Page:Brinkley - The Art of Japan, vol. 1.djvu/66

38 drawing. They complain that the linear character of the objects he depicts is not accurate; that anatomical laws are often violated in his figures; that he appears to be without any exact knowledge of form. It would scarcely be correct to endorse that criticism unreservedly. We shall be speaking with more discernment if we say that the Japanese artist, to whichever of the schools he belonged, sacrificed truth of detail to truth of mass. His first aim was to obtain the appearance of life; accuracy of proportion seemed a secondary consideration. Each painter had his type which he idealized more or less, his idealism not being confined to the face but extending to the physique and even to the anatomy of his figures.

If the details of the drawing violate accepted canons, complaint is silenced by the sense of life that pervades the whole; by the perfect naturalness of every attitude, every movement, every gesture; by the eloquence with which the character of the objects speaks to us from the picture. In short, accuracy is sacrificed to the individuality that everything in nature possesses; the individuality which, in actual experience, impresses itself upon the attention of the observer and excludes all thought of linear exactness or anatomical truth. Kiyosai, the greatest modern representative of the Popular School, used to say exactly what Véron has said, namely, that nothing in nature pauses to be portrayed, that there is motion everywhere; if not actual motion in the object itself, then motion of the light falling on it or of the atmosphere surrounding it; that without elasticity of line the sense of life can not be obtained, and that elasticity of line is incompatible with what the classicists call strict accuracy. Kiyosai, as his sketch books showed, knew all about the structure of the human hand and foot, but the hands and feet that he drew in his pictures would have been wholly condemned by a Bouguereau or an Ingres.