Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/115

110 even the public he ever so despised are not so unresponsive to his art, whose secret he learned in London.

Hara was, sad to say, also an artist whose Western art-work, like that of some other Japanese artists to whom quite an excellent credit was given in their European days, much declined or, better to say, missed somehow the artistic thrill since he left England in 1906. Why was that? what made him so? Was it from the fact that there is no gallery of Western art old or new in Japan where your work will only be belittled after you have received a good lesson there? or is it that our Japanese general public never have a high standard in the matter of art, especially of Western art 2? I think there are many reasons to say that the passive, even oppressive air of Japan, generally speaking, may have a perfectly disintegrating effect on an artist trained in the West; it would not be wholly wrong to declare that the real Western art founded on emotion and life cannot be executed in Japan. Hara made quite many portraits by commission since that 1906, some of which were brought out in this exhibition, As they are work more or less forced, we must go to his other works for his best, which he executed with mighty enthusiasm and faith under England's artistic blessing. He writes down in his diary, the reading of which was my special privilege, on January 2nd of 1905, the following words: "At last Port Arthur has fallen. When the war shall be done that will be the time for our battle of art against Europe to begin. Oh, what a great responsibility for Japanese artists!"

Hara made a student's obeisance toward Watts among the modern masters, whose influence will be