Some Aspects of Japanese Painting

I

Everything has its beauty, but not every one sees it. — Confucius.

“THERE are cases,” says the critic Moto-ori, “in which a precise reproduction of a thing as it is in nature produces a bad picture unlike the object delineated. This is the origin of the conventions of the schools, and of the neglect by the masters, in certain cases, of the facts of nature. Hence the value of these conventions, and the perils attending their non-observance.”

“But in his landscapes,” writes another Japanese critic, of the painter Okio, “ there is less success, as he was so particular about insuring correctness of forms that they are lacking in high ideas and deep spirit. For a landscape painting is not loved because it is a facsimile of the natural scene, but because there is something in it, greater than mere accurate representation of natural forms, which appeals to our feelings, but which we cannot express in words.” ¹

And in a verbal criticism, by a Japanese connoisseur, of a Western work of art, it was said, “It is a close imitation of nature, but it lacks style.”

The ideas expressed in these three bits of criticism embody the æsthetic point of view of the whole Japanese nation, and, when rightly interpreted, supply us with a clue to a sympathetic appreciation of their painting. The Japanese mind shows itself here, as elsewhere, to belong, generally speaking, to that class whose attitude toward art we term formal or classic. Japanese painting, indeed, had its periods of comparatively romantic and individualistic inspiration. Yet when regarded as a whole, and judged from our modern point of view, it will be seen to be essentially classic in spirit.

Firstly, the primary aim of the Japanese, as of every classic artist, is to reveal the various kinds of beauty which the nature of his art places at his command. The Oriental, for instance, sees in his lines and colors, his darks and lights, the means whereby he can create a sort of visual symphony, which, like the musical, shall produce its effect to a large extent independently of external aid. In other words, ideas that are attached to the elements of his art merely by chance association — ideas, that is to say, which are not essentially plastic — do not play a vital part in his æsthetic intention. But this is the classic view-point in a nutshell. For the most characteristic feature of classic art is the fact that the visible image and the thoughts it suggests are indissolubly fused.

Again, the Japanese painter takes special pleasure in certain other qualities which distinguish classic art, — lucidity, order, and finish; and his work gives us that sense of harmony and poise which constitutes plastic beauty.

The luxuriant symbolism which is often found in Japanese art does not, to my mind, disprove its classic intention. Symbolic form is in itself no evidence of a lack of classic taste. It is employed in Greek art. Only when it serves to express ideas the meaning of which cannot be conveyed otherwise is it an indication of subjective mystical feeling, of an unclassic frame of mind. Now the use of symbolism in the religious art of Japan,as in that of Greece, is to a large extent traditional. When Buddhism was introduced from China in the sixth century A. D., symbolism already formed an integral part of it. Buddhistic symbolism is, however, essentially mystical; and it may be urged that the fact of its having preserved in Japan this quality in undiminished vigor proves that it touched a sympathetic chord in the Japanese nature. This, I believe, is true. There is undoubtedly a tinge of mysticism in the Japanese, as in all Orientals. But it remains largely a detached and independent factor in their mental life. For a study of the mind of this Eastern people will show that, while on the one hand it is dreamy and poetic, on the other it is extremely clear, objective, sane.² That it is this lucidity of mind which primarily controls their art appears to me indisputable. Most of the arts of Japan have a superadded symbolic meaning: for example, flower arrangement, landscape gardening, poetry, and the dance; yet in respect to formal beauty they are complete in themselves. The understanding of this symbolism is not necessary to an appreciation of their essential charm. The Japanese garden is a complete work of art, even though one may not realize that these stones and trees are symbolically related; their floral designs delight the eye without the observer recognizing the emblem of filial love or wifely devotion. Even when, as in painting, the symbol becomes obvious, assumes definite shape, the work tells as an artistic whole, though the significance of the emblem be unknown. Forever sensitive to what is decoratively effective, they beautify it in such a way as to make it harmonize with and enrich the total effect. In the eyes of the Japanese public the symbolism of their art undoubtedly forms a special element of beauty; but to the Japanese painter its chief value lies in its decorative possibilities. For the ideas which are of primary interest to him, and which he strives to express on paper, are such as cannot be detached from their pictorial setting.

In a word, we find in the paintings of the Japanese — and this is a quality which makes them greater artists than poets — that classic delicacy of fancy characteristic of a Greek bas-relief, or a landscape by Corot; but there is wanting every indication of that imagination which, in its romantic tendencies, shuns all definition, and refuses to be guided by rule.

The student of Japanese painting is likely to be impressed first of all by its inventive fecundity. The fertility of the Oriental mind in devising fresh and ever delightful pictorial schemes for treating even the simplest subject has, I believe, never been surpassed. I examined one day some three hundred designs in stencil collected at random in a shop in Paris, and while each that I took up seemed more beautiful than the last in its decorative arrangement, I failed to note any duplication of design. This richness of invention is seen in all forms of Japanese art.

Another striking quality of Japanese, as of all the best classic art is the perfection which it attains within its self-imposed limits. This perfection is due, not merely to the technical ability of the Oriental artist, which makes it possible for him to give us the peculiar pleasure which we always take in the thing most directly and perfectly expressed, but also to a very pure and delicate æsthetic feeling. The way, for instance, in which line and color, light and dark, are made to echo, and thus intensify, the dominant emotional note of a picture, illustrates the sensitiveness of this Eastern people to the most subtle æsthetic effects.

The ability to discover beauty in the simplest thing, and to express it in such a way that the emotional effect to be conveyed reaches the beholder free from any irrelevant or disturbing element, gives to Japanese pictorial treatment largeness and dignity, — a certain “savor of the universal.”

Perhaps the most remarkable quality of Japanese painting, however, is its decorative beauty, — its value as “pure design.” That certain immutable laws of composition, determined by equally immutable properties of the human organism, are discoverable, and are to be implicitly obeyed by the artist, is an idea which seems to have found root in the East as far back as the fifth century. For we read of the Chinese critic Shakaku laying down six canons of pictorial art. The first of these is “The Life Movement of the Spirit through the Rhythm of Things;” art being then regarded, in Mr. Okakura’s words, as “the great Mood of the Universe moving hither and thither amidst those harmonic laws of matter which are Rhythm.” The second is called “The Law of Bones and Brushwork;” the idea of which seems to be that man in the process of artistic conception merely recreates his own essence, merely gives outward embodiment to the laws of his own nature.

The Japanese, who have been the pupils of China from earliest times, have absorbed, modified, and in practice with few exceptions improved upon, what she has taught them. Though we cannot directly verify the matter, internal evidence would indicate that such doctrines as these were as eagerly welcomed by Japan as were the other parts of China’s artistic creed. That constant attention to this aspect of design by a nation so sensitive to delicate æsthetic effects should have soon produced extraordinarily perfect results in this direction is therefore not surprising.

The beauties of Japanese pictorial composition are now recognized by every one. The little books of design, which these Eastern painters use as models in their own land, have even been adopted in some of our own schools as manuals of pictorial grammar.

Let us examine for a moment some of these decorative beauties by themselves. The mode of treatment of the subject matter we shall consider later.

II

In many of the decorative effects of Japanese pictorial art, we find that certain forms of composition are used to an extent and with a skill not found elsewhere.

Balance in composition, for example, is more often attained by means of the principle of contrast than, as was usual with the Greeks, through a bilateral symmetry of design. A spot of dark is made to balance a light spot, rather than a similar spot of dark. I have before me a reproduction of a picture by that artist who possesses in a marked degree the qualities which give distinction to Japanese art, — Ogata Korin. The subject is the god Fukurokujiu enveloped in a dark cloak and seated on a white stag, so that the black of the cloak and the white of the stag’s hide form a balance of opposites against the gray of the hill on which they stand. The subject is treated in a humorous, almost childish, vein. Yet we find it impossible to regard it with the lightness which at first sight it seems to deserve. Unawares our eyes return to it again and again. We are at a loss at first to explain our admiration. But as we become more familiar with Eastern painting, we recognize that the secret of this fascination lies in but one thing,—a perfection of masses of dark and light so exquisitely balanced that the goal of all art, complete harmony, in one particular at least would seem to be reached.

It may seem at first that harmony attaching to such a simple matter cannot be of much importance. Yet, when we consider a moment, it is just such harmonies as these that in their total effect (as Mr. La Farge somewhere says) make the difference between the great and the average work of art.

Another device of the Oriental artist is to oppose one pattern, which is large but mild in effect, to another, which, though smaller, yet holds the attention with equal intensity by virtue of the stimulating character of its design, somewhat as a bright star offsets the softer beauty of the moon. Again, we often find two objects of unequal size made equally attractive to the eye, either by placing the smaller in greater isolation, or by treating it in greater detail; or else by informing it with greater interest. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is color rather than form or significance which preserves the balance. The red seal with which the Japanese painter signs his name often serves this purpose. Kiosai, when painting a picture of crows, is said to have spent three days in deciding where to place this important little red patch. There is yet another more subtle method employed for maintaining balance. Frequently the subject matter is placed in some corner of a picture, while the rest of the paper or silk remains bare. I possess a small ink sketch by one of the earlier of that famous line of artists, the Kanos. It represents a bit of rocky shore running out into a sunlit sea. A boat lies anchored off the point, and above a flock of birds sail away into the distance. The few, but vigorous and wonderfully expressive, strokes with which the painter has depicted this scene cover but the lower right hand portion of the picture; the other part of the surface, with the exception of the boat and birds, is untouched. Yet so pregnant with suggestion has he rendered the bare paper, so skillfully has he carried over to the untouched surface the feeling of atmosphere and light by his treatment of rock, boat, and birds, that this space weighs as a perfect balance to the rest.

The constant employment of such varied methods of attaining harmony and equilibrium in composition permits a far greater variety of effect than where formal balance is alone used. This gives to Japanese art remarkable freshness and piquancy. Effects which in reality are the result of a very carefully planned scheme of composition seem due to happy accident. The color arrangements of the Japanese tend to emphasize this charm. For their color harmonies are subtle harmonies, special pleasure being taken in combining apparently irreconcilable color units into particularly beautiful color chords.

Ruskin but echoes the sentiment of all Japanese artists when he maintains that, in painting, the claim to immortality depends on the perfection and instantaneous precision of the single line. Line in the far East serves not one but many æsthetic ends. It is, as with us, greatly valued as an element of composition. The Japanese well understand that (as R. M. Stevenson puts it) “when you merely draw a line on an empty canvas you commit yourself to art, for you have given the line a positive character by placing it in some relation to the four sides of the canvas.” A picture, indeed, is, as some one has said, in its beginning a pattern of lines; and the perfection in Eastern painting of “line combination” is unsurpassed.

Owing to the comparatively objective standpoint which the classic painter assumes toward his creation, one discovers, as a rule, little of the artist’s personality. There is, however, one clue to the mind of the Japanese painter, and that is his line or brush-stroke. We all recognize how much of himself a man can express in his handwriting, even through that rigid implement, the pen. Imagine a case, however, where not the pen, but a much more delicate instrument, the brush, should be employed; let us further suppose a land where painting should grow out of a calligraphy already containing many æsthetic elements; and it will at once be seen that the special interest which attaches to line in writing — particularly writing of such a kind — would be transmitted to line in art.

Now in China, the fatherland of Japanese culture, the brush has been used from time immemorial as an instrument for writing as well as for painting. Moreover, for a long period calligraphy served the twofold function of providing æsthetic pleasure and recording thoughts; and later, when art evolved its own appropriate medium of expression, the interest and value attached to line as an ornament of handwriting was transferred to line as an instrument of pictorial art. In Japan, as in China, the great painter and the skilled calligraphist were often one and the same person. And to this day a bit of fine handwriting is treasured in the East as a work of art.

Further evidence of the importance which the Japanese attach to line is shown by the fact that a native connoisseur can pick from a large collection a given artist’s work by an examination of this feature alone. Even the professional copyist of Japan, perhaps the most skillful in the world, is rarely able to imitate a famous painter’s brush-stroke so as to deceive the expert.

As the personal quality of the line or brush-stroke reveals the individual, so also its general character denotes the school to which he belongs. For each school, at any rate to start with, evolved or borrowed from the Chinese that type of line which seemed best suited to the portrayal of its favorite class of subject. Thus the Tosa, Kano, and Sesshiu schools all had their characteristic brush-strokes. The quality of line, however, varied not merely with the school and individual, but with the nature of the details to be treated; one kind of line being used for the features, another for the dress, and so on. Great skill, moreover, was acquired in the representation of surface and texture by a varied handling of the brush. Artists like Shiubun, Sesshiu, and Tanyu could suggest to the sense of touch the feeling appropriate to the object depicted, by a sleight of hand so clever as to seem quite accidental.

Line as indicated by the brush has also been employed by the Oriental as a means of suggesting solidity, and as a substitute for light and shade. The drawing of Dürer, Rembrandt, and Holbein shows us how much can be accomplished in this respect by this simple method.

Many and various influences have caused the Japanese to prefer to suggest modeling, rather than elaborately to render it. In the first place, their mode of workmanship does not permit of the latter method. For their exclusive use of India ink and water color on such delicate and absorbent material as silk and Japanese paper renders alteration or the addition of many washes impracticable. Even more than in true fresco, effects must be produced directly and instantaneously. The chief reason, however, is undoubtedly an æsthetic one. The Japanese look upon painting as a form of decoration. Like the Greeks and Italians, and all who represent the classic spirit in art, they have always regarded the adornment of a household utensil, the decoration of a room, the painting of a “picture” as but various expressions of the same impulse, — the desire to beautify human life and its surroundings. For each of these branches of artistic effort, a certain difference of training may be needed, but ever the same faculty,—the decorative faculty. A Japanese picture, even though at first sight it seems but an “easel picture,” and merely hangs against the wall, yet forms an essential part of its decorative scheme. A special alcove of suitable proportions is always provided for it. It is indeed true that a “Kakimono,” as such a picture is called, is occasionally taken down, and another substituted, to suit the change of season, or the mood of its owner; but no Japanese who loves his pictures — and most of them do — would place in the “tokanoma,” or alcove, one out of harmony with the general decorative effect. Needless to say, the paintings on the screens which form the partitions between rooms, and on those which stand detached, are essentially ornamental. As a decorative rather than a realistic intention is thus the primary one in Eastern painting, all elements, such as strong modeling by light and shade, which would disturb the decorative effect, are avoided.

That the Oriental has thus always followed the canons of what we call decorative art is, I think, fortunate. For it is these self-imposed limitations, which, by simplifying his problem, have enabled him to develop freely those beauties of line and line pattern, of dark and light “massing,” and of color composition in flat tones, which have made his art famous throughout the West.

That decorative art should suggest to us certain limitations is a sign of our different æsthetic view-point. For the Japanese, while recognizing the realistic effect produced by the use of light and shade (and other similar devices), do not feel their omission as any serious artistic loss. To them painting is primarily a means of conveying emotion, not a method of reproducing natural fact. They regard it more as we do music. Hence the harmonies produced by a beautiful combination of lines and colors far outweigh in their opinion any pleasure which the feeling of being able to walk around and touch the objects in a picture can possibly confer. The critic Shuzan says: “There is a style of painting in which nature is exactly imitated. Such painting is not to be despised, but, as it does not reach the heart of things, and ignores the rules of art, it cannot appeal to good taste.” Here again we find the classic spirit speaking in every word.

The importance attached by the Japanese to emotional effect is illustrated by the way in which even line is made subservient to it. For instance, the soothing influence of a smooth, flowing brushstroke is taken advantage of in the treatment of a quiet, tender theme, while in one whose dominant note is vigor and spirit, splintery, stimulating lines are employed. In the former case, moreover, the composition is, if possible, so arranged that abrupt angles are avoided; while in the latter the lines clash sharply, keeping the eye on the alert.

The different effects to be obtained by various methods of line grouping are beautifully illustrated in Japanese art. In this picture, for instance, one will find a vertical massing, as in the works of Puvis de Chavannes, to suggest quietness, serenity. In that, a rhythmic series of curves gently undulating like tongues of flame will be used in such a way as to heighten to a remarkable degree the solemnity of a theme. In fact, it is an almost magical use of line, especially such curved line, which alone explains why Japanese figures of deity, though usually anatomically crude, produce on the beholder such a marked spiritual impression, such a wonderful sense of repose, of Buddhistic peace. A more distinctly sad note is occasionally struck by similar means in scenes like those of which Mr. Arthur Morrison speaks. In describing a picture representing a group of women led captive, and preceded by warriors bearing heads on the points of their spears, he says: “The bowed figures of the women are indicated merely by the outlines of the white mourning robes which cover them; but such an overpowering expression of hopeless grief as is given to those mere lines of drapery I have never encountered in any other work of art, Eastern or Western.”

It seems hardly necessary to call attention to the skill with which the Japanese group and contrast flat masses of light and dark, colored or otherwise; for it is only a few years ago that our admiration of their tone harmonies (or Notan, as the Oriental terms this pictorial feature) resulted in the so-called “poster” movement. One might have supposed, judging from the sense of novelty and delight which these designs aroused, that some new principle of beauty had been discovered. The fact is, however, that one of the oldest and most important elements of pictorial art had been so long disregarded that its reappearance in a fresh form came as a revelation. We need only look beneath the surface to find this same principle of effect illustrated in the works of men like Raphael, Titian, Reynolds, and Millet. But people had come to dwell on so many other qualities in the work of such artists that they lost sight of this more fundamental one. It was reserved for Japan, whose art has been less burdened with the problems which the West has tried to solve, to bring clearly before us once more this form of beauty.

There is, however, one quality of Japanese Notan, which, though we see it occasionally exemplified in European painting, especially of the Renaissance period, is very rarely found in our modern printed designs; I mean a certain beauty of surface, of texture, recalling that of old marble. This quality, found in many Oriental paintings, as well as prints, adds a delightful imagined sense of touch to the pleasures of tone contrast. Picture the interior of St. Mark’s in all its beauty of tone and color, but minus the softly polished marble surfaces; substitute, for instance, canvas in place of the alabaster surface; and you see at once how much may depend on the presence of this one quality.

III

So far we have been noticing the beauties, more or less intrinsic, which result from a masterly use of line and color, dark and light, in Japanese painting. Let us now turn our attention to the mode of treatment of the subject matter.

As in Greek and to a less degree in Renaissance and French classic art, it is the general, not the individual, aspect of things that is accentuated. The Japanese methods of study, in fact, would tend to exclude the possibility of any other result. For while the Oriental in his preliminary work makes careful notes, studying the accumulated experience of his predecessors as recorded in their works, and also (especially if he be a man of original talent) taking memoranda from nature herself, yet his completed picture is never a record of directly transmitted fact. It is in no sense a copy. It is hence inevitable that where so much depends on the memory, little beside the more general, typical features of the subject should survive. Certainly only such detail as naturally impresses itself on the artistic brain has a chance, under these conditions, of finding expression in the final painting. The emphasis,in Japanese art, of the universal side of things shows itself not merely in the manner of treatment of their exterior, but of the life beneath. A sense of animation must be given to things which live, at a sacrifice, if necessary, of more superficial truth. For that, after all, is the largest fact concerning them.

The figures of such an artist as Hokusai, for instance, have queer-shaped arms and legs, but they are full of human energy. They are not mere anatomical studies. Japanese animals are living animals. To paint such things as we, I am afraid, too often do, from stuffed specimens, would seem to the Oriental, as Mr. Conder says, irrational, absurd.

The notion, too commonly entertained in the West, that what is most accurate in a scientific sense is necessarily the truest in an artistic, implies a confusion of ideas foreign to the clear-cut Japanese mind. It is not, therefore, surprising that the corollary of this Western fallacy, namely, that one impression of nature directly recorded is necessarily worth any number that are merely memorized, should be unsympathetic to their point of view. The feeling on the subject is well expressed in an interview with the famous actor Danjiro, quoted by Mempes. On being asked whether his marvelous rendering of drunkenness was the result of the study of some one case, he replied: “No, no, never! I might just as well take a drunken man, and stick him on the stage, just as he is, as to imitate any one man. That is not art: it is not creation. I have seen drunken men all my life, and the drunken man I represented was the aggregate of all the drunkenness I have ever seen.” (Japan, p. 17.)

Except, then, in special instances of which I shall speak later, the Japanese concerns himself with the essentials of his subject; imitation of nature being regarded merely as a means to an end, not an end in itself. And his success in rendering the larger truths, when such truths seem æsthetically important, and morally proper, is undoubted. Religion and social custom, however, restricted the development of æsthetic interest, and consequently, of artistic skill in some directions. An appreciation, for instance, of the beauty of the undraped figure, to which the Greeks have opened our eyes, was little encouraged. Buddhism, though it did not, like earlier Christianity, frown upon the nude, yet, in laying stress on the metaphysical, depreciated the physical, side of man. Consequently, only those parts of the body — the face and hands — which were capable of interpreting the Buddhistic spirit, were thought worthy of careful delineation. The Greeks were prompted by their religion to regard the perfect body as the manifestation of the perfect soul; but not so the Japanese. Neither their faith nor the canons of art inherited from China encouraged such a view. Consequently, even though their opportunities for studying the human form were so abundant, the idea never presented itself, until recently, that there was in its detailed structure any special beauty.

The face depicted in the Buddhistic, as in most of the secular, art of Japan is an impersonal one. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Many admirable portraits (in the strict sense of the word) exist, which are not unworthy of being placed beside the crayon drawings of Holbein. But they form a small and distinct class. The face ordinarily seen in Japanese painting is not intended to be a portrait. In fact, an exactly opposite result is sought. For, in accordance with the classic feeling of the Japanese, and the impersonal point of view taught by their religion, the general or typical facial characteristics are alone emphasized. Sometimes they go a step farther, and, like the Greeks, modify their conception of the type in accordance with their canons of abstract beauty. Many of us are not pleased with the result. Their conception of the human face interests us but little. This is not, however, surprising. For our ignorance of Japanese feature makes it impossible for us to appreciate the conventional face which has been evolved from it. We have had no chance of forming in respect to the Japanese face what the psychologists would call an “apperceptive form or type.” ³

This matter of portraiture well illustrates the indirect as well as direct influence on art of the classic temperament. Where one meets with an elaborate code of etiquette, there classic feeling is sure to prevail. For etiquette is but social conduct freed of its personal and accidental elements. Society, in that most classicminded of European nations, France, avoids the personal note. This is still more the case in Japan, where all personal feeling, even in the face, is carefully veiled. It is inevitable, therefore, that the Japanese artist should feel it to be something of a moral as well as æsthetic sin to express in art what is so studiously hidden in actual life.

That the discrepancy between the Greek and Japanese rendering of the hu man body is due not to any essential dis similarity of æsthetic outlook, but rather to the different religious and social life of the two peoples, is confirmed by the fact that where the interest and powers of observation of the Japanese have been allowed free play, they show a remarkable grasp of the essential elements of form. Walter Crane speaks of their “wonderful knowledge of nature;” and Alfred R. Wallace, the scientist, refers to a collection of their plant drawings as “the most masterly things that he ever saw.” And what delicacy is shown in the treatment of detail, when it seems fitting, when it can be applied without detriment to the total impression, — to heighten the interest, or add to the decorative effect! The very fine detail sometimes found in Japanese pictures is never offensive, as is too often the case in Western work. For, as in the best Dutch painting, it is always in perfect keeping, always artistic.

The ideal landscapes of Poussin, and Claude, and perhaps those of Turner, seem in the light of our modern intimate knowledge and love of nature formal and unreal. Yet they have a genuine and noble beauty of their own, and, when regarded sympathetically, refresh and elevate us like a Bach fugue. Japanese landscape painting, especially in its earlier stages, when Chinese ideals controlled it, seems even more formal and unreal. Yet here also we may discover much that is beautiful.

The Oriental artist does not so much seek to transcribe nature as to suggest her moods. His interest is centred in the poetic sentiment which she elicits. The saying of the Japanese, that a picture is a “voiceless poem,” is particularly appropriate to their landscape painting. Our best artists also seek to express the poetry of nature. But they find it in many things. Our æsthetic pleasure in landscape is a complex one. The Oriental, on the other hand,in conformity with his type of mind, finds it in the dominant character, — in that which remains when all its accidents are eliminated; in other words, when it has been simplified and idealized. “For a landscape painting,” to quote our Japanese critic once more, “is not loved because it is a facsimile of the natural scene, but because there is something in it greater than mere accurate representation of natural forms, which appeals to our feelings, but which we cannot express in words.”

The Japanese landscape painter, therefore, as a general rule, is sparing of detail. We are sometimes inclined on this account to regard his completed work as nothing but a sketch. But to express more would be in his eyes to discredit the observer’s perception and taste. For, as Mr. Lowell says, in his Soul of the Far East, “a full picture is as unsatisfactory to the Oriental as a long poem is to us. . . . It is the secret of great art to say much with little.”

The Japanese artist, however, seldom loses sight of reality. Even the early landscapes inspired by the great Sung painters of China are not, as is generally supposed, purely imaginary. For a glance at the photographs and sketches of the upper Yangtse Kiang, where it rises in the fastnesses of Northern China, will make it clear that those mountains which they depict as piercing the clouds like great cathedrals, those monasteries perched on rocky eminences, those cascades and stately pines, typify the scenery of what used to be the favorite sketching-ground of that Chinese school whose work came to be regarded in Japan as the model of all that was best in landscape art.

It was not, indeed, until the latter part of the seventeenth century, when the Shijo, or naturalistic school, had been formed, that the representation of Japanese scenery, except as a background, came into vogue. The artistic understanding, however, which the Japanese at once displayed, when they began to portray their own charming landscape, tends to confirm the belief that the themes borrowed hitherto from China were no mere scholastic exercises, but were idealized transcripts of nature in harmony with contemporary taste. Neither photographs, nor the often excellent sketches made from time to time by foreigners, recall, to my mind, the characteristics of Japanese scenery so delightfully or so vividly as the views which Okio, Hoyen, Hippo, Harunobu, Kiyonaga, Hokusai, and Hiroshige, have given us on silk or paper.

IV

I have tried to suggest the attitude in which we may best approach Japanese painting, and to indicate some of its points of interest. I have intentionally refrained from dwelling on its peculiarities or defects. For they are self-evident. In fact, the sense of strangeness which must ever cling in a greater or less degree to Far Eastern art tends to make us overcritical toward it. Hence we are more apt to discover a lack of artistic ability in what is but the result of social and æsthetic forces acting under conditions unfamiliar to us, than to overlook any real deficiency. The common assumption that the apparent uniformity of Japanese art, as a whole,⁴ is due to a want of genuine artistic feeling, testifies to this fact. It is true that a lifeless formalism has at times marred Japanese painting; but this is not unnatural or surprising. It is, indeed, easy to see that all art which is imbued with the classic spirit incurs this risk. For, as the ideal of classicism is the attainment of the most finished, rather than the most original, result, the establishment of an æsthetic tradition or style is inevitable. But such a tradition is ever liable to abuse under the school system which it necessitates. For under such conditions the desire to preserve the tradition in all its purity is likely to be made an artistic end in itself. This, however, is simply saying that classicism, like any other artistic impulse, has its practical dangers and defects, — defects apparent not only in Japan, but in Greece, Italy, and France as well.

For the most part, however, the uniformity seen in Japanese, as in much Greek and later classic art, is but the mark of a definite style evolved by a school as the expression of its more permanent æsthetic convictions, and with which as a basis it effects those subtle alterations which gradually lead up to the perfect work of art.

We are often puzzled at our dissatisfaction with much of the modern decorative design, which under the name of l’art nouveau seeks a naturalistic effect similar to the Japanese. Yet to expect from such work a similar satisfaction is as reasonable as to look for Greek beauty in its modern imitation. The qualities which make Japanese design enduringly delightful are just those which require not years, but centuries, to develop. It is not the naturalism of Japanese decoration which is its greatest merit, — I have seen in Paris designs which showed a feeling for nature perhaps equally intimate. It is something more fundamental which gives to the Japanese product its distinct superiority. There is a peculiar unity of effect, a certain inner harmony of form, color, and design, unknown to the Western product.

The Japanese, with their natural, unsophisticated view of life, have ever sought in their art to mirror what a great painter and critic has termed “man’s primordial predilections.” Art, however, that seeks to embody pleasures founded on the unchanging properties of human nature, must have a past as well as a future, must be able to look backwards as well as forwards. Not one life’s labor, but that of many generations, is required. No people have better understood this than the Japanese. They have also clearly perceived that no art that is not true to the changeless element in man can endure; while on the other hand any subject, however trivial, can be made eternally attractive, if only treated in accordance with æsthetic law.

Japanese painting delights us by its delicate fancy, its poetry, its freedom, its spirit; but what gives these qualities special and enduring charm, — what makes the play of fancy never wearisome, the liberty never mere license, — is that they find expression in and through a framework of design so finely conceived that therein we see reflected as in a mirror the fundamental principles which govern all true art.