Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/241



easily betrays them, for their execution is invariably prolix and awkward. None the less when, after long toil and much pain, they have succeeded in carving, polishing, and colouring, they fondly imagine themselves great artists, and with consummate silliness inscribe their names on these productions, pointing the finger of scorn at other sculptors. It is with the carver as with the painter. The good pictorial artist, after acquiring a thorough knowledge of the uses of the brush as taught by his master, copies many fine old pictures and studies them earnestly, so that, when he comes to paint independently, he has always before his mind's eye a model showing the inimitably exquisite points of the great chefs-d'uvre of the past. But he never prostitutes his natural talent so far as to make slavish imitations. Thus every touch of his brush is eloquent of original talent, and the true critic cannot fail to detect the merits of his work. Very different is the practice of the "inferior" painter. His solicitude is almost entirely about the motive of his picture, scarcely at all about the brush-work. He is not versed even in the rudimentary art of using the "charred stick" (yaki-fude) to change the scale of a drawing, or to alter the shape of the figures. He prefers to make tracings of old pictures and to reproduce them with elaborate accuracy. There are not a few of these imitators, and the connoisseur, whether of painting or of sculpture, must needs be on his guard lest he deceive others as well as himself.

One naturally supposes that men like Jōi, Sōmin, Toshihisa, Yasuchika, and other masters, who, by giving birth to a glyptic style of their own, achieved world-wide fame, and whose doors were thronged by eager applicants for their productions, must have amassed much wealth. But it is impossible for a man to be great in art and mercenary at the same time. The common craftsman, as he bends over his task, is for ever estimating the wage it will bring. Thus the taint of covetousness is inevitably transferred to his work, constituting a feature which becomes more and more repellent as time goes by, and finally banishes the specimen to some degraded shop of a dealer in old metal. The true artist, though conscious that he toils for a living, has his recollection of the fact effaced by love for his work. At