Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/177

 of wall plaster, colouring it with delicate taste, employing many dexterous devices to vary its surface, and moulding it into diapers, arabesques, and other designs of much beauty. But painting with colour mixed with lime remained unknown to them, and when it is remembered that this method was in use in Egypt from the very remotest era of that country's monumental history, that it passed thence to Italy and Greece, that its extraordinary durability was understood as early as the days of Vitruvius, and that traces of Grecian influence are plainly discernible in Japanese art, the fact that such an aid to architectural decoration did not become familiar to the peoples of the Far East is certainly curious. It would seem, too, that the distemper painting at Horiu-ji was an exotic method which never took root in Japan, for only two other examples of similar work are known to exist.

The Golden and Silver Pavilions alluded to above offer good illustrations of the point to which interior decoration had been carried before the sixteenth century. The former had three storeys. The lowest was quite plain, its milk-white timbers and unadorned walls forming a chaste setting for gilt statuettes of deities and an effigy of Yoshimitsu himself, which formed its only furniture. The ceiling of the second storey was painted with angels (tennin) encircled by a border of floral scroll. The third storey was completely gilt, walls, floor, ceiling, and balcony being covered with gold foil. The Silver Pavilion, or, to speak more correctly, one of its associated buildings, showed a partial approach to the decorative style of later eras. The walls had Indian-ink sketches—