Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/159

* JAPANESE AKT. 139 JAPANESE ART. simple in pose and gesture that the very realism ot tlie design is lost, as it were, in a kind of tra- ditional dignity suggestive of a firm intellectual control over all the outlying branches of the central school. This influence of severe and re- strained design remained umnodified in any seri- ous way down to the accession to power of the Tokugawa slioguns in the sixteenth century. At this time the covmtry was deliberately shut up from foreign influence, partly in protest against the pretensions of the Christian missionaries, and partly to secure an epoch of perfect peace, which, indeed, was gained, and lasted down to the time of the interference of the United States in the affairs of .Japan as marked by the appearance of Commodore Perri^'s squadron in Japanese waters in 1853-54. During this period the arts became far more sumptuous than l)efore. The abundance and variety of decoration increased verv' greatly. The richness ot detail and brilliancy of color in architecture were matched only b.y the extraor- dinary variety of design shown in the minor parts of decorative art, including textile fabrics, metal, lacqvier work, and pottery. Painting, considered by itself and in connection with the .separate pictures which we know as backed with rich brocades and hung upon walls, or mounted upon portable folding screens, had ob- tained a prodigious development in China in the twelfth century of the Christian Era: and the direct influence of this continental art upon the painting of Japan is traceable even to our as yet imperfect methods of investigation. The paint- ings of the Tokugawa period, then, tend toward greater realism and a less fixed and iinalterable tradition in the way of design than in the former time. Arctiitectire. As compared with that of China the architecture of Japan is less massive; and its efTects are even more exclusively those of the great overhanging curcd roof forming the chief motive of the design — the element which even more than the rounded and swelling cupola in a domed cluirch of Europe, gives character to the wliole design. The common use of timber even for buildings meant to be, and sufficiently proved lo be, very lasting has deprived .Japanese archi- tecture of the ponderous wall and the great arch. The building of the country is therefore essen- tially that of separate uprights tied and braced to- gether: in other words, timber construction very like in principle to that of mediaeval Europe, but more dignified than that because there was in the Eastern land no overmastering style of masonry architecture, like that of the vaulted buildings of Gothic or of neo-classic type, to restrain Its de- velopment. Whatever was to be done, architec: furally speaking, in Japan, was perforce done with the trees of the mountain forests: whereas in Europe that material was generally used only for dwelling-houses, and in some lands for civic buildings, wliile the ecclesiastical buildings which set the fashion and fixed the standard of wliat was fine were almost invariably walled and roofed with stone. The result of this is that the architecture of Japan seems to a European rather uniform in character: but it is evident ihat a profounder ex«imination of the subject would show divergencies as great in the different forms and cliaractcristics of .Japanese buildings as we find in fhe buildings of any European land. The difference from century to century is less, however; and this because of the admitted Vol. XI.— 10. slowness of all change among Asiatics, and also because of the deliberate action of so many rulers of Japan in keeping new foreign influences away from the land. In detail there are one or two exceptional characteristics which result from this acceptance of the structural type made neces- sary by the custom of building in wood and framework. This framework has its own neces- sary characteristics: and these are heightened and eu'-phasized bj- the use of metal holders for the points of support and the points where one timber is secured to another. .Just as the floor- beams in European buildings are often hung in 'stirrups' of wrought iron, which hook on to the girder and support the end of the minor beam, thus saving the whole strength of. the one piece and giving support to the whole under side of the other so as to avoid all cutting away ot the ma- terial, so in .Japan a metal mount especially af- fected to the purpose will maric the insertion of one timber into another, the crossing of two tim- bers of equal size, and also the base and top of a pillar, whether of wood, or, as sometimes hap- pens, of stone. The interior of the often repre- sented 'Phoenix Hall' of the Shoguns of the Fuji- waro, race reigning in the eleventh century of the Christian Era, has retained almost unchanged the beautiful interior eft'ect produced by this system of construction in wood, braced and adorned by A^rought metal. These metal mounts are, then, often wrought with delicate surface ornamentation, and gilded in different hues of gold. They may be varied also by elaborate modifications of the edge. The wooden members which they strengthen and adorn are themselves colored not by the coarse-grained painting of the West, but by the exquisitely smooth and delicate coatings of strong color or of metallic lustre pro- ducible by the process which we call in a rough generalization that of lacquer. It is, of cotirse, understood that a .Japanese interior, as of a dwelling-house, is of extreme simplicity ; but this simplicity disappears when there is question of a pavilion or house of entertainment belonging to the sovereign or one of the greater nobles ; and this not because of the greater resources of the nolile so much as because the building is supposed to be permanent, and has both the exterior and the interior treated with somewhat the same re- spect that is given to the admittedly everlast- ing temples of religion. DECor..TivE Pieces. The minor decorative arts of Japan are known to us as those of no Eastern nation arc known, because, in the main, of the sudden breaking up and scattering of the great princely collections during the civil wars of 1868 and thereafter. The dainiios or terri- torial nobles took sides strongly, and all felt the immediate need of raising money by all possible expedients. The result was that Europe and tlie United States 'were offered an astonishing number of works of art in pottery, metal-work, woodwork, ivory, and textiles. By the time w'hen the French Universal Exhibi- tion was held in 1878, it had become possible to classify these works of art by their material, and also in a rough way by their epoch. It appeared then that there was but little to be learned of Japan in the way of porcelain — that chief of the ceramic arts remaining the special property of the Chinese. On the other hand, the Japanese were found to excel in fhe hard potteries, both highly finished and richly decorated, and also