Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/301

Rh. He avers that colour is not the key-note of the composition, but line, and the balance of proportion; which is true enough, except that he implies a lack of colour sense on the part of the Japanese, which is far from being a fact. As I have more than once stated in this book, the Japanese colour sense is so delicate, the perception of harmonies so fine, that people of bolder and coarser feeling are not competent to judge them. In grey, the ‘Artist’s Colour,’ they find their chiefest delight; in soft mauves, faint blues, mellow fawns and browns, they are content. They do not care for blazing branches of Maple in the house—the takenomo seldom displays flamboyant bouquets of highly tinted flowers. The chastity, almost austere harmony, of a Japanese room, with its honey-coloured mats, its pale diffused lighting from paper-covered windows (like bright moonlight, or as if snow lay outside), is seldom broken by any flowers more gaily hued than silk-petalled Irises, Plum or rosy Cherry blossoms, or the sombre branches of Pine. Sometimes the only decoration in the whole room—for there never is any furniture, as all the world knows, and everything decorative is placed in the sacred niche—is an old block of half-decayed wood, covered with delicately beautiful, silvery fungi. A lichen-covered stone of good shape is often seen also, or some curious piece of wreckage from the beach, which has been painted warm