Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/37

RV 17 inundated his country in the eighth and ninth centuries. Two hundred years before his time (850-880 ), Buddhism had become established in Japan, and the best efforts of her artists were soon devoted to the service of the new faith. Thus the most ancient painting now extant is a mural decoration in the temple Horiu-ji, near Nara, which is believed to date from the opening years of the seventh century, and it may be stated at once that in no country has the spirit of art been more closely connected with religion than in Japan. Not merely did painting, architecture, and sculpture make their entry in the train of the Indian creed, but close study shows that the development of the various sects may often be traced by their influence on the artistic features of their respective epochs. To Buddhism also are due the Grecian affinities distinctly traceable in Japanese art, for the conquests of Alexander brought Grecian civilisation to northern India, whence Buddhism set out for China, Korea, and Japan.

Concerning the history of Japanese art, the best authorities refer its genesis to the reign of the Empress Suiko (563-567 ), when Chinese court fashions, literature, and etiquette were introduced, and with them came applied art for decorating the Buddhist temples then beginning to be built. The accuracy of the date need not be insisted upon, for the evidence is traditional; but certainly the seventh century bequeathed to posterity a few specimens which show that the casting, and chiselling of metal, and the manufacture of lacquer were already practised with considerable skill; that fine examples of embroidery had been imported from China, if not produced in Japan, and that painting, though still