Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/426

 CHAPTER XXV HE Korean is highly susceptible to the melodies of art, but not to its harmonies. May this not be said of Far Eastern art in general? Japan is the home of bijouterie, but the higher forms of art which require for their production the genius of combination are conspicuous by their absence. The single exception may be found in Japanese landscape gardening, but even here their art is dwarfed and cramped. Now this ability to combine different elements for a general effect is quite lacking in the Korean. If you go into a Korean gentleman's garden, for instance, you may find some beautiful plants, but huddled together in such a way that they can give no pleasure. The Korean way is to pick out one of these and place it by itself to be admired as an individual object. He has no idea of grouping them so that each may enhance the beauty of the others. However many works of art a Korean may possess, he will not have more than one or two of them exposed at a time. After one of them has been standing for a week or two in his sarang, or reception room, it will be removed and another substituted for it. In this way he enjoys a variety and does not soon tire of his collection. It may be objected that this is not due to ignorance of the effects of combination, but because the Korean house is so arranged that it does not admit of an effective combination of several works of art at one and the same time. We believe, however, that if Koreans had any instinct for effective combinations they would long since have found a way to make them possible.

It cannot be said that the Korean is lacking in the aesthetic instinct, but its development has been narrow. There has been