Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/60

RV 38 fourteenth all society had become permeated with the military spirit. The canons of the bushi were the ethics of the era, and the austere philosophy of the Zen creed commended itself to a large section of the educated class. It was natural that this change should be reflected in the region of æsthetics, and since Chinese art happened to be passing at the time through a phase which accorded excellently with Japan's mood, the old relation of pupil and teacher was reestablished insensibly without a strong initiative on the part of any special artist. The style of painting then inaugurated found its chief expression in monochromatic, or lightly coloured, landscapes and seascapes of great delicacy, fidelity, and beauty, and in wonderfully lifelike, vigorous sketches of birds, flowers, and foliage.

It is characteristic of this school, which has had numerous representatives in every era since its foundation by the emigrant monks of Kyōtō, that its motives, like its style, were generally exotic. Until modern times, the Japanese usually loved to derive examples of chivalry, of statesmanship, of warlike prowess, of philosophy, of filial piety, of feudal devotion, and of legendary folk-lore from the annals of the Middle Kingdom. Hence the artists of the fourteenth-century renaissance, and their followers in almost every era, chose Chinese motives for their pictures, and instead of drawing inspiration direct from the exquisite scenery of their own country and the noble acts of their own countrymen and countrywomen, were content to copy Chinese ideals of landscape, and to devote themselves to illustrating Chinese traditions. It is easy to conceive what a despotism of methods, of mannerisms, and of conventionali-