Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/146

RV 122 in the Grecian sense of the term, and consequently find no parallels in Grecian sculpture. But it is surely extravagant to allege that they sin against the principles of glyptic art. If Grecian masterpieces suggest that all violent expression should be excluded from the province of sculpture, and that where truth cannot be combined with beauty the former must be subordinated to the latter, does it follow that the canon is final and conclusive? An answer seems to be furnished at once by some of the Japanese sculptor's representations of the Deva Kings, the Four Maharajas, the deities of thunder and storm, and other cognate creations. These statues do not satisfy the standard of classical beauty, but they command profound admiration, and just as perfect Grecian sculpture is an ideal combination of all the highest elements of beauty presented by the human form, so these Japanese sculptures are ideal combinations of all the qualities that typify superhuman strength, resolution, and supremacy. They are great works, not to be excluded from the art gallery because they depart from classic conventionalism, but rather to be admitted as proofs that the convention is not final.

Such works prepare the student to find that the duty of subordinating truth to beauty did not impel the Japanese sculptor to invent graceful or picturesque representatives of human passions and excesses. Instead of devising Satyrs, Nymphs, Fauns, Centaurs, Mænads, and so forth, to typify the lower instincts of humanity, he interpreted the spirit of vice and mischief as an ugly demon, not indeed as hideous as the Satan of Christian art but still a monster. It is scarcely credible that even the Greeks, though shrinking from everything repulsive, would have failed to