Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/82

Rh as a hundred lines being chained together by the flimsiest links. In this matter also the love of elaboration and the tendency to formalism that have been noted already in connection with other refined pursuits, asserted themselves. Minute formulæ were laid down for the guidance of composers and for testing excellence; styles were divided into "subjective" and "objective," and some professors of the art went so far as to allege a knowledge of "mysteries " invisible to ordinary folks. The Emperor Go-tsuchi-mikado (1465-1499) received the name of "beneath the blossom in recognition of his skill as a composer of renka, and many names of "masters have been handed down to posterity. This was certainly the most frivolous of Japan's literary pursuits. In reading its products the student is constantly obliged to recall the impressionist proclivity of Japanese art, whether pictorial or poetical; its delight in expressing ideas by a few strong strokes of the brush or a few cleverly compacted ideographs.