Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/26

RV 6 of realities, not of ideas. Appreciation depends on education. Occidentals have learned to esteem painting for the sake of its beauty independently of its environment; the Japanese esteems it for its beauty in subordination to its environment. As to which is the greater effort of art, need there be any discussion? The purpose of the artist in each case is radically different. When he steps out of the comparatively narrow limits imposed by decorative canons; when, by the aid of cast shadows, perspective, and a delicate gradation of "values," he shows his public not merely an exquisite scene from nature, but also the poetical aspects that it presents to his own refined imagination, is not the spectator in the presence of one of the greatest achievements of genius, one of the noblest results of intellectual development? Still the merits of the decorative system also must be recognised; above all, such a system as the Japanese elaborated by centuries upon centuries of subtle effort. The "picture" obliges its viewer to isolate himself from his surroundings; to gaze through an open window without any consciousness of the room in which he is standing. The decorative painting invites him to view it as part of a whole, and to value it in proportion as it enhances its environment. Japanese art may be said to end where European art begins,—that is to say, European art subsequent to the sixteenth century.

This broad difference recognised, it is found that the Japanese artist accepted every suggestion offered by nature within the limits of its adaptability. His observation was extraordinarily keen, perhaps because he never assisted it artificially. He knew nothing of animate models. It would have appeared quite irra-