Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/88

Rh even when he failed to make a strong impression on me with his art. It was his immediate question on his return home how to apply the technique of oil painting he learned in London to Japanese subjects; if he failed in his art, as he always believed and I often thought he did, it was from the reason, I dare think, that he had indeed too clear a view of self-appraisal or self-criticism under whose menace he always took the attitude of an outsider towards his own work. How often I wished he were wholly without that critical power, always hard to please, altogether too fastidious! His artistic ambition and aim were so absolute and most highly puritanic; as a result, he was ever so restless and sad with his art, and often even despised himself. He had a great enemy, that was no other but his own self; he was more often conquered by it than conquering it. I have never seen in my life a more sad artist with the brush, facing a canvas, than this Busho Hara. Besides, his poor health, which had been failing in the last few years, only worked to make his critical displeasure sharper and more peculiar; and he utterly lost the passion and foolishness of his younger days. How often we promised, when we parted after a long chat, which usually began with Yoshio Markino, dear friend of his and mine in London, and as a rule ended with reminiscences of our English life, that we would hereafter return to our younger age, if possible to our boys' days,