Page:Brinkley - The Art of Japan, vol. 1.djvu/27

Rh wealthy merchants. They are practically inaccessible. A not uninterested or unintelligent observer may have lived for years in Japan before the trivial estimate he has formed of Sesshu, of Shiubun, of Motonobu, of Cho Densu, of Tanyu, or of the other masters is rudely disturbed some morning by a revelation that startles him into a new belief. He may never have that revelation at all. The chances are a thousand to one that it never comes to a resident of a foreign settlement. Certainly some of the European authors whom the world accepts as true exponents of Japanese art have never been introduced to genuine representatives of many of the historical schools that they describe. They have utilized their limited opportunities with diligence and ability, but it was impossible that they could speak discerningly of what they had not seen, or had viewed only through copies scarcely ranking above caricatures.

In this reflection is to be found, perhaps, a sufficient explanation of the great divergence between views submitted to the public on the subject of Japanese art. Chamberlain can scarcely conceal his contempt for it: he finds that it “stops at the small, the petty, the isolated, the vignette,” and that the chief lesson it has taught the world is “the charm of irregularity.” Fenollosa, on the other hand, talks of Motonobu as “scaling the heavens and battling with Titans;” of “the depth and intensity which startle us like the voices of the Gods from the mellow-toned sheets of Shiubun, Noami, Jasoku, and Masanobu;” of “the draught of immortality that all late artists have sought to drink from the well of Sesshiu’s irrepressible vigour,” and of “Yeitoku, whose heart burns with the internal fire lit from the torch of the Sung genius.” It is impossible that two men of very much more than average intelligence can speak of the same thing with voices so dissentient. The truth is that their verdicts are based on different evidence.