Page:A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design (1880).djvu/41

23 Introduced into an artist’s studio, well lighted and arranged, we can pass in review the resources with which he prepares his models, and the heaped up sketches in large sheets. The apparatus of a water colourist is very simple; a few cakes of vegetable or mineral colours in a little box, some fish glue diluted, for varnish, a stick of China ink, several pencils such as are used for writing, with grey hair, spreading at the bottom, a few large saucers, one taking the place of a palette, a little earthen pan of water, all spread upon the floor to the right of the worker, who is squatting upon the ground, stretched upon his elbows, and turning the pencil toward the sheet of paper spread out before him. It would be too tedious and complicated to fix it on an easel, and the vertical position would not easily allow large drawings to dry on the paper or the silk. Our artist gets to work leaning in the position just described; the left hand holds the right to steady it; soon the paper begins to be covered with China ink, with three strokes of the pencil is produced a confused black form, which will directly represent a rock, from thence springs a slender stem surmounted by a wheel with open spokes; this wheel is transformed into a chrysanthemum, then the stem is covered with leaves, it throws off other flowers, in each one can count the number of strokes of the pencil, sometimes one serves alone to represent the curling of a twisted leaf; striking this way and that with vigour, and without ever starting a second time to finish the same line, or giving himself an instant of rest or reflection, the artist works with the rapidity and precision of a mechanic.

Absolute master of effect, the Japanese artist seeks to produce it by the smallest possible effort, and it is in this particular that his surpassing skill in handling the brush, that skill which is the outcome of his common education, is shown, and in which he is unequalled by the artists of any other country in the world. A few masterly strokes and he has produced a branch laden with cherry blossoms, a plume of feathery bamboo, a bird darting through the air, or balancing on a slender spray, which, if not botanically or ornithologically correct, have in them life and action and suggestiveness of nature, and which are, in view of the remarkably slight means employed, unmatchable by our best artists, and unsurpassed as decorative works. The same method of decoration and ornament is employed for all purposes and in all materials. Thus the ornament used on lacquer will be found on ceramics, bronzes, stuffs, and enamels; no special ornament is employed for any special material, the drawing books have served alike for all.

Of grand harmonies the Japanese have scarce an idea, but when it is a question of flowers, of birds, of fish, they display all the wondrous cunning of their pencil, all the resources of their palette, to render the representation satisfying to the beholder. A bird perched on a branch of a tree, a few flowers grouped together with exquisite relation of colours, and such like subjects are those which they love to display. The Japanese painter commends himself to us by the delicacy of his execution and the harmonious blending of his colours. He knows the exact science by tradition, he has learnt the law of contrasts and that of complementaries, but of the poetry, the emotion of colour, he is generally ignorant. He applies mechanically the rules he has had handed down to him without ever attempting to emancipate himself from the mechanical process.

Doubtless the peculiar power of colour possessed by the Japanese is to a great extent due to the beauty of their climate, which gives to objects vivid and delicate tones, of which in our less favoured land we are unhappily ignorant. In spring and autumn no other country in the world affords such variety and beauty of colouring, while the peculiar atmosphere in