Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/192

ART] are striped or spotted, we have the best possible illustration of nature's methods in this direction. Examining the tiger or the leopard, in all the beauty of their symmetrical adornment, we do not see in any one example an exact repetition of the same stripes or spots on each side of the mesial line. They seem to be alike, and yet are all different. The line of division along the spine, it will be observed, is not perfectly continuous or defined, but in part suggested; and each radiating stripe on either side is full of variety in size, direction, and to some extent in colour and depth of shade. Thus nature works, and so, following in her footsteps, works the Japanese artist. The same law prevailing in all nature's creation, in the plumage of birds, the painting of butterflies' wings, the marking of shells, and in all the infinite variety and beauty of the floral kingdom, the lesson is constantly renewed to the observant eye. Among flowers the orchids, with all their fantastic extravagance and mimic imitations of birds and insects, are especially prolific in examples of symmetrical effects without any repetition of similar parts or divisions into even numbers.

The orchids may be taken as offering fair types of the Japanese artist's ideal in all art work. And thus, close student of nature's processes, methods, and effects as the Japanese art workman is, he ever seeks to produce humble replicas from his only art master. Thus he proceeds in all his decorative work, avoiding studiously the exact repetition of any lines and spaces, and all diametrical divisions, or, if these be forced upon him by the shape of the object, exercising the utmost ingenuity to disguise the fact, and train away the eye from observing the weak point, as nature does in like circumstances. Thus if a lacquer box in the form of a parallelogram is the object, Japanese artists will not divide it in two equal parts by a perpendicular line, but by a diagonal, as offering a more pleasing line and division. If the box be round, they will seek to lead the eye away from the naked regularity of the circle by a pattern distracting attention, as, for example, by a zigzag breaking the circular outline, and supported by other ornaments. A similar feeling is shown by them as colourists, and, though sometimes eccentric and daring in their contrasts, they never produce discords in their chromatic scale. They have undoubtedly a fine sense of colour, and a similarly delicate and subtle feeling for harmonious blending of brilliant and sober hues. As a rule they prefer a quiet and refined style, using full but low-toned colours. They know the value of bright colours, however, and how best to utilize them, both supporting and contrasting them with their secondaries and complementaries.

The development of Japanese painting may be divided into the following six periods, each signalized by a wave of progress. (1) From the middle of the 6th to the middle of the 9th century: the naturalization of Chinese and Chino-Buddhist art. (2) From the middle of the 9th to the middle of the 15th century: the establishment of great native schools under Kosé no Kanaoka and his descendants and followers, the pure Chinese school gradually falling into neglect. (3) From the middle of the 15th to the latter part of the 17th century: the revival of the Chinese style. (4) From the latter part of the 17th to the latter part of the 18th century: the establishment of a popular school. (5) From the latter part of the 18th to the latter part of the 19th century: the foundation of a naturalistic school, and the first introduction of European influence into Japanese painting; the acme and decline of the popular school. (6) From about 1875 to the present time: a period of transition.

Tradition refers to the advent of a Chinese artist named Nanriu, invited to Japan in the 5th century as a painter of the Imperial banners, but of the labours and influence of this man and of his descendants we have no record. The real beginnings of the study of painting and sculpture in their higher branches must be dated from the introduction of Buddhism from China in the middle of the 6th century, and for three centuries after this event there is evidence that the practice of the arts was carried on mainly by or under the instruction of Korean and Chinese immigrants.

The native artist who crested the first great wave of Japanese painting was a court noble named Kosé no Kanaoka, living under the patronage of the emperor Seiwa (850—859) and his successors down to about the end of the 9th century, in the midst of a period of peace and culture. Of his own work few, if any, examples have reached us; and those attributed with more or less probability to his hand are all representations of Buddhist divinities, showing a somewhat formal and conventional design, with a masterly calligraphic touch and perfect harmony of colouring. Tradition credits him with an especial genius for the delineation of animals and landscape, and commemorates his skill by a curious anecdote of a painted horse which left its frame to ravage the fields, and was reduced to pictorial stability only by the sacrifice of its eyes. He left a line of descendants extending far into the 15th century, all famous for Buddhist pictures, and some engaged in establishing a native style, the Wa-gwa-ryū.

At the end of the 9th century there were two exotic styles of painting, Chinese and Buddhist, and the beginning of a native style founded upon these. All three were practised by the same artists, and it was not until a later period that each became the badge of a school.

The Chinese style (Kara-ryū), the fundamental essence of all Japanese art, has a fairly distinct history, dating back to the introduction of Buddhism into China ( 62), and it is said to have been chiefly from the works of Wu Tao-zu, the master of the 8th century, that Kanaoka drew his inspiration. This early Chinese manner, which lasted in the parent country down to the end of the 13th century, was characterized by a virile grace of line, a grave dignity of composition, striking simplicity of technique, and a strong but incomplete naturalistic ideal. The colouring, harmonious but subdued in tone, held a place altogether secondary to that of the outline, and was frequently omitted altogether, even in the most famous works. Shadows and reflections were ignored, and perspective, approximately correct for landscape distances, was isometrical for near objects, while the introduction of a symbolic sun or moon lent the sole distinction between a day and a night scene. The art was one of imperfect evolution, but for thirteen centuries it was the only living pictorial art in the world, and the Chinese deserve the honour of having created landscape painting. The materials used were water-colours, brushes, usually of deer-hair, and a surface of unsized paper, translucid silk or wooden panel. The chief motives were landscapes of a peculiarly wild and romantic type, animal life, trees and flowers, and figure compositions drawn from Chinese and Buddhist history and Taoist legend; and these, together with the grand aims and strange shortcomings of its principles and the limited range of its methods, were adopted almost without change by Japan. It was a noble art, but unfortunately the rivalry of the Buddhist and later native styles permitted it to fall into comparative neglect, and it was left for a few of the faithful, the most famous of whom was a priest of the 14th century named Kawo, to preserve it from inanition till the great Chinese renaissance that lent its stamp to the next period. The reputed founder of Japanese caricature may also be added to the list. He was a priest named Kakuyū, but better known as the abbot of Toba, who lived in the 12th century. An accomplished artist in the Chinese manner, he amused himself and his friends by burlesque sketches, marked by a grace and humour that his imitators never equalled. Later, the motive of the Toba pictures, as such caricatures were called, tended to degenerate, and the elegant figures of Kakuyū were replaced by scrawls that often substituted indecency and ugliness for art and wit. Some of the old masters of the Yamato school were, however, admirable in their rendering of the burlesque, and in modern times Kyōsai, the last of the Hokusai school, outdid all his predecessors in the riotous originality of his weird and comic fancies. A new phase of the art now lives in the pages of the newspaper press.

The Buddhist style was probably even more ancient than the Chinese, for the scheme of colouring distinctive of the Buddhist picture was almost certainly of Indian origin; brilliant and decorative, and heightened by a lavish use of gold, it was essential to the effect of a picture destined for the dim light of the Buddhist temple. The style was applied only to the representations of sacred personages and scenes, and