess meant. There were four bare walls, stained with an agreeable quieting greenish gray, a couch in black and gold, a tasteful screen, a few ornate chairs, nothing else. " Why, that's the Japanese style of fur- I'JO JAPANESE ART nishing a room — to leave it empty ! " I thought ; " everybody can do that." For I was aware that an artist friend of mine had selected the colour for the staining of various studios in the building, and that I, at the very time, could have taken a studio next door which, if I had applied the elegance and suggestiveness of empti- ness, would have looked exactly like hers, and made me also an expert in mural and interior decoration. It is not quite as easy as all that, however. It was this lady's merit, and one that cannot be underrated, to know enough to leave the walls bare and not to overcrowd the room with unnecessary furniture and bric- ^-brac. Such simplicity is dignified and beauti- ful, and yet an empty room can hardly be considered a work of art if not accom- panied by a luxury of refinement in the smallest details. THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 171 Experiments of this sort are valuable in helping the cause, however. Her studio has been a lesson to me ; it has shown me how easily the Japanese style of furnish- ing a house could be Americanized, and I have watched with pleasure how good taste in that direction is rapidly spreading. In this particular respect, the innova- tion has done a vast deal of good. Less fortunate is its influence on West- ern art. If it were simply the endeavour of our artists, by means of careful research and comparison, to grasp the fundamen- tal laws of Japanese art, no criticism could be made. But artists apparently care for nothing less than a critical knowledge of both Eastern and Western art. They are satisfied with imitating surface qualities. It is true that these qualities are ex- tremely interesting, that they have helped to make our modern art extremely inter- esting. But very little is gained thereby. 172 JAPANESE ART I prefer, at any time, an Okyo marine to Whistler's "The Ocean," or a Hiro- shige bridge scene to the " Fragment of Old Battersea Bridge," by the same painter. They are perfect translations, but, after all, mere translations. And Whistler's yellow buskin ladies, which have something of the true spirit of the " living tradition " of Japanese art, are to be preferred at any time. The sooner our painters get rid of the Japanese craze, the better for them, and they would get rid of it if they would study Japanese art a little more conscien- tiously, and under the surface. In the same way as it takes a foreigner years of study and close communion with Eastern life to understand the symbolism of the No dances, it would be necessary for one who wishes to become an expert on Japanese painting, to devote an equally long time to the study of their laws of THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE ART 1 73 construction, which are as rigid and irre- futable as those of Greek art. And for such reasons, we can derive lit- tle more than an aesthetic enjoyment from an occasional contemplation of Japanese art. As to the adopting of their style as the ideal of our Western art, it seems to me hopelessly illogical; only a talented native, who sees things as the Japanese see them, and to whom the suggestive touch has almost become a racial trait, could still create something original along those lines. A foreigner, no matter how catholic his mind and how dexterous his hand, could never surpass the valueless production of an excellent imitation. He might enrich his own style by borrowing certain qualities, but he will waste his faculties in trying to adopt it, for adop- tion is utterly impossible. CHAPTER VI. JAPAKfESE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE |N opening a book on the history of architecture, in nine out of ten cases one will not find more than three or four pages dealing with the land of chrysanthemums. In certain branches of knowledge, it is apparently still the fashion for one half of the world to ignore absolutely the exist- ence of the other half. And yet Japanese architecture affords such a vast field for interesting study and analysis. It is the only timber architec- ture that has risen to a monumental and artistic importance. Its architectural lan- guage is wider in its range, more complex 174 ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 75 and varied than that of Norway and Switzerland, and, in regard to seemliness and grace, more adequately equipped than that of any nation in the Far East. The Japanese style seems to have orig- inated without any painful effort. It was a natural growth, so individual and powerful that it could utilize, with impu- nity, angles, curves, and projections which elsewhere might have appeared awkward and hideous, and even be successful in making them beautiful. Japanese architecture, however, must be contemplated rather from the painter's or landscape-gardener's standpoint than from the architect's point of view. It is essentially impressionistic, and its power lies more in colour effects than in form or outline. To gaze at a temple at night, silhouet- ting its grotesque shape against the starry sky, weirdly dreamlike, strangely illumi- 176 JAPANESE ART nated by rows of paper lanterns hung all along its curving eaves, is a sight never to be forgotten. A temple is never designed as an iso- lated object, but always as a feature of the surrounding landscape, and thus it ap- pears more like great splashes of crimson, lacquer, and gold down a mountainside than a symmetrical distribution of col- umns, windo^ws, and wall spaces. Not- withstanding this picturesqueness of conception, however, which utilizes the whole landscape as a canvas, and appeals purely to our visual apprehension, it is in detail that the Japanese architect most excels, for if he conceives like a giant, he invariably finishes like a jeweller. Every detail, to the very nails, which are not dull surfaces, but rendered exquisite orna- ments, is a work of art. Everywhere we encounter friezes and carvings in relief, representing in quaint colour harmonies, ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 77 flowers and birds, or heavenly spirits, play- ing upon flutes and stringed instruments. The pavement is executed in coloured slabs, and the pillars are gilded from top to bottom. Even the stairs of some temples are fashioned of gold lacquer. Gold is the neutral colour of Japanese decoration. Some of the temple interiors are like visions of the Thousand and One Nights. Imagine a sanctuary where the ceiling is as magnificent as painting, sculpture, lac- quer, and precious metals can make it, rep- resenting a dark blue sea in which golden dragons are sporting, pierced at intervals, by gorgeous columns, gold-lacquered and capped with embossed bronze, and where walls and ceiling are reflected, as in a forest pool, in the black floor of polished lacquer. Nearly every building, large or small, is built of wood. As the islands are exposed 178 JAPANESE ART to almost incessant shocks from earth- quakes, it has proved the most durable of materials, and, as in Tyrol, the Bernese Oberland, and the mountainous districts of Norway, no brick or stone is introduced except as foundation. This, however, did not hinder the Eastern architects from grappling with the gravest mechanical dif- ficulties in structures even of stupendous size. Colossal structures are common enough in Japan. The porch of the great temple of Todaji rests on pillars one hundred feet in height by twelve feet in circumference ; and this porch simply furnishes access to another porch of equal size, behind which stands the temple itself, of whose size we may form some idea from the fact, that within it contains a colossal image of the Buddha, fifty-three feet in height, with a nimbus surrounding the head eighty-three feet in diameter. Not less vast are the ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE I/g proportions of the great sanctuary at Nara, where each column, a hundred feet in height, consists of a single stem. It is astonishing to learn that these struc- tures, vast in size and splendid in the decoration of every part of their bay work, blazing with gold and colours, as gorgeous now after a lapse of a thou- sand years as they were at first, belong to an age compared to whose remoteness the European cathedrals must almost be called modern. The Temple of Nara was nearly three centuries old when Edward the Confessor laid the foundation stone of his church of Westminster, and Harold reared the mas- sive piers and arches of Waltham. Dr. Christopher Dresser, who wrote very in- terestingly and instructively on Japanese architecture, asked very appropriately: " What buildings can we show in England which have existed since the eighth cen- iSo JAPANESE ART tury and are yet almost as perfect as when first built ? and yet our buildings rest on a solid foundation, and not on earth which is constantly rocked by natural convulsion." The ingenuity of European engineers and architects would probably be really at a loss in dealing with the problems in- volved in the erection and support of the magnificent pagoda of Nikko, and in guarding the lofty tower against the force of earthquakes. In this building Doctor Dresser noted with surprise an apparent waste of material. He did not understand why an enormous log of wood ascended in the centre of the structure from its base to the apex. This mass of timber, he tells us, is nearly two feet in diameter, and near the lower end a log equally large was bolted to each of the four sides of this central mass. His argument of the waste of material was met by the rejoinder that the walls must be strong ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE l8l enough to support the central block ; and in his replying that the central block was not supported by the sides, he was led to the top, and there made to see that this huge central mass was suspended like the clapper of a bell. On descending to the bottom, and lying on the ground, he could see, further, that there was an inch of space intervening between the soil and this mighty pendulum, which goes far toward insuring the safety of the building during earthquakes. For centuries, at least, this centre of gravity has, by its swinging, been kept within the base; and it would assuredly be impossible to adduce stronger evidence of scientific forethought and calculation on the part of architects in dealing with a problem of extreme difficulty. Japanese buildings may be broadly di- vided into domestic dwellings, palaces, and ecclesiastical edifices. I 82 JAPANESE ART Of these, domestic dwellings are the simplest, being derived directly from the hut of the Aino, and consist for the most part of vertical beams (resting upon stones) mortised to horizontal beams, and carry- ing a heavy roof, thatched, shingled, or tiled. They are really nothing more than roofs standing on a series of legs. As a rule there are no permanent walls, the sides being composed in winter of amado, or wooden sliding screens, capa- ble of being folded up and packed away, and in summer of skoji, or oiled paper slides, translucent, but not transparent. Thus, in warm weather, all the sides of the house may be removed and the whole thrown open to air and ventilation. Nor do permanent partitions cut up the inte- rior; paper screens, sliding in grooves, divide the space according to the number of rooms required. A particular charm is lent to these delicate structures by ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 83 leaving the woodwork, within as well as without, unpainted. This elegance and simplicity of trimming, revealing the ex- quisite grain of the camphor-tree, which resembles fine watered silk, wins the ad- miration of every stranger. The palaces of the court nobles re- semble the domestic dwellings in con- struction, save that they contain more permanent walls, and are usually sur- mounted by roofs of a more elaborate type. As regards decoration, they have borrowed from the resources of ecclesias- tical architecture, and many beautiful forms of ornaments, such as adorn the temples, have found their way into the abodes of the nobility. Their residences were generally surrounded by extensive landscape gardens, such as Lafcadio Hearn has so lovingly described in his " Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." The palaces of the Mikado are natu- 184 JAPANESE ART rally the most elaborate structures of this kind. In primitive times his palace was said to be but little superior to that of the humblest villager — the emperor, being of divine origin, needed no earthly pomp to give him dignity in the eyes of his subjects. In later years the examples of luxurious living set by the Shoguns have had their eflFect, so that, at the present day, the Mikado's palaces are quite elab- orate in extent and decoration. In the old palaces the screens were painted or embroidered with exquisite copies of the old masters. The friezes are often gems of glyptic art, and occa- sionally, as in the Nijo palace, by the hand of Hidari Zingaro, while the ceilings are coffered in black lacquer with gold en- richments. In the new palace at Tokyo, the sliding screens are of plate glass, a rather expen- sive luxury in a land so prone to earth- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 85 quakes, and the furniture, having been manufactured in Germany, seems out of place in its Eastern home. Some of the old feudal castles, several of which still exist in a state of perfect preservation, were proportioned in a way to reveal a certain grandeur and dignity of appearance. They are lofty, dignified wooden structures. Each story is placed a little within the one below, the project- ing portion being roofed with tiles (a fash- ion of the eleventh century). The effect of height is increased by a stone embank- ment, which in mediaeval times afforded sufficient protection against civil disturb- ances. The facing of these embankments is fashioned out of immense rocks, fitted without cement, and the corners have a parabolic curve outward, which lends an air of Norman solidity to the whole. Most of the castles now extant date from the sixteenth century, though some have I 86 JAPANESE ART been completed at a later date, such as the castle of Nagoya, built about 1610 by twenty feudal lords, and held to be the finest example of its kind in Japan. Also the Yashiki, or "spread -out- houses," — the former homes of the terri- torial nobility, now fast disappearing, or turned into shops, — are rather pictur- esque constructions. They are said to have been an evolution from the military encampments of former days, in which the general's pavilion stood high among the other tents. The Yashiki was a collec- tion of buildings, a square lined with bar- racks for the soldiery, while the residence of the daimyo, surrounded by spacious gardens, rose in the middle. The whole was girt by a broad, deep moat, and a mud-plastered wall, roofed with tiles and set high upon a stone embankment. The residence differed but little from the cas- tles just described, but the barracks had ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 87 a certain individuality of their own. They consist of long rows of two-story build- ings, with projecting eaves, barred win- dows, hanging bays, tiled .roofs, and stone foundations, frequently forming a part of the enclosing wall. The roof is always the most artistic and characteristic feature of Japanese buildings. With its broad overhanging eaves, festooned in the centre and bent upward and backward at the corners, thereby disclosing a vision of complicated corbelling, it lends a peculiar, picturesque charm to any structure. It is difficult to divide the ecclesiastical buildings conscientiously into distinct classes, as is generally done. The simple style of Shinto temples, developed from the primeval huts of the Ainos, and the rnost elaborate style of the Buddhist tem- ples, an offshoot of Korean architecture, have constantly influenced and affected 1 88 JAPANESE ART each other. The fusion of the Buddhist religion with the Shinto cult, which began in 552, when Buddhism was first intro- duced into the country, also amalgamated the architecture of Burma, to a certain extent, with the Japanese native style. The purest specimens of Shinto tem- ples are built of plain white pine, sur- mounted by thatched roofs. In them the coarse matting, forming the sides of the Aino hut, have given place to ordinary boarding, the earthen floor to a raised wooden one surrounded by a veranda, and the rough logs used anciently as weights upon the munaosae or " roof-presser " (a beam to hold the thatch in place) are represented by cigar-shaped pieces of timber neatly turned. At either end of the roof, the rafters project so as to form a letter X above the ridge-pole. This treatment always stamps a temple as be- longing to the Shinto faith, a fact further at O H ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 89 emphasized by the presence of the torii, the Japanese form of propylaea, invariably standing before temple enclosures devoted to the Shinto cult. An amazing plainness is the attribute of most Shinto shrines. There are no idols, and the wooden walls remain untouched by the painter's brush or the lacquerer's devices. Its sole orna- ments are the symbolical mirror, "the emblem of the sun," transparent crystal globes, and "prayers," notched strips of paper hung upon wands. Since 1868, when Shintoism was rein- stalled as the state religion, a certain effort at enrichment has been essayed, but the shrines of Ize and Izumo still stand as the most complete examples of the origi- nal native style. In the Buddhist temples, the marvel- lous instinct of the Japanese for grouping and colour has had full sway. The first building in a Buddhist shrine which igO JAPANESE ART asserts itself is the " Sammon," or two- storied gateway, resembling in the distri- bution of its upper story the "gates of extensive wisdom," etc., in the noble official residences of Korea, The framing of the lower story, however, is arranged so as to form niches, in which stand the God of Thunder and the Wind deity, the face of one being always painted a livid green, that of the other a deep vermilion, as though congested. Passing through the sammon the vis- itor or worshipper finds himself in the first terraced court, only to encounter another gateway, more imposing than the last, leading to a second court, and so on to a third, until by traversing terrace after terrace he at last reaches the oratory and chapel. These courtyards are usually filled with all the concomitant buildings of the Buddhist cult, as well as with a number of bronze and stone lanterns pre- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 191 sented by the daimyos in token of re- pentance for past sins. Belfries, priests' apartments, a rinzo, or revolving library, a kitchen, a treasure-house, a pavilion con- taining the holy water cistern, and pago- das rise on either hand throughout, all crowned with festooned roofs, beautifully carved and lacquered, embellished with statuary, and covered with ornaments in wood, bronze, and ivory, representing gods, dragons, birds, lions, tapers, uni- corns, elephants, tigers, flowers, and plants, in fact, every symbol known to the Japanese, whether original, or bor- rowed from the Chinese or Koreans. Among the most imposing of these sup- plementary buildings are the pagodas, which are invariably square, like those of Korea. They are usually divided into five or seven stories, each set a little within the one below, and girt about with balconies 192 JAPANESE ART and overhanging eaves as in China. The whole is usually lacquered in dull red, save the lowest story, on which a bewildering mass of painted carvings distracts the eye, and high above all a twisted spire of bronze forms the culmination. One longs to know something of the life of the men who erected all of these large and magnificent structures. And yet we know little more than nothing. The temple archives are silent. The records of the birth and death of their great architects, nay, even their very names, are often wanting. All I can still add is a chronological list as to when the principal buildings and temples were constructed. I am indebted to Louis Gonse, the French expert, for this valuable information. Seventh century. The palace of Assa- kura at Siga, and the temple of Horiuyi at Nara. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 93 Eighth century. The castle of Taga (of which the ruins are still existing) and the gateway and sanctuary of the Dai- Butsu temple at Nara. Ninth century. The Gosho palace at Kyoto, and the temple of Obaku at Oyi. Twelfth century. The temples and the pagoda of Kamakura. Thirteenth century. The temple of Tokufudji at Kyoto. Fifteenth century. The palace and pavilion of Kinkakudi at Kyoto, and a large number of other temples and pala- tial residences. Sixteenth century. The castle of Osaka, the Himkahu palace, and the Shinto tem- ple at Kyoto. Seventeenth century. The great Shinto temple at Nikko and the Tchoin temple at Kyoto, both built by Hidari Zingaro, and the five-story pagodas of Nikko, Osaka, and Kyoto. 194 JAPANESE ART We possess but scant information re- garding the origin of Japanese architec- ture. Authentic information begins with the reign of Jimmu Tenno, who ascended the throne in 660 b. c, and is believed to have been the first human ruler of Nippon, which had before that been governed by Shinto gods. During his reign an impe- rial palace and a Shinto temple were built, and these gave the mode until about 201 A. D., when the empress dowager Yingo Koto, the Semiramis or Catherine of the Far East, donned male attire and conquered Korea. From that time on Korea became the inspiration of Japanese builders. The details of Korean architecture show much affinity with the Chinese, which, in turn, had been derived to a certain extent from Burma. In the period of 673-689, under the emperor Temmu, however, the impor- tation ceased, and assimilation set in. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 95 Architectural features which had entered the country uncompromisingly Chinese, Korean, or Indian in character, lost their original appearance, and being assimilated, took on a refinement and elegance quite new and individual, A steady advance- ment toward purity of style followed. Colour became one of the leading charac- teristics. Buildings were conceived as colour schemes, in emerald and silver, with a dash of crimson, or in yellowish gray and black, with a dark reddish bronze as accentuation. The love for highly finished detail was carried to the extreme, and the ornamentation, steadily increasing in picturesque effect, almost swallowed up the form. This continued with slight modifications until 16 1 6, when the climax was reached in the temple of Shiba, and the Tokugawa at Nikko, the masterpieces of the Japan- ese builder's art. 196 JAPANESE ART Such, in brief, is the architecture of Nippon. From the purely classic point of view, in which form and outline play so important a part, it may not rank very high in the scale ; but in the eyes of the Oriental it meets all requirements. The roofs are certainly as graceful in curve and sweep as any in the world, and, as regards picturesqueness, colour effects, and external enrichment, the temples of Shiba and Nikko stand preeminent .throughout the East. The modern railway stations, hotels, club-houses, and government buildings, erected since 1868, which affect an amal- gamation of native and foreign ornaments and forms, are architecturally uninterest- ing. The land has lost its ancient archi- tectural language, and foreign jargons have, temporarily at least, taken the place of the natural speech. Sculpture, in our Western sense, is Pagoda. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 97 comparatively unknown in Japan. It never approaches the calm, stately per- fection of Greek, or even Egyptian, art, except it were in the colossal statues of Buddha, and other colossal figures carved in wood, like the Deva Kings, the origi- nal horses and temple guardians at Nara. With the exception of the Dai-Butsu of Kamakura, which will be discussed later on, they are, to me, not even as imposing as the giant statues of camels and manda- rins in the avenue leading to the sepulchre of Ming, near Peking. The Daishi family in the eighth and ninth centuries were the authors of many of these Dai-Butsus. They were the real sculptors of Japan. In later centuries miniature carving became more and more the fashion. Even for a native it is difficult to form an accurate estimate of those huge stand- ing figures of gods and goddesses, of the 198 JAPANESE ART seven deities of happiness and other sym- bolical and mythological characters. The majority of them are hidden in temples, in high and narrow sanctuaries, lighted only from a little entrance. The figures, often thirty feet high, loom, all golden, into the darkness, which is too great to judge of form, whether it be art or not. The only impression one receives, is a " smile of gold far above our head " in the obscurity of the roof. Lafcadio Hearn describes one of those colossal golden images in his " Pilgrimage to Enoshima." " I follow the old priest cautiously, discerning nothing whatever but the flicker of the lantern; then we halt be- fore something which gleams. A moment, and my eyes, becoming more accustomed to the darkness, begin to distinguish out- lines ; the gleaming object defines itself gradually as a foot, an immense golden ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 1 99 foot, and I perceive the hem of a golden robe undulating over the instep. Now the other foot appears ; the figure is cer- tainly standing. I can perceive that we are in a narrow, but very lofty, chamber, and that out of some mysterious blackness overhead, ropes are dangling down into the circle of lantern light, illuminating the golden feet. The priest lights two more lanterns, and suspends them upon hooks attached to a pair of pendent ropes about a yard apart. Then he pulls up both to- gether slowly. More of the golden robe is revealed as the lanterns ascend, swing- ing on their way ; then the outlines of two mighty knees; then the curving of col- umnar thighs under chiselled drapery, and, as with the still waving ascent of the lanterns, the golden vision towers ever higher through the gloom, expecta- tion intensifies. There is no sound but the sound of the invisible pulleys over- 200 JAPANESE ART head, which squeak like bats. Now above the golden circle the suggestion of a bosom. Then the gleaming of a golden hand uplifted in benediction. Then an- other golden hand holding a lotus. And at last a face, golden, smiling, with eternal youth and infinite tenderness, the face of Kwannon. " Revealed thus out of the consecrated darkness, this ideal of divine femininity — creation of a forgotten art and time — is more than impressive. I can scarcely define the emotion which it produces as admiration; it is rather reverence. But the lanterns, which paused awhile at the level of the beautiful face, now ascend still higher. And lo ! the tiara of divinity ap- pears, with strangest symbolism. It is a pyramid of heads, of faces, — charming faces of maidens, — miniature faces of Kwannon herself." To the student, Japanese sculpture ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 20I offers a striking and rather unexpected peculiarity. In all other branches of art the Japanese carefully avoids giving us an illusion of the materiality of things; in sculpture he makes it the main object. He not only colours his statues in a most lifelike manner (carved and painted wood is said to be the commencement of all artistic productions in Japan), but at times strives to give to them, as to waxwork, the actual appearance of reality, by intro- ducing glass eyes, and real hair. Very characteristic of Japanese sculp- ture in this respect are the images of foxes, many dating back to the tenth and eleventh century, in grayish green stone, which the modern tourist encounters so frequently before Shinto shrines and in the cemeteries. The fox was worshipped as the deity of rice, and has always been a favourite subject with the artists. The stone carving is very primitive, but the 202 JAPANESE ART form of the animals of a rare elegance, as graceful as that of greyhounds. They have eyes of green or gray crystal quartz, and are mostly covered with the moss of centuries. They create a strange impres- sion of mythological conceptions ; they have something ghostly about them ; and each image has an individuality of its own. Some of them laugh ironically, or slyly wink their eyes ; others watch with cocked-up ears ; while others again sleep with their mouths agape. The skill of the Chinese painter in faithfully reproducing the plumage of birds, the wings of butterflies, the mark- ing of shells, has never appealed to the Japanese painter. Why it should have in- spired the sculptor is one of those curious problems which the art critic has to solve. In looking at a statue the optical con- sciousness cannot readily be divided. Either it attracts to form or it attracts ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 203 to hue, rarely and imperfectly to both to- gether. And sculpture should appeal to form, as revealed by flowing lines and delicate modelling. The Japanese, al- ways deficient in his appreciation of light and shade, apparently had no sense foj" the statuesque ; to him form is merely a curved surface, void of every emotional feeling. He introduces colour to distract attention from the monotony of form, and, unconsciously, paints a painting in relief. Form alone is no ideal to him. Even in his okimonos, i. e., ivory statuettes, it is subordinated to the idea. He does not share our opinion that the body is most beautiful when naked. He considers a female figure in holiday attire more lovely than without drapery. This is exactly the reason why sculp- ture has remained in its incipiency. The Land of the Rising Sun has produced no Donatello or Luca della Robbia. 204 JAPANESE ART Hidari Zingaro (seventeenth century), it is true, was a highly interesting com- bination of architect, carpenter, and wood- carver, and his friezes of carved flowers and birds are unsurpassed in delicacy of execution. He was an architectural sculp- tor in the true sense of the word. Also the works in hammered bronze of his contemporary, Hiroshima, whose co- lossal " sleeping cat " is even to this day known to every child, I rank very high artistically, but I would not take it upon myself to call him a sculptor, any more than I would apply the term to the silver and goldsmiths of the middle ages. I gladly acknowledge that Seimen has made vases and incense-burners which no American would ever dream of. Yet I would not dare compare the turtles of Seimen, the quails of Kamejo, the birds of Chokichi and the dragons of Taoun (four great metal-workers of the eigh- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 205 teen-th century) to Cellini's work, unfit as they were for jewelry. It is different with Ogawa Ritsuo (seven- teenth century), a samurai, who, after dis- tinguishing himself as a soldier, renounced the career of arms to become an art workman, equally successful in statuettes and lacquer work. He carved in wood en miniature, but all his work had the effect of bigness, of the strength and grandeur of the antique models of the eleventh century that in- fluenced him. His portrait statues are lifelike, full of dignity and grace, revealing a careful and fairly truthful study of drapery. His strange and fantastic types, like the Shoki, the legendary persecutor of the daimyos, manifest a wonderful vigour and spontaneity of expression. The outlines are always exaggerated, but the modelling is very skilful and almost accurate. He never preserved the origi- 206 JAPANESE ART nal colour of wood, b.ut invariably coloured face and drapery; the latter generally brown, with a few delicate touches of gold. But even Ritsuo is not a sculptor as we understand the word. According to Western aesthetics a piece of sculpture must be "statuesque." It must be a vigorous self-abnegation of all unneces- sary embellishment. Japanese sculpture is almost always ornamental and pictur- esque. (Who but a Japanese would think of carving a moonlit scene ?) Somewhere the dividing line must be drawn, and I think I am justified in doing as I have done. A sleeping cat necessa- rily does not rank as high, as a work of art, as an Apollo of Belvedere. And it is very annoying to hear the statement that the Japanese have another standard of art than ours continually repeated. Of course, they have another standard of Dai-Butsu, Asakasa. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 207 art, and their work is, in a certain way, just as great as ours. Many of their oki- monos and netsukes, as the various little ivory ornaments are called, replete with life and humour, reveal more true art than the " ambitious " work of our average sculptors. But this is not a discussion about merit, but merely about terms. Both Donatello as well as Hiroshima are great artists, the only difference being that Donatello is a sculptor and Hiro- shima an artisan. Let us now return to those giant statues, who, seated on lotus flowers, with a serene smile frozen on their lips, contem- plate the vanity of all discussions, of all human endeavours and aspirations, of existence itself. The most famous one is at Kamakura, completed in 1252. Others can be found at Nara, Asakasa, and other places. The height of the Kamakura idol is forty-nine 208 JAPANESE ART feet seven inches, circumference ninety- seven feet, length of face eight feet five inches, width of mouth three feet two inches, and there are said to be eight hun- dred and thirty curls upon the head, each of which is nine inches long. It is made of sheets of upright layers of bronze, brazed together and finished with file work. They are, of course, hollow, and a ladder enables the pilgrim to ascend into the interior of the colossus, as high as the shoulders, in which, generally, two little windows command a wide prospect of the surrounding grounds. The Dai-Butsu of Nara is higher than that of Kamakura, and totally dissimilar to the most of the other ones. The black face, with its distended nostrils and puffed cheeks, suggests rather an African cast of countenance; but this may be owing to departures from the original model while undergoing repairs, for we are told ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 209 that between the year 750, when the image was first completed, and 1570, the head was three times burnt off and fell to the ground. While the Kamakura figure shows both hands resting upon the knees, that of Nara has the right arm extended upward, with the palm of the hand to the front. On the right and left of the Dai-Butsu are images nearly eighteen feet high, built in modern times, and placed in their pres- ent positions, doubtless, with the shrewd idea that their known height, yet diminu- tive appearance in contrast with the cen- tral figure, would lend enormity to the main attraction. Although most of the Dai-Butsus are centuries old, there are also some of more recent date, notably the Dai-Butsu of Kyoto, built by Hideyary in 1800. It is constructed entirely of wood, and nearly sixty feet high. As a carving it is mam- 2IO JAPANESE ART moth, but the pleasant smile of the Kama- kura idol is missing, and as a work of art it is not to be compared with the older ones. The Dai-Butsus are a great attraction to the tourists. Every traveller who can wield the pen has written his appreciation about them, particularly of the wonderful giant figure of Kamakura. Chamberlain says: "No other gives such an impression of majesty, or so truly symbolizes the central idea of Buddhism, the intellectual calm which comes of perfected knowledge and the subjugation of all passion." William Elliot Griffis, one of our fore- most authorities on Japanese art, de- scribed the statue with the following enthusiastic words: " One could scarcely imagine a purer interpretation of the calm repose of Nir- vana than that of the work of the metal- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 211 lurgist, Ono. Cast six centuries ago, and surviving the destruction by tidal waves of the massive temples reared to enclose it, the figure stands out under the blue canopy of the sky, in sunshine and cloud, at dawn-light and even-glow, sublime in conception and superb in achievement." Lafcadio Hearn, who is at times a poet as much as he is an authority, has given us a charming account of the Kama- kura idol, which deserves to be quoted in full: " You do not see the Dai-Butsu as you enter the grounds of the long vanished temple, and proceed along a paved path across stretches of lawn ; great trees hide him. But very suddenly, at a turn, he comes into full view, and you start ! No matter how many photographs of the co- lossus you may have already seen, this first vision of the reality is an astonish- ment. Then you imagine that you are 212 JAPANESE ART already too near, though the image is at least one hundred yards away. As for me, I retire at once thirty or forty yards back to get a better view, and the jin- rikisha man runs after me, laughing and gesticulating, thinking that I imagine the image alive, and am afraid of it. " But even were the shape alive none could be afraid of it. The gentleness, the dreamy passionlessness of these features — the immense repose of the whole fig- ure — are full of beauty and charm. And, contrary to all expectation, the nearer you approach the giant Buddha, the greater the charm becomes. You look up into the solemnly beautiful face, — into the half closed eyes, that seem, to watch you through their eyelids of bronze as gently as those of a child ; and you feel that the image typifies all that is tender and sol- emn in the soul of the East. Yet, you feel also that only Japanese thought could ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 213 have created it. Its beauty, its dignity, its perfect repose, reflect the higher life of the race that imagined it, and, though inspired doubtless by some Indian model, as the treatment of his hair and various symbolic marks reveal, the art is Japanese. " So mighty and beautiful is the work that you will for some time fail to notice the magnificent lotus plants of bronze, fully fifteen feet high, planted before the figure on another side of the great tripod in which incense rods are burning." The Dai-Butsu of Kamakura is to me an embodiment of Old Japan, of all that is noble and elevating in that most artistic of all races. Creeds may pass and reappear, and the race itself which created them may vanish ; but the Dai-Butsu will never cease to smile the smile which has been upon his lips for six hundred years. How peaceful life seems at the feet of the great tranquil 214 JAPANESE ART figure ; what happiness it must be to feel oneself enfranchised, to be no longer conscious of the flight of life, of the inces- sant fall into the sad past, where all be- loved objects end, to conquer time as he has done, whom six centuries have left untouched. Ah, ye ancient ascetics, gentle dream- ers, who sought, in fashioning these idols centuries ago, to weave a rainbow-col- oured veil over dark reality; who re- nounced all personal desire, to shelter yourselves like your creations in indiffer- ence and immobility; with what a smile of disdainful pity would you regard the Western race, which now introduces the accomplishments of modern civilization into your land. They do not beUeve that the world is a dream, these materialists. They rejoice in their strength, and their will obtains gratification. They act, they build upon the world which they believe ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE 215 to be of rock, and you believe is shifting sand. What would you say of these ships, loaded with the world's goods, of these trains which devour the distance, as if it were of any consequence to change one's place to another? But, above all, what would you say of the meagre philosophy which vegetates in yonder clime, where nature is less bountiful than in your isles of flowers ? This, at least, is certain. You would make no attempt to enlighten them. You would leave them to their busy goings and comings, to their pride of action; and, slowly, with half-closed eyes, you would return with delight to your soli- tary dreams, to your tranquillizing con- templation of the eternal and motionless. CHAPTER VII. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS Pottery and Porcelain — Metals and Bronzes — Lacquer Ware [N the libraries of some collectors of Japanese curios, one can find an old edition of the " Bampo Sen Shio " — " complete collection of ten thou- sand jewels," a book of fourteen volumes, printed under the care of one Aboshi in 1698. It is a priceless possession, as, aside from its bibliographical interests, it falls nothing short of being an exhaustive resume of the Japanese industrial arts. There are signatures and seals of cele- brated painters ; of kakemonos, Chinese or Japanese; minute descriptions of curious 216 THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 217 and ancient coins ; of blades of illustrious kaianas, of iron kettles, incense vessels, flower vases, lacquers and fabrics ; bio- graphical data of celebrated potters, Chi- nese, Korean, or native; of the Gotos, celebrated artificers in the ornamentation of sabres, etc. Two entire volumes are devoted to vases of Japanese earth, de- signs of teapots, old and new cups, and Chinese vessels of the Temmoku epoch. The information is accompanied by sketches, the prices are indicated in gold- leaf, the dimensions of each object are given, as well as the colour and the thickness of the enamels. It is a remark- able book, written for a public consisting of princes and millionaire collectors. To the layman it is bewildering ; only gradu- ally, and after many days of study, he will master its contents, and learn to understand and appreciate the decorative charms of Japanese art. He will realize 2l8 JAPANESE ART that one of the principal merits of Japa- nese art Hes in its purely decorative and ideal industrial qualities, that they present something we Westerners do not possess, do not even understand. At certain peri- ods in the Gothic and Rococo we touched it, but it never belonged to the whole people, as in Japan, The Japanese have realized, as far as it is possible, Walt Whitman's dream of a democratic art, for only an industrial art can be democratic. If we understood Japanese art, we would endeavour to live in different houses, eat from different dishes, sleep in different beds, change our entire surroundings, and discard our present costume. In order to exemplify the difference, let me cite two instances : We all know what clumsy things our alarm-clocks are ; the same alarm-clock, for the same price, is now fabricated in Japan, but is made to THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 219 represent a frog holding the time-table. Then again, what do our wives' and sisters' pin-cushions generally look like: merely little square cushions, whereas in Japan they take the form of a beautiful flower, or a fruit, or a fish. And so everything, from their buttons, baskets, kitchen utensils, to their hand-made em- broideries, their plates of Ninsei, and their Kenzan and Ritsuo lacquer trays, is a thing of beauty. I must confess that I could look at any ancient vase of Arita porcelain for a longer time, and with more pleasure, than at the majority of pictures in our average exhibitions. Our artists have not the same oppor- tunities as the Japanese. The Japanese artist-artisans were, until lately, the in- heritors of trade secrets, the resume, so to say, of accumulated experience, extend- ing over centuries; working with ample 2 20 JAPANESE ART leisure for some patron who gave them a generous, permanent income, and fur- nished them with the best of material, so that they could make each of their productions a work of art. The devotion of the Japanese artist of the old regime to his work, and his intense appreciation of all that is beauti- ful and of much that is grand, were alike unquestionable; and generally the cir- cumstances of the country, throughout its history, greatly favoured the growth of these dispositions. Although the prin- ciple of division of labour, which is nowadays supposed to be the very foun- dation of Western civilization, was not unknown among them, the Western artist- artisan had always been disposed to carry his work himself through every one of its stages, whether his task were that of working in metal or lacquer, of preparing woven fabrics, or of pottery in any of THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 221 its branches. Each workman thus looked on his work, while it was going on, as on a child that he loved. He was striving after beauty in every shape, and not after money ; and he had his compensation in a way which would cause some surprise to the modern artist. The Japanese merchant had no status whatever, though he were as rich as Croesus. Money alone bought no position, and a prince was willing to spend many hours with an artist-artisan, while the richest merchant would have been beneath his notice. Each artisan had his studio and work- shop in his home, and was assisted by wife, children, pupils, and apprentices ; or he went off to spend weeks or months at the monasteries, temples, or feudal mansions, filling orders for patrons. The artist himself was often of rank, and work- ing for an exclusive audience, people of much leisure and refinement, he was re- 22 2 JAPANESE ART spected (and not merely tolerated as a curiosity, as it is the fashion in our polite society), and shared the luxurious living of the nobility. And there was never any lack of pa- trons. Every feudal lord was a connois- seur and collector, and frequently also the patron of some temple which he endowed with works of art, specially ordered for the purpose. In Japan the collector's craze is in the very air and soil. Even to-day every Japanese gentleman has his collection of some kind, and the scale ranges from the most superb accumulations of netsukes, inros, kakemonos, crystal balls, lacquer ware, armour, swords, porcelain, faience, bronzes, brocades, embroideries, costumes, pipes, temple accessories, coins, and auto- graphs, down to shells, ferns, flowers, plants, rabbits, goldfish, Tosa chickens, and the latter-day postage-stamps. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 223 No resident of Japan can escape this mania for any length of time ; sooner or later he is sure to succumb to the curio fever. The high class Japanese artisan displays such an infinite variety and ver- satility in the manufacture of any article, that nobody can resist the temptation of becoming a specialist of one kind or another. All that is necessary to con- vince oneself of the truth of this statement is to study a collection of teapots,- for instance, such as Mrs. Nellie Hopper Howard, the artist, and Mme. de Struve, wife of the Russian minister at Tokyo ( 1 870-1 882), have accumulated. These collections contain hundreds and hundreds of tiny teapots, each differing in form, colour, and decoration. There are little teapots, shining with glaze and gild- ing, moulded into every possible shape — square, triangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, round, oval, high, low, wide, narrow, flat, '224 JAPANESE ART and full bodied ; squatty, perch-like, taper- ing, top-heavy; with long, short, wide, narrow, pointed, and curling spouts and handles; teapots in the shape of boxes, baskets, tubs, buckets, lanterns, temples, houses, boats, melons, pumpkins, gourds, apples, pears, frogs, turtles, cats, dogs, storks, ducks, cows, fish, flowers, boys and girls, men and women. No metal or ma- terial has escaped the Japanese workmen in fashioning teapots. From gold, silver, iron, bronze, brass, and every combination and alloy they know, from clay and bis- cuit, the roots of trees, joints of bamboo, from body of sea-shells, gourds, and even orange rinds, from lacquer, ivory, and straw, is evolved a hollow body, with a cover, spout, and handle. There are large bronze, brass, and inlaid iron kettles, such as simmer on every hibachi in the empire, masterpieces of graceful form and pleasing decoration, as well as tiny THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 22$ silver pots, that by strange combinations, even to inlaying with iron, have become miracles of patient and minute workman- ship. The manufacture of ceramic ware has always been one of the proudest posses- sions of Japan. The productions of Arita, Kyoto, Kaga, Satsuma, and Owari, rank with the best of European manu- facturers. Of the art pottery and stone- ware of Satsuma and Arita it may be said that nothing better in the material has ever been produced. Japanese pottery impresses by the free- dom of the colouring and the character of the design. It retains the forms of appar- ent rusticity, and in its ornamentation adheres to the academic conceptions of the Chinese masters. It is futile to com- pare it with the classic designs and sym- metrical forms of Greek and Etruscan vases, as the art conception of the Japa- 226 JAPANESE ART nese is totally different from that of the ancient Greek, who regarded symmetry and correct draughtsmanship of the human form as their principal accomplishments. All that the Japanese have in common with the Greek is their refinement and reserve power. The principal charm of Japanese pot- tery lies in its colour. Take, for instance, the Wakai collection at the Paris Expo- tion of 1878. It was made according to classical traditions, and not to please European tastes. It consisted almost ex- clusively of jars with flat covers of ivory, and cups of all sizes with mouths more or less widened, and whose outlines were indented with fantastically arranged finger- marks. There was nothing in their shape to interest the Parisian collectors, but their colouring made a most vivid impres- sion. It revealed the deepest black, the most brilliant, white, with innumerable THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 227 other tints, from cream colour to wonder- ful crimson. The colour lends a beauty and value often to the commonest piece of pottery. One does not need to be an expert to experience the pleasure which the art of the potter is always able to give to the sensitive mind. The connoisseur is apt to forget the beauty of the object in his hand, in his ardour to determine its right- ful data, maker, and place of production, and to identify it beyond doubt, either by figures, marks, or descriptions. I have never come in contact with Japanese con- noisseurs, or spent days poring over the treasures in some musty kura. I have never sat down with the amiable Rokubei, the dignified Dohachi, the good-natured Yeiraku, and never had the opportunity of gathering words of wisdom from the lips of Kohitsu, Machida, Tanemura, Maida, Ninagawa, and other experts. 228 JAPANESE ART I would consider such experiences rather a hindrance to the proper passing of a correct judgment, for art appreciation is, after all, a matter of feeling. In my opinion, — which may elicit a disdainful shrug of the shoulders from the experts, — Japanese pottery reached its highest perfection in those simple rugged forms, whose glaze, containing very much lead, is without lustre, and whose colour resembles charcoal, like the Showo-Shiga- riki wares of the latter part of the six- teenth century. Not dazzling at the first glance, they reveal a charm, at closer scrutiny, that is something more than elegance. Through their black complex- ion, covered with a dull lead glaze without light, one discerns a shimmer of refine- ment which is strong enough to despise all adjectives. These pieces of pottery seem to have a soul-life of their own, and by a curious association of thought THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 229 they invariably conjure up before me a wild samurai in black lacquer armour. The careless originality and vigorous simplicity of their shapes laugh, in their superiority, proudly without conceit, at all the faultless curves and studied graces of the Ming Blue. Chosuke, whose magic manipulation of clay and fire created this ware, allowed only two hundred pieces to go forth into the world " to tantalize the critical judg- ment of posterity." The Japanese became potters by the peculiar nature of their environment. The islands, being mountainous, are rich in watercourses, which carry with them great quantities of sand, mixed with clay. Thus the nation has been furnished by nature with the numberless varieties of paste which are essential for good pottery. The first authentic potter of Japan was a Buddhistic priest by the name of Giyoji. 230 JAPANESE ART At the start the Japanese potters were disciples of the Chinese ; they learnt from them the various baking and enamelled coatings of countless vivid and delicate tints. A potter by the name of Toshiro, in the early part of the thirteenth century, made a special visit to China to perfect himself in his art, and on return to his native town, Soto in Owari, he introduced great improvements in the character of the ware made there. Owing to his exer- tions a great impetus was given to the art. Shortly after, when household utensils of lacquer went out of use, the demand for pottery greatly increased, and new forms and processes were invented. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the iridescent blacks, reds, browns, and bottle greens of the Raku ware, rather crude in form, were the favourite prod- ucts of the potter's wheel. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 23 1 To the ceramic pieces originally de- rived from China, the numberless isolated kilns, established in all the provinces, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Kyoto, added the beauty of their prod- ucts, as, for instance, the Timba kiln, with its heavy brown and yellow glazes. Then, suddenly, at the end of the six- teenth century, shortly after tea had be- come the national beverage and the elaborate tea ceremonies had come into vogue, there came a marvellous outburst of colour, the ceramic art underwent a complete revolution, and the results were pottery of remarkable ingenuity, taste, and skill, as the Awata, Kiyomidzu, and Omura ware of the colour of coffee and milk, covered with classic decoration in starchy blue, light green, and red coral. Ninsei (f 1660) was the founder of these three kilns. He was the originator of this style of pottery, and of all decorated 232 JAPANESE ART pottery. Authentic specimens are very rare. Many a bit of " old Kyoto," as these wares are called, supposed to be at least three hundred years old, shows in the cracklin ground a mark made by some unscrupulous tradesman of to-day. Like all great potters, Ninsei was very skilful with his brush. His decorations, as well as those of his contemporaries, were worthy of a painter. There were storks of pure white with a touch of ver- milion on the head, chrysanthemums with petals overlapping each other, landscapes with half a dozen strokes of the brush, figures in elaborate court dresses, etc. Two of his foremost disciples were Kenzan (1663- 1743), a brother of Korin, and Yeiraku, who founded the kiln of Imado. Kenzan preferred massive forms and bold decorations. He tried to give his ceramic productions the appearance of archaic heaviness and awkwardness. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 233 They are remarkably beautiful in their lustre and subdued colouring. Yeiraku, who lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century, was a virtuoso in his profession. Gonse calls him "le plus etonnant pasticheur." He neglected form somewhat in favour of colour schemes. He was a perfect technician, and equally successful in metallic, speckled, iridescent, dull, vigorous, and delicate effects. He sometimes animated his surface with a crystalline shimmer that lent a peculiar ethereal charm to his work. His tea-sets were particularly in demand. Other potters, whose work is highly esteemed by collectors, were Shioukai, who excelled in the modelling of little statu- ettes; Dohatchi and Mokubei and Roku- bei, who devoted themselves to miniature bric-a-brac, mostly in the shape of animals. The pottery of Ninsei and his followers is a truly native product. Their glazes. 234 JAPANESE ART composition of colours, crackle, and lace- work is entirely original with them. It is invariably picturesque in effect, in con- trast to the academic conceptions, and the severe formalism of Chinese ceramics. Experts can recognize the origin of a piece of pottery most easily by its colour. They know that soft greenish grays are peculiar to the Sanda Seiji kiln, delicate grays and salmon shades to the Haji style ; that Somaw are excels in speckled grays and browns, and Oki in lustrous yellow browns; that opaque inglazes are a char- acteristic of the Shigariki school, and that the Oriba potters have made a specialty of splashed effects. The secrets of porcelain manufacture were introduced into Japan by Shonsoi in 1520. Arita, in the province of Hizen, was from the start, and is still to-day, the leading porcelain manufacturing town of Japan. The ware was called Imari, simply THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 235 because Imari, at the head of the gulf of Omura, is the principal shipping port for Arita's products. Every other shop in the main street of Arita is devoted to the sale of pottery, while the noise of the clay- grinding and pulverizing machines contin- ually haunts the ear, for on either side of the narrow town a watercourse supplies the power by which they are kept in action night and day. The larger part of the pottery produced here is the underglazed blue and white combination which made Arita famous, and which was successfully imitated in the Delft ware. But the manufacture is by no means confined to that class; the Koransha factory, so well represented at the Chicago Fair, also produces jars, vases, and table sets in combinations of rich dark green, red, gold, and chocolate brown. The Kaga porcelain is almost as famous as that of Arita. About 1650, Saitchiso, 236 JAPANESE ART after serving a long apprenticeship with Shonsai, went to Koutani, and created those choice specimens known as Kou- tani ware, masked by enamels. His prod- ucts are not numerous, but full of energy in their colouring of manganese, myrtle green, faded yellow, black, and white, and enriched in the more valuable specimens by coatings of gold and silver. The trans- parency of the glaze is exquisite. The ware is very rare, as Shonsai, as well as his successor, Morikaghe, a painter of the Kano school, could never be induced to work for the ordinary trade. Most popular of all Japanese porcelains is the Satsuma ware. The general idea seems to be that its products were rather large in size, but the opposite is the case. The large vases which we see so often at auction sales were specially made for the European market. The ware is known for its soft, cream-coloured tones, which THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 237 have almost the effect of old ivory, with delicate colour decoration broken with pale gold tints. By far more original, however, is the Bizen ware, at its best in the nineteenth century, with its dull leaden blues, and the metallic sheen of brown, and the quaint intrinsically original Banko ware, worked out of sheets of thin clay, pressed, folded, cut, and patterned in white mosaic, or embellished with glazed figures in low relief, and resembling nothing so much as bits of soft gray or white crfepe stretched over a hidden frame. Very little progress, artistically, has been made in the porcelain manufacture since 1800, — the manufacturers are apparently satisfied with copying the models handed down from the past, — while the purely mechanical parts of the process have been steadily improved. Banko, Kyoto, and Arita can still be bought to advantage 238 JAPANESE ART by the not too fastidious collector. The Owari kilns in Nagoya, on the other hand, are devoted almost entirely to productions for the foreign market. Its wares are the least desirable and least Japanese of any in Japan, the articles poorly mod- elled and decorated in all the hideous pinks, blue, and yellows known to the aniline dye, and ablaze with cheap gilding. Also in the manipulations of metals and amalgams like the skakudo, iron enam- elled with gold, silver, and bronze, the Japanese are past masters. The endless versatility and brilliancy df idea which they display, for instance, in their sword- guards, is marvellous. They have a way of combining alloys with pure metals, and of producing effects by the inlaying and overlaying of metals — often intro- ducing half a dozen different metals into a space not covering an inch, in order to Bronze Vase. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 239 produce a picture of variegated colours — far beyond the reach and skill of Western artisans. Braziers, incense-holders, water-tanks, flower vases, standing lanterns, memorial tablets, and tomb doors gave the bronze workers abundance of opportunity to show their skill in handling metal also in larger dimensions. The big bell of Kyoto, fourteen feet high by nine feet two inches in diameter, proves that they were thoroughly initiated into the secrets of bronze casting. The casting of a memorial lantern, or column for some temple, was usually a public and outdoor affair, attended with festive hilarities. Furnaces, bellows, cast- ing-pots, tools, and appliances were brought to or prepared at the spot, and the details of the process were watched by holiday crowds. Their methods of bronze casting, and 240 JAPANESE ART their jealously guarded secrets of alloy, niello, and metallic work seem to be of Chinese, Persian, or Indian origin. At least, such is the opinion of experts. The forms and shapes of old temple ornaments and flower vases, in my opinion, point unmistakably- to a Persian origin. There is a peculiar grace and freedom in their work, despite its manifold minute and delicate details. Nobody can com- pete with them in representing, for instance, the undulating lines of a lotus leaf. The fidelity in the most minute markings of leaf and flower, even to the motion and colour of rain-drops on their cup-shaped surfaces, is amazing as it is inimitable. Their bronze birds, fishes, and insects seem to be instinct with life, so true are they to nature. In expressing the attitudes and motions of fish and fowl, and the sportive grace of domestic animals and little forest creatures, they THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 24 1 have never been surpassed. Remarkable also is their knowledge of the value of reflected light in relation to metal compo- sition. It endows their work with a rare pictorial quality. In the fifteenth century, the Goto and Sojo families excelled in metal works. The seventeenth century was the classic age for metal work. The bronzes of this time have a certain severity of form, great vigour in the modelling, and a dull black colour. In the following century the forms became more graceful in hne, and the colour effect was heightened by the inlaying and overlaying of metals. This age also produced the greatest workers in cire perdu. The principal artists of this period were Seimin and Taoun, both incomparable in the mastery of their material, Tiyo, Keisai, Jiogioko, Somin, Seifu, Tokusai, and Nakoshi. The signature of any of 242 JAPANESE ART these men on a piece of work guarantees its artistic value. Although modern work does not come up to the standard of the old, it is at times very beautiful. The bronzes, set with jewels, which created such a sensa- tion at the Centennial Exposition at Phil- adelphia, show that the metal workers still possess some originality. These jewel-incrusted bronzes have a story. On the hilt, handle, and scab- bard of the samurai's swords from two to twenty ornaments were embedded, wrought in metal, with the highest art of the metallurgist. After the issue of an imperial edict in 1868, the use of swords was suddenly abolished, and the samurais, impoverished as they were, were practical enough to dispose of their feudal weapons. The market, consequently, was glutted with an amazing stock of sword jewels. By a happy thought these gems of art Bronze Vase. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 243 were applied to bronzes, and the results were those quaint vases and jars, which look like the " Holy Grails " of some Eastern legend. The noblest of Japanese crafts, purely native in origin and development, is that of lacquering. In the same way as China has given its name to all porcelain, Japan has given its name to all lacquer ware, first introduced to the knowledge and admiration of Europe in the seventeenth century. The beauty and excellence of Japanese lacquer, its mirror-like and rain- proof surface, has never been matched, not even in China. The materials for writing, household furnishings, and personal adornment, cups and saucers, trays and sake bottles, medi- cine boxes and dishes, with articles of civic ceremony and warlike helmets, shields, and armour, furnished the prin- cipal fields for the display of its finest 244 ^ JAPANESE ART artistic achievements, though large sur- faces, such as doors, staircases, ceilings, frames and panels, vehicles, and even ships, were lacquered. The Japanese lacquer varnish is gath- ered from the urushi-tree, which, it is said, supplies a finer gum than that of any other species. It is subjected to various manipulations and refining pro- cesses before it can safely be mixed with colouring matter. From the first gather- ing to the last application, increasing care as to the dryness or moisture of the at- mosphere, the exclusion of every particle of dust, and other conditions, are essential. The workmen are " in possession of secret processes," and we must be satisfied with knowing that layer after layer — up to fifty coats — of the lacquer varnish are laid on the basic material at intervals of days or weeks, and that after it has thor- oughly dried — and, by a strange paradox. THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 245 it must dry in dampness, well moistened, or even saturated with water, else it will run or stick — the same smoothing pro- cess with lumps of charcoal and the fin- gers, after all the most perfect polishing instruments, is repeated. The articles to be lacquered are gener- ally made of fine-grained pine wood, very carefully seasoned and smoothed, so that not the slightest inequality of surface or roughness of edge remains. But also silk, ivory, and tortoise-shell are used. In the finer- and older specimens, bringing their weight in gold, the varnish is so hard and immune that neither boiling water nor boiling oil will affect its surface. The art of lacquering dates historically from the seventh century, though tradi- tion assigns its birth to the ages when almanacs, clocks, and writings had not yet arrived from the Asian mainland. Not a few articles, now in national or 246 JAPANESE ART private museums, are, by documentary- evidence, over a thousand years old. " In old feudal days," Griffis relates, " when nearly every daimyo had his court lacquerer, a set of household furniture and toilet utensils was part of the dowry of a noble lady. On the birth of a daughter, it was common for the lacquer artist to begin the making of a mirror-case, a washing - bowl, a cabinet, a clothes-rack, or a chest of drawers, often occupying from one to five whole years on a single article. An inro, or pill-box, might re- quire several years for perfection, though small enough to go into a fob. By the time the young lady was marriageable, her outfit of lacquer was superb." The first information of the existence of lacquer ware dates from the ninth century. In a book published by the phi- losopher, Shihei, red and golden lacquer are incidentally mentioned. At the be- THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 247 ginning of the tenth century, the Nashidji lacquer, of a yellowish orange colour, sprinkled with gold, was invented. The oldest lacquerer, of whom authen- tic specimens can still be procured, was Hoyami Koyetsu (1556-1637). His black generally assumed an agreeable soft brown tint, owing to a substratum of red col- oured lacquer. A few years later, Soyet- sou, Koma Kiuhaka, and Korin became prominent. With them, lacquer of the hue of maple sugar came into fashion. Their designs were chiefly distinguish- able for bravura of execution. Korin's pieces were almost repellent by their vigour. He was the first to introduce pewter, lead, and tin in lacquer work. His gold of a rich red hue, pleasant and soft in tone, — an apposition to the cus- tomary brownish and yellowish gold, — has often been imitated, but never ex- celled. 248 JAPANESE ART The favourite subjects of crane and streams, rock and sea waves, rain- drops and petrels, cloud and dragon, Chinese poetry, idealized landscapes, or the repertoire of graphic designs, were repeated over and over again. The artist knew them by heart ; they were his stock in trade, and the public, familiar with these standards and symbols for many generations, understood and appreciated them. Also pet patterns, in the form of borders or diapers in combination with floral and other designs, were used with excellent effect. Of the twenty -eight most famous lacquer artists of Japan, the majority flourished in Yedo, where the beauty and delicacy of execution reached its highest perfection. Ogawa Ritsuo, whom I have mentioned in the preceding chapter as one of the foremost sculptors of Japan, is probably Lacquer-Work THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 249 the most skilful lacquerer the world has ever known. His style is considered classic. Nobody excelled him in the deli- cate management and decoration of the lac, in the science of composition, and the profound knowledge of the craft. His gold, like that of the great Korin, full of novel and rare effects, capable of running through a whole gamut of sober yet brilliant tones of red, yellow, and green, would deserve a special study. His miniature cabinets, jewel and writ- ing boxes belong to the most beautiful pieces of decoration which can be seen. But they have grown very scarce, even in Japan itself, and rarely turn up in any sale. He was a great manipulator of materials ; lac alone did not satisfy him : he inserted ivory and agates into his com- positions, tortoise-shell, coral, and mother- of-pearl, and pieces of ancient pottery, as well as gold and silver in rich profusion. 250 JAPANESE ART He incrusted, he modelled, he dama- scened, he soldered and riveted with marvellous precision. His treatment was always sculpturesque, his outlines were bold and rugged, and his modelling superb. He had many followers, notably Han- zan, Zeshin, and Kenya. Hanzan came next to his master as a lacist in certain effects of great brilliancy, and even ex- celled him in combinations of lac and pearl. He was particularly fond of repre- senting fish and shells in their natural colours upon a rich background of rich avanturine gold. Zeshin, who had a wild and unrestrained fancy, imitated in lacquer every other kind of material. Some of his pieces of lac look like pottery and wood carvings, others reproduce all the lustre and golden browns and yellows of an ancient bronze, discoloured by age. Kenya had less vigour, invention, and originality than the other two, but was THE ORNAMENTAL ARTS 25 1 almost their equal in the combination of materials and in richness of pictorial effect. The last faithful adherent of the old school of lacquering was Watanobe Tosu, a contemporary of Zeshin, who still lived in Tokyo in the seventies of the last cen- tury, working for years at a tobacco-box ten by eight and six inches in dimensions, by order of the empress. The old artisans, who made beautiful and ingenious things to please the fancy of a daimyo, and to be presented as gifts to a neighbouring daimyo, put good and ear- nest work into everything they made ; but now that the average workmen have aban- doned their old unmercenary standard and cater to foreign taste, continually reproducing the same stock of ideas and set of symbols, their productions have become exceedingly bad in taste to the connoisseur. 252 JAPANESE ART And yet, being after all a good deal superior to any of our factory bric-a-brac, their productions are still able to give us a faint idea of the remarkable imperish- able qualities of the art of old Japan. CHAPTER VIII. MODERN JAPANESE ART I HE political changes which had taken place in Japan — the open- ing of the islands to foreign com- merce in 1859, the inevitable struggle between the decrepit Shogunate and its recalcitrant vassals, the complete down- fall of the former in 1867, and the estab- lishment of a new political organization, presided over by the Mikado, affecting the expressions of its national life to the very core, did not leave the arts untouched. For a decade or so, when the nation was seized with a sudden passion for Western ideas, art was sadly neglected, 253 254 JAPANESE ART almost forgotten. The reorganization of the constitution, the reform of the laws, the formation of an army and navy, the construction of highways, railroads, light- houses, telegraph lines, and the establish- ment of a national system of education, had first to be attended to. The artists, deprived of native patronage, starved or found employment in cheap production for the foreign market, and the profession involuntarily turned to Europe for guid- ance. The visible superiority of the Occi- dent in all other matters eventually led to a study of the methods and principles of Western art. A number of young men made their way to European and Ameri- can studios, and trained themselves to charcoal studies from Greek casts, and oil studies from nature and still life, in the same manner as our art students do. It was even found necessary to import Italian painters and sculptors, ^ and to MODERN JAPANESE ART 255 establish art academies, which hitherto had been unknown. The results of this influence were two- fold. It has created, firstly, a new school, based entirely on the art of the West, in which European methods and materials have been adopted to the complete exclu- sion of the Japanese. Secondly, it has penetrated into the recesses of Japanese art itself, causing yet another new school to arise, which, while it works in the old lines, and with the old materials, admits the virtues of Western ideas, and en- deavours to assimilate them so far as it is able. Thus, the art world of Japan is split into three sections, perfectly dis- tinct in their views, and well defined in the results of the work in which these views are carried out. They may fittingly be termed the Conservatives, the Moder- ate Conservatives, and the Radicals. The Conservatives naturally represent 256 JAPANESE ART the old traditional school. Although there is among them no master alive whose name could be put on the roll of the great artists " who have been," there are many who, whilst they lack inventive power, still possess executive skill of a high order, and are able to preserve, technically, at least, the traditions of their predecessors. Kikuchi Yosai, and later his pupil, Matsumato Fuko, tried to keep up the old traditions by painting historical pictures, and Isen and Shosen, lacking inventive spirit of their own, were busy with copy- ing ancient masterpieces, Imao Keinen, noted for his graphic delineation of birds and flowers, and Giokusen worked suc- cessfully in the Okyo style. The latter artist produced a most remarkable kake- mono in his "Ghost," floating up out of space, the head, black shock of hair, and shoulders most minutely painted on the KiosAi. — Council in the Dragon Castle. MODERN JAPANESE ART 257 border, while the rest of the body fades away into the silken canvas. Also Hoku- sai's two talented pupils, Hokkei and Kawanobe Kiosai ( 183 i-i 889), were still living. Both were gifted workmen, who followed their master exactly as regards subjects and manner, but they fail in that mysterious creative power which made the works of Hokusai seem alive. Kikuchi Yosai (1787-1878) really needs a chapter by himself. He is in his way as remarkable an artist as Hiroshige or Hokusai. He was already famous as an historian and literary man when he took up painting, and he made use of all his learning in the new profession. He be- came the delineator of historical person- ages. His " Kanoaka painting " is a good example of his work. Like Alma Tadema, he made the most scrupulous archzeologi- cal studies, and it is the more astonishing that his compositions are simplicity itself. 258 JAPANESE ART He even disdained the use of colour. He is satisfied with frankly telling what he knows, yet in a masterly way as far as drawing is concerned. In pure line few have been his superior. He is the ele- gant causeur of historical anecdotes, and his kakemonos appeal to one's intellect even more strongly than to one's eyes. The work of the Radicals is entirely Western. They found the classical styles unequal to the expression of the new ideas, and largely unintelligible to a mod- ern public, and frankly adopted the Euro- pean style of painting. In their choice of themes, in the mediums employed, and in the treatment, they hardly differ from European artists. -In order to realize how remarkable this really is, one has to con- sider how complete is the transformation of conditions under which it is produced. It is not merely the transition from water- colour to oil, the substitution of canvas MODERN JAPANESE ART 2-59 for absorbent paper, but the whole method, the composition, the principles and the ideas have also been transformed; the ancestral ways have been entirely aban- doned. Their pictures denote enthusiasm and eager study, but at the same time a painful lack of individuality. It is exceed- ingly doubtful if it were possible for older and individual artists to change from the old to the new. The Radical school, called Meiji Bijut- sou Kwai (founded 1889), is composed exclusively of young men and women, many of them being merely amateurs. Being really nothing but students, they invariably had attached themselves to the methods of some Western artist, caught his style, and formed themselves on him. Their first exhibition of pictures, at Tokyo, in 1890, was not very numerous, but it reflected almost in every instance the manner, the subject, the composition, 26o JAPANESE ART and the execution of some Parisian, Mu- nich, or New York artist. Particularly noteworthy was their astounding power of copying. The still-life studies were really the masterpieces of the exhibition. Also in arrangement and colour combina- tion their work has a peculiar charm, a national flavour of its own. Seiki Kouroda, a pupil of Raphael Col- lins, of Paris, is the leading exponent of this school. He returned to Japan in 1894, and was made professor of the Western style of painting at the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts in 1896. Dissatis- fied with the amateurish work of the Meiji Bijutsou Kwai, he created a new seces- sionist society, which used the head of a horse on a palette as coat of arms, and called itself Shiro-uma, or White Horse Society. In October, 1896, the Japanese Secession held its first exhibition. It was a bold attempt to revolutionize art. But MODERN JAPANESE ART 26 1 neither the story-telling pictures of Kou- roda, nor the impressionistic figure stud- ies of Eisaku Wada had any striking merit in themselves. They attracted, how- ever, a large measure of public attention, and gave rise to a lively controversy between the adherents of the old and new styles. The sculptors of the new movement are even less original than the painters. The monuments recently put up in Japan are fully as bad as some of the bronze statuary which disgraces our public squares. Only the equestrian statue of General Kusunoke Masashige, by the sculptor Takamura Korin, is worthy of some consideration. The Radicals never convince us when they attempt elaborate compositions. Kouroda's most important picture, "An Old Story," depicting a number of geishas and young men in a temple garden, listen- 262 JAPANESE ART ing to the flute-playing of an old priest, is not even as interesting as Alma Ta- dema, while his views of Fusiyama and river scenes, bearing all the characteristics of Japanese composition, are exquisite creations. They are vibrant with light and warmth, and show keen observation of nature in the Western sense. The Radical school seems to have no future. It will never become national. Its exponents have nothing to say to their countrymen, at least, nothing of last- ing value. They will always be consid- ered aliens, no matter whether they have their studios in Tokyo or New York. Genjiro Yeto, a very talented artist, who has made New York his home, and who has deliberately abandoned all the ideals of his countrymen in regard to art, proves this statement to be a true one. It is impossible to classify him as a Japanese artist, as he has nothing in common with MODERN JAPANESE ART 263 his country, and I fear that he will never be regarded as an American artist, as he has remained thoroughly Oriental in everything else but his art. The process of absorbing new ideas, which has mainly occupied the Japanese nation during the last thirty years, would, however, have been incomplete without this innovation. It undoubtedly did good; it enabled the Japanese to get in touch with Western art ideas. But, of the numbers who have taken it up, how many will remain faithful? Even now one might assert that it was only a means to an end. Innovations of this kind do an immense amount of good; they rouse people out of sleep ; they make them earnest, enthusiastic, and thought- ful, and no doubt the Radicals were right in preaching a "new art." Yet, every true lover of art will rejoice to hear, that to this very day, all attempts to assimilate MODERN JAPANESE ART 265 tion opened the first native Academy of Fine Arts at Tokyo. It selected Kakuzo Okakura as director, and the selection proved to be a very adequate one. Although no artist himself, he is a man of considerable art knowledge, who can see the good both in Eastern and Western art, and the wise touch of his advice is everywhere felt. He gathered around himself as instruc- tors the few " progressive " masters who still survived in the arts of painting, sculpture, metal chasing, bronze casting, lacquering, etc., enabling the younger generation to learn the respective tradi- tions before they had completely died out. The lacquerer Zeshin was still living, and induced to join the new move- ment. The government, under imperial patronage, entrusted commissions for public works to the professors of the academy, and granted to students and 266 JAPANESE ART artists pecuniary prizes with honorary titles. It also founded a new national museum for the preservation and study of important relics in Tokyo, and granted special privileges to art students desirous of becoming intimately acquainted with the collections of the old Kyoto and Nara museums. The latter two are under the direction of Yamataka, an expert of the old style, who has made a specialty of arranging annual loan exhibitions of the art treasures contained in monasteries and temples throughout the islands. Our hopes in a renaissance of Japanese art must inevitably be fixed on the Mod- erate Conservatives. Working on the old lines, and with the old materials, they endeavour, by yielding to the influences of Western methods, to enlarge their own limitations. What they are capable of, they have shown at the Chicago World's Fair. While at all previous expositions MODERN JAPANESE ART 267 at Vienna, at Paris, and at Philadelphia, Japan's art triumphs were largely due to her loan collections of antiques or modern replica, at Chicago, for the first time, modern Japanese art has deliber- ately dared to be original, and to ask the world's favour for her contemporary art on its own merits. The fact that Western art demands a fuller treatment of subordinate parts, how- ever, involved the Japanese artist in many unexpected difficulties, which in many instances he did not succeed in mastering. Let me exemplify this by one of the Exhi- bition pictures. My readers who have visited the Chicago Fair may still recall it. Two wild geese, drawn to perfection, one of them coming out of the picture straight at you, are flying over a sea, heav- ing with impossible waves. The incident of the flying geese no artist but a Japan- ese could have portrayed so deftly, nor 268 JAPANESE ART with such perfect realization of flight ; but Japanese art would be satisfied with the incident. A wash or two of pale colour to suggest the waves, again in a way that no other art but Japanese could suggest, and the picture would be finished. The new pictorial principles, however, depend on the artist's skill in painting it, and not on the vivid imagination of the beholder, on which the Japanese artist depends so much. And the only waves which the Japanese artist knows, other than suggest- ive waves, are in hard outlines, and he is not accustomed to deal with great masses of them. And so it has come about that the s^a, over which the geese are flying, is composed of a repetition of harshly outlined waves, which have no tonal con- nection with the birds. Hashimato Gaho, chief professor of the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts, and un- doubtedly Japan's greatest living artist. MODERN JAPANESE ART 269 achieved a remarkable success with a large landscape in the Exhibition. He has conceived and achieved a perfect scheme of light through the whole of his picture, a thing unknown in the old art. It was a landscape of rocks and maple- trees, with a waterfall. The whole of it was full of the light of day, which glittered in the sky with its traditional wash of gold, which in turn scintillated through the glow of the crimson maple leaves, illuminated the cloud of spray from the waterfall, and sparkled in the river as it passed out of sight. Yet even Gaho could not tear himself away from rocks treated in the old traditional manner ; they were crudely outlined, and the surfaces simply washed in, so that the irreverent simile of cut-out pieces of cardboard was about justified. Other works of special remark, with which the small, but choice Chicago dis- 270 JAPANESE ART play made us acquainted, were a summer landscape by Kumagaye Naokiko ; a very originally composed " Procession," by Ogato Gekko; a group of fowl against a background of snow, by Watanabe Seitei ; and the head of a tigress, a marvel of Japanese realism and technical ac- complishments, by Kishi Chikudo, the grandson of Ganku, a celebrated animal painter. In sculpture, the ape watching an eagle, by Takamaru Kowun, the lead- ing professor of wood-carving; the statu- ette of the Buddhist divinity Kwannon, the largest ivory carving ever made, by the famous Ichikawa Komei; and the splen- did bronze relief of the goddess Benten, remarkable for the richness and elegance of lines, by the great caster of the new art school, Okasaki Sessei, carried off the honours. Professor Ernest F. Fenellosa considers this relief the most notable contribution Sessei. — Bronze Relief of Goddess Benten. MODERN JAPANESE ART 27 1 to Japanese sculpture of recent years. He praises it in the following ^vords : " Taking the simpler bronze reliefs of the Nara school of the seventh century as his starting-point, he has invested them with a wealth of line structure suggested by the Tosa religious painters of the thirteenth, fusing both elements into a splendid original impression of the ' God- dess of Music,' so perfectly in accord with the laws of low relief in bronze as to make this work the Japanese analogue of the purest period of the corresponding fif- teenth-century Italian art." Among the lacquer work, a book-shelf executed by Shirayama Fukumatsu at- tracted a good deal of attention. It was said to be the finest product of the last forty years, and worthy of the adulations bestowed upon it. Even a Korin or Rit- suo might have been proud of its author- ship. 272 JAPANESE ART It can nevertheless not be denied that Japanese art has entered a rather unpro- ductive period. It is outside of our time that the monuments of true artistic gran- deur have to be sought. All the constraint of rules and tradi- tions have been required to make the Japanese mind produce the artistic beauty of which it was capable. Now these rules and traditions have considerably lost their value. The Japanese have found in Europe a new China, and, as formerly they imitated the art of the Celestial Kingdom, they now dream of adapting Western art. But it is the introduction of the ever- prevailing and all-pervading spirit of com- mercialism which has done the most harm to Japanese art. When the whole population is given up to trade, it is diffi- cult for the small voice of the art worker to be heard above the roar of the wheels MODERN JAPANESE ART 273 of Mammon's car, as it heavily grinds along. Art patronage has ceased, and the artists and artisans find it impossible to resist the tempting offers of unscrupulous dealers who are content with the repro- duction of traditional and conventional ideas, with as little invention, or even ingenuity in the matter of conception and workmanship, as might well be. And what is of special concern in this matter is the fact that the true artist, unwilling to make any concessions, finds it im- possible to compete with factory work. Surely the artist, like every other work- man, is entitled to adequate remuneration for his labour. Under the present condi- tion of things, the artist, forced to work as quickly and cheaply as possible, cannot bring his individuality into play. He is obliged to compromise and transform his studio into an ordinary workshop. John LaFarge has sized up the situa- 2 74 JAPANESE ART tion in a rather vague, but sincere and sympathetic manner. He said in one of his " Letters from Japan : " " A sadness comes upon us when we go to see some of the modern workers. From them we depart with no more hope. It is Hke some puzzle, like having listened to an argument which you know is based on some inaccuracy that you cannot at the moment detect. This about the better, the new perfect work, if I can call it per- fect, means only high finish and equal care. But the individual pieces are less and less individual ; there is no more sur- prise. The means or methods are being carried further and beyond, so that one asks one's self, ' Then why these methods at all?' The style of this finer modern work is poorer, no longer connected with the greater design, as if ambition was going into method and value of material. Just how far this is owing to us I cannot MODERN JAPANESE ART 275 tell, but the market is largely European, and what is done has a vague appearance of looking less and less out of place among our works, and has, as I said before, less and less suggestion of individuality. None of it would ever give it the slight shock of an exception, none of it would have the appearance which we know of our own best work, the feeling that we are not going to see more of it. This statement applies to the best work; the more com- mon work is merely a degradation, the using of some part of the methods; just enough to sell it, and to meet some easily defined immediate commercial needs. I saw the beginnings years ago, and I can remember one of our great New York dealers marking on his samples the colours that pleased most of his buyers, who them- selves again were to place the goods in Oshkosh or Third Avenue. All other colours or patterns were tabooed in his 276 JAPANESE ART instructions to the makers in Japan. This was the rude mechanism of the change, the coming down to the worst public taste, which must be that of the greatest number at any given time ; for commerce in such matters is of the moment : the sale of the wooden nutmeg, good enough until used." Thus theoretically as well as practically, it will be best for Japan to hold fast to her own ideals of Asiatic tradition. It is a service which she owes to humanity. She is the last custodian of ancient Ori- ental culture. She alone has the advan- tage of seeing through the materialistic shams with which Western civilizations delude themselves, and of appropriating only such material as may help to rekindle her native flame. The fusion of Eastern and Western ideas, which was accomplished two thou- sand years ago by Alexander the Great, MODERN JAPANESE ART 277 who carried the borders of Greece to India, would become for a second time possible, and create in both hemispheres a far more rounded civilization than either has ever known. Through her temperament, her individ- uality, her deeper insight into the secrets of the East, her ready designing of the powers of the West, and more than all through the fact that she enjoys the privilege of being a pioneer, it may have been decreed in the secret council cham- bers of destiny that on her shores shall be first created the new art which shall prevail throughout the world for the next thousand years. THE END. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dr. C. Dresser: Art of Decorative Design. Unity in Variety, as Deduced from the Vegetable World. Art and Art Industries in Japan. J. J. Jarvis : Glimpses at tlie Art of Japan, 1876. Messrs. Audsley and Bowen : Keramic Art of Japan, 1875-80. Thomas Cutter : Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design, 1881. M. Franks : Art Handbook for. the Collection in the South Kensington Museum. Katalog zur Austellung der japahischen Malerei im Ber- liner Kunstjgewerbemuseum, 1882. Alcock : Art and Art Industries in Japan, London, 1878. L. GoNSE : L'Art Japonais, Paris, 1883. W. Anderson : The Pictorial Arts of Japan, London, 1886. Brinckman : Kunst and Kunsthandwerk in Japan, Berlin, 1889. 279 28o BIBLIOGRAPHY W. E. Griffis : The Mikado's Empire, N. Y., 1870-74. MiTFORD : Tales of Old Japan, London, 1871. Miss Bird: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, London, 1880. Bayard Taylor: Japan in Our Day, N. Y., 1872. J. J. Rein : Japan nach Reisen und Studien in Auftrage der K. Preussishen Regierung dargestellt, Leipsic, 1881. E. Satow and A. S. S. Hawes : Handbook for Trav- ellers in Japan. Heinrich Schliemann : Le Chine et le Japon, Paris, 1867. Adams : History of Japan from the Earliest Time to the Present Day, London, 1875. Bower : Japanese Pottery, Liverpool, 1892. Black: Young Japan, London, 1880-81. Appert: Ancien Japon, Tokyo, 18S8. Metchnikew: L'Empire Japonais, Geneva, 188 1. S. BiNG : Artistic Japan. BousQUET : Le Japon de nos Jours, Paris, 1877. RosNY : La Religion des Japonais, Paris, 1881. Chamberlain: The Language, Mythology, and Geo- graphical Nomenclature of Japan, viewed in the light of Aino studies, Tokyo, 1887. Things Japanese, London, 1892. E. S. Morse : Japanese Houses and their Surround- ings. Gilbertson : Japanese Lacquer. E. de Goncourt : Outomaro et Hokusai. Strange : Japanese Illustration. BIBLIOGRAPHY 28 1 C. Netto and G. Wagener: Japanischer Humor, Leipsic, 1901. G. A. AuDSLEY and M. Tomkinson : The Art Carvings of Japan, Ivory and Wood. Lafcadio Hearn: Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Boston, 1891. Annales de I'extreme Orient, Paris. Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft fiir Natur und Volkerkunde Ostasiens, Yokohama and Berlin. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Annuaires de la Socidtd des Etudes Japonaises, Chi- noises, etc. Edited by Em. Burnouf. Various Articles in the Japanese Weekly Mail. INDEX Aboshi, 216. Academy of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 265, 268. Ainos, Huts of, 187, 188. Andersen, i6i. Architecture and Sculpture, 174-215. Arita, 225. Assakura, Palace of, Siga, 192. Atima, 27. Awata Ware, 231. Bampo Sen Shio, The, 216. Barrison Sisters, The, 166. Bashio, g6. Botticelli, 168. Bracquemont, 159. Buddhism, 12, 14, 15-19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, et seq., 37. 44. 56, 57. et seq., 74, 187, 189, 229. Bunlei, 133. Buntcho, 112, 126, 127. Buretsu, Emperor, 18. Bume-Jones, 165. Caricature, Japanese, Origin of, see Soja, Taba. Cellini, 205. Chavannes, Puvis de, 163, 166 Chikamitsu, 96, 126. Chikudo, KUshi, 270. Chinese Art, Influence of, 12- 20, 39-45. 57. 61, 62, etseq., 71, 84. Cho Densu, 64, 93. Death of Sakia, 65-66. Chokichi, 204. Chosuke, 229. Chosun, Miyagawa, 124. Hundred Poets, 125. Fans, 125. Mirror of Beauty, 125. Chwang, Chow, 57. Collins, Raphael, 260. Composition, Difference in, 44-50. 83, et seq. Dai-Butsus, 193, 207-215. Of Nara, 193, 208-209. Of Kamakura, 197, 207- 208, 210, 213. Of Asakasa, 207. Of Kyoto, 209-210. Daishi (Apostle of Buddhism), 18. Dayuyi, Temple of, Tokyo, 21. Degas, 163. De Struve, Mme., 223. Deva Kings, Nara, 197. 283 284 INDEX Deverell, 165. Diaz, 159. Dohachi, 227, 233. Donatello, 203, 207. Dresser, Doctor Christopher, 179-181. Duran, Carolus, 159. Exposition, London, of Jap- anese Art, 156-1 S7- Exposition, Paris, of Japanese Art, 157-158. Fenellosa, Ernest F., 270-271. Feudal Period, 37-59. Fortuny, 159. Fra Angelico, 12. Fuko, Matsumato, 256. Fukugawa Shogunate, VI., 87-89. 93- Fukumatsu, 271. Fusiyama, Mount, 138, 143, 149, 262. Gaho, Hashimato, 268-269. Gakurei, 122. Gakus, 27. Ganka, 133. Gekko, Ogato, 270. Genroku Period, 95-103. Giyoji, 229. Goncourt, Edmond de, 159. Goncourt, Jules de, 1 59. Gonse, Louis, 192, 233. Goshen, 121-122. Gosho Palace, The, at Kyoto, 193- Goto Family (Bronze Workers), 241. Griffis, William Eliott, 210- 211, 246. Hakkei, 122. Hanzan, 250. Haronobu, Suzuki, 112, 126, 128-129. Hearn, Lafcadio, 183, 198, 211-213. Hideyary, 209. Hiroshige, 138-143, 164, 172, 257. Views of Mount Fusi- yama, 136. Go-jiu-sen, Eki Tokaido, 139- Pictorial Description of Yedo, 141. Hiroshima, 204, 207. Hirotaka, 27. Hoitsu, 129-131. Hokkei, 257. Hokusai, 133, I43-IS3> '64, 257- Mangwa, 143, 145. Hundred Views of Fusi- yama, 143, 148. Serial, Eleven Waterfalls, 147. Horiuyi, Temple of, Nara, 17, 192. Howard, Mrs. N. Hopper, 223. Hoyen, Nishiyama, 122-124. Goddess Kwannon, 122- 123. Huneker, J. G., 166. Imari Ware, 235. India, Art of, see Buddhism. Isen, 256. Iticho, Hanabusa, 108-110, 124. Jacquemart, Jules, 159. Japanese Art, Influence of on Western Civilization, 1 54- 173- Literature, 161. INDEX 285 Music, 161-162. Painting, 162-163. Jiogioko, 241. Josetsu, 64, 66. Kabenari, 18. Kaga Ware, 225, 235. Ka^atei, 122. Kakemonos, 27. Kamakura. Temples and Fagoda of, 193- Dai-Butsu of, 197. Kamelzan, Temple of, 98-99. Kamejo, 204. Kanaoka, 19-28, 57, 64, 93. Decoration of Kyoto Palace,' 19. Serial, Ancient Sages and Poets, 20. God Fudo, 21. Living Pictures, 22-23. God Dsijo, 23-24. Kano School, 50, 60, et seq., 69-72,92, 93, 94, ^^j^?., 109, 124-125, 133. Kassoaga, Temple of, 43-44. Kateda, 27. Kavenaka, 18. Keinen, Imao, 256. Keisai, 241. Kenya, 250. Kenzan, 96, 105, 219, 232. Kinkakudi, Palace of, Kyoto, 193- Kinroku, 112. Kioko, 122. Kiosai, Kawanobe, 257. Kiyamasa, iii. Kiyomidsu Ware, 231. Kiyomitsu, 126. Kiyonaga, 113, 131-133. I34. 165. Kiyonobu, iii, 126. Kohitsu, 227. Kojiki, The, 13. Kokau, of Nagasaki, 105. Komei, Ichikawa, 270. Korean Architecture, 187, 191, 194. Korin, 96-97, 232, 249, 261. Koriusa, 113. Koto, Yingo, 194. Kouroda, Seiki, 260, 261-263. Koutani Ware, 236. Kowun, 270. Koyetsu, Hoyami, 247-248. Koyomitsu, iii. Kukai, see Daishi. Kunimara, 119. Kunimasa, 119. Kunisada, 119, 133. Kuniyoshy, 126-127. Forty-seven Ronins, 127. Kuokudo, 122. Kwannon, Sea-goddess, 122, 200, 270, see Hoyen. Kyoto, 18, 19, 28, 29-30, 56, 57, 65, 66, 89, 90, 139, 193, 207, 225, 231, 239, 266. Kyoto School, 11 1-118. Lacquer-work, 243-252. La Farge, John, 273. Laotze, 57. Legros, Alphonse, 159. Lenzan, 122. Louis XIV., 154-155. Louis XV., VI., 95. Machida, 227. Maeterlinck, Maurice, 161. Maida, 227. Makimono, 27. Masaccio, 12. Masashige, General Kusu- noke. Statue of, 261. 286 INDEX Massanobu, Kano, 64, 67, 70- 71- Massanobu, Okumura, iii. Massanobu, Sotan, 64, 67. Matahei, Iwasa, 104-109. Meiji Bijutsou Kwai (Radical School), 259-261. Meitshyo, 64. Metal Ware, 239-243. Minamoto, 43. Minamoto-no-Nabu, 18. Minenubo, 133. Ming Blue Ware, 229. Mitsunobu, 43, 46, 48. Mitsunoki, 43. Mitsuoky, 93. Mitsuyoshi, 43. Modern Japanese Art, 253- 277. Mokubei, 233. Monet, 163. Monotobu, Goddess Kwan- non, 122. Morinaga, 133. Moro, Husuyuma, no. Morofusa, 133. Moronubu, 108, 109-1 II, 124. Mofomitsu, 38, 43. Motonaga, 133. Motonubu, 82-84. Nagahura, 133. Nagasaki, 105. Nakoslii, 241. Naokiko, Kumagaye, 270. Naonobu, 82, 94. Nara, 12, 13, 17, 21, 179, 193, 197, 266. Nieinai, Temple of, Kyoto, 21. Nikawa, in. Nikko, Pagoda of, 18&-183, 193- Temple of, 83. Ninogawa, 227. Ninsei, 96, 219, 231-232. Nobuzane, 43. Oado, 105. Obaku, Temple of, at Oyi, 193. Okakura, 265-266. Oki Ware, 234. Okyo, 97-103, 122, 172. Omura Ware, 231. One Thousand Leaves, Col- lection of, 135. Oriba Ware, 234. Ornamental Arts, 216-252. Osaka, Castle of, 193. Outomaro, 134-139. Serial, Silk-worms, 136. Forty-seven Ronins, 137. Owari, 225, 230. Pottery, 224-238. Raku Ware, 230. Realistic Movement (Ukio-ye School), 103-153. Religious School, 18, 56, 65, 74- Renaissance, The, 60-103. Ritsuo, Ogawa, 96, 205-206, 219, 248-249. Robbia, Luca della, 203. Rokubei, 227, 233. Saitchiso, 236. S^toshy, 62. Sanda Seiji Ware, 234. Satsuma, 157, 225, 236-237. Sauraku, 82. Segin, 44. Sei£u, 241. Seimin, 204, 241. Seisen, 122. Seitei, Watanabe, 270. Sekighara, Battle of, 88. INDEX 287 Sessei, Okasaki, 270. Bronze relief of Goddess Benten, 271, see illus- tration. Sesshin, 67-72. Settan, 140. Shiba, Temple of, Nikko, 195. Shiba, Temple of, Tokyo, 29. Shibukohan, 105. Shigenaga, 133. Shighemassa, 113. Shigenaga, Nishimura, 11 1. Shijo School, see also Okyo, 97. 121. Shinto Temples, Architecture of, 187-189. At Kyoto, 193. At Nikko, 193. Shioukada, 94-95. Shioukai, 233. Shohizan, 122. Shojo, see Shioukada. Shonsoi, 234. Shosen, 256. Shosizan, 133. Showo-Shigariki Wares, 228. Shubun, 64, 66-67. Shunchosai, 139-140, 165. Shunsho, 113. Silver Temple, The, Kyoto, 60. Skarbina, 163. Soja, Taba, 43, 92. So jo Family (Bronze Workers), 241. Sojo, Ono, 44. Somaw Ware, 234. Somin, 96, 241. ^ Sosen, 121. Soukenobu, Nishikawa, 112, 126, 127-128, 134. * Soumiyoshi, 44. Steinlen, 163. Stevens, Alfred, 159. Strudwick, 163. Suki, 17. Suminawa, 28. Taga, Castle of, 193. Taigado, 133. Takatshika, 43. Takanobu, 82, 94. Tamehissa, 43. Tanemura, 227. Tanyu, 82, 94. Taoun, 204, 241. Tchikonobu, 133. Tchikuden, 129-130. Tchiokuvan, 82. Tchiorakouyi, Temple of, Omi, 28. Tchoin Temple at Kyoto, 193. Teisan, 126. Temmu, 194. Tenno, Jimmu, 194. Tetsusan, 122. Tissot, 159, Tiyo, 241. Todaji, Temple of, 178. Tokaido, Fifty-three Stations of. Views of, see Hiroshige. Tokugawa, Nikko, 195. Tokusai, 241. Tokyo, 21, 29, 89, 103, 133, 137, 148, 184, 265, 266. Torei, 133. Tosa School, see Yamoto- Tosa School. Toshiro, 230. Tosu, Watanobe, 251. Totsugen, 127. Toyohami, 119. Toyoharu, 119. Toyohiro, 138. Toyokuni, 119. Toyokusi, 126. Toyonabou, ill. 288 INDEX Toyoshiri, 119. Tsoutenaka, 43. Tsunenobu, 133. Turgenjew, 161. Tyron, D. W., 163. Ukio-ye School, 50, 109, etseg., 132, 133, et seq., 140- 153- Verga, 161. Wada, Eisaku, 261. Wakai, The, Collection of Pottery, 226-227. Weltausstellung, Vienna, 157- 158. Western Pictorial Art, In- fluence of, 104, et seq. Whistler, 159, 162, 172. Wood Engraving, 110, et seq., see Ukio-ye School. World's Fair, Chicago, 266- 271. Wutaotz, 67. Yamataka, 266. Yamoto-Tosa School, 38, et seq., 48, 50, 51, et seq., 64-67.93. "3. 124. see Motomitsu. Yashiki, The, 186. Yasunobu, see Yeishi. Yedo, 89, 103, 133, 137, 139, 141. Yedoreko, Imperial School of, 27. Yeiraku, 227, 232-233. Yeiri, 119. Yeiseh, 119. Yeishi, 82, 94, 119. Yeizan, 119. Yeitoku, 82. Yeto, Genjiro, 262-263. Yosai, Kikuchi, 256, 257-259. Yosen, 121. Yoshiwara, 136, 145. Yuriaku, Emperor, 17. Yyeyosu, Takigawa, 88. Zaitu, 122. Zeshin, 250, 251, 265. Zingaro, Hidari, 96, 184, 193, 204. Zola, 159.