Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/68

Rh "Umei!" Yedo slang for "splendid," which was at least unusual for a No appreciator. Nobody seemed, I am told, to criticise him when his good old heart was well recognised. So in his own art. I can point out, even from Professor Conder's collection alone, many a specimen where the aristocratic aloofness of air is often blurred by his plebeianism—for example in the pictures of "Daruma," "The Goddess Kwannon on a Dragon," "Carp swimming in a Lake," and others; the meaning I wish to impress on your mind will become clear directly when you compare them with the work of Sesshu, Motonobu, and Okyo on similar subjects. And again I have enough confidence to say that his elaborate pictures of red and green, after the Ukiyoye school, were more often weakened by the classic mist; although he did not wish to be looked upon as of that school, I think it was the main reason that he rather failed as an Ukiyoye artist. I endorse my friend to whom I praised and abused Kyosai lately only to get his true estimation, when he declared that Kyosai could not become one of the greatest artists of Japan simply from his inability to sacrifice his versatility; that versatility was the kind we can only find in Hokusai. He was the most distinguished example of one who failed, if he failed, from excess of artistic power and impulse.

Any one who sees Kyosai Gwaden will certainly be astonished by his extraordinary persistence