Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/84



I tried to write about Busho Hara the artist (I use the term in the most eclectic Japanese conception, because his art served more frequently to make his personality distinguished through its failure rather than through its success); that my attempt turned to nothing was perhaps because my mind, solitary and sad like that of Hara, did not like to betray the secret of the recluse whose silence was his salutation. Besides, my heart and soul and all were too much filled with this Busho Hara from the fact of his recent unexpected death—(by the way, he was in his forty-seventh year, that interesting age for an artist, as it would be the beginning of a new page, good or bad); and I am, in one word, perfectly confused on the subject. When I wish to think of his art alone, and even to measure it, if possible, through the most dangerous, always foolish way of comparison with others, I find always, in spite of myself, that my mind, even before it has fairly started on his Rh