Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/28

Rh hanging of his (thousand thanks to the Doctor) to which I look up to-day as a servant to his master, with all devotion. The sure proof of its being no mean art, I venture to say, is seen in its impressing me as the singular work of accident, like the blow of the wind or the sigh of the rain; it seems the writer (great Koyetsu) was never conscious, when he wrote it, of the paper on which he wrote, of the bamboo brush which he grasped. It is true that we cannot play our criticism against it; it is not our concern to ask how it was written, but only to look at and admire it. The characters are in the style called "gyosho," or current hand, to distinguish from the "kaisho," or square hand; and there is one more style under the name of "sosho," or grass hand, that is an abbreviated cursive hand. As this was written in "gyo" style, it did not depend on elaborate patience but on the first stroke of fancy. I have no hesitation to say that, when it is said that the arts of the calligrapher and the painter are closely allied, the art of the calligrapher would be by just so much related with our art of living; the question is what course among the three styles we shall choose—the square formalism of "kaisho" or the "sosho"-like romanticism? It does no justice to call "gyosho" a middle road; when you know that your idealism is always born from the conventionalism of reality of "kaisho"-