Page:Brinkley - The Art of Japan, vol. 1.djvu/39

Rh, which, if less precise in the former than in the latter case, are not less laudatory; but it may be asserted that nothing produced by the painters of Europe between the seventh and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era approaches within any measurable distance of the works of the great Chinese masters who gave lustre to the Tang, Sung, and Yuan dynasties, nor—to draw a little nearer to modern times times—is there anything in the religious art of Cimabue that would not appear tame and graceless by the side of the Buddhist compositions of Wo Tao-tsz, Li Lung-yen, and Ngan Hwui. Down to the end of the southern Empire in 1279, the Chinese were at the head of the world in the art of painting, as in many other things, and their nearest rivals were their own pupils, the Japanese.” Having thus briefly examined the characteristics and merits of Chinese pictorial art, we revert to our summary of the evolution of art in Japan. Up to the middle of the ninth century, Japanese artists were still living in the Chinese studio as immature pupils. They had apparently developed glyptic ability far superior to that of the Chinese, but as painters they were separated from the latter by a long interval. Now, however, we find ourselves in the presence of a master, Kose no Kanaoka (850–888, ), worthy to rank with the great Tang artists. We place him at the beginning of Japanese pictorial art, for, though the logic of evolution would be better consulted by putting him at the climax of an epoch, the fact is that we can only infer the existence of his predecessors. Their names alone are known, and we