Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/26

Rh Vacancy, giving his esthetic fancy full swing to fill the "vacancy" of abode and life. He warned his son and family, when he bade them farewell, it is said, that they should never step into Yedo of the powerful lords and princes, because the worldly desire was not the way of ennobling a life which was worth living. We might call it "seihin," or proud poverty that Koyetsu most prized, as it never allures one from the chasteness of simplicity which is the real foundation of art. There is reason to believe that he must have been quite a collector of works of art, rich and rare, in his earlier life; but it is said that he most freely gave them away when he left his city home for his lonely retirement; indeed he was entering into the sanctuary of priests. What needed he there but prayer and silence? There is nothing more petty, even vulgar, in the grey world of art and poetry, than to have a too close attachment to life and physical luxuries; if our Orientalism may not tell you anything much, I think it will teach you at least to soar out of your trivialism.

Koyetsu's must have been a remarkable personality, remarkable because of its lucidity distilled and crystallised—to use a plebeian expression, by his own philosophy, whose touch breathed on the spot a real art into anything from a porcelain bowl to the design on a lacquer box; I see his transcendental mien like a cloud (that