Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/23

RV 3 strange that the question should have remained unanswered for any length of time, inasmuch as a visit to a Japanese dwelling should have immediately suggested the reply. A Japanese picture is not painted simply for the sake of representative effect; it is part of a decorative scheme. There is no such thing in Japan as a picture gallery—a place whither people repair to look at pictures merely for the sake of pictures. The painter, so far as the ultimate uses of his work were concerned, ranked with the joiner, the plasterer, and the paper-hanger. His object was to beautify some part of the domestic interior. Originally the scope of his art was chiefly religious, but from the fifteenth century he may be said to have had three fields for the exercise of his genius: first, screens—from the broad-faced tsuitate that stood in the vestibule, with its boldly limned design such as a passing glance could appreciate, to the little two-leaved biyobu that formed an elbow of glowing tints and delicate fancies to embrace the pillow of the lady of the household; second, the panels of the sliding doors that separated rooms, or gave access to cupboards and quaintly contrived nooks; and, third, the alcove recess, where a hanging picture occupied the background with a censer, supported on a stand, in the middle distance, and a flower vase and an okimono balancing each other in the foreground. Screens and door-panels, whatever their position or use, do not rise above the rank of articles of furniture: the designs applied to them must be purely decorative. But a picture hanging in an alcove seems at first sight to occupy a higher place and to offer a worthier opportunity for the display of representative art. In the Japanese system, however, the