Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/104

 crable. A triple gourd is in itself a monstrosity. A Japanese modeller, of his own motion, would be about as likely to choose such a shape as a European painter to put the conventional triple-hat of a Jew upon the head of a Grecian hero. The decoration of the vase is even more offensive. On the lowest globe peonies and sweet flags (Kaki-tusbatatsubata [sic]) grow vertically upward with mathematical precision and at regular intervals, while from the stems and roots of the peonies spring leaves of the sweet flag. On the second globe chrysanthemums and sweet flags grow spirally from the same stem. On the third and uppermost globe a branch of red plum grows vertically downward. In the same collection are several large covered jars, which, though their decoration does not offend and their general effect is very striking, were nevertheless designed altogether for the European market. In Japan such jars are only used to ornament drug and oil stores. To put them in the alcove of a Japanese gentleman's private dwelling would be equivalent to taking the blue glass bottles from an apothecary's window and placing them on a drawing-room table in America or Europe. There is, of course, no reason why an Occidental should not adorn his parlour with the utensils of an Oriental shop. But the point is that in the Dresden collection these jars are decorated en suite with flower-vases, a combination which would never have been made for Japanese use. The lesson to be deduced from these facts is that even from specimens of Japanese porcelain carried to Europe by the Dutch traders of Deshima in the seventeenth century very false notions of Japanese keramic art may be acquired.

Most curious were the interactions of the keramic arts of Holland and Japan. In the middle of the