Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/347

 THE JAPANESE AS PEERS OF WESTERN PEOPLES 331 national Exposition of 1867 brought Japan entirely into vogue.

Where there had been rhythm, tension, clarity, largeness, and quietude in the old European painting, there was in them [the Japanese] a nervous free- dom, an artificial carelessness, and life and charm Artists learned

from them another manner of drawing and modeling, a manner of giving the impression of the object, without the need for the whole of it being executed, so that one knows that it is there only through one's knowledge.

As Paris was art center for the western world, these Japanese traits, once adopted there, spread everywhere, and have now become so familiar to our eyes as to lose some of their erstwhile novelty. By reason of this currency, much Japanese art now seems as familiar to us as Shakespeare's plays seem full of quota- tions. The puerilities of Dresden china and the improprieties of Sevres have been revealed by the advent of the famous Royal Copenhagen, which closely follows a Japanese model; while the American Rockwood has won its deserved fame by adopting a Japanese type to American clays and American tastes, and a Japanese is regularly found on the staff of art-craftsmen at the Rockwood studio in Cincinnati. William Anderson sums up the survey in his superb Pictorial Arts of Japan with the words :

In its motives it claims a share of originality at least equal to that of any art extant; in the range and excellence of its decorative application it takes perhaps the first place in the world; though in the qualities of scientific com- pleteness (perspective, chiaroscuro, and anatomy) it falls much below the standard of modern Europe.

But while these faults are the pardonable and remediable effects of a mistaken reverence for traditional conventions, and indeed are already being remedied, the remarkable beauties reveal quali- ties that no academic teaching could supply.

But most people have heard some echo of Mr. Alfred East's dictum that "Japanese art is great in small things, but small in great things." This error arose in part from the seclusion of "great things" in private collections and temple treasuries, whereas "small things" of fine artistry are abundant in Japan as they are nowhere else on earth. But also the fact is that, in point of both subject and form, Japanese fine art compares fairly with European, as Mr. E. F. Fenollosa demonstrates in his lee-