Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/38

Rh (The odour soared into an everlasting ghost from life and death), As a gossamer, the handiwork of a dream, Tis left free as it flaps: The lady of Utamaro's art is the beauty of zephyr flow. I say again, the line with the breath of love, Enwrapping my heart to be a happy prey: Sensuous? To some so she may appear, But her sensuousness divinised into the word of love."

Although I can enjoy and even criticise Hiroshige or Hokusai at any time and in any place, let me tell you that I cannot do so with Utamaro, because I must be first in the rightest mood (who says bodies have no mood?) as when I see the living woman; to properly appreciate his work of art I must have the fullness of my physical strength so that my criticism is disarmed. (Criticism ? Why, that is the art for people imperfect in health, thin and tired.) I feel, let me confess, almost physical pain—is it rather a joy?—through all my adoration in seeing Utamaro's women, just as when with the most beautiful women whose beauty first wounds us; I do not think it vulgarity to say that I feel blushing with them, because the true spiritualism would please to be parenthesised by bodily emphasis. It is your admiration that makes you bold; again your admiration of Utamaro's pictures that makes them a real part of yourself, therefore your vital question of body and soul; and you shall never be able to think of them 3