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diff --git a/old/62252-0.txt b/old/62252-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 46c9561..0000000 --- a/old/62252-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2861 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Spirit of Japanese Art - -Author: Yone Noguchi - -Release Date: May 28, 2020 [EBook #62252] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF JAPANESE ART *** - - - - -Produced by ellinora, Les Galloway and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and -punctuation remains unchanged. - -Sidenotes, page headings in the original, have been placed at the -beginning of the relevant paragraphs and marked [Sidenote: ....] - -On Page 26 lespedozas has been corrected to lespedezas. - -Italics are represented thus _italic_. - - - - - The Wisdom of the East Series - - EDITED BY - - L. CRANMER-BYNG - Dr. S. A. KAPADIA - - - THE SPIRIT OF JAPANESE ART - - - - - WISDOM OF THE EAST - - THE SPIRIT OF - JAPANESE ART - - BY YONE NOGUCHI - AUTHOR OF “THE SPIRIT OF JAPANESE POETRY” - - - [Illustration; Sun rising over ocean] - - - LONDON - JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. - 1915 - - - - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - INTRODUCTION 9 - - - I - - KOYETSU 17 - - - II - - KENZAN 25 - - - III - - UTAMARO 32 - - - IV - - HIROSHIGE 38 - - - V - - GAHO HASHIMOTO 44 - - - VI - - KYOSAI 56 - - - VII - - THE LAST MASTER OF THE UKIYOYE ART 67 - - - VIII - - BUSHO HARA 79 - - - IX - - THE UKIYOYE ART IN ORIGINAL 93 - - - X - - WESTERN ART IN JAPAN 100 - - - APPENDIX I - - THE MEMORIAL EXHIBITION OF THE LATE - HARA 109 - - - APPENDIX II - - THE NERVOUS DEBILITY OF PRESENT - JAPANESE ART 113 - - - - - TO - - EDWARD F. STRANGE - - OF THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM - - - - - EDITORIAL NOTE - - -The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They -desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall -be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and -West—the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour, -and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example -in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great -ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival -of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the -nations of another creed and colour. - - L. CRANMER-BYNG. - S. A. KAPADIA. - - NORTHBROOK SOCIETY, - 21 CROMWELL ROAD, - S. KENSINGTON, S.W. - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -In the Ashikaga age (1335-1573) the best Japanese artists, like Sesshu -and his disciples, for instance, true revolutionists in art, not mere -rebels, whose Japanese simplicity was strengthened and clarified by -Chinese suggestion, were in the truest meaning of the word Buddhist -priests, who sat before the inextinguishable lamp of faith, and -sought their salvation by the road of silence; their studios were in -the Buddhist temple, east of the forests and west of the hills, dark -without, and luminous within with the symbols of all beauty of nature -and heaven. And their artistic work was a sort of prayer-making, to -satisfy their own imagination, not a thing to show to a critic whose -attempt at arguing and denying is only a nuisance in the world of -higher art; they drew pictures to create absolute beauty and grandeur, -that made their own human world look almost trifling, and directly -joined themselves with eternity. Art for them was not a question of -mere reality in expression, but the question of Faith. Therefore they -never troubled their minds with the matter of subjects or the size -of the canvas; indeed, the mere reality of the external world had -ceased to be a standard for them, who lived in the temple studios. -Laurance Binyon said of them: “Hints of the divine were to be found -everywhere—in leaves of grass, in the life of animals, birds, and -insects. No occupation was too humble or menial to be invested with -beauty and significance.” Through them the Ashikaga period becomes very -important in our Japanese art annals. Binyon says: “The Ashikaga period -stands in art for an ideal of reticent simplicity. A revulsion from the -ornate conventions, which had begun to paralyse the pristine vigour -of the Yamato school, and fresh acquaintance with the masterpieces of -the Sung era, brought about by renewed contact with China, after a -hermit period of exclusion, created a passion for swift, impassioned or -suggestive painting in ink, on silvery-toned paper.” - -People, like myself, who are more delighted at the National Gallery -in Trafalgar Square with, for instance, “A Summer Afternoon after a -Shower,” or a “View at Epsom,” by Constable, and with “Walton Reach,” -or “Windsor from Lower Hope,” by Turner, than with their other bigger -things, will be certainly pleased to see “Temple and Hill above -a Lake,” by Sesshu, or “Travellers at a Temple Gate,” by Sesson, -representing this interesting Ashikaga period, exhibited in the new -wing of the British Museum. You have to go there and spend an hour or -so with the Arthur Morrison collection of Japanese art, if you wish to -feel the real old Japanese humanity and love that our ancient masters -inspired into their work. To be sure, none of the things exhibited -there, small or large, good or poor, are so-called exhibition pictures, -which are often a game of artistic charlatans. In real Japanese art -you should not look for variety of subjects; but when you find an -astonishing richness of execution, certainly it is the time when your -eyes begin to open toward another sort of asceticism in art. How glad I -am that our Japanese art, at least in the olden time, never degenerated -into a mechanical art! - -What a pity Sesson’s “Travellers at a Temple Gate,” this remarkable -little thing, has been mended in two or three spots. If you wish to -see the real power and distinction of great Sesshu, you might compare -his “Daruma” in the exhibition with the other “Daruma” pictures by -Soami and Takuchu also in the exhibition: the point I should like to -bring out is that Sesshu’s “Daruma” is an artistic attempt to proclaim -the spiritual intensity which shines within from the true strength of -consciousness and real economy of force, while the others are rather a -superficial demonstration. - -There is no other Japanese school so interesting, even from the one -point of style in expressive decoration, as the Koyetsu-korin school, -the much-admired branch of Japanese art in the West. Although I was -glad to see a good specimen of Sotatsu in “Descent of the Thunder God -on the Palace of Fujiwara” in the exhibition, I hardly think that such -a figure painting (a really good work in its own way) shows Sotatsu’s -best art; while my memory of the Sotatsu exhibition at Uyeno of Tokyo -a few years ago is still fresh, I am pleased to connect Sotatsu with -the flower-screens and little _Kakemono_ for the tea-rooms, now with -a pair of rabbits nibbling grasses, then with a little bunch of wild -chrysanthemums. You will see what an admirer I am of this school, since -I have dwelt at some length on Koyetsu and Kenzan in this little book -of Japanese art. I regret that I have to beg for some more time before -I make myself able to write on great Korin; I am sure that Hoitsu, one -of the most distinguished decadents of the early nineteenth century, -and the acknowledged successor of the Koyetsu-korin school, would give -us a highly interesting subject to discuss. Oh, those days at Bunkwa -and Bunsei (1804-1830)! Dear, rotten, foolish, romantic old Tokugawa -civilisation and art! - -Two articles on Harunobu and Hokusai are still to be written for the -Ukiyoye school; I know, I believe, that without those two artists the -school would never be complete. I am happy to think that I have Gaho -Hashimoto in the present book as the last great master of the Kano -school; but I cannot help thinking about Hogai Kano, Gaho’s spiritual -brother, who passed away almost in starvation. - -Indeed, Hogai’s whole life of sixty years was a life of hardship -and hunger; when he reached manhood, the whole country of Japan -began to be disturbed under the name of the Grand Restoration. In -those days, the safety of one’s life was not assured; how then could -art claim the general protection? All the artists threw away their -drawing-brushes. Hogai tried to get his living by selling baskets and -brooms; his wife, it is said, helped him by weaving at night; their -lives were hard almost without comparison. Following the advice of a -certain Mr. Fujishima, Hogai drew pictures and gave them to a dealer -at Hikage Cho, Tokyo, to be sold. After three long years, he found -that only one picture had been sold, and so he gave the rest of them, -more than fifty, to Mr. Fujishima, who, by turns, gave them away -to his friends. And those pictures which were given freely by Mr. -Fujishima are now their owners’ greatest treasures. Thus is the irony -of life exemplified. It was thought by Hogai a piece of good fortune -when he was engaged by Professor Fenellosa for twelve yen a month; -this American critic’s eye discerned Hogai’s unusual ability. It is -almost unbelievable to-day that such a small sum should have been -acceptable; but it may have been the usual payment in those days, and -the Professor’s friendship was more to Hogai than money. He received -fifteen yen afterward when he was engaged by the Educational Department -of the Government in 1884; how sad he could not support himself by -art alone. And alas, he was no more when the general appreciation of -his great art began to be told. Quite many specimens of Hogai’s work -are treasured in the Boston Museum at present. How changed are the -conditions now from Hogai’s day! But are these fortunately changed -conditions really helpful for the creation of true art? - -To look at some of the modern work is too trying, mainly from the fact -that it lacks, to use the word of Zen Buddhism, the meaning of silence; -it seems to me that some modern artists work only to tax people’s -minds. In Nature we find peacefulness and silence; we derive from it -a feeling of comfort and restfulness; and again from it we receive -vigour and life. I think so great art should be. Many modern artists -cannot place themselves in unison with their art; in one word, they do -not know how to follow the law or _michi_, that Mother Nature gladly -evolves. It is such a delight to examine the works of Hogai, as each -picture is a very part of his own true self; the only difference is -the difference that he wished to evoke in interest; his desire was -always so clear in the relation between himself and his work, and -accidentally he succeeded as if by magic in establishing the same -relationship for us, the onlookers. It goes without saying that the -pictures of such an artist are richer than they appear; while he used -only Chinese ink in his pictures, our imagination is pleased to see -them with the addition of colour, and even voice. - -The subjects which are treated in the present volume are various, but I -dare say that all the artists whose art I have treated here will well -agree in the point of their expression of the Japanese spirit of art, -which always aims at poetry and atmosphere, but not mere style and -purpose. - - Y. N. - - LONDON, - _May 13, 1914_. - - - - - THE SPIRIT OF - - JAPANESE ART - - - I - - KOYETSU - - -When I left home toward a certain Doctor’s who had promised to show me -his collection of chirography and art, the unusual summer wind which -had raged since midnight did not seem to calm down; the rain-laden -clouds now gathered, and then parted for the torrent of sunlight to -dash down. I was most cordially received by him, as I was expected; -in coming under threat of the weather I had my own reasons. I always -thought that summer was worse than spring for examining (more difficult -to approve than deny) the objects of art, on account of our inability -for concentrating our minds; the heat that calls all the _shoji_ doors -to open wide confuses the hearts of bronze Buddhas or Sesshu’s “Daruma” -or Kobo’s chirography or whatever they be, whichever way they have to -turn, in the rush of light from every side; I thanked the bad weather -to-day which, I am sure, I should have cursed some other day. The -Doctor’s house had an almost winter-sad aspect with the _shoji_, even -the rain-doors all shut, the soft darkness assembling at the very place -it should, where the saints or goddesses revealed themselves; hanging -after hanging was unrolled and rolled before me in quick succession. -“Doctor, tell me quick whose writing is that?” I loudly shouted when -I came to one little bit of Japanese writing. “That is Koyetsu’s,” he -replied. “Why, is it? It seems it is worth more than all the others put -together; Doctor, I will not ask you for any more hangings to-day,” -I said. And a moment later, I looked at him and exclaimed in my -determined voice: - -“What will you say if I take it away and keep it indefinitely?” - -“I say nothing at all, but am pleased to see how you will enjoy it,” -the Doctor replied. - -[Sidenote: YEARNING OF POETICAL SOUL] - -The evening had already passed when I returned home with that hanging -of Koyetsu’s chirography under my arm. “Put all the gaslights out! -Do you hear me? All the gaslights out! And light all the candles -you have!” I cried. The little hanging was properly hanged at the -“tokonoma” when the candles were lighted, whose world-old soft flame -(wasn’t it singing the old song of world-wearied heart?) allured my -mind back, perhaps, to Koyetsu’s age of four hundred years ago—to -imagine myself to be a waif of greyness like a famous tea-master, Rikiu -or Enshu or, again, Koyetsu, burying me in a little Abode of Fancy with -a boiling tea-kettle; through that smoke of candles hurrying like our -ephemeral lives, the characters of Koyetsu’s writing loomed with the -haunting charm of a ghost. They say: - - “Where’s cherry-blossom? - The trace of the garden’s spring breeze is seen no more. - I will point, if I am asked, - To my fancy snow upon the ground.” - -“What a yearning of poetical soul!” I exclaimed. - -It is your imagination to make rise out of fall, day out of darkness, -and Life out of Death; not to see the fact of scattering petals is your -virtue, and to create your own special sensation with the impulse of -art is your poet’s dignity; what a blessing if you can tell a lie to -yourself; better still, not to draw a distinct line between the things -our plebeian minds call truth and untruth, and live like a wreath shell -with the cover shut in the air of your own creation. Praised be the -touch of your newly awakened soul which can turn the fallen petals to -the beauty of snow; there is nothing that will deny the yearning of -your poetic soul. It is not superstition to say that the poet’s life -is worthier than any other life. Some time ago the word loneliness -impressed me as almost divine as Rikiu pledged himself in it; I -wished, through its invocation, to create a picture, as the ancient -ditty has it, of a “lone cottage standing by the autumn wave, under -the fading light of eve.” But I am thankful for Koyetsu to-day. How to -reach my own poetry seems clearly defined in my thought; it will be by -the twilight road of imagination born out of reality and the senses—the -road of idealism baptised by the pain of death. - -[Sidenote: ABODE OF VACANCY] - -What remains of Koyetsu’s life is slight, as his day was not feminine -and prosaic, like to-day, with love of gossip and biography-writing; -he, with the friends of his day, Sambiakuin Konoye, Shokado, both of -them eminent chirographers of all time of Japan, Jozan the scholar, -Enshu the tea-master, and many others, realised the age of artistic -heroism which is often weakened by the vulgarity of thought that aims -at the Future and Fame. The utter rejection of them would be the prayer -itself to strengthen the appreciation of art into a living thing. -Koyetsu made his profession in his younger days the connoisseurship of -swords as well as their whetting; it was for that service, I believe, -that Iyeyasu, the great feudal Prince of Yedo, gave him a piece of -land, then a mere waste, at Taka ga Mine of the lonely suburb of Kyoto, -by the Tanba highway, where he retired, with a few writing brushes and -a tea-kettle, to build his Taikyo An, or Abode of Vacancy, giving his -æsthetic fancy full swing to fill the “vacancy” of abode and life. He -warned his son and family, when he bade them farewell, it is said, that -they should never step into Yedo of the powerful lords and princes, -because the worldly desire was not the way of ennobling a life which -was worth living. We might call it “seihin”, or proud poverty that -Koyetsu most prized, as it never allures one from the chasteness of -simplicity which is the real foundation of art. There is reason to -believe that he must have been quite a collector of works of art, rich -and rare, in his earlier life; but it is said that he most freely gave -them away when he left his city home for his lonely retirement; indeed -he was entering into the sanctuary of priests. What needed he there -but prayer and silence? There is nothing more petty, even vulgar, in -the grey world of art and poetry, than to have a too close attachment -to life and physical luxuries; if our Orientalism may not tell you -anything much, I think it will teach you at least to soar out of your -trivialism. - -[Sidenote: THE STYLE CALLED “GYOSHO”] - -Koyetsu’s must have been a remarkable personality, remarkable -because of its lucidity distilled and crystallised—to use a plebeian -expression, by his own philosophy, whose touch breathed on the spot -a real art into anything from a porcelain bowl to the design on a -lacquer box; I see his transcendental mien like a cloud (that cloud -is not necessarily high in the sky all the time) in his works that -remain to-day, more from the reason that they carry, all of them, -the solitary grace of amateurishness in the highest sense. To return -to the unprofessional independence itself was his great triumph; -his artistic fervour was from his priesthood. I know that he was a -master in porcelain-making, picture-drawing, and also in lacquer-box -designing (what a beautiful work of art is the writing box of raised -lacquer called Sano Funahashi, to-day owned by the Imperial Museum of -Tokyo); but it seems that he often betrayed that his first and last -love was in his calligraphy. Once he was asked by Sambiakuin Konoye, -a high nobleman of the Kyoto Court, the question who was the best -penman of the day; it is said he replied, after a slight hesitation: -“Well, then, the second best would be you, my Lord; and Shokado would -be the third best.” The somewhat disappointed calligraphist of high -rank in the court pressed Koyetsu: “Speak out, who is the first! There -is nothing of ‘Well, then,’ about it.” Koyetsu replied: “This humble -self is that first.” The remarkable part is that in his calligraphy -Koyetsu never showed any streak of worldly vulgarity. Its illusive -charm is that of a rivulet sliding through the autumnal flowers; when -we call it impressive, that impressiveness is that of the sudden fall -of the moon. To return to this hanging of his (thousand thanks to the -Doctor) to which I look up to-day as a servant to his master, with -all devotion. The sure proof of its being no mean art, I venture to -say, is seen in its impressing me as the singular work of accident, -like the blow of the wind or the sigh of the rain; it seems the writer -(great Koyetsu) was never conscious, when he wrote it, of the paper on -which he wrote, of the bamboo brush which he grasped. It is true that -we cannot play our criticism against it; it is not our concern to ask -how it was written, but only to look at and admire it. The characters -are in the style called “gyosho,” or current hand, to distinguish from -the “kaisho,” or square hand; and there is one more style under the -name of “sosho,” or grass hand, that is an abbreviated cursive hand. -As this was written in “gyo” style, it did not depend on elaborate -patience but on the first stroke of fancy. I have no hesitation to say -that, when it is said that the arts of the calligrapher and the painter -are closely allied, the art of the calligrapher would be by just so -much related with our art of living; the question is what course among -the three styles we shall choose—the square formalism of “kaisho” or -the “sosho”-like romanticism? It does no justice to call “gyosho” a -middle road; when you know that your idealism is always born from the -conventionalism of reality of “kaisho”-like materialism, it is not -wrong to say that Koyetsu wisely selected a line of “gyosho”-like -accentuation—not so fantastic as a “sosho” calligraph—with the -tea-kettle and a few writing brushes, to make one best day before he -fell into the final rest. - - - - - II - - KENZAN - - -I used to pass by Zenyoji, a little Buddhist temple by the eastern -side of Uyeno Hill (whose trees, almost a thousand years old, in the -shape of a dragon, perhaps created by a Kano artist, have been ruined -by the smoke that never departs from the railroad terminus), where I -knew, from the calligraphic sign carved on a stone by the temple gate, -that Kenzan Ogata, the famous artist on paper or porcelain, and younger -brother of the great Korin, was buried in the graveyard within; but if -I did not step in, as in fact I did not step in, although I passed by -countless times, as I lived then in the neighbourhood of the temple -in classical Negishi—classical in association with the nightingale -and that wonderful pine-tree called Ogyo no Matsu (here also lived -Hoitsu, the famous decadent of the early nineteenth century)—that was -because I had little interest in any grave, even in Kenzan’s. And the -temple looked so dusty, smoky, and altogether dirty. How sorry I felt -in thinking that Kenzan’s artistic soul must be suffering from the -snoring, growling, and hissing of the engines day and night. Alas, he -could not foresee the future of a few hundred years when he died. But -I welcomed the news when the sudden removal of the grave was reported -as a result, a fortunate result indeed, of the expansion of the railway -track; this time, to be sure, I thought, his grey-loving, solitary -soul would be pleased to find a far better sleeping-place, as he was -to be moved to the large old garden of the Kokka Club (a well-known -artist club), with a deep pond where many gold fish peep underneath the -umbrella-like lotus leaves in early summer, and in later autumn the -_hagi_ or two-coloured lespedezas (Kenzan’s beloved subject) would lean -upon the water to admire their own images; and it is a matter thrice -satisfactory to think that this new place is also in Negishi (which -somehow recalls Hampstead, though there is no natural resemblance -between them). - - * * * * * - -I was invited to attend the memorial exhibition of Kenzan’s work to -commemorate the removal of his grave the other day. With the greatest -anticipation I went there with two friends of mine, a fellow poet -and an artist, both of them great admirers of Kenzan Ogata. When we -entered the ground, we found at once that the Buddhist ceremony, that -is the Sutra-reading called Kuya Nembutsu, around the newly dug grave -by the lotus pond under the trees, was well started already; some ten -or eleven priests, in fact the devoted members of the club, but in -long black robes, were seen through the foliage from the distance, -hopping around like the vagarious spirits of a moment (this fantastic -ceremony, Kuya Nembutsu) while reciting the holy book; the voice of the -recitation most musically broke the silence. We did not approach the -grave, but went straight into the exhibition rooms, because we knew -that the best prayer we could offer to Kenzan was to see and rightly -appreciate his works of art. We all of us were unable to speak a word -at the beginning, as our tongues (our heads too) lost their powers -against his peculiarly distinguished art, which is the oldest and -again the newest. When our minds became better composed, we sat in a -corner of the room where the hangings of his flowers or trees, and the -tea-bowls or incense-cases with his favourite designs, had been well -arranged; we felt inclined to talk, even discuss his art. - -[Sidenote: THE OLDEST AND THE NEWEST] - -“What a pleasing egotism,” I ventured to say, “in that picture of -lilies or this picture of fishes; the lilies and fishes are not an -accessory as in many other Japanese pictures, but the lilies and fishes -themselves in their full meaning. Again What a delightful egotism!” - -“You might call flowers feminine,” my artist-friend interrupted me. -“But I should like to know where is a thing more truly egotistic than -the flowers.” - -“That egotism in the picture,” I proceeded, “might be a real result -from the great reverence and intense love of Kenzan for his subjects; -we can see that his mind, when he painted them, was never troubled with -any other thing or thought. You know that such only occurs to a truly -gifted artist. After all, the greatness of Kenzan is his sincerity. -And it goes without saying that the pictures on tea-bowls we see here -are not things which were made to some one’s order. We become at once -sincere and silent in their presence; to say that his art was spiritual -is another way to express it—by that I mean that we are given all -opportunities to imagine what the pictures themselves may not contain. -Our imagination grows deeper and clearer through the virtue or magic of -his work; and again his work appears thrice simplified and therefore -more vital. The art really simple and vital is never to be troubled -with any rhetoric or accessories of unessentials; before you make such -a picture, you must have, to begin with, your own soul simplified and -vital in the true sense. Kenzan had that indeed.” - -[Sidenote: EXPRESSION OF PERSONALITY] - -“To call Kenzan’s work merely beautiful,” my friend-poet said, -evidently in the same mind with myself, “whether it be the picture on -paper or China-bowls, does no justice; what he truly aimed at was the -artistic expression,—and he was most successful when he was most true. -To him, as with the other great artists of East or West, the beauties -only occurred—and Kenzan’s beauties occurred when his simple art was -most decorative; in his decorativeness he found his own artistic -emotion. It was his greatness that he made a perfect union of emotion -and intellect in his work; to say shortly, he was the expression of -personality.” - -“What a personality was Kenzan’s! Again what a personality!” I -exclaimed. I proceeded, as I wished to take up the talk where my friend -poet had left off, “It is his personality by whose virtue even a -little weed or insignificant spray of a willow-tree turns to a real -art; he had that personality, because he had such a love and sympathy. -Indeed the main question of the artist is in his love and sympathy; the -external technique is altogether secondary. When you commune with the -inner meaning, that is the beginning and also the ending. We see here -the picture of a cherry-tree covered by the red blossoms, which might -happen to be criticised as a bad drawing; but since it does appear as -nothing but a cherry-tree, proud and lovely, I think that Kenzan’s -artistic desire was fully answered. He was an artist, not merely either -an illustrator or a designer. He was a true artist, therefore his work -is ever so new like the moon and flowers; and again old, like the -flowers and moon.” - -“If the so-called post-impressionists could see Kenzan’s work!” my -friend-artist suddenly ventured to exclaim, “I am sure that Vincent Van -Gogh would be glad to have this six-leafed screen of poppy-flowers.” - -“Really the picture is the soul of the flowers,” I said, “but not the -external flowers. It is mystic as the flowers are mystic. And imagine -Kenzan’s attitude when he drew that screen! I believe that he had the -same reverence as when he stood in the religion of mysticism to paint -a goddess; indeed his work was prayer and soul’s consolation. Though -the subject was flowers, I have no hesitation to call the picture -religious. I almost feel like lighting a candle and burning incense -before this screen of poppies.” - -[Sidenote: THE BAPTISM OF POVERTY] - -As with other gifted artists, we see Kenzan’s real life behind his -work. Some critic ably said that true art was an episode of life; I -can imagine that, when his artistic fancy moved and his work was done, -he must have thrown it aside into the waves of time, off-hand, most -unceremoniously, and forgotten all about it. We can truly say of his -works that they never owed one thing to money or payment for their -existence—and that is the greatest praise we can give to any work of -art. His material life might be said to have been quite fortunate -in that he was invited to Yedo (present Tokyo) by the Prince of the -Kanyeiji Temple of Uyeno, under whose patronage his art was pleased to -take its own free independent course; but his greatness is that when -the Prince passed away and he was left to poverty, he never trembled -and shrank under its cold cruel baptism; indeed that baptism made his -personality far nobler, like the white flame from which the whiteness -is taken out, and consequently his art was a thing created, as we say -here, by the mind out of the world and dust. The works which to-day -remain and are admired by us are mostly the work he executed after he -reached his seventieth year. We have many reasons to be thankful for -the fact that he left Kyoto, the old city of court nobles and ladies, -somewhat effeminate, and the side of his brother Korin, whose great -influence would have certainly made him a little Korin at the best; -we see no distinction whatever in the work which he gave the world -under Korin’s guidance. His art made a great stride after he appeared -in the Yedo of the warriors and manliness and touched a different -atmosphere from that of his former life; I will point, when you ask -me for the proof, to the now-famous six-fold screen with the picture -of plum-blossom, or the hanging also of the plum-blossom owned by the -Imperial Museum. Oh, what a noble plum-blossom, which reminds us of a -samurai’s heart, simple and brave! - - - - - III - - UTAMARO - - -I feel I scent, in facing Utamaro’s ladies, whether with no -soul or myriad souls (certainly ladies, be they courtesans or -_geishas_, who never bartered their own beauty and songs away), the -rich-soft passionate odour of rare old roses; when I say I hear the -silken-delicate summer breezes winging in the picture, I mean that the -Japanese sensuousness (is it the scent or pang of a lilac or thorn?) -makes my senses shiver at the last moment when it finally turns to -spirituality. It was our Japanese civilisation of soul, at least -in olden time under Tokugawa’s regime, not to distinguish between -sensuousness and spirituality, or to see at once the spiritual in the -sensuous; I once wrote down as follows, upon the woman drawn by lines, -or, more true to say, by the absence of lines, in snake-like litheness -of attitude, I might say more subtle than Rossetti’s Lillith, with such -eyes only opened to see love: - - “Too common to say she is the beauty of line, - However, the line old, spiritualised into odour, - (The odour soared into an everlasting ghost from life and death), - As a gossamer, the handiwork of a dream, - ’Tis left free as it flaps: - The lady of Utamaro’s art is the beauty of zephyr flow. - I say again, the line with the breath of love, - Enwrapping my heart to be a happy prey: - Sensuous? To some so she may appear, - But her sensuousness divinised into the word of love.” - -[Sidenote: THE LADY OF UTAMARO’S ART] - -Although I can enjoy and even criticise Hiroshige or Hokusai at any -time and in any place, let me tell you that I cannot do so with -Utamaro, because I must be first in the rightest mood (who says bodies -have no mood?) as when I see the living woman; to properly appreciate -his work of art I must have the fullness of my physical strength so -that my criticism is disarmed. (Criticism? Why, that is the art for -people imperfect in health, thin and tired.) I feel, let me confess, -almost physical pain—is it rather a joy?—through all my adoration in -seeing Utamaro’s women, just as when with the most beautiful women -whose beauty first wounds us; I do not think it vulgarity to say that I -feel blushing with them, because the true spiritualism would please to -be parenthesised by bodily emphasis. It is your admiration that makes -you bold; again your admiration of Utamaro’s pictures that makes them -a real part of yourself, therefore your vital question of body and -soul; and you shall never be able to think of them separately from -your personal love. When I say that we have our own life and art in his -work, I mean that all Japanese woman-beauty, love, passion, sorrow and -joy, in one word, all dreams now appear, then disappear, by the most -wonderful lines of his art. - -I will lay me down whenever I want to beautifully admire Utamaro and -spend half an hour with his lady (“To-day I am with her in silence -of twilight eve, and am afraid she may vanish into the mist”), in -the room darkened by the candle-light (it is the candle-light that -darkens rather than lights); every book or picture of Western origin -(perhaps except a few reprints from Rossetti or Whistler, which would -not break the atmosphere altogether) should be put aside. How can you -place together in the same room Utamaro’s women, for instance, with -Millet’s pictures or Carpenter’s “Towards Democracy"? The atmosphere I -want to create should be most impersonal, not touched or scarred by the -sharpness of modern individualism or personality, but eternally soft -and grey; under the soft grey atmosphere you would expect to see the -sudden swift emotion of love, pain, or joy of life, that may come any -moment or may not come at all. I always think that the impersonality or -the personality born out of the depth of impersonality was regarded in -older Japan as the highest, most virtuous art and life; now not talking -about life, but the art—Utamaro’s art, the chronicle or history of the -idealised harem or divan. How charming to talk with Utamaro on love and -beauty in the grey soft atmosphere particularly fitting to receive him -in, or to be received by him in. I would surely venture to say to him -on such a rare occasion: “You had no academy or any hall of mediocrity -in your own days to send your pictures to; that was fortunate, as you -appealed directly to the people eventually more artistic and always -just. I know that you too were once imprisoned under the accusation -of obscenity; there was the criticism also in your day which saw the -moral and the lesson, but not the beauty and the picture. When you say -how sorry you were to part with your picture when it was done, I fully -understand your artistic heart, because the picture was too much of -yourself; perhaps you confessed your own love and passion too nakedly. -I know that you must have been feeling uneasy or even afraid to be -observed or criticised too closely.” - -[Sidenote: THE ACCUSATION OF OBSCURITY] - -As a certain critic remarked, the real beauty flies away like an -angel whenever an intellect rushes in and begins to speak itself; the -intellect, if it has anything to do, certainly likes to show up itself -too much, with no consideration for the general harmony that would soon -be wounded by it. Utamaro’s art, let me dare say, is as I once wrote: - - “She is an art (let me call her so) - Hung, as a web, in the air of perfume, - Soft yet vivid, she sways in music: - (But what sadness in her saturation of life!) - Her music lives in intensity of a moment and then dies; - To her, suggestion is her life. - She is the moth-light playing on reality’s dusk, - Soon to die as a savage prey of the moment; - She is a creation of surprise (let me say so), - Dancing gold on the wire of impulse.” - -Some one might say that Utamaro’s ladies are brainless, but is it not, -as I said before, that the sacrifice of individuality or personality -makes them join at once with the great ghosts of universal beauty and -love? They are beautiful, because all the ghosts and spirits of all -the ages and humanity of Japan speak themselves through them; it is -perfectly right of him not to give any particular name to the pictures, -because they are not the reflection of only one woman, but of a hundred -and thousand women; besides, Utamaro must have been loving a little -secrecy and mystification to play with the public’s curiosity. - -[Sidenote: THE UKIYOYE WOMAN] - -We have his art; that is quite enough. What do I care about his life, -what he used to wear and eat, how long he slept and how many hours -he worked every day; in fact, what is known as his life is extremely -slight. It is said that he was a sort of hanger-on to Juzaburo Tsutaya, -the well-known publisher of his day, at the house within a stone’s -throw of Daimon or Great Gate of Yoshiwara, the Nightless City of -hired beauties and lanterns, where, the story says, Utamaro had his -nightly revel of youthful days as a fatal slave to female enchantment; -while we do not know whether he revelled there or not, we know that -as Yoshiwara of those times was the rendezvous of beauty, good looks, -and song, not all physical, but quite spiritual, we can believe that -he must have wandered there for his artistic development. Indeed there -was his great art beautifully achieved when he suddenly entered into -idealism or dream where sensuousness and spirituality find themselves -to be blood brothers or sisters. In the long history of Japanese art we -see the most interesting turn in the appearance of a new personality, -that is the Ukiyoye woman; and who was the artist who perfected them -to the art of arts? He was Utamaro. You may abuse and criticise, if -you will, their unnaturally narrow squint eyes and egg-shaped smooth -face; but from the mask his woman wears I am deliciously impressed -with the strange yet familiar, old but new, artistic personality. The -times change, and we are becoming more intellectual, as a consequence, -physically ugly; is it too sweeping or one-sided to say that? I have, -however, many reasons for my wishing to see more influence of Utamaro’s -art. - - - - - IV - - HIROSHIGE - - -The Sumida River’s blue began to calm down, like that of an old -Japanese colour-print, into the blue, I should say, of silence which -had not been mixed with another colour to make life; that blue, it -might be said, did not exist so much in the river as in my very mind, -which has lately grown, following a certain Mr. Hopper, to cry, -"Hiro—Hiro—Hiroshige the Great!” The time was late afternoon of one day -in last April; the little boat which carried a few souls like mine, -who, greatly troubled by the modern life, were eager to gain the true -sense of perspective towards Nature, glided down as it finished the -regular course of the “Cherry-blossom viewing at Mukojima.” And my mind -entered slowly into a picture of my own creation—nay, Hiroshige’s. -“Look at the view from here. (I was thinking of Hiroshige’s Sumidagawa -Hanasakari among his Yedo pictures.) It may be too late now to agree -with Wilde when he said that Nature imitates Art,” I said to my friend. -He saw at once my meaning, though not clearly, and expanded on how -artistically the human mind has been advancing lately; and I endorsed -him with the fact that I have come to see, for some long time, the -Japanese scenery through Hiroshige’s eye. My friend exclaimed: “Is -it not the same thing, when you think Nature imitates Art, that your -mind itself imitates the Art first?” It is not written in any book -how much Hiroshige was appreciated in his day; but I believe I am not -wrong to say that he is now reaching the height of popularity in both -the East and the West, of popularity in the real sense, and you will -easily understand me when I say that he is the artist of the future in -the same sense that I disbelieve in the birth register of Turner and -Whistler. He is, in truth, greatly in advance, even if I fancy he is -an artist of the present day, your contemporary and mine; I always go -to him to find where Nature is pleased to put her own emphasis. Every -picture of his I see seems to be a new one always; and the last is -ever so surprising as to leave my mind incapable for the time being of -apprehension of his other pictures. One picture of his is enough; there -is the proof of his artistic greatness. - -[Sidenote: NATURE IN HER EMPHASIS] - -We did not know until recently what meant the words realism and -idealism (should we thank the Western critics?) except this: “The -artist, whatever he be, idealist or realist or what not, is good when -he is true to his art. I mean that technique or method of expression -is secondary; even the seeming realistic picture of Oriental art is, -when it is splendid, always subjective.” I have many reasons to call -Hiroshige an idealist or subjective artist, now playing an arbitrary -art of criticism after the Western fashion, as I only see his artistic -wisdom, but nothing else in his being true to Nature; that wisdom, I -admit, helped his art to a great measure, but what I admire in him -is the indefinable quality which, as I have no better word, I will -call atmosphere or pictorial personality. It seems that he learned -the secret from Chinese landscape art how to avoid femininity and -confusion; the difference between his art and that of the Chinese -artist is that where the one drew a _bonseki_, or tray-landscape, -with sand from memory, the latter made a mirage in the sky. When -Hiroshige fails he reminds me of Emerson’s words of suggestion to look -at Nature upside down through your legs; his success, as that of the -Chinese artist, is poetry. And our Oriental poetry is no other kind -but subjectivity. I have right here before me the picture called “Awa -no Naruto,” which is more often credited to be the work of the second -Hiroshige; now let me, for once and all, settle the question that there -were many Hiroshiges. It is my opinion there was only one Hiroshige; -I say this because in old Japan (a hundred times more artistic than -present Japan) the individual personality was not recognised, and -when an artist adopted the name of Hiroshige by merit and general -consent, it meant that he grew at once incarnated with it; what use is -there to talk about its second or third? I prefer to regard Hiroshige -as the title of artistic merit since it has ceased in fact to be -an individuality; indeed, where is the other artist, East or West, -whose life-story is so little known as Hiroshige’s? And I see so many -pictures which, while bearing his signature, I cannot call his work, -because I see them so much below the Hiroshige merit—for instance, -the whole upright series of Tokaido and Yedo, and so many pictures of -the “Noted Places in the Provinces of Japan"—because they are merely -prose, and even as prose they often fail. But to return to this “Awa -no Naruto,” a piece of poem in picture, where the whirlpools of the -strait, large and small, now rising and then falling in perfect rhythm, -are drawn suggestively but none the less distinctly. I see in it not -only the natural phenomenon of the Awa Strait, but also the symbolism -of life’s rise and fall, success and defeat; I was thinking for some -time that I shall write a poem on it, although I could not realise it -yet. - -[Sidenote: HIROSHIGE THE CHINESE POET] - -I have my own meaning when I call Hiroshige the Chinese poet. Upon -my little desk here I see an old book of Chinese prosody; there is -a popular Chinese verse, Hichigon Zekku, or Four Lines with Seven -Words in Each, which is almost as rigid as the English sonnet; and the -theory of the sonnet can be applied to that Hichigon Zekku without any -modification. We generally attach an importance to the third line, -calling it the line “for change,” and the fourth is the conclusion; the -first line is, of course, the commencing of the subject, and the second -is “to receive and develop.” It seems that Hiroshige’s good pictures -very well pass this test of Hichigon Yekku qualification. Let me pick -out the pictures at random to prove my words. Here is the “Bright Sky -after Storm at Awazu,” one of the series called Eight Views of the -Lake Biwa; in it the white sails ready to hoist in the fair breeze -might be the “change” of the versification. That picture was commenced -and developed with the trees and rising hills by the lake, and the -conclusion is the sails now visible and then invisible far away. Now -take the picture of a rainstorm on the Tokaido. Two peasants under a -half-opened paper umbrella, and the _Kago_-bearers naked and hasty, are -the “third line” of the picture; the drenched bamboo dipping all one -way and the cottage roofs shivering under the threat of Nature would be -the first and second lines, while this picture-poem concludes itself -with the sound of the harsh oblique fall of rain upon the ground. You -will see that Hiroshige’s good pictures have always such a theory of -composition; and he gained it, I think, from the Chinese prosody. In -the East, more than in the West, art is allied to verse-making. - -[Sidenote: THE FAREWELL VERSE] - -When we consider the fact he was the artist of only fifty years ago, it -is strange why we cannot know more of his own life story, and how he -happened to leave the words that generally pass as a farewell verse as -follows:— - -“I leave my brush at Azuma, and go on the journey to the Holy West to -view the famous scenery there.” - -I cannot accept it innocently, and I even doubt its origin, as it is -more prosaic than poetical. It is only that he followed after a fashion -of his day if he left it, as the verse is poor and at best humorous. -But when it is taken by the English seriousness, the words have another -effect. Indeed, Hiroshige has had quite an evolution since he was -discovered in the West; he is, in truth, more an English or European -artist than a Japanese in the present understanding. - - - - - V - - GAHO HASHIMOTO - - -[Sidenote: _KOKOROMOCHI_ IN PICTURE] - -The art of Gaho (Hashimoto’s _nom-de-plume_, signifying the “Kingdom -Refined”) is not to discard form and detail, as is often the case -with the artists of the “Japanese school,” while they soar into the -grey-tinted vision of tone and atmosphere. His conventionalism—remember -that he started his artist’s life as a student of the Kano school, -whose absurd classicism, arresting the germ of development, invited -its own ruin—was not an enemy for him by any means. With the magic of -his own alchemy he turned it into a transcendental beauty, bearing the -dignity of artistic authority. I am sure he must have been glad to -have the conventionalism for his magic to work on afterward; and when -he left it, it seems to me, he looked back to it with a reminiscence -of sad longing. Conventionalism is not bad when it does not dazzle. To -make it suggestive is an achievement. To speak of Gaho’s individuality -in his pictures does no justice to him. His thought and conception -are the highest, and at the least different from many another artist -in the West. It is not his aim at all to express the light and colour -of his individuality. I believe that he even despised it. He had -the volumes of the Oriental philosophy in himself; and his idea, I -believe, was much influenced by the Zen sect Buddhism, whose finality -in teaching is to forget your ego. Gaho often talked on _Kokoromochi_ -in picture, to use his favourite expression, which, I am sure, means -more than “spirit.” “Now what is it?” he was frequently asked. “Is -it in its nature subjective or objective? Or is it something like a -combination of the two?” He was never explanatory in speech in his -life. He thought, as a Zen priest, that silence was the best answer. -Let me explain his _Kokoromochi_ in picture by my understanding. - -It is life or vital breath of the objective character, which is -painted by one who has no stain of eye or subjectivity. To lose your -subjectivity against the canvas, or, I will say, here in Japan, the -silk, is the first and last thing. And the perfect assimilation -with the object which you are going to paint would be the way of -emancipation. You have to understand that you are called out by a -divine voice only to be a medium, but nothing else. I am afraid that -the phrase, “Let Nature herself speak,” has been over-used. However, -it is peculiarly true in Gaho’s case. I think Gaho thought that to -flash the rays of his individuality in his picture was nothing but a -blasphemy against Nature. In that respect he is the humblest artist, -and at the same time his humility is his own pride. Indeed, it is only -through humility you are admitted to step into the inner shrine of -Nature. Art for Gaho was not the matter of a piece of silk and Chinese -ink, but a sacred thing. And to be an artist is a life’s greatest -triumph, and I am sure that Gaho was that. - -I have been for some long time suspecting the nature of development -of artistic appreciation of the Western mind, when only Hokusai’s -and Hiroshige’s pictures, let me say, of red and green in tone of -conception, called its special attention, and I even thought that our -Japanese art, with the silence of blue and grey, would be perfectly -beyond its power of reach. When Nature soars higher, she turns at once -to the depth of dreams, whose voice is silence. To express the grey -stillness of atmosphere and tone is the highest art, at least, to the -Japanese mind. Not only in the picture, but in the “tea house” or -incense ceremony, or in the garden, the appreciation of silence is the -highest æsthetics. It gives you a strong but never abrupt thrill of the -delight which is nobly touched by the hands of sadness, and lets you -lose yourself in it, and slowly grasp something you may be glad to call -ideal. And the same sensation you can entertain from Gaho’s art, which -you might think to be reminiscent of a certain artistic paradise or -Horai, the blest—one of his favourite subjects—enwrapped in silent air. -You may call it idealism if you will, but it was nothing for him but -the realisation. While you think it was his fancy, he saw it with his -own naked eyes. It is true that he had been delivered from idealism. -And I should say that dream, too, is not less real than you and I. - -[Sidenote: NOTHING BUT THE REALISATION] - -He never jars you. His art is a grey ghost of melody born from the -bosom of depth and distance, like a far-off mountain. And it gives -you a thrill of large space that binds you with eternity, and you -will understand that what you call reality is nothing but a shiver of -impulse of great Nature. His art, indeed, is the highest art of Japan, -which, I believe, will be also the highest art of the West. It quite -often stirs me with a Western suggestion, which, however, springs from -the soil of his own bosom. I know that there is a meeting-point of the -East and West, and that, after all, they are the same thing. He found -the secret of art, which will remind any highly developed mind of both -the East and West of some memory, and let it feel something like an -emotion and fly into a higher realm of beauty. (Gaho’s beauty is the -beauty of silence.) It goes without saying that his art is simple, and -his vision not complex. However, it is not only an Oriental philosophy -to say that the greatest simplicity is the greatest complexity, and I -will say that Gaho holds both extremes. The elements of his art embrace -something older than art, larger than life, something which inspires -you with the sense of profundity. They give us strange and positive -pulses of age and nature, and the sudden rapture of dream, for which -we will gladly die. They give us the feeling of peace and silence, and -suggest something which we wish to grasp. The delight we gain from Gaho -is purely spiritual. His pictures are living as a ghost which vanishes -and again appears. - -His conception of Buddhism was not sad, although this religion is -generally said to be a pessimism, but joyous and sympathetic. I am -sure that to associate Buddhism with something of grief and tears -is not a proper understanding at all. (See Gaho’s pictures of the -Buddha and _Rakans_, the Buddha disciples. They do not inspire any -awfulness.) Tenderness and joy, with a touch of sorrow, which is -poetry, are the road toward the Nirvana. For Gaho, silence meant the -highest state of peacefulness. The sad joy, which is the highest joy, -is an evolution which never breaks the euphony of life, while tears and -grief are rebellious. His art inspires in us a great reverence, which -is religious, and it is always justified. And it reveals a light of -faith under which he was born as an artist, and he was glad to fulfil -his appointed work. Then his aspiration is never an accident, but the -force which he cherished and has made grow. - -[Sidenote: GAHO’S THREE PERIODS] - -Gaho’s life of seventy-five years, which had closed in the month of -January, 1907, can be divided into three periods. The first is that in -which he was engaged in the pursuit of the ancient method by copying -the models after the fashion of the Kano school; the second was that in -which he slowly broke loose from the trammels of the Kano school, and -ventured out to make a thorough exploration of the conspicuous features -of various other schools; and the final was that in which he revealed -himself nobly, with all the essence of art which he had earned from his -tireless journey of previous days. In one word, he was the sum total -of the best Japanese art. It is said that his long life was but one -long day of study and work. He shut himself in his silent studio from -early morning till evening, from evening till midnight, sitting before -a piece of spread silk, with a Chinese brush in hand, as if before a -Buddhistic altar where the holy candles burn. Now his research went -deep in the Chinese schools of the ages of Sung, Yuen, and Ming, and -then his thoughts lingered by the glimmer of the Higashiyama school’s -reminiscences. He confessed that he received no small influence from -the Korin school, and I have more than one reason to believe that his -knowledge of the Western art also was considerable. His catholicity of -taste severely discriminated them, and his philosophy or conception of -art stood magnificently above them, and never allowed them to disturb -it under any circumstances. His great personality made him able to sing -the song of triumph over his boundless artistic knowledge which had -no power to oppress him. You might call his art a work of inspiration -if you wish; but I am sure that he hated the word inspiration. It was -through the religious exaltation of his mind that he could combine -himself with Nature, and he and the subject which he was going to -paint were perfectly one when the picture was done. His artist’s magic -is in his handling of lines. He believed that Japanese painting was -fundamentally one of lines. What a charm, what a variety he had with -them! See the difference between the lines he used for the pictures -of a tiger or a dragon in clouds, the Oriental symbol of power and -exaltation, and a bird or other delicate subject. The lines themselves -are the pictures. However, that does not mean to undervalue his equal -pre-eminence in his art of colour. - -[Sidenote: HIS FOUR YEARS OF PUPILAGE] - -Gaho—or Gaho Hashimoto—was born in the fifth year of Tempo (1832) at -Kobikicho, in Yedo, now Tokyo. From his seventh year he was taught how -to draw and paint; at thirteen he became for the first time a pupil -of Shosen Kano. It is said that Gaho was from an artistic family; we -can trace back to Yeiki Hashimoto, who lived some time in the Meiwa -(1764), and from whom the family line has continued unbroken down to -the present. Yeiki was originally a native of Kyoto; and there he -happened to be known to Suwonokami Matsudaira, the Shogun’s minister, -who took him into his service; and on the lordship’s return to Yedo -Mr. Hashimoto accompanied his master. And he happened to settle -at Kobikicho, where the Kano family lived, and soon gained Kano’s -friendship. Since that time the family line was continued by Ikyo, -Itei, and Yoho. Gaho was Yoho’s son. The year after he became a student -of the Kano school he lost his father and also his mother. It is said -to be extraordinary that he was called upon to act, after only four -years of pupilage, as an assistant to his master Shosen in painting -personal figures on the cedar door of the Shogun palace. At twenty -years of age he was made head pupil. When he married he was twenty-six -years old, and he began to lead his independent life, which turned -tragic immediately. While the problem of getting his subsistence was -not easy, his wife, whom he married with hope, became insane. - -Mrs. Hashimoto was obliged to withdraw to the Higuchi village in -Saitama prefecture, where was an estate of her husband’s master, to -avoid danger in the city; but she grew worse, and ran mad. And it -is said that such a sad turn was from the reason that she was often -tormented by some country ruffians. She was soon taken back to the -city again, where she was put under her husband’s sole protection. -Thus, when poor Gaho’s mind was completely engrossed with his family -trouble, the great restoration of Meiji (1866) was announced, and the -feudalism which had prospered for some three hundred years fell to the -ground. Whole Japan was thrown at once in the abyss of social tumult -and change; under the speedily felt foreign invasion she lost herself -entirely. What she did was to destroy old Japan; she thought it proper -and even wise. It was the darkest age for art; when people did not -know of the safety of their own existence, it goes without saying that -they had no time to admire art and spend money for it. It is perfectly -miraculous to think how the artists managed to live; there are, of -course, many heart-rending stories about them. - -[Sidenote: TWENTY SEN FOR HIS THREE DAYS] - -Gaho’s is sad enough, although it may not be saddest of all. He gave up -his own painting temporarily, and tried to get a pittance by painting -pictures on folding fans which were meant for exportation to China. -And it is said that he was often scorned by his employer for his -clumsy execution and, sadder still, he was told to leave his job. Is -it Heaven’s right to treat one who was destined to be a great artist -like that? He now resorted to a manual work of linking metal rings -for making a sort of net-work; this chain-work, when finished, it is -said, was made into something to be worn as an undergarment. Then he -turned to take up the handicraft of making “koma,” or bridges (a kind -of small wooden or bamboo pillow inserted between the body of a musical -instrument and its strings), of the _shamisen_, a Japanese guitar; and -he was paid, I am told, one sen for a single piece of that koma, and -to make twenty it took him three days. Fancy his earning of twenty -sen for his steady work of three days! To recollect it in his later -days must have been for him the source of tears. And fancy again his -immense wealth when he died, the wealth which, not his greed, but his -single-minded devotion to art invited! In fact, there was no person -so unconcerned of money as this Gaho. It was his greatness to believe -amid the sudden falling of art that the Japanese art which had grown -from the very soil a thousand years old could not die so easily, and -that the people’s mind would open to it in a better condition; it was -his prophetic foresight to behold the morning light in the midnight -star. He was patiently waiting for his time when he should rise with -splendour; and he never left himself to be ruined among the sad whirl -of society and the nation’s unsympathetic commotion. He walked slowly -but steadily toward the star upon which he set his lofty eyes. He -stood aloof above the age. His life, not only in his art, was the song -of triumph too. - -To his relief, his insane wife died; and his appointment as a -draughtsman at the Imperial Naval Academy meant for him a substantial -help. He kept it up till the eighteenth year of Meiji, when the revival -of Japanese art began to be chronicled, as Gaho expected, in the -formation of art societies like the Kanga Kwai or Ryuchi Kwai. When he -left the Naval Academy he was called to do service at the Investigation -Bureau of Drawing and Painting in the Department of Education. His -fellow-workers were the most lamented Hogai Kano, another great artist -of modern Japan, and the late Mr. Okakura, that able art critic, in -whose guidance Kano trusted. And those three men at the start are the -true life-restorers of Japanese art. When the Tokyo School of Art -was founded (22nd year of Meiji), Gaho was first made warden of the -school, and then its director. And he was appointed professor when his -investigation bureau happened to close up. However, he voluntarily -resigned his professorship when Mr. Okakura, then the president of the -school, was obliged to resign his office. Gaho took the principal’s -chair of the Nippon Bijitsu when Okakura established it afterwards; but -this school soon became a story of the past. - -[Sidenote: GAHO’S SUCCESSORS] - -Gaho has left his successors perhaps in those artists like Kwanzan -Shimomura, Taikwan Yokoyama, Kogetsu Saigo and others, who are doing -some noteworthy work. And I believe that he died at the right time if -he must. - - - - - VI - - KYOSAI - - -[Sidenote: THE WINE AND ARTISTS’ MINDS] -[Sidenote: THE ILLUSTRATED AUTOBIOGRAPHY] - -I acknowledged my friend’s characterisation, after some reluctance, of -our Kyosai Kawanabe as a Japanese Phil May; as the artist of _Punch_ -has often received the appellation of an English Hokusai, I do not -see much harm, speaking generally, in thus falling into the feminine -foible of comparison-making. Putting aside the question of the material -achievement in art of those artists of the East and West, in truth so -different (Kyosai surpassing the other, let me say, in variety), one -will soon see that their innermost artistic characters are closely -related; their seeming difference is the difference of education and -circumstances from which even their original minds could hardly escape. -I do not know much of the bacchanalianism of Phil May, but I know -well enough that its sway is not so expansive in England as in Japan, -at least old Japan, where the fantastic artists like Kyosai revelled -around the ghosts they created in the sweet cup of _saké_. When we see -Kyosai writing in front of his name the epithet Shojo, applied to the -half-human red-haired bacchanals of Chinese legend, we might say he -betrayed, beside his full-faced confession of the love of the cup, the -fact of his natural attachment to Toba Sojo, that apostle of humour, -whose pictorial wantonness may have given him many a hint; indeed he -might have, like Phil May, adorned the pages of _Punch_, although -many an admirer of his, like Josiah Conder in _Paintings and Studies -by Kyosai Kawanabe_, a sumptuous book on the artist containing the -representative work of his last eight years, sees only the serious side -of his work. And when he changed the Chinese character of his name from -that of “dawn” to that of “madness,” I think that he was laughing, at -his own expense, over the lawless excitement he most comically acted -when the excess of wine deceived him away from the imaginative path of -inspiration, while, like Hokusai in the well-known epithet Gwakyo Rojin -or Old Man Crazy at Painting, he sanctified to himself his own craze -for painting. It is an interesting psychological study to speculate -on the possible relation between the Japanese wine and our artists’ -minds; I think it was a superstition or faith, I might say, founded -on tradition, that they called the wine an invoker of inspiration, -as I see the fact to-day that many of them find the divine breath in -something else. However, I am thankful to the Japanese liquid with its -golden flash, if it really acted as the medium through which Kyosai’s -many pictures came into existence, while his many other works, for -instance the frontispiece woodcut of Professor Conder’s Kyosai book, -the elaborate picture of a Japanese beauty of the eleventh century, -or the famous courtesan, Jigoku-dayu, in company with a demon, also -the highly finished work owned by Mrs. William Anderson, or the other -pictures I have seen more or less by accident, prove that he can be -an equally splendid artist in a different direction while in perfect -sobriety. He was born in the year 1831, that is about thirty years, -roughly speaking, before the fall of the Tokugawa feudalism, when the -age was fast decaying into loose morality and _saké_-drinking; and -when he became a man, he found that the art’s dignity under whose kind -shadow he had studied as a student of Tohaku Kano, the leading artist -of that famous Kano family in those days, had fallen flat, and that -his ability made no satisfactory impression on people who had likely -forgotten their artistic appreciation in the tumult of the Restoration; -and I think it was natural enough for Kyosai to call upon the wine, as -we say here, to sweep away the grievance, and to invoke, through it, a -divine influence upon his art. And it is the old Japanese way to speak -of wine-drinking and general revel with innocent gusto, as I find in -_Kyosai Gwaden_, an illustrated autobiography here and there humorously -exaggerated but none the less sincere, from which all the writers on -Kyosai, Professor Conder included, draw the materials of his life; -he is often in danger of being criticised for his self-advertising -audacity, this artist of fine madness. He often reminds me of Hokusai, -not so much in his artistic expression as in temperament. The books, I -mean _Kyosai Gwaden_, cannot be said, I think, to be more interesting -in text than the pictures themselves; these are a series of off-hand -sketches showing the actual scenes of his arrest and imprisonment, the -story of which Professor Conder’s English propriety excluded, although -it seems perfectly harmless as it was, on his part, merely the conduct -arising out of merriment from excess of wine; beside, his sketches show -us the sickening gloominess of prison life in those days when one’s -freedom and right were denied rather than protected. Kyosai drank most -terribly at a party held at a restaurant in Uyeno Park; he made on -the spot the caricatures—while overhearing the talk of a foreigner on -horseback who, being asked by a tea-house maid at Oji if he came alone, -replied that he came accompanied by “a pair of fools"—in which he drew -the picture of two people tying the shoe-strings of one man with the -longest legs, and also the picture of men of the longest arms pulling -out the hairs of Daibutsu’s nostrils. The authorities, though it is not -clear how the matter came to their knowledge, stepped into the place -and arrested him on the ground of insulting the officials; we must be -thankful for the “enlightenment” of to-day when nobody would possibly -get, as Kyosai got in 1870, ninety days in the cell from such pictures. -The real meaning of Kyosai’s impromptu in art is rather vague; but it -is in my mind a satirical love to understand them as a huge laughter -over Japan’s slavishness to the West. And I often wonder if they are -not caricatures which could be used to-day. Where is another Kyosai -who could raise such a striking brush of scorn and sneer as to startle -authority? - -[Sidenote: THE PROUD PLEBEIANISM] - -Kyosai used to absorb his spare time, while a young student at Kano’s -atelier, in the study of the _No_ drama—out of natural love, I believe, -combined with zeal to find an artistic secret in its heterogeneity, -unlike the other students who sought their outside amusement nightly -in popular halls of music and song; and it was an elderly lady of the -Kano family who encouraged him by furnishing funds for teacher and -costumes, being impressed, as a _No_ admirer herself, by the young -man’s noble intention. It seems that Kyosai had not been able to fulfil -the old lady’s desire to see him in one of her favourite pieces called -_Sambaso_, whether from his imperfect mastering of it then or from some -other reason, when she suddenly fell ill and died; doubtless, Kyosai -took the matter to his heart of hearts. It was on the day of her third -anniversary that he gathered all the musician accompanists of flute -and drum before her lonely grave at Uyeno, and he, of course in the -full costume of the character, performed the whole piece of the said -_Sambaso_. Fancy the scene in the graveyard damp with mosses, dark with -the falling foliage; and the actor is no other but fantastic Kyosai. -Where could be found a more gruesome sight than that? This story among -others we find in _Kyosai Gwaden_ is most characteristic in that no -other artist of the long Japanese history, perhaps with the possible -exception of Hokusai, could make it fit for himself; the story reveals -Kyosai’s honesty almost to a fault, that sounds at once childish or -madman-like, a temperament, unlike that of Southern Japan of female -refinement and voluptuousness, which only the proud plebeianism of the -Yedo civilisation (what an ultra-European imbecility of present Tokyo!) -could create, the temperament, uncompromising, most difficult to be -neutral. If we call Icho Hanabusa the most proper representative of old -Yedo’s Genroku Age, the time when people found spirituality through -the consecration of materialism, I think we can well call Kyosai the -representative of the later Tokugawa Age (although his life extended a -good many years into the present Meiji era) which, again like his own -art, fell with the abruptness of an oak-tree. I have some reason when I -beg your attention to the above characteristic story of Kyosai. - -The love of the _No_ drama, the classic of lyrical fascination -exclusively patronised by nobles and people of taste, would never be -taken as strange in Kyosai who stayed sixteen long years with that -master of the old Kano art, Tohaku Kano, till he parted from it in his -twenty-seventh year perhaps for an art wider and truer, or, let me say, -to find his own artistic soul all by his own impulse and strength; and -when we see what attachment, even reverence, he had, during his whole -life, toward the name of Toiku given him by the old master, the name -we find in _Kyosai Gwaden_ and other books, we can safely say that his -classic passion in general must have been quite strong. The question -is where his plebeianism could find room to rise and fall. That is the -point where, not only in his art, also in his personality, he showed in -spite of himself a tragi-comic oddity, mainly from the rupture between -the two extremes of temperament. I am told by his personal friend who -survives to-day that he was rather pleased to shock and frighten the -most polite society which reverently congregated in the silent house -of the _No_ drama, to begin with, by his informal dress only suitable -for the street shopkeeper or mechanic, then with his occasional shout -of praise over the beautiful turn of the acting, in a voice touched -with vulgar audacity; he exclaimed, “Umei!” Yedo slang for “splendid,” -which was at least unusual for a _No_ appreciator. Nobody seemed, I am -told, to criticise him when his good old heart was well recognised. -So in his own art. I can point out, even from Professor Conder’s -collection alone, many a specimen where the aristocratic aloofness of -air is often blurred by his plebeianism—for example in the pictures of -“Daruma,” “The Goddess Kwannon on a Dragon,” “Carp swimming in a Lake,” -and others; the meaning I wish to impress on your mind will become -clear directly when you compare them with the work of Sesshu, Motonobu, -and Okyo on similar subjects. And again I have enough confidence to -say that his elaborate pictures of red and green, after the Ukiyoye -school, were more often weakened by the classic mist; although he -did not wish to be looked upon as of that school, I think it was the -main reason that he rather failed as an Ukiyoye artist. I endorse my -friend to whom I praised and abused Kyosai lately only to get his true -estimation, when he declared that Kyosai could not become one of the -greatest artists of Japan simply from his inability to sacrifice his -versatility; that versatility was the kind we can only find in Hokusai. -He was the most distinguished example of one who failed, if he failed, -from excess of artistic power and impulse. - -[Sidenote: WEAKENED BY THE CLASSIC MIST] - -Any one who sees _Kyosai Gwaden_ will certainly be astonished by his -extraordinary persistence of study displayed in the first two volumes, -in which he shows encyclopedically the delicate shades of variety of -nearly all Japanese artists acknowledged great, from Kanaoka down to -Kuniyoshi, also specimens of Chinese masters inserted at intervals. -When I say that his artistic study was thorough even in the modern -sense, I mean he always went straight to Nature and reality to fulfil -what the pictures of old masters failed to tell him. _Kyosai Gwaden_ -tells, as an early adventure in Nature study, how he hid in a cupboard -a human head which he picked up from a swollen river and horrified -the family with his attempt to sketch it in his ninth year; when fire -broke out and swept away even his own house, he became an object of -condemnation, as he acted as if it were the affair of somebody else, -and was seen serenely sketching the sudden clamour of the fire scene. -The books contain somewhere a page or two of unusually amusing sketches -of his students at work on different living objects, from a frog and -turtle to cocks and fishes; Kyosai’s love of fun in exaggeration -(indeed exaggeration is one of the traits conspicuous even in his most -serious work) again is seen in the sketches, when he made a monkey -play at gymnastics and pull the hair of the earnest student with the -brush. I often ask myself the question of the real merit of realism -in our Japanese art, and further the question how much Kyosai gained -from his realistic accuracy; I wonder what artistic meaning there is, -for instance, when people, even acknowledged critics, speak with much -admiration of the anatomical exactness of those skeletons fantastically -dancing to the ghost’s music in that famous Jigoku-dayu picture. Let -me ask again what the picture would lose, supposing, for instance, the -most whimsical dancers around the courtesan’s gorgeous robe had two or -three joints of bone missing; is not Kyosai’s realistic minuteness, -which the artist was perhaps proud of displaying, in truth, rather a -small subordinate part in his pictures? He was already in the present -age, many years before his death, when many a weak artistic mind of -Japan only received, from the Western art, confusion and reasoning, but -not strength and passion. Now let me ask you: was it Kyosai’s artistic -greatness to accept the Western science of art? - -[Sidenote: THE REALISTIC MINUTENESS] - -He was never original in the absolute understanding as Sesshu, Korin, -in a lesser degree Harunobu and Hokusai were; it might be that he -was born too late in the age, or is it more true to say that his -astonishing knowledge of the old Japanese art acted to hold him back -from striking out an original line? Education often makes one a coward. -When I say that he was himself the sum total of all Japanese art, I do -not mean to undervalue him, but rather to do justice to his versatility -and the swing of his power. And it was his personality, unique and -undefinable, that made his borrowing such an impression as we feel it -in fact in his work. After all, he has to be judged, in my opinion, as -an artist of technique. - -I do not know what picture of his the Victoria and Albert Museum and -the British Museum have, except a few reproductions in books, which -impressed me as poor examples. It is not too much to say that Professor -Conder’s Kyosai book is the first and may be the last; there is no more -fit man than he, who as Kyosai’s student knew him personally during the -last eight years of his life. The book contains some good specimens -which belong to that period; but what I most wish to see, are the -pictures he produced in his earlier age. He is one of the artists who -will gain much from selection; who will ever publish a book of twenty -or thirty best pieces of his life’s production? - - - - - VII - - THE LAST MASTER OF THE UKIYOYE ART - - -Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, as Kuniyoshi’s home student of high talent in his -younger days, it is said, had a key to the storehouse entrusted to -his care, where Kuniyoshi treasured foreign colour-prints of saints -or devils strayed from a Dutch ship, Heaven’s gift most rare in those -days, which made him pause a little and think about a fresh turn for -his work. When we know that vulgarity always attracts us first and -most, provided it is new to us, we cannot blame Yoshitoshi much when -he reproduced in his work, indeed, stealing a march on his master, -an immediate response to the Western art, whose secret he thought he -could solve through varnishing. Doubtless it was no small discovery -for Yoshitoshi. And the general public were equally simple when -“Kwaidai Hyaku Senso,” his first attempt after the new departure, quite -impressive as he thought, was well received by them; when he went too -far in this foreign imitation through his little knowledge, as in his -“Battle at Uyeno,” he varnished the whole picture. We have another -instance that time is, after all, the best judge, as we know that -those pictures of Yoshitoshi’s early days, when he had not yet found -his own art, are most peacefully buried under the blessed oblivion and -heavy dusts to-day. You cannot make an art only by wisdom and prayer, -and it is better to commit youthful sin when one must, like Yoshitoshi, -with his period of foreign imitation, since his later work would become -intensified, chastened, and better balanced by his repentance. - -[Sidenote: THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE] - -To speak most strictly, Kuniyoshi should be called the last master -of the Ukiyoye school, this interesting branch of Japanese art -interpreting the love and romance of the populace, peculiarly developed -through the general hatred of the aristocratic people; but I have -reason to call Yoshitoshi Tsukioka the very last master of that school, -in the same sense that we call Danjuro or Kikugoro the last actors, -not less by the fact of the age, already heterogeneous, naturally -weakened for holding up the old Japanese purity, against which he -struggled hard to find an artistic compromise, than by his own gift. -I have often thought that, if he had been born earlier, he might have -proved himself another Hokusai, or, better still, if the time were -still earlier, when love and sensuality were the same word in peace and -prosperity, he would not have been much below Utamaro. If he failed, as -indeed he failed, now, looking back from to-day, it was the failure of -his age. Although it may sound paradoxical, I am pleased to say that -his failure was his success, because I see his undaunted versatility -glorified through his failure; he helps, more than any other artist, -the historian of Japanese art to study the age psychologically—in fact, -he serves him more than Hokusai or Utamaro. He is an interesting study, -as I said before, as the last master, indeed, as much so as Moronobu -Hishikawa as the recognised first master. I say Yoshitoshi failed, but -I do not mean that he was a so-called failure in his lifetime; on the -contrary, he was one of the most popular artists of modern Japan—at -least, in the age of his maturity; what I should like to say is that -the artistic success of one age does never mean the success of another -age, and Yoshitoshi’s success is, let me say, the success of failure -when we now look back upon it. I can distinctly remember even to-day -my great disappointment, now almost twenty-five years ago, as a most -ardent admirer of Yoshitoshi, when, appearing before the publisher’s -house as early as seven o’clock the morning after I had read the -announcement of his new picture of a dancer, I was told that the entire -set of copies was exhausted; his popularity was something great in my -boyhood’s days. It was in 1875 that he first took the public by storm -with his three sheets of pictures called “Ichi Harano,” an historical -thing which showed Yasumasa, a court noble, playing a bamboo flute -under the moonlight, perfectly unconscious of a highwayman, Hakama -Dare by name, following him, stepping softly upon the autumn grasses, -ready to stab the noble with his sword. The popularity of this picture -was heightened by the fact that Danjuro, the greatest tragedian of -the modern Japanese stage, wanted to reproduce the pictorial effect -in a play, and have Shinsuke Kawatake write up one special scene to -do honour to Yoshitoshi, under the title “Ichi Harano, by Yoshitoshi, -Powerful with his Brush.” It was a great honour indeed, such as no -artist to-day could expect to receive. We have many occasions, on the -other hand, when Yoshitoshi served the actors and his bosom friends, -Danjuro and Kikugoro, to popularise their art. Since the day of the -First Toyokuni, it had been the custom for the artists of this popular -school to work together with the stage artists. - -[Sidenote: THE CARVER AND PRINTER] - -Yoshitoshi brought out the series of three called “Snow, Moon, and -Flower,” two of them commemorating Danjuro in his well-known rôle -of Kuyemon Kezuri, and one Kikugoro in Seigen, whose holy life of -priesthood was disturbed by love beyond hope. Although I hesitate to -say they are the best specimens—yes, they are in their own way—they -have few companions in the long Ukiyoye annals as theatrical posters, -for which exaggeration should not be much blamed. The striking point -of emphasis in design, hitting well the artistic work, make them -worthy. I have them right before me while writing this brief note on -Yoshitoshi. I recall what I heard about the Kezuri picture; it is said -that the artist spent fully three days to draw this “hundred-days -wig,” to use the theatrical phrase. What an astonishing wig that rôle -had to wear. And what painstaking execution of the artist; and again -what wonderful dexterity of the Japanese carver and printer. At the -time when these pictures were produced it is not too much to say that -the arts of carving and printing had reached the highest possible -point—that is to say, they had already begun to fall. I am pleased to -attach a special value to them as the past pieces which well combined -those three arts. By the way, the name of the carver of those pictures -is Wadayu. Now, returning to Yoshitoshi and his actors-friends. The -former was always regarded by the latter as an artistic adviser whose -words were observed as law; Yoshitoshi was the first person Danjuro -used to look up when in trouble with the matter of theatrical design -in dress. I have often heard how the artist helped Kikugoro. This -eminent actor once had a great problem how to appear as Shini Gami, -or the Spirit of Death, in the play called _Kaga Zobi_, and asked -Yoshitoshi for a suggestion; and it is said that a rough sketch he drew -at once enlightened Kikugoro’s bewildered mind, and, as a result, -he immortalised the rôle. It was the age when realism, of course, in -more vague, doubtful meaning than the present usage, had completely -conquered the stage, the old idealistic stage art having fallen off -the pedestal. Certainly Danjuro, the first of all to be absorbed in -that realism which prevailed here twenty or twenty-five years ago, -did never serve the stage art for advancement, but, on the contrary, -it was the realism, if anything, that cheapened, trivialised, and -vulgarised the time-honoured Japanese art; but it seemed that there -was nobody to see that point of wisdom. It is ridiculous to know how -Danjuro insisted, as Tomonori, in the play of _Sembon Sakura_, that -the blood upon his armour should be painted as real as possible, and -troubled the great artistic brush of Yoshitoshi on each occasion -during the whole run of the play; but how serious the actor was in his -thought and determination! Again that realism was the main cause why -Yoshitoshi’s art failed to compete with the earlier Ukiyoye artists -like Shunsho, Utamaro, and even Hokusai; it was an art borrowed from -the West doubtless, when I observe how Yoshitoshi, unlike the earlier -artists, was delighted to use the straight, forceful lines as the -modern Western illustrators; the picture called “Daimatsuro” is a fit -example in which he carried out that tendency or mannerism with most -versatility. I daresay that his pictures, whether of historical heroes -or professional beauties, which were least affected by the so-called -realism or Western perspectives and observed carefully the old Ukiyoye -canons, limiting themselves in the most artistic shyness, would be only -prized as adorning his name as the last master; for the ninety per -cent. we have no grief for their hastening into blessed dusts. I have -in my collection the three-sheet picture called “Imayo Genji,” showing -the view of Chigoga Fuchi at Yenoshima, with the romantic posture of -four naked fisherwomen, which is dated very early in Yoshitoshi’s -artistic life, no doubt being the work of the time when he was still -a home student at Kuniyoshi’s studio or workshop; you can see the -artist’s allegiance to his teacher in those somewhat stooping woman -figures; there is no mistake to say that Yoshitoshi, at least in this -picture, had studied Hiroshige and Hokusai to advantage for the general -effect of rocks and fantastic waves. - -[Sidenote: “IMAYO GENJI"] - -Although it is clear that it is not a specimen of his developed art, -I have in mind to say that it will endure, perhaps as one of the best -Ukiyoye pictures of all ages, through its youthful loyalty to the -traditional old art and the painstaking composition for which the best -work is always marked. How artistically troubled, even lost, are his -later works, though once they were popular and even admired! - -[Sidenote: THE FAINT ECHO OF OKYO] - -Although he was, as I said above, most popular in the prime of his -life (by the way he died in his fifty-fourth year in June of 1892), -he had many years of poverty and discouragement when he complained -of the fact that he was born rather too late; his hardship, not only -spiritual, but material, soon followed after the happy period of -student life with Kuniyoshi, when his artistic ambition forced on -him independence. It was the time most inartistic, if there was ever -such a time in any country, when the new Meiji Government had hardly -settled itself on the sad ruins of the Tokugawa feudalism, under which -all prosperity and peace, even art and humanity, were buried, and the -people in general even thought the safety of their lives was beyond -reach, now with the so-called Civil War of Meiji Tenth, and then with -that or this. How could the artists get the people’s support under such -a condition of the times; indeed, Yoshitoshi fought bitterly for his -bare existence then. It was the time when he was extremely hard-up that -his home-students, Toshikage and Toshiharu, bravely served him in the -capacity of cook or for any other work; we cannot blame him that he -tried, with such pictures as the series called “Accident of the Lord -Ii,” to amuse and impress the people’s minds, which grew, in spite of -themselves, to love battle and blood. And the best result he received -from such work, happy to say for his art, was the realisation of -failure. But he was quite proud, I understand, when he published it, -and even expected a great sale. And when he could not sell it at all, -it is said, he determined that he would run away alone from Tokyo for -good, leaving his students behind. Although there is no record of its -sale to-day, I am sure that it did not sell well, or, in another way -of saying, it sold well enough to save him from the shame of running -away. Doubtless the people demanded pictures of such a nature, perhaps -to illustrate the time’s happening, as it was the time before the -existence of any graphic or illustrated paper, and to fill that demand -Yoshitoshi brought out a hundred pictures of battles and historical -heroes, more or less in bloody scenes, which are mostly forgotten. It -was in 1885 that he fairly well found his own art (good or bad) with -the historical picture, “Kiyomori’s Illness”; the chief character, the -Lord Kiyomori, suffered from fever and dream, as we have it in legend, -as a destiny brought from his endless brutality and covetousness; -the fact that Yoshitoshi’s mind was much engaged in the study of the -Shijoha school at that time will be seen, particularly in this picture, -of which the background is filled with the faint echo of great Okyo in -the drawing of the Emma, or Judge of Hades, the green demon, and other -things of awful demonstration. “Inaka Genji,” a picture to commemorate -the occasion of Ransen’s changing his name to Tanehiko, and “Ukaino -Kansaku,” a picture of the spirit of a dead fisherman being saved by -the holy prayer of the priest Nichiren, are the work of about the same -time. When Yoshitoshi began to publish his series of one hundred pieces -under the name of “Tsuki Hyakushi,” or “One Hundred Views of the Moon,” -his popularity almost reached high-water mark; I can recollect with -the greatest pleasure how delighted I was to be given a few of these -moon pictures as a souvenir from Tokyo when I was attending a country -grammar school, and I can assure you that my artistic taste and love, -which already began to grow, expressed a ready response to value. -Among the pictures, I was strongly attracted by one thing, which was -the picture of a crying lady alone in a boat, with a _biwa_ instrument -upon her knees; from admiration I pasted the picture on a screen, which -remained as it was during these twenty years, unspoiled, spotless, -and perfect, and I had the happy occasion to see it with renewed eyes -lately when I returned to my country home. I felt exactly the same -impression, as good as at the first sight of twenty years ago. Although -the series carry the title of moon, nearly all of the pictures have -no moon at all; it was the artistic merit of the artist to suggest -that they were all views of the moonlight. We can point out many -shortcomings in his work as a pure Ukiyoye artist; but, after all, -I think that nobody will deny his rare and versatile talent. If only -he had been born at the better and proper time! And if we must blame -his degeneration, I think it is quite safe to say that the general -public has to share equally in the criticism. He was an interesting -personality, full of stories and anecdotes, which the English people -would be glad to hear about when they are well acquainted with his -work; but I will keep them for some other occasion, because I wish at -present to introduce him simply through his work. Let it suffice to say -that he was humane and lovable, having a great faith in his own class -of people—that is, the plain street-dwellers; when I say he was, too, -the artist or artizan of Tokyo or Yedo, like Utamaro, Hokusai, and -Kuniyoshi, I mean that he was gallant and chivalrous, always a friend -of the lowly, and a hater of sham. - -[Sidenote: THE HATER OF SHAM] - -He was born in 1839, to use the Japanese name of the era, the Tenth -of Tempo, at Shiba of Yedo, present Tokyo. When a little boy, he was -adopted by the family of Tsukioka; his own name was Yonejiro. Like -other Japanese artists, he had quite many _gago_ or _noms de plume_; to -give a few of them, Ikkasai, Sokatei, Shiyei, and others. Although he -did not change his dwelling-place as Hokusai did, he moved often from -one house to another; it was at Miyanaga Cho of Hongo where he married -Taiko. He bought a house at Suga Cho, Asakusa, in 1885; but his -sensitive mind was disturbed when he was told by a fortune-teller that -the direction of his house was unlucky, and was again obliged to move -to Hama Cho of Nihonbashi, when he was taken ill with brain disease. -As I said before, he died in June of 1892. The students he left behind -include many artists already dead; to give the best known, Keishu -Takeuchi; Keichu Yamada and Toshihide Migita are the names of artists -still active to-day. - - - - - VIII - - BUSHO HARA[A] - - -[A] See the Appendix - -Often I tried to write about Busho Hara the artist (I use the term in -the most eclectic Japanese conception, because his art served more -frequently to make his personality distinguished through its failure -rather than through its success); that my attempt turned to nothing -was perhaps because my mind, solitary and sad like that of Hara, did -not like to betray the secret of the recluse whose silence was his -salutation. Besides, my heart and soul and all were too much filled -with this Busho Hara from the fact of his recent unexpected death—(by -the way, he was in his forty-seventh year, that interesting age for an -artist, as it would be the beginning of a new page, good or bad); and -I am, in one word, perfectly confused on the subject. When I wish to -think of his art alone, and even to measure it, if possible, through -the most dangerous, always foolish way of comparison with others, I -find always, in spite of myself, that my mind, even before it has -fairly started on his art, is already carried away by the dear, sweet, -precious memory of his rare personality. “Above all, he was rarest -as friend,” my mind always whispers to me every two minutes from the -confusion of my thought, this and that, and again that and this, on -him. To say that I think of him too much and for too many things would -be well-nigh the same as to say that I am unfitted to tell about him -intelligibly. I confess that I had a little difference with him on the -subject of his own art here and there, while I was absorbed in his -conversation or criticism (I always believed and said—did he dislike me -when I said that?—he was a better and greater critic than artist), now -by the cozy fire of a winter evening, then with the trees and grasses -languid with summer’s heat; he was the first and last man to whom I -went when I felt particularly ambitious and particularly tired, and I -dare say that he was pleased to see me. My own delight to have him as -my friend was in truth doubled, when I thought that his personality -and art, remarkable as they are honest, true, and sympathetic, were -almost unknown at home except in a little narrow community; as I said -before, he was a recluse. In England, many readers of Mr. Markino’s -book, _A Japanese Artist in London_, will remember Hara’s name, as it -is frequently repeated in the book; and a certain well-known English -critic had an occasion once or twice to mention his name and kindly -comment on his work in the _Graphic_. That was in 1906, when he was -about to leave London after a few years’ stay there. “Shall I go to -England again for a change or to take a few pictures of mine?” he often -exclaimed. England was his dream, as she is mine. How unfalteringly our -talk ran; every time the subject was England and her art. - -[Sidenote: HIS DREAM OF ENGLAND] - -“Now is it settled, let us suppose,” Hara would say in the course of -talk, slightly twisting his sensitive mouth, holding up straight back -his well-poised head (what a philosopher’s eyes he had, gentle and -clear), “that we shall go to England some time soon in the future. -Yes, we shall go there even if we are not begged by Japan to leave -the country. The most serious question is, however, where we shall -sleep and dine. I have had enough experience of a common English -boarding-house; I am haunted even to-day by the ghosts of Yorkshire -pudding and cold ham. And suppose that a daughter or a son of that -boarding-house might sing aloud a popular song every Saturday evening; -I should like to know if there is anything more sad than that. Still, -suppose that one next to you at table will ask you every evening how -your work might sell; certainly that will be the moment when you think -you will leave England at once for good. But it is England’s greatness -that she has art appreciators as well as buyers. Oh, where is the true -art appreciator in Japan, even while we admit that we have the buyers? -I will take a few pictures with me when I go to England next, and show -them to the right sort of people; really, truly, only London of all -the cities of the world has the right sort of people in any line of -profession. Besides, I should like to examine the English art again and -let the people there listen to my opinion; I was not enough prepared -for such a work when I went there last.” - -[Sidenote: THE ENEMY IN HIS OWN SELF] - -But I believe that his own self-education in art, which he most -determinedly started at the National Gallery, where he was forcibly -attracted by Rembrandt and Velasquez, must have been happily developed, -when the same _Graphic_ critic spoke of his “sensitive and searching -eyes,” and (printing Hara’s intelligent rendering of Rembrandt’s -“Jewish Merchant” on the page) said that it proved the painter was at -the root of the matter, and declared that the critic had rarely seen -better or more intelligent copy, and again to prove that Hara was not -merely a copyist or imitator, he also reproduced on the same page his -original work called “The Old Seamstress.” And I am doubly pleased to -find that the same English critic mentioned him somewhere as a “keen -and acute critic, but generous withal”; I was so glad to have Hara as -my friend for the rare striking power of his critical enlightenment -(Oh, where is another sane artist like himself?), even when he failed -to make a strong impression on me with his art. It was his immediate -question on his return home how to apply the technique of oil painting -he learned in London to Japanese subjects; if he failed in his art, as -he always believed and I often thought he did, it was from the reason, -I dare think, that he had indeed too clear a view of self-appraisal -or self-criticism under whose menace he always took the attitude of -an outsider towards his own work. How often I wished he were wholly -without that critical power, always hard to please, altogether too -fastidious! His artistic ambition and aim were so absolute and most -highly puritanic; as a result, he was ever so restless and sad with -his art, and often even despised himself. He had a great enemy, that -was no other but his own self; he was more often conquered by it than -conquering it. I have never seen in my life a more sad artist with the -brush, facing a canvas, than this Busho Hara. Besides, his poor health, -which had been failing in the last few years, only worked to make his -critical displeasure sharper and more peculiar; and he utterly lost the -passion and foolishness of his younger days. How often we promised, -when we parted after a long chat, which usually began with Yoshio -Markino, dear friend of his and mine in London, and as a rule ended -with reminiscences of our English life, that we would hereafter return -to our younger age, if possible to our boys’ days, and even commit the -innocent youthful sins and be happy; but when we met together again, -we were the same unhappy mortals, Hara with a brush, I with a pen. He -always looked comforted by my words when I told him my own tragedy -and difficulties to write poetry; both of us exclaimed at once with -the same breath and longed for life’s perfect freedom. How he wished -to cut away from himself and bid a final farewell to many portrait -commissions, and become a lone pilgrim on Nature’s great highway with -only his brush and oil; that was his dream. - -[Sidenote: AT THE HOSPITAL] - -Let me repeat again that he was sad with his brush only to make his art -still sadder; when he was most happy, it was the time when he left his -own studio to forget his unwilling brush and send his love imaginations -under the new foliage of spring trees and make them ride on the freedom -of the summer air. How he planned for future work while contemplating -great Nature; he was a dreamer in the true sense. And dream was to him -more real as he thought it almost practicable. I do not mix any sarcasm -in my words when I say that he was a greater artist when he did not -paint; he rose to his full dignity only when out of his studio; and it -was most unfortunate that I found him always ill when he was out of it. -But I will say that I never saw one like himself so well composed, even -satisfied, on a sick bed; that might have been from the reason that -his being absorbed in Nature, his thought and contemplation on her, -did not give an opportunity for bodily illness to use its despotism. -He gave me in truth even such an impression that he was glad to be -ill so he could lay himself right before the thought of great Nature. -Once in the spring of 1911 I called on him at the hospital, when -he successfully underwent a surgeon’s knife (he was suffering from -typhlitia); although he was quite weak then, he was most ambitious and -happy to talk on the beauty of Nature; and he said: “I almost wonder -why I did not become ill and lay me down on this particular bed of this -hospital before, and (pointing to the blue sky through the window with -his pale-skinned slender hand that was unmistakably an artist’s) see -how the eastern sky changes from dusk to milky grey, again from that -grey to rosy light. How often I wished you, particularly you, might -be here with me all awakening in this room, perhaps at halfpast three -o’clock; that is the time exactly when the colours of the sky will -begin to evolve. Thank God all the other people are sleeping then. At -such a moment I feel as if all Nature belonged to me alone in the whole -world, and I alone held her secrets and her beauty; I am thankful for -my illness, as it has made me thus restful in mind and allowed me to -carefully observe Nature, and build my many future plans. I can promise -you that I will whistle my adieu to the commissioned work, all of it, -when I grow stronger again, and become a real artist, the real artist -even to satisfy you. Oh, how I could paint the mysterious changes of -the sky which I have been studying for the last week!” - -Again I saw him in his sick-bed at his little home one afternoon; we -grew, as a matter of course, quite enthusiastic and passionate as our -talk was on art and artists; it was the foundation of his theory, -when he expanded on it, not to put any difference between the arts of -the East and the West; he seemed to agree with me on that day when I -compared even recklessly Turner with our Sesshu. Although he entered -into his art through the technique, I observed that he was speedily -turning to a Spiritualist; I often thought that he was a true Japanese -artist even of the Japanese school, while he adopted the Western -method. (It was the _Graphic_ critic who said that he was “perhaps the -ablest Japanese painter in our method who has visited our shores.”) -He and I saw that time the famous large screen by Goshun belonging -to the Imperial Household called “Shosho no Yau,” or “The Night Rain -at Shosho”; as our minds were still absorbed in its soft mellow -atmosphere and grey flashes of sweeping rain, we often repeated our -great admiration for that Goshun. “It’s not merely an art, but Nature -herself,” he exclaimed. The afternoon of the summer day was slowly -falling; the yellow sunbeams, like an elf or fairy, were playing -almost fantastically with the garden leaves; Hara was looking on them -absent-mindedly, and when he awoke from his dream, he said: “Suppose -you cut off a few of those leaves, even one leaf, with that particular -sunlight on them; they are indeed a great art. Who can paint them as -exactly they are? To prove it is a real art, when the artist is great -and true, a large canvas and big subject are not necessary at all; -one single leaf would be enough for his subject. I recall my first -impression of Turner’s work; I thought then that even one inch square -of any picture of his in the National Gallery would be sufficient to -prove his great art. I always vindicated his mastery of technique to -the others who had the reverse opinion; what made Turner was never his -technique. To talk about technique. I believe that even I have a better -technique than is shown in most of the pictures drawn by Rossetti; but -there is only one Rossetti in the world.” On my way home after leaving -him, I could not help wondering if he were not turning to a pessimist: -I was afraid that he was in his heart of hearts denying his own ability -and art. - -[Sidenote: TURNER’S GREAT ART] - -One day last September, when my soul felt the usual sadness with the -first touch of autumn, I received a note from Hara saying that his -stomach had been lately troubled, and he wished I would call on him as -he wanted to be brightened by my presence. I could not go then to see -him on account of one thing and another; and when I was told by one of -his friends and mine that Hara’s illness was said to be cancer, even in -its acute form, and that he was eagerly expecting my call, I hurried at -once to his house. He was very pale and thin. As I was begged by Mrs. -Hara at the door not to let him talk too much, as it was the doctor’s -command, I even acted as if I hated conversation on that day; it was -Hara (bless his sympathetic gentle soul) who, on the contrary, wished -to make me happy and interested by his talk. He talked as usual on -various arts and artists; when he slowly entered into his own domestic -affairs, he said: “I have decided to sell all my works of the last ten -years, good or bad, among my rich friends, and raise a sufficient fund -to provide for my old mother and wife; to have no child is at least a -comfort at this moment. I think I call myself fortunate since such a -scheme appears to be quite practicable; but if I could have even one -picture which I could proudly leave for posterity—that might be too -great an ambition for an artist of my class. Will you laugh at me when -I say how I wish to live five years more, if not five years, two years -at least, if not two years, even one year? It might be better, after -all, for me to die with hope than to live and fail.” With a sudden -thought he changed the subject; he thought, doubtless, he had no right -to make me unnecessarily sad, and resumed the talk on Hokusai and -Utamaro where he had left off a little while before. “I wish that you -will see Utamaro’s picture in my friend’s possession; it is, needless -to say, the picture of a courtesan. How that lovely woman sits! (Here -Hara changed his attitude and imitated the woman in the picture.) Oh, -these charming bare feet! That is where Utamaro put his best art; I -cannot forget the feeling that I felt with the most attractive naked -heels of the picture.” - -[Sidenote: HARA GONE TO HIS REST] - -I gave him many instances of doctors’ mistakes to encourage him, before -I left his house. I called on him two weeks or ten days later; but I -was not admitted to his presence, as the doctor had already forbade any -outside communication. At my third call I was told that he was growing -still worse; it was on October 29 that I made my fourth call, and I -found at once that the house had been somewhat upset. Alas, my friend -Busho Hara had gone already to his eternal rest! I rushed up to the -upstairs room where the cold body of the artist was lying; he could not -see or hear his friend. I cried. I was told by one of Hara’s friends, -who saw his last moment, how sorry he was that he did not see me when -his final end approached, and that he had begged him to tell me that he -was wrong in what he told me before about art. Now, what did he mean by -that? I already suspected, as I said before, that he was growing to -deny his own art; now I should like to understand by that final special -message to me that he wished to wholly deny all the human art of the -world against great Nature before his death. When he grew weaker and -weaker, I think that he found it more easy to dream of Nature; whether -conscious or unconscious, he must have been in the most happy state, -at least for his last days, as he was going to join himself with her. -I never saw such a dead face so calm, so sorrowless, like Hara’s; it -reminded me of a certain Greek mask which I saw somewhere; indeed, he -had a Greek soul in the true meaning. - -We six or seven friends of his kept a _tsuya_, or wake, before his -coffin, as is the custom, on the night of the 29th; the night rapidly -advanced when the reminiscences of this passed great artist were told -to keep us from falling asleep. One man was speaking of the story of -Hara’s friendship with Danjuro Ichikawa, the great tragedian of the old -_kabuki_ school of the modern Japanese stage. Once he played the rôle -of Benkei in “Adaka ga Seki,” which he wished Hara to draw; it was a -most unusual treat on the actor’s part to give the artist one whole -box at the Kabuki Theatre during fifteen days only for that purpose, -where he appeared every day not to draw, but to look at the acting. But -Hara very quickly sketched him one day at the moment when he thought -that the actor was prolonging his acting at a certain place to make him -easy to sketch; in fact, Danjuro made his acting in some parts stand -still for fifteen minutes. Strangely enough, the other actors who were -playing with him did not know that, while Hara rightly read the actor’s -intention and thought. Danjuro said afterwards that Mr. Hara understood -him through the power of his being a great artist. Did he draw the -picture and finish it? That is the next question. He did not, as was -often the case with Hara; he wrote the actor bluntly he was sorry that -this spirit was gone, making it impossible to advance. The one who told -the story exclaimed: “I never saw an artist like Hara so slow to paint, -or who found it so difficult to paint.” - -[Sidenote: SITTING AT THE SHOP FRONT] - -Among us there was a well-known frame manufacturer, Yataya by name, -who, it is said, was Hara’s very first friend in Tokyo, where he came -thirty years before from his native Okayama; he spoke next on his dear -friend: “He made his call on me at my store in Ginza almost every -night; he never came up into the room, but sat always at the shop -front. And there he gazed most thoughtfully on the passing crowd of -the street with his fixed eyes; he made himself quite an unattractive -figure especially for the shop front. ‘Who is that sinister-looking -fellow?’ I was often asked. I am sure that he must have been there -studying the people; his interest in anything was extremely intent. He -was a great student.” - -While I am now writing upon Hara, I feel I see that he is sitting at a -certain shop front, perhaps of Hades. Is he not studying the action of -the dead souls clamorous as in their living days? - - - - - IX - - THE UKIYOYE ART IN ORIGINAL - - -I often think the general impression that the best Ukiyoye art -reveals itself in colour-print has to be corrected in some special -cases, because the Ukiyoye art in original _kakemono_, though not so -well appreciated in the West, is also a thing beautiful; and I feel -proud to say that I have often seen those special cases in Japan. On -such occasions I always say that I am impressed as if the art were -laughing and cursing fantastically over the present age, whose prosaic -regularity completely misses the old fascination of romanticism -which Japan of two or three hundred years ago perfected by her own -temperament. Whenever I see it (mind you, it should be the best Ukiyoye -art in original) at my friend’s house by accident, or in the exhibition -hall, my heart and soul seem to be turning to a winged thing fanned by -its magic; and when my consciousness returns, I find myself narcotised -in incense, before the temple of art where sensuality is consecrated -through beauty. - -It is not too much to say that Shunsho Katsukawa, who died in 1792 -at the age of ninety-seven, gained more than any other artist from -the originals, through his masterly series of twelve pieces, “A -Woman’s Year,” owned by Count Matsura, a most subtle arrangement of -figures whose postures reach the final essence of grace perhaps from -the delicate command of artistic reserve, the decorative richness of -the pictures heightened by life’s gesticulation of beauty; whilst -the harmony of the pictorial quantity and quality is perfect. Behind -the pictures we read the mind of the artist with the critic’s gift -of appraising his own work. When we realise the somewhat exaggerated -hastiness of later artists, for example, artists like Toyokuni the -First, or Yeizan (the other artists being out of the question, of -course), Shunsho’s greatness will be at once clear. It may have been -his own thought to modify the women’s faces from the artless roundness -of the earlier artists to the rather emphatic oblong, from simplicity -to refinement, although I acknowledge it was Harunobu’s genius to make -the apparent want of effort in women’s round faces flow into the sad -rhythm of longing and passion, a symbol of the white, weary love; in -Harunobu we have a singular case of the distinction between simplesse -and simplicité. It was the old Japanese art to portray delicacy only -in the women’s hands and arms; but certainly it was the distinguished -art of Shunsho, with many other contemporary Ukiyoye artists, to make -the necks, especially the napes, the points of almost tantalising -grace; what a charm of abandon in those shoulders! And what a beautiful -elusiveness of the slightly inclined faces of the women! I am always -glad to see Shunsho’s famous picture, “Seven Beauties in a Bamboo -Forest,” owned by the Tokyo School of Art, in which the romantic group -of chignons leisurely promenade, one reading a love-letter, another -carrying a shamisen instrument, through the shade of a bamboo forest. -Not only in this picture, but in many other arrangements of women -and sentiment, Shunsho reminds me of the secret of Cho Densu of the -fifteenth century in his elaborate Rakan pictures, particularly in the -point that the figures, while keeping their own individual aloofness, -perfectly well fuse themselves in the alembic of the picture into a -composition most impressive. And you will soon find that when the -sense of monotony once subsides, your imagination grows to see their -spiritual variety. - -[Sidenote: “BEAUTIES IN A BAMBOO FOREST"] [Sidenote: THE WITHDRAWAL -FROM SOCIETY] - -It is rather difficult to see a best specimen of the originals of -Harunobu or even of Utamaro. I think there is some reason, however, to -say in the case of Utamaro that he did not leave many worthy pictures -in original, because he made the blocks, fortunately or unfortunately, -a castle to rise and fall with; while I see the fact on the one side -that, while he was not accepted in the polite society of his time, -he gained as a consequence much strength through his restriction of -artistic purpose. There was nothing more ridiculous for the Ukiyoye -artists of those days than to intrude their work of the so-called -“Floating World” into the aristocratic _tokonoma_, the sacred alcove -of honour for the art of a Tosa or a Kano, and to attempt to call -themselves Yamato Yeshi, whatever that means. What wisdom is there -to become neutral, like Yeishi or in some degree Koryusai, who never -created any distinct success either as Ukiyoye artist or as so-called -polite painter. I can easily read the undermeaning how they were even -insulted, by the cultured class, when they tried to satisfy their own -resentment by such an assumption of Yamato Yeshi (“the Yamato artist,” -Yamato being the classic name of Japan); I see more humiliation in it -than pride. The contempt displayed toward them, however, was not so -serious till the appearance of Moronobu, who created his own art out of -their sudden descent; his realism accentuated itself in the portrayal -of courtesans and street vagrants of old Yedo, for the popular -amusement, at the huge cost of being criticised as immoral. The artists -before his day, even those to-day roughly termed the Ukiyoye artists, -were the self-same followers. To begin with Matabei, after the Kano, -Tosa, and Sumiyoshi schools successively, their work was strengthened -or weakened according to the situation by the irresistibility of -plebeianism; it is clear that the final goal for their work was, of -course, the _tokonoma_ of the rich man and the nobles. And it seems -that they must have found quite an easy access into that scented daïs, -if I judge from the pictures of the “Floating World” (what an arbitrary -name that!) that remain to-day. They had, in truth, no necessity to -advertise themselves as Yamato Yeshi, like some artists of the later -age who were uneducated and therefore audacious; and in their great -vanity wished to separate themselves from their fellow-workers; while -their work has a certain softness—though it be not nobility—at least -not discordant with the grey undertone of the Japanese room, doubtless -they lack that strength distilled and crystallised into passionate -lucidity which we see in the best colour-prints. When I say that -Moronobu was the founder of Ukiyoye art, I mean more to call attention -to the fact that the Japanese block print was well started in its -development from his day, into which process the artists put all sorts -of spontaneity, at once cursing creed and tradition. As for the Ukiyoye -artists, I dare say their weakness in culture and imagination often -turned to force; they gained artistic confidence in their own power -from their complete withdrawal from polite society. Such was the case -with Utamaro and Hiroshige. I wonder what use there was to leave poor -work in the original like that of Toyokuni and Yeizan, whose works -often serve only to betray their petty ambition. - -[Sidenote: HEREDITY SUPERSTITION] - -I have seen enough of the originals of this interesting Ukiyoye art, -beginning with Matabei and Katsushige; Naganobu Kano, the former’s -contemporary, is much admired in the series of twelve pictures, -“Merry-making under the Flowers,” with the illogical simplicity natural -to the first half of the seventeenth century. The fact that the name -“Floating World” did not mean much in those days can be seen in the -work of Rippo Nonoguchi or Gukei Sumiyoshi, whose classical respect -weakened the pictorial impression. Mr. Takamine, who is recognised as -the keenest collector of Ukiyoye art in Japan, has quite an extensive -collection of the works of Ando Kwaigetsudo (1688-1715), Anchi Choyodo, -Dohan Kwaigetsudo (early eighteenth century), Doshu Kwaigetsudo, Doshin -Kwaigetsudo, Nobuyuki Kameido, Rifu Tosendo, Katsunobu Baiyuken, and -Yeishun Baioken, all of them contemporaries of Doshu. Although their -merit is never so high, even when not questionable, we can imagine that -their work must have been quite popular, even in high quarters; among -them Dohan might be the cleverest, but as a Japanese critic says, his -colour-harmony is marred by ostentatious imprudence. I have seen the -best representation of Sukenobu Nishikawa in “Woman Hunting Fireflies,” -soft and delicate. The other artists I came to notice and even admire -are Choshun Miyakawa, Masanobu Okumura, Shigemasa Kitawo, and other -names. I think that the time should come when the original Ukiyoye -art, too, should be properly priced in the West; we are still sticking -to our hereditary superstition that no picture is good if we cannot -hang it in the _tokonoma_, where we burn incense and place the flowers -arranged to invoke the greyness of the air. But I wonder why we cannot -put an Utamaro lady here on the Japanese _tokonoma_. - - - - - X - - WESTERN ART IN JAPAN - - -The Japanese works of Western art are sometimes beautiful; but I can -say positively that I have had no experience of being carried away by -them as by good old Japanese art. There is always something of effort -and even pretence which are decidedly modern productions. I will say -that it is at the best a borrowed art, not a thing inseparable from -us. I ask myself why those artists of the Western school must be loyal -to a pedantry of foreign origin as if they had the responsibility for -its existence. It would be a blessing if we could free ourselves in -some measure, through the virtue of Western art, from the world of -stagnation in feeling and thought. I have often declared that it was -the saviour of Oriental art, as the force of difference in element is -important for rejuvenation. But what use is it to get another pedantry -from the West in the place of the old one? I have thought more than -once that our importation of foreign art is a flat failure. It may be -that we must wait some one hundred years at least before we can make -it perfectly Japanised, just as we spent many years before thoroughly -digesting Chinese art; but we have not a few pessimists who can prove -that it is not altogether the same case. Although I have said that -the foreign pedantry greatly troubles the Japanese work of Western -art, I do not mean that it will create the same effect as upon Western -artists. I am told the following story: - -[Sidenote: THE TAIHEIYO GAKWAI CLUB] - -A year or two ago a certain Italian, who had doubtless a habit of -buying pictures (with little of real taste in art, as is usually the -case with a picture-buyer), went to see the art exhibition of the -Taiheiyo Gakwai Club held at Uyeno Park, and bought many pictures on -the spot, as he thought they were clever work of the Japanese school. -Alas, the artists meant them to be oil paintings of the Western type! -The Italian’s stupidity is inexcusable; but did they indeed appear to -him so different from his work at home? The saddest part is that they -are so alien to our Japanese feeling in general; consequently they have -little sympathy with the masses. It is far away yet for their work to -become an art of general possession; it can be said it is not good art -when it cannot at once enter into the heart. It is not right at all to -condemn only the Western art in Japan, as any other thing of foreign -origin is equally in the stage of mere trial. I often wonder about -the real meaning of the modern civilisation of Japan. Imitation is -imitation, not the real thing at all. - -There are many drawbacks, as I look upon the material side, to the -Western art becoming popular; for instance, our Japanese house—frail, -wooden, with the light which rushes in from all sides—never gives it an -appropriate place to look its best. And the heaviness of its general -atmosphere does not harmonise with the simplicity that pervades the -Japanese household; it always appears out of place, like a chair before -the _tokonoma_, a holy dais. Besides, the artists cannot afford to -sell their pictures cheap, not because they are good work, but because -there are only a few orders for them. I believe we must undertake the -responsibility of making good artists; there is no wonder that there is -only poor work since our understanding of Western art is little, and we -hardly try to cultivate the Western taste. If we have no great art of -the Western school, as is a fact, one half the whole blame is on our -shoulders. - -[Sidenote: PERCEPTION OF REALISM] - -Here my mind dwells in more or less voluntary manner upon the contrast -with the Japanese art, while I walk through the gallery of Western -art of the Taiheiyo Gakwai Club of this year in Uyeno Park. There are -exhibited more than two hundred, or perhaps three hundred pieces—quite -an advance in numbers over any exhibition held before; but I am not -ready to say how they stand on their merit. I admit, at the outset, -that the artists of the Western school have learned well how to make -an arrangement no artist of the pure Japanese school ever dreamed to -attain; and I will say that it is sometimes even subtle. But I have -heard so much of the artistic purpose, which could be best expressed -through the Western art. Are they not, on the other hand, too hasty and -too direct to describe them? Some of their work most nakedly confesses -their artistic inferiority to their own thought. What a poor and even -vulgar handling of oil! I have no hesitation to say that there is -something mistaken in their perception of realism. (Quite a number -of artists in this exhibition make mistakes in this respect.) Indeed -there is no word like realism (perhaps better to say naturalism) which, -in Japan’s present literature, has done such real harm; it was the -Russian or French literature that taught us the meaning of vulgarity, -and again the artists, some artists at least, received a lesson from -these writers. It is never good to see pictures overstrained. Go to the -true Japanese art to learn refinement. While I admit the art of some -artist which has the detail of beauty, I must tell him that reality, -even when true, is not the whole thing; he should learn the art of -escaping from it. That art is, in my opinion, the greatest of all arts; -without it, art will never bring us the eternal and the mysterious. -If you could see some work of Nakagawa or Ishii exhibited here, you -would see my point, because they are somehow wrong for becoming good -work, while they impress with line and colour. I spoke before of effort -and pretence; such an example you will find in Hiroshi Yoshida’s -canvases, big or small, most of them being nature studies. (By the way, -this Yoshida is the artist who exhibited two great canvases, called -“Unknown,” or “World of Cloud,” painted doubtless from Fuji mountain, -overlooking the clouds at one’s feet, and “Keiryu,” or “The Valley,” at -the Government exhibition with some success some years ago.) I am ready -to admit that the artist has well brought out his purpose, but the true -reality is not only the outside expression. His pictures are executed -carefully; but what a forced art! This is the age when all Japanese -artists, those of the Japanese school not excepted, are greatly cursed -by objectivity. Some one has said that the Japanese dress, speaking of -Japanese woman as a picture, does serve to make the distance greater. -I thought in my reflection on art that so it is with the Japanese art. -And again how near is Western art, at least the Japanese work of the -Western school! Such a nearness to our feeling and mind, I think, is -hardly the best quality of any art. I have ceased for some time to -expect anything great or astonishing from Wada or Okada or even Kuroda; -we most eagerly look forward to the sudden appearance of some genius -at once to frighten and hypnotise and charm us and make the Western art -more intimate with our minds. - -[Sidenote: THE SPIRITUAL INSULARITY] - -I amused myself thinking that it was Oscar Wilde who said that Nature -imitates art; is not the nature of Japan imitating the poor work of -the Western method? Art is, indeed, a most serious thing. It is the -time now when we must jealously guard our spiritual insularity, and -carefully sift the good and the bad, and protect ourselves from the -Western influence which has affected us too much in spite of ourselves. -Speaking of the Western art in Japan, I think I have spoken quite -unconsciously of the general pain, not only in art, but in many other -things, from which we wish we could escape. - -After I have said all from my uncompromising thought, my mind, which -is conscious to some extent of a responsibility for Japan’s present -condition in general, has suddenly toned down to thinking of the -short history of Western art in Japan, that is less than fifty years. -What could we do in such a short time? It may even be said that we -did a miracle in art as in any other thing; I can count, in fact, -many valuable lessons (suggestions too) from the Western art that we -transplanted here originally from mere curiosity. Whether good or bad, -it is firmly rooted in Japan’s soil; we have only to wait for the -advent of a master’s hand for the real creation of great beauty. It -seems to me that at least the ground has been prepared. - -Charles Wirgman, the special correspondent sent to the Far East from -the _Illustrated London News_, might be called the father of Western -art in Japan; he stayed at Yokohama till he died in 1891 in his -fifty-seventh year. He was the first foreign teacher from whom many -Japanese learned the Western method of art; Yoshiichi Takahashi was one -of his students. Before Takahashi, Togai Kawakami was known for his -foreign art in the early eighties; but it is not clear where he learned -it. Yoshimatsu Goseda was also, besides Takahashi, a well-known student -of Wirgman, and Shinkuro Kunizawa was the first artist who went to -London in 1875 for art study, but he died soon after his return home in -1877 before he became a prominent figure in the art world. - -When the Government engaged Antonio Fentanesi, an Italian artist of -the Idealistic school, in 1876, as an instructor, the Western school -of art had begun to establish itself even officially. This Italian -artist is still to-day respected as a master. He was much regretted -when he left Japan in 1878. Ferretti and San Giovanni, who were -engaged after Fentanesi, did not make as great an impression as their -predecessor. However, the time was unfortunate for art in general, as -the country was thrown into disturbance by the civil war called the -Saigo Rebellion. The popularity which the Western art seemed to have -attained had a great set-back when the pictures were excluded from the -National Exhibition in 1890. But in the reaction the artists of the -Western school gained more vigour and determination; Shotaro Koyama, -Chu Asai, Kiyowo Kawamura, and others were well-known names in those -days. Kiyoteru Kuroda and Keiichiro Kume, the beloved students of -Raphael Collin, returned home when the China-Japan war was over; they -brought back quite a different art from that with which we had been -acquainted hitherto. And they led vigorously the artistic battle; the -present popularity at least in appearance is owing to their persistence -and industry. The Government again began to show a great interest -in Western art; it sent Chu Asai and Yeisaku Wada to Paris to study -foreign art. Not only these, many others sailed abroad privately or -officially to no small advantage; you will find many Japanese students -of art nowadays wherever you go in Europe or America. - -[Sidenote: THE GOVERNMENT’S INTEREST] - -We were colour-blind artistically before the importation of Western -art, except these who had an interest in the so-called colour-print; -but the colour-print was less valued among the intellectual class, as -even to-day. Our artistic eye, which was only able to see everything -flat, at once opened through the foreign art to the mysteries of -perspective, and though they may not be the real essence of art, -they were at least a new thing for us. There are many other lessons -we received from it; it seems to me that the best and greatest value -is its own existence as a protest against the Japanese art. If the -Japanese art of the old school has made any advance, as it has done, -it should be thankful to the Western school; and at the same time the -artists of foreign method must pay due respect to the former for its -creation of the “Western Art Japonised.” It may be far away yet, but -such an art, if a combination of the East and West, is bound to come. - - - - - APPENDIX I - - THE MEMORIAL EXHIBITION OF THE LATE HARA - - -The memorial exhibition of Busho Hara, a Japanese artist of the Western -school, held recently in Tokyo to raise a fund for his surviving family -as one of its objects (Hara passed away in October, 1913, in his -forty-seventh year), had many significances, one of which, certainly -the strongest, was in contradiction of the general understanding that -Western paintings will never sell in Japan; even a trifling sketch -in which the artist only jotted down his momentary memory fetched -the most unusual price. Hara is a remarkable example of one who -created his own world (by that I mean at least the buyers, though not -real appreciators) among his friends through his personality, which -strengthened his work; paradoxically we shall say he was an artist well -known and utterly unknown; and when I say he was an utterly unknown -artist, I have my thought that he never even once exhibited his work to -the public, and his often defiant spirit and high aim made him scorn -and laugh over people’s ignorance on art. How he hated the Japanese art -world where real merit is no passport at all. But Hara’s friends are -pleased to know from this exhibition the fact that even the public he -ever so despised are not so unresponsive to his art, whose secret he -learned in London. - -Hara was, sad to say, also an artist whose Western art-work, like -that of some other Japanese artists to whom quite an excellent credit -was given in their European days, much declined or, better to say, -missed somehow the artistic thrill since he left England in 1906. Why -was that? What made him so? Was it from the fact that there is no -gallery of Western art old or new in Japan where your work will only be -belittled after you have received a good lesson there? or is it that -our Japanese general public never have a high standard in the matter -of art, especially of Western art? I think there are many reasons to -say that the passive, even oppressive air of Japan, generally speaking, -may have a perfectly disintegrating effect on an artist trained in the -West; it would not be wholly wrong to declare that the real Western -art founded on emotion and life cannot be executed in Japan. Hara made -quite many portraits by commission since that 1906, some of which -were brought out in this exhibition. As they are work more or less -forced, we must go to his other works for his best, which he executed -with mighty enthusiasm and faith under England’s artistic blessing. -He writes down in his diary, the reading of which was my special -privilege, on January 2nd of 1905, the following words: “At last -Port Arthur has fallen. When the war shall be done that will be the -time for our battle of art against Europe to begin. Oh, what a great -responsibility for Japanese artists!” - -Hara made a student’s obeisance toward Watts among the modern masters, -whose influence will be most distinctly seen in one of his pictures -in this exhibition called “The Young Sorrow” (the owner of this -picture is Mr. Takashi Matsuda, one of a few great art collectors in -Japan), in which a young sitting nude woman shows only her beautiful -back, her face being covered by her hands. What a sad, visionary, -pale clarification in colour and tone! Hara writes down when his -mind was saturated with Watts at Tate’s or somewhere else: “What an -indescribable sense of beauty! Art is indeed my only world and life. -Again look at the pictures. How tender, how soft, and how warm in tone -and atmosphere! And how deep is the shadow of the pictures! And that -deep shadow is never dirty.” Again he writes down on his visit to -Tate’s on a certain day: “It was wrong that I attempted to bring out -all the colours from the beginning at once, and even tried to finish -the work up by mending. There is no wonder my colours were dead things. -We must have the living beauty and tone of colours; by that I do never -mean showy. I must learn how to get the deep colour by light paint.” -While he was saturated with Watts, he on the other hand was copying -Rembrandt at the National Gallery. Hara’s copy of “The Jewish Merchant” -is now owned by the Imperial Household in Tokyo. This copy and a few -other copies of Rembrandt were in the exhibition. And Hara was a great -admirer of Turner. Markino confesses in his book or books that it was -Hara who first opened his spiritual eyes to Turner. At this memorial -exhibition Turner is represented by Hara’s copy of Venice. There was in -the exhibition “The Old Seamstress,” which I was pleased to say was -one of Hara’s best pictures. Whenever I see Hara’s pictures of any old -woman, not only this “Old Seamstress,” I think at once that what you -might call his soul sympathy immediately responded to the old woman, -since Hara’s heart and soul were world-wearied and most tender. - -Markino has somewhere in the book the following passages: “First few -weeks I used to take him round the streets, and whenever we passed some -picture shops he stopped to look through the shop window, and would -not move on. I told him those nameless artists’ work was not half so -good as his own. But he always said: ‘Oh, please don’t say so. Perhaps -my drawings are surer than those, and my compositions are better too. -But the European artists know how to handle oils so skilfully. I learn -great lessons from them.’” - -Indeed when he returned home he had fully mastered the technique of -handling oils from England, where he stayed some four years. It is -really a pity that Hara passed away without having fully expressed his -own art in his masterly technique, which he learned with such sacrifice -and patience. His death occurred suddenly at the time when he was about -to break away from his former self and to create his own new art ten -times stronger, fresher, and more beautiful. - -I wish to call the readers’ attention to Yoshio Markino’s _My -Recollections and Reflections_, which contains the most sympathetic -article on Busho Hara. - - - - - APPENDIX II - - THE NERVOUS DEBILITY OF PRESENT JAPANESE ART - - -When I say that I received almost no impression from the annual -Government Exhibition of Japanese Art in the last five or six years, -I have a sort of same feeling with the tired month of May when the -season, in fact, having no strength left from the last glory of bloom -(what a glorious old Japanese art!), still vainly attempts to look -ambitious. Although it may sound unsympathetic, I must declare that the -present Japanese art, speaking of it as a whole, with no reference to -separate works or individual artists, suffers from nervous debility. -Now, is it not the exact condition of the Japanese life at present? -Here it is the art following after the life of modern Japan, vain, -shallow, imitative, and thoughtless, which makes us pessimistic; the -best possible course such an art can follow in the time of its nervous -debility might be that of imitation. - - * * * * * - -When the present Japanese art tells something, I thank God, it is from -its sad failure; indeed, the present Japanese art is a lost art, since -it explains nothing, alas, unlike the old art of idealistic exaltation, -but the general condition of life. It is cast down from its high -pedestal. - - * * * * * - -I do not know exactly what simplicity means, when the word is used -in connection with our old art; however, it is true we see a peculiar -unity in it, which was cherished under the influence of India and -China, and always helped to a classification and analysis of the -means through which the artists worked. And the poverty of subjects -was a strength for them; they valued workmanship, or the right use of -material rather than the material itself; instead of style and design, -the intellect and atmosphere. They thought the means to be the only -path to Heaven. But it was before the Western art had invaded Japan; -that art told them of the end of art, and laughed at the indecision of -æsthetic judgment and uncertainty of realism of Japanese art. It said: -“It is true that you have some scent, but it is already faded; you -have refinement, but it is not quite true to nature and too far away.” -Indeed, it is almost sad one sees the artists troubled by the Western -influence which they accepted, in spite of themselves; I can see in -the exhibitions that many of them have long ago lost their faith by -spiritual calamity, and it is seldom to see them able to readjust their -own minds under such a mingled tempest of Oriental and Occidental. Is -it not, after all, merely a waste of energy? And how true it is with -all the other phenomena of the present life, their Oriental retreat and -Occidental rush. - - * * * * * - -The present Japanese art has sadly strayed from subjectivity, the only -one citadel where the old Japanese art rose and fell; I wonder if it is -not paying a too tremendous price only to gain a little objectivity of -the West. - - - _Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, - England._ - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF JAPANESE ART *** - -***** This file should be named 62252-0.txt or 62252-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/2/5/62252/ - -Produced by ellinora, Les Galloway and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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