Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/268

JAPAN of bridges, arbours, lakes, rivers, cascades, and islands. It need scarcely be said that trees, shrubs, bushes, plants, and flowers are an extensive study. Here the Japanese have exercised their fidelity of observation with results that cannot be too much admired. They have learned to train each variety of tree and trim each kind of bush so that the most beautiful features of its natural growth shall be emphasised without being distorted; or, to use the language of Mr. J. Conder, that sympathetic and accurate student of Japanese aesthetics, they have developed "conspicuous ability in seizing upon the fundamental and characteristic qualities of natural forms, and creating a sort of shorthand, or contracted representation, for decorative purposes." It is true that this art sometimes degenerates into license. The forms that a tree or a shrub may be forced to assume are taken as models rather than the forms that its unrestrained growth suggests. But such abuses are the exception. As a rule the gardener only interprets and gives prominence to nature's intentions, fixing the beauties that vegetation would develop were the process of selection governed by artistic factors only, instead of being disturbed by unfavourable conditions of soil or surroundings. Trees and shrubs that have been thus trained and tended by him from generation to generation are objects of delightful comeliness, and, when examined closely, are found not only to have been kept in constant harmony with the 240