Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/251



cult as to judge the qualities and identify the sculptor of the art objects to which they refer.

The reader will agree that these commentaries from the pen of a Japanese connoisseur convey a truer and more trustworthy idea of the attitude of the Japanese mind towards the work of the sculptor of sword-ornaments, and, indeed, toward art in general, than could possibly be gathered from a foreign analysis. Even the most intelligent and least prejudiced foreign student has much, nay, insuperable, difficulty in tracing the exact processes of Japanese intelligence. The Japanese are quiet folks. They never expatiate upon beauties presumably as obvious to others as to themselves; never enter into perfervid disquisitions about the "features" of a natural or an artificial picture. To do so would be to slight the eloquence of the picture itself and to insult the intelligence of the observer. A Japanese collector, unless his habits of thought and speech have been radically modified by intercourse with Occidentals, will show the whole of his treasures—if, indeed, he can be induced to show them at all—without making, from first to last, the briefest comment on their "points." The sole exception is in the case of an object which claims the reverence of association,—an object once honoured by the ownership of some celebrated warrior, statesman, or litterateur, and hallowed by the "odile" (kotaku) of his touch. Concerning the origin of such a treasure he will volunteer some information, its story being otherwise untraceable. But whatever is within the unaided reach of expert observation, he leaves to be observed. His silence has been greatly misinterpreted. The ordinary foreigner construes it as evidence either of undeveloped speech or of an unfurnished mind.