Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/15

10 mere reality of the external world had ceased to be a standard for them, who lived in the temple studios. Laurance Binyon said of them: "Hints of the divine were to be found everywhere—in leaves of grass, in the life of animals, birds, and insects. No occupation was too humble or menial to be invested with beauty and significance." Through them the Ashikaga period becomes very important in our Japanese art annals. Binyon says: "The Ashikaga period stands in art for an ideal of reticent simplicity. A revulsion from the ornate conventions, which had begun to paralyse the pristine vigour of the Yamato school, and fresh acquaintance with the masterpieces of the Sung era, brought about by renewed contact with China, after a hermit period of exclusion, created a passion for swift, impassioned or suggestive painting in ink, on silvery-toned paper."

People, like myself, who are more delighted at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square with, for instance, "A Summer Afternoon after a Shower," or a "View at Epsom," by Constable, and with "Walton Reach," or "Windsor from Lower Hope," by Turner, than with their other bigger things, will be certainly pleased to see "Temple and Hill above a Lake," by Sesshu, or "Travellers at a Temple Gate," by Sesson, representing this interesting Ashikaga period, exhibited in the new wing of the British Museum. You have to go there and spend an hour or so with the