Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/110

Rh of some genius at once to frighten and hypnotise and charm us and make the Western art more intimate with our minds.

I amused myself thinking that it was Oscar Wilde who said that Nature imitates art; is not the nature of Japan imitating the poor work of the Western method? Art is, indeed, a most serious thing. It is the time now when we must jealously guard our spiritual insularity, and carefully sift the good and the bad, and protect ourselves from the Western influence which has affected us too much in spite of ourselves. Speaking of the Western art in Japan, I think I have spoken quite unconsciously of the general pain, not only in art, but in many other things, from which we wish we could escape.

After I have said all from my uncompromising thought, my mind, which is conscious to some extent of a responsibility for Japan's present condition in general, has suddenly toned down to thinking of the short history of Western art in Japan, that is less than fifty years. What could we do in such a short time? It may even be said that we did a miracle in art as in any other thing; I can count, in fact, many valuable lessons (suggestions too) from the Western art that we transplanted here originally from mere curiosity. Whether good or bad, it is firmly rooted in Japan's soil; we have only to wait for the advent of a master's hand for the real creation of great beauty.