Chapter 11

(F. By.)

IV.—Japanese Art

Painting and Engraving.—In Japanese art the impressionist element is predominant. Pictures, as the term is understood in Europe, can scarcely be said to have existed at any time in Japan. The artist did not depictPictorial Art.emotion: he depicted the subjects that produce emotion. Therefore he took his motives from nature rather than from history; or, if he borrowed from the latter, what he selected was a scene, not the pains or the passions of its actors. Moreover, he never exhausted his subject, but was always careful to leave a wide margin for the imagination of the spectator. This latter consideration sometimes impelled him to represent things which, to European eyes, seem trivial or insignificant, but which really convey hints of deep significance. In short, Japanese pictures are like Japanese poetry: they do not supply thought but only awaken it. Often their methods show conventionalism, but it is conventionalism so perfect and free in its allurements that nature seems to suggest both the motive and the treatment. Thus though neither botanically nor ornithologically correct, their flowers and their birds show a truth to nature, and a habit of minute observation in the artist, which cannot be too much admired. Every blade of grass, each leaf and feather, has been the object of loving and patient study.

It has been rashly assumed by some writers that the Japanese do not study from nature. All their work is an emphatic protest against this supposition. It can in fact be shown conclusively that the Japanese have derived all their fundamental ideas of symmetry, so different from ours, from a close study of nature and her processes in the attainment of endless variety. A special feature of their art is that, while often closely and minutely imitating natural objects, such as birds, flowers and fishes, the especial objects of their predilection and study, they frequently combine the facts of external nature with a conventional mode of treatment better suited to their purpose. During the long apprenticeship that educated Japanese serve to acquire the power of writing with the brush the complicated characters borrowed from Chinese, they unconsciously cultivate the habit of minute observation and the power of accurate imitation, and with these the delicacy of touch and freedom of hand which only long practice can give. A hair’s-breadth deviation in a line is fatal to good calligraphy, both among the Chinese and the Japanese. When they come to use the pencil in drawing, they already possess accuracy of eye and free command of the brush. Whether a Japanese art-worker sets himself to copy what he sees before him or to give play to his fancy in combining what he has seen with some ideal in his mind, the result shows perfect facility of execution and easy grace in all the lines.

The beauties of the human form never appealed to the Japanese artist. Associating the nude solely with the performance of menial tasks, he deemed it worse than a solecism to transfer such subjects to his canvas, and thus a wide field of motive was closed to him. On the other hand, the draped figure received admirable treatment from his brush, and the naturalistic school of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries reached a high level of skill in depicting men, women and children in motion. Nor has there ever been a Japanese Landseer. Sosen’s monkeys and badgers constitute the one possible exception, but the horses, oxen, deer, tigers, dogs, bears, foxes and even cats of the best Japanese artists were ill drawn and badly modelled. In the field of landscape the Japanese painter fully reached the eminence on which his great Chinese masters stood. He did not obey the laws of linear perspective as they are formulated in the Occident, nor did he show cast shadows, but his aerial perspective and his foreshortening left nothing to be desired. It has been suggested that he deliberately eschewed chiaroscuro because his pictures, destined invariably to hang in an alcove, were required to be equally effective from every aspect and had also to form part of a decorative scheme. But the more credible explanation is that he merely followed Chinese example in this matter, as he did also in linear perspective, accepting without question the curious canon that lines converge as they approach the spectator.

It is in the realm of decorative art that the world has chiefly benefited by contact with Japan. Her influence is second only to that of Greece. Most Japanese decorative designs consist of natural objects, treated sometimes in a moreDecorative Art.or less conventional manner, but always distinguished by delicacy of touch, graceful freedom of conception and delightfully harmonized tints. Perhaps the admiration which the Japanese artist has won in this field is due not more to his wealth of fancy and skilful adaptation of natural forms, than to his individuality of character in treating his subjects. There is complete absence of uniformity and monotony. Repetition without any variation is abhorrent to every Japanese. He will not tolerate the stagnation and tedium of a dull uniformity by mechanical reproduction. His temperament will not let him endure the labour of always producing the same pattern. Hence the repetition of two articles exactly like each other, and, generally, the division of any space into equal parts are instinctively avoided, as nature avoids the production of any two plants, or even any two leaves of the same tree, which in all points shall be exactly alike.

Plate I.

PAINTING

(These illustrations are reproduced by permission of the Kokka Company, Tokyo, Japan.)

Plate II.

PAINTING

The application of this principle in the same free spirit is the secret of much of the originality and the excellence of the decorative art of Japan. Her artists and artisans alike aim at symmetry, not by an equal division of parts, as we do, but rather by a certain balance of corresponding parts, each different from the other, and not numerically even, with an effect of variety and freedom from formality. They seek it, in fact, as nature attains the same end. If we take for instance the skins of animals thatare striped or spotted, we have the best possible illustration of nature’s methods in this direction. Examining the tiger or the leopard, in all the beauty of their symmetrical adornment, we do not see in any one example an exact repetition of the same stripes or spots on each side of the mesial line. They seem to be alike, and yet are all different. The line of division along the spine, it will be observed, is not perfectly continuous or defined, but in part suggested; and each radiating stripe on either side is full of variety in size, direction, and to some extent in colour and depth of shade. Thus nature works, and so, following in her footsteps, works the Japanese artist. The same law prevailing in all nature’s creation, in the plumage of birds, the painting of butterflies’ wings, the marking of shells, and in all the infinite variety and beauty of the floral kingdom, the lesson is constantly renewed to the observant eye. Among flowers the orchids, with all their fantastic extravagance and mimic imitations of birds and insects, are especially prolific in examples of symmetrical effects without any repetition of similar parts or divisions into even numbers.

The orchids may be taken as offering fair types of the Japanese artist’s ideal in all art work. And thus, close student of nature’s processes, methods, and effects as the Japanese art workman is, he ever seeks to produce humble replicas from his only art master. Thus he proceeds in all his decorative work, avoiding studiously the exact repetition of any lines and spaces, and all diametrical divisions, or, if these be forced upon him by the shape of the object, exercising the utmost ingenuity to disguise the fact, and train away the eye from observing the weak point, as nature does in like circumstances. Thus if a lacquer box in the form of a parallelogram is the object, Japanese artists will not divide it in two equal parts by a perpendicular line, but by a diagonal, as offering a more pleasing line and division. If the box be round, they will seek to lead the eye away from the naked regularity of the circle by a pattern distracting attention, as, for example, by a zigzag breaking the circular outline, and supported by other ornaments. A similar feeling is shown by them as colourists, and, though sometimes eccentric and daring in their contrasts, they never produce discords in their chromatic scale. They have undoubtedly a fine sense of colour, and a similarly delicate and subtle feeling for harmonious blending of brilliant and sober hues. As a rule they prefer a quiet and refined style, using full but low-toned colours. They know the value of bright colours, however, and how best to utilize them, both supporting and contrasting them with their secondaries and complementaries.

The development of Japanese painting may be divided into the following six periods, each signalized by a wave of progress. (1) From the middle of the 6th to the middle of the 9th century: the naturalization of Chinese and Chino-BuddhistDivision into Periods.art. (2) From the middle of the 9th to the middle of the 15th century: the establishment of great native schools under Kosé no Kanaoka and his descendants and followers, the pure Chinese school gradually falling into neglect. (3) From the middle of the 15th to the latter part of the 17th century: the revival of the Chinese style. (4) From the latter part of the 17th to the latter part of the 18th century: the establishment of a popular school. (5) From the latter part of the 18th to the latter part of the 19th century: the foundation of a naturalistic school, and the first introduction of European influence into Japanese painting; the acme and decline of the popular school. (6) From about 1875 to the present time: a period of transition.

Tradition refers to the advent of a Chinese artist named Nanriu, invited to Japan in the 5th century as a painter of the Imperial banners, but of the labours and influence of this man and of his descendants we have no record.First Period.The real beginnings of the study of painting and sculpture in their higher branches must be dated from the introduction of Buddhism from China in the middle of the 6th century, and for three centuries after this event there is evidence that the practice of the arts was carried on mainly by or under the instruction of Korean and Chinese immigrants.

The paintings of which we have any mention were almost limited to representations of Buddhist masters of the Tang dynasty (618-905), notably Wu Tao-zu (8th century), of whose genius romantic stories are related. The oldest existing work of this period is a mural decoration in the hall of the temple of Horyū-ji, Nara, attributed to a Korean priest named Donchô, who lived in Japan in the 6th century; and this painting, in spite of the destructive effects of time and exposure, shows traces of the same power of line, colour and composition that stamps the best of the later examples of Buddhist art.

The native artist who crested the first great wave of Japanese painting was a court noble named Kosé no Kanaoka, living under the patronage of the emperor Seiwa (850-859) and his successors down to about the end ofSecond Period.the 9th century, in the midst of a period of peace and culture. Of his own work few, if any, examples have reached us; and those attributed with more or less probability to his hand are all representations of Buddhist divinities, showing a somewhat formal and conventional design, with a masterly calligraphic touch and perfect harmony of colouring. Tradition credits him with an especial genius for the delineation of animals and landscape, and commemorates his skill by a curious anecdote of a painted horse which left its frame to ravage the fields, and was reduced to pictorial stability only by the sacrifice of its eyes. He left a line of descendants extending far into the 15th century, all famous for Buddhist pictures, and some engaged in establishing a native style, theWa-gwa-ryū.

At the end of the 9th century there were two exotic styles of painting, Chinese and Buddhist, and the beginning of a native style founded upon these. All three were practised by the same artists, and it was not until a later period that each became the badge of a school.

The Chinese style (Kara-ryū), the fundamental essence of all Japanese art, has a fairly distinct history, dating back to the introduction of Buddhism into China (A.D.62), and it is said to have been chiefly from the works of WuChinese Style.Tao-zu, the master of the 8th century, that Kanaoka drew his inspiration. This early Chinese manner, which lasted in the parent country down to the end of the 13th century, was characterized by a virile grace of line, a grave dignity of composition, striking simplicity of technique, and a strong but incomplete naturalistic ideal. The colouring, harmonious but subdued in tone, held a place altogether secondary to that of the outline, and was frequently omitted altogether, even in the most famous works. Shadows and reflections were ignored, and perspective, approximately correct for landscape distances, was isometrical for near objects, while the introduction of a symbolic sun or moon lent the sole distinction between a day and a night scene. The art was one of imperfect evolution, but for thirteen centuries it was the only living pictorial art in the world, and the Chinese deserve the honour of having created landscape painting. The materials used were water-colours, brushes, usually of deer-hair, and a surface of unsized paper, translucid silk or wooden panel. The chief motives were landscapes of a peculiarly wild and romantic type, animal life, trees and flowers, and figure compositions drawn from Chinese and Buddhist history and Taoist legend; and these, together with the grand aims and strange shortcomings of its principles and the limited range of its methods, were adopted almost without change by Japan. It was a noble art, but unfortunately the rivalry of the Buddhist and later native styles permitted it to fall into comparative neglect, and it was left for a few of the faithful, the most famous of whom was a priest of the 14th century named Kawo, to preserve it from inanition till the great Chinese renaissance that lent its stamp to the next period. The reputed founder of Japanese caricature may also be added to the list. He was a priest named Kakuyū, but better known as the abbot of Toba, who lived in the 12th century. An accomplished artist in the Chinese manner, he amused himself and his friends by burlesque sketches, marked by a grace and humour that his imitators never equalled. Later, the motive of the Toba pictures, as such caricatures were called, tended to degenerate, and the elegant figures of Kakuyū were replaced by scrawls that often substituted indecency and ugliness for art and wit. Some of the old masters of the Yamato school were, however, admirable in their rendering of the burlesque, and in modern times Kyōsai, the last of the Hokusai school, outdid all his predecessors in the riotous originality of his weird and comic fancies. A new phase of the art now lives in the pages of the newspaper press.The Buddhist style was probably even more ancient than the Chinese, for the scheme of colouring distinctive of the Buddhist picture was almost certainly of Indian origin; brilliant and decorative, and heightened by a lavish use ofBuddhist Style.gold, it was essential to the effect of a picture destined for the dim light of the Buddhist temple. The style was applied only to the representations of sacred personages and scenes, andas the traditional forms and attributes of the Brahmanic and Buddhist divinities were mutable only within narrow limits, the subjects seldom afforded scope for originality of design or observation of nature. The principal Buddhist painters down to the 14th century were members of the Kosé, Takuma and Kasuga lines, the first descended from Kanaoka, the second from Takuma Taméuji (ending 10th century), and the third from Fujiwara no Motomitsu (11th century). The last and greatest master of the school was a priest named Meicho, better known as Chō Densu, the Japanese Fra Angelico. It is to him that Japan owes the possession of some of the most stately and most original works in her art, sublime in conception, line and colour, and deeply instinct with the religious spirit. He died in 1427, at the age of seventy-six, in the seclusion of the temple where he had passed the whole of his days.The native style,YamatoorWa-gwa-ryū, was an adaptation of Chinese art canons to motives drawn from the court life, poetry and stories of old Japan. It was undoubtedly practised by the Kose line, and perhaps by their predecessors,Native Style.but it did not take shape as a school until the beginning of the 11th century under Fujiwara no Motomitsu, who was a pupil of Kose no Kinmochi; it then became known asYamato-ryū, a title which two centuries later was changed to that ofTosa, on the occasion of one of its masters, Fujiwara no Tsunetaka, assuming that appellation as a family name. The Yamato-Tosa artists painted in all styles, but that which was the speciality of the school, to be found in nearly all the historical rolls bequeathed to us by their leaders, was a lightly-touched outline filled in with flat and bright body-colours, in which verdigris-green played a great part. The originality of the motive did not prevent the adoption of all the Chinese conventions, and of some new ones of the artist’s own. The curious expedient of spiriting away the roof of any building of which the artist wished to show the interior was one of the most remarkable of these. Amongst the foremost names of the school are those of Montomitsu (11th century), Nobuzane (13th century), Tsunetaka (13th century), Mitsunobu (15th and 16th centuries), his son Mitsushige, and Mitsuōki (17th century). The struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans for the power that had long been practically abandoned by the Imperial line lasted through the 11th and the greater part of the 12th centuries, ending only with the rise of Yoritomo to the shōgunate in 1185. These internecine disturbances had been unfavourable to any new departure in art, except in matters appertaining to arms and armour, and the strife between two puppet emperors for a shadow of authority in the 14th century brought another distracting element. It was not until the triumph of the northern dynasty was achieved through the prowess of an interested champion of the Ashikaga clan that the culture of ancient Japan revived. The palace of the Ashikaga shōguns then replaced the Imperial court as the centre of patronage of art and literature and established a new era in art history.

The Buddhist style was probably even more ancient than the Chinese, for the scheme of colouring distinctive of the Buddhist picture was almost certainly of Indian origin; brilliant and decorative, and heightened by a lavish use ofBuddhist Style.gold, it was essential to the effect of a picture destined for the dim light of the Buddhist temple. The style was applied only to the representations of sacred personages and scenes, andas the traditional forms and attributes of the Brahmanic and Buddhist divinities were mutable only within narrow limits, the subjects seldom afforded scope for originality of design or observation of nature. The principal Buddhist painters down to the 14th century were members of the Kosé, Takuma and Kasuga lines, the first descended from Kanaoka, the second from Takuma Taméuji (ending 10th century), and the third from Fujiwara no Motomitsu (11th century). The last and greatest master of the school was a priest named Meicho, better known as Chō Densu, the Japanese Fra Angelico. It is to him that Japan owes the possession of some of the most stately and most original works in her art, sublime in conception, line and colour, and deeply instinct with the religious spirit. He died in 1427, at the age of seventy-six, in the seclusion of the temple where he had passed the whole of his days.

The native style,YamatoorWa-gwa-ryū, was an adaptation of Chinese art canons to motives drawn from the court life, poetry and stories of old Japan. It was undoubtedly practised by the Kose line, and perhaps by their predecessors,Native Style.but it did not take shape as a school until the beginning of the 11th century under Fujiwara no Motomitsu, who was a pupil of Kose no Kinmochi; it then became known asYamato-ryū, a title which two centuries later was changed to that ofTosa, on the occasion of one of its masters, Fujiwara no Tsunetaka, assuming that appellation as a family name. The Yamato-Tosa artists painted in all styles, but that which was the speciality of the school, to be found in nearly all the historical rolls bequeathed to us by their leaders, was a lightly-touched outline filled in with flat and bright body-colours, in which verdigris-green played a great part. The originality of the motive did not prevent the adoption of all the Chinese conventions, and of some new ones of the artist’s own. The curious expedient of spiriting away the roof of any building of which the artist wished to show the interior was one of the most remarkable of these. Amongst the foremost names of the school are those of Montomitsu (11th century), Nobuzane (13th century), Tsunetaka (13th century), Mitsunobu (15th and 16th centuries), his son Mitsushige, and Mitsuōki (17th century). The struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans for the power that had long been practically abandoned by the Imperial line lasted through the 11th and the greater part of the 12th centuries, ending only with the rise of Yoritomo to the shōgunate in 1185. These internecine disturbances had been unfavourable to any new departure in art, except in matters appertaining to arms and armour, and the strife between two puppet emperors for a shadow of authority in the 14th century brought another distracting element. It was not until the triumph of the northern dynasty was achieved through the prowess of an interested champion of the Ashikaga clan that the culture of ancient Japan revived. The palace of the Ashikaga shōguns then replaced the Imperial court as the centre of patronage of art and literature and established a new era in art history.

Towards the close of the Ashikaga shōgunate painting entered on a new phase. Talented representatives of the Kose, Takuma and Tosa lines maintained the reputation of the native and Buddhist schools, and the long-neglectedThird Period.Chinese school was destined to undergo a vigorous revival. The initiation of the new movement is attributed to a priest named Jôsetsu, who lived in the early part of the 15th century, and of whom little else is known. It is not even certain whether he was of Chinese or Japanese birth; he is, however, believed by some authorities to have been the teacher of three great artists—Shūbun, Sesshū and Kano Masanobu—who became the leaders of three schools: Shūbun, that of the pure Chinese art of the Sung and Yuan dynasties (10th and 13th centuries); Sesshū, that of a modified school bearing his name; and Masanobu, of the great Kano school, which has reached to the present day. The qualities of the new Chinese schools were essentially those of the older dynasties: breadth, simplicity, a daringly calligraphic play of brush that strongly recalled the accomplishments of the famous scribes, and a colouring that varied between sparing washes of flat local tints and a strength and brilliancy of decorative effort that rivalled even that of the Buddhist pictures. The motives remained almost identical with those of the Chinese masters, and so imbued with the foreign spirit were many of the Japanese disciples that it is said they found it difficult to avoid introducing Chinese accessories even into pictures of native scenery.

Sesshū (1421-1507) was a priest who visited China and studied painting there for several years, at length returning in 1469, disappointed with the living Chinese artists, and resolved to strike out a style of his own, based upon that of the old masters. He was the boldest and most original of Japanese landscape artists, leaving powerful and poetic records of the scenery of his own land as well as that of China, and trusting more to the sure and sweeping stroke of the brush than to colour. Shūbun was an artist of little less power, but he followed more closely his exemplars, the Chinese masters of the 12th and 13th centuries; while Kano Masanobū (1424-1520), trained in the love of Chinese art, departed little from the canons he had learned from Jōsetsu or Oguri Sōtan. It was left to his more famous son, Motonobu, to establish the school which bears the family name. Kano Motonobu (1477-1559) was one of the greatest Japanese painters, an eclectic of genius, who excelled in every style and every branch of his art. His variety was inexhaustible, and he remains to this day a model whom the most distinguished artists are proud to imitate. The names of the celebrated members of this long line are too many to quote here, but the most accomplished of his descendants was Tanyū, who died in 1674, at the age of seventy-three. The close of this long period brought a new style of art, that of the Kōrin school. Ogata Kōrin (1653-1716) is claimed by both the Tosa and Kano schools, but his work bears more resemblance to that of an erratic offshoot of the Kano line named Sōtatsu than to the typical work of the academies. He was an artist of eccentric originality, who achieved wonders in bold decorative effects in spite of a studied contempt for detail. As a lacquer painter he left a strong mark upon the work of his contemporaries and successors. His brother and pupil, Kenzan, adopted his style, and left a reputation as a decorator of pottery hardly less brilliant than Kōrin’s in that of lacquer; and a later follower, Hōitsu (1762-1828), greatly excelled the master in delicacy and refinement, although inferior to him in vigour and invention. Down to the end of this era painting was entirely in the hands of a patrician caste—courtiers, priests, feudal nobles and their military retainers, all men of high education and gentle birth, living in a polished circle. It was practised more as a phase of aesthetic culture than with any utilitarian views. It was a labour of loving service, untouched by the spirit of material gain, conferring upon the work of the older masters a dignity and poetic feeling which we vainly seek in much of the later work. Unhappily, but almost inevitably, over-culture led to a gradual falling-off from the old virility. The strength of Meichō, Sesshū, Motonobu and Tanyū gave place to a more or less slavish imitation of the old Japanese painters and their Chinese exemplars, till the heirs to the splendid traditions of the great masters preserved little more than their conventions and shortcomings. It was time for a new departure, but there seemed to be no sufficient strength left within the charmed circle of the orthodox schools, and the new movement was fated to come from the masses, whose voice had hitherto been silent in the art world.

A new era in art began in the latter half of the 17th century with the establishment of a popular school under an embroiderer’s draughtsman named Hishigawa Moronobu (c.1646-1713). Perhaps no great change is ever entirely aFourth Period: Popular School.novelty. The old painters of the Yamato-Tosa line had frequently shown something of the daily life around them, and one of the later scions of the school, named Iwasa Matahei, had even made aspecialtyof this class of motive; but so little is known of Matahei and his work that even his period is a matter of dispute, and the few pictures attributed to his pencil are open to question on grounds of authenticity. He probably worked some two generations before the time of Moronobu, but there is no reason to believe that his labours had any material share in determining the creation and trend of the new school.

Moronobu was a consummate artist, with all the delicacy and calligraphic force of the best of the Tosa masters, whom he undoubtedly strove to emulate in style; and his pictures are not only the most beautiful but also the most trustworthy records of the life of his time. It was not to his paintings, however, that he owed his greatest influence, but to the powerful impulse he gave to the illustration of books and broadsides by wood-engravings. It is true that illustrated books were known as early as 1608, if not before, but they were few and unattractive, and did little to inaugurate the great stream ofehon, or picture books, that were to take so large a share in the education of his own class. It is to Moronobu that Japan owes the popularization of artistic wood-engravings, for nothing before his series of xylographic albums approached his best work in strength and beauty, and nothing since has surpassed it. Later there came abundant aid to the cause of popular art, partly from pupils of the Kano and Tosa schools, but mainly from the artisan class. Most of these artists were designers for books and broadsides by calling, painters only on occasion, but a few of them did nothing for the engravers. Throughout the whole of this period, embracing about a hundred years, there still continued to work, altogether apart from the men who were making the success of popular art, a large number of able painters of the Kano, Tosa and Chinese schools, who multiplied pictures that had every merit except that of originality. These men, living in the past, paid little attention to the great popular movement, which seemed to be quite outside their social and artistic sphere and scarcely worthy ofcultured criticism. It was in the middle of the 18th century that the decorative, but relatively feeble, Chinese art of the later Ming period found favour in Japan and a clever exponent in a painter named Ryūrikyō. It must be regarded as a sad decadence from the old Chinese ideals, which was further hastened, from about 1765, by the popularity of the southern Chinese style. This was a weak affectation that found its chief votaries amongst literary men ambitious of an easily earned artistic reputation. The principal Japanese supporter of this school was Taigadō (1722-1775), but the volume of copies of his sketches,Taigadō sansui juseki, published about 1870, is one of the least attractive albums ever printed in Japan.

The fifth period was introduced by a movement as momentous as that which stamped its predecessor—the foundation of a naturalistic school under a group of men outside the orthodox academical circles. The naturalistic principleFifth Period: Naturalistic School.was by no means a new one; some of the old Chinese masters were naturalistic in a broad and noble manner, and their Japanese followers could be admirably and minutely accurate when they pleased; but too many of the latter were content to construct their pictures out of fragmentary reminiscences of ancient Chinese masterpieces, not presuming to see a rock, a tree, an ox, or a human figure, except through Chinese spectacles. It was a farmer’s son named Okyō, trained in his youth to paint in the Chinese manner, who was first bold enough to adopt as a canon what his predecessors had only admitted under rare exceptions, the principle of an exact imitation of nature. Unfortunately, even he had not all the courage of his creed, and while he would paint a bird or a fish with perfect realism, he no more dared to trust his eyes in larger motives than did the most devout follower of Shūbun or Motonobu. He was essentially a painter of the classical schools, with the speciality of elaborate reproduction of detail in certain sections of animal life, but fortunately this partial concession to truth, emphasized as it was by a rare sense of beauty, did large service.

Okyō rose into notice about 1775, and a number of pupils flocked to his studio in Shijō Street, Kiōto (whence Shijō school). Amongst these the most famous were Goshun (1742-1811), who is sometimes regarded as one of the founders of the school; Sosen (1757-1821), an animal painter of remarkable power, but especially celebrated for pictures of monkey life; Shūhō, the younger brother of the last, also an animal painter; Rōsetsu (1755-1799), the best landscape painter of his school; Keibun, a younger brother of Goshun, and some later followers of scarcely less fame, notably Hoyen, a pupil of Keibun; Tessan, an adopted son of Sosen; Ippō and Yōsai (1788-1878), well known for a remarkable set of volumes, theZenken kojitsu, containing a long series of portraits of ancient Japanese celebrities. Ozui and Ojyu, the sons of Okyō, painted in the style of their father, but failed to attain great eminence. Lastly, amongst the associates of the Shijō master was the celebrated Ganku (1798-1837), who developed a special style of his own, and is sometimes regarded as the founder of a distinct school. He was, however, greatly influenced by Okyō’s example, and his sons, Gantai, Ganryo, and Gantoku or Renzan, drifted into a manner almost indistinguishable from that of the Shijō school.

It remains only to allude to the European school, if school it can be called, founded by Kokan and Denkichi, two contemporaries of Okyō. These artists, at first educated in one of the native schools, obtained from a HollanderEuropean School.in Nagasaki some training in the methods and principles of European painting, and left a few oil paintings in which the laws of light and shade and perspective were correctly observed. They were not, however, of sufficient capacity to render the adopted manner more than a subject of curiosity, except to a few followers who have reached down to the present generation. It is possible that the essays in perspective found in the pictures of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and some of the popular artists of the 19th century, were suggested by Kokan’s drawings and writings.

The sixth period began about 1875, when an Italian artist was engaged by the government as a professor of painting in the Engineering College at Tōkyō. Since that time some distinguished European artists have visited Japan,Sixth Period.and several Japanese students have made a pilgrimage to Europe to see for themselves what lessons may be gained from Western art. These students, confronted by a strong reaction in favour of pure Japanese art, have fought manfully to win public sympathy, and though their success is not yet crowned, it is not impossible that an Occidental school may ultimately be established. Thus far the great obstacle has been that pictures painted in accordance with Western canons are not suited to Japanese interiors and do not appeal to the taste of the most renowned Japanese connoisseurs. Somewhat more successful has been an attempt—inaugurated by Hashimoto Gahō and Kawabata Gyokusho—to combine the art of the West with that of Japan by adding to the latter the chiaroscuro and the linear perspective of the former. If the disciples of this school could shake off the Sesshū tradition of strong outlines and adopt the Kano Motonobu revelation of modelling by mass only, their work would stand on a high place. But they, too, receive little encouragement. The tendency of the time is conservative in art matters.

A series of magnificent publications has popularized art and its best products in a manner such as could never have been anticipated. TheKokka, a monthly magazine richly and beautifully illustrated and edited by Japanese students, has reached its 223rd number; theShimbi Daikan, a colossal album containing chromoxylographic facsimiles of celebrated examples in every branch of art, has been completed in 20 volumes; the masterpieces of Kōrin and Motonobu have been reproduced in similar albums; the masterpieces of theUkiyo-eare in process of publication, and it seems certain that the Japanese nation will ultimately be educated to such a knowledge of its own art as will make for permanent appreciation. Meanwhile the intrepid group of painters in oil plod along unflinchingly, having formed themselves into an association (thehakuba-kai) which gives periodical exhibitions, and there are, in Tōkyō and Kiōto, well-organized and flourishing art schools which receive a substantial measure of state aid, as well as a private academy founded by Okakura with a band of seceders from the hybrid fashions of the Gahō system. Altogether the nation seems to be growing more and more convinced that its art future should not wander far from the lines of the past.

(W. An.; F. By.)

Although a little engraving on copper has been practised in Japan of late years, it is of no artistic value, and the only branch of the art which calls for recognition is theEngraving.cutting of wood-blocks for use either with colours or without. This, however, is of supreme importance, and as its technique differs in most respects from the European practice, it demands a somewhat detailed description.

The wood used is generally that of the cherry-tree,sakura, which has a grain of peculiar evenness and hardness. It is worked plankwise to a surface parallel with the grain, and not across it. A design is drawn by the artist, to whom the whole credit of the production generally belongs, with a brush on thin paper, which is then pasted face downwards on the block. The engraver, who is very rarely the designer, then cuts the outlines into the block with a knife, afterwards removing the superfluous wood with gouges and chisels. Great skill is shown in this operation, which achieves perhaps the finest facsimile reproduction of drawings ever known without the aid of photographic processes. A peculiar but highly artistic device is that of gradually rounding off the surfaces where necessary, in order to obtain in printing a soft and graduated mass of colour which does not terminate too abruptly. In printing with colours a separate block is made in this manner for each tint, the first containing as a rule the mere lines of the composition, and the others providing for the masses of tint to be applied. In all printing the paper is laid on the upper surface of the block, and the impression rubbed off with a circular pad, composed of twisted cord within a covering of paper cloth and bamboo-leaf, and called thebaren. In colour-printing, the colours, which are much the same as those in use in Europe, are mixed, with rice-paste as a medium, on the block for each operation, and the power of regulating the result given by this custom to an intelligent craftsman (who, again, is neither the artist nor the engraver) was productive in the best period of very beautiful and artistic effects, such as could never have been obtained by any mechanical device. A wonderfully accurate register, or successive superposition of each block, is got mainly by the skill of the printer, who is assisted only by a mark defining one corner and another mark showing the opposite side limit.

The origins of this method of colour-printing are obscure. It has been practised to some extent in China and Korea, but there is no evidence of its antiquity in these countries. It appears to be one of the few indigenous arts of Japan. But before accepting this conclusion as final, one must not lose sight of the fact that the so-called chiaroscuro engraving was at the height of its use in Italy at the same time that embassies from the Christians in Japan visited Rome, and that it is thus possiblethat the suggestion at least may have been derived from Europe. The fact that no traces of it have been discovered in Japan would be easily accounted for, when it is remembered that the examples taken home would almost certainly have been religious pictures, would have been preserved in well-known and accessible places, and would thus have been entirely destroyed in the terrible and minute extermination of Christianity by Hideyoshi at the beginning of the 17th century. Japanese tradition ascribes the invention of colour-printing to Idzumiya Gonshirō, who, about the end of the 17th century, first made use of a second block to apply a tint of red (beni) to his prints. Sir Ernest Satow states more definitely that “Sakakibara attributes its origin to the year 1695, when portraits of the actor Ichikawa Danjiuro, coloured by this process, were sold in the streets of Yedo for five cash apiece.” The credit of the invention is also given to Torii Kiyonobu, who worked at about this time, and, indeed, is said to have made the prints above mentioned. But authentic examples of his work now remaining, printed in three colours, seem to show a technique too complete for an origin quite so recent. However, he is the first artist of importance to have produced the broadsheets—for many years chiefly portraits of notable actors, historical characters and famous courtesans—which are the leading and characteristic use to which the art was applied. Pupils, the chief of whom were Kiyomasa, Kiyotsume, Kiyomitsu, Kiyonaga and Kiyomine, carried on his tradition until the end of the 18th century, the three earlier using but few colours, while the works of the two last named show a technical mastery of all the capabilities of the process.

The next artist of importance is Suzuki Harunobu (workedc.1760-1780), to whom the Japanese sometimes ascribe the invention of the process, probably on the grounds of an improvement in his technique, and the fact that he seems to have been one of the first of the colour-print makers to attain great popularity. Katsukawa Shunshō (d. 1792) must next be mentioned, not only for the beauty of his own work, but because he was the first master of Hokusai; then Yeishi (workedc.1781-1800), the founder of the Hosoda school; Utamaro (1754-1806), whose prints of beautiful women were collected by Dutchmen while he was still alive, and have had in our own day a vogue greater, perhaps, than those of any other of his fellows; and Toyokuni I. (1768-1825), who especially devoted himself to broadsheet portraits of actors and dramatic scenes. The greatest of all the artists of the popular school was, however, Hokusai (1760-1849). His most famous series of broadsheets is theThirty-six Views of Mount Fuji(1823-1829), which, in spite of the conventional title, includes at least forty-six. His work is catalogued in detail by E. de Goncourt. At the beginning of the 19th century the process was technically at its greatest height, and in the hands of the great landscape artist, Hiroshige I., as well as the pupils of Toyokuni I.—Kunisada and Kuniyoshi—and those of Hokusai, it at first kept up an excellent level. But an undue increase in the number of blocks used, combined with the inferiority of the imported colours and carelessness or loss of skill in printing, brought about a rapid decline soon after 1840. This continued until the old traditions were well-nigh exhausted, but since 1880 there has been a distinct revival. The prints of the present day are cut with great skill, and the designs are excellent, though both these branches seem to lack the vigour of conception and breadth of execution of the older masters. The colours now used are almost invariably of cheap German origin, and though they have a certain prettiness—ephemeral, it is to be feared—they again can not compare with the old native productions. Among workers in this style, Yoshitoshi (d.c.1898) was perhaps the best. Living artists in 1908 included Toshihide, Miyagawa Shuntei, Yoshiu Chikanobu—one of the elder generation—Tomisuka Yeishu, Toshikata and Gekko. Formerly the colour-print artist was of mean extraction and low social position, but he now has some recognition at the hands of the professors of more esteemed branches of art. This change is doubtless due in part to Occidental appreciation of the products of his art, which were formerly held in little honour by his own countrymen, the place assigned to them being scarcely higher than that accorded to magazine illustrations in Europe and America. But it is also largely due to his displays of unsurpassed skill in preparing xylographs for the beautiful art publications issued by theShimbi Shōinand theKokkacompany. These xylographs prove that the Japanese art-artisan of the present day was not surpassed by the greatest of his predecessors in this line.

(E. F. S.; F. By.)

The history of the illustrated book in Japan may be said to begin with theIse monogatari, a romance first published in the 10th century, of which an edition adorned with woodcuts appeared in 1608. In the course of the 17th century many otherBook Illustration.works of the same nature were issued, including some in which the cuts were roughly coloured by hand; but the execution of these is not as good as contemporary European work. The date of the first use of colour-printing in Japanese book illustration is uncertain. In 1667 a collection of designs forkimono(garments) appeared, in which inks of several colours were made use of; but these were only employed in turn for single printings, and in no case were two of them used on the same print. It is certain, however, that the mere use of coloured inks must soon have suggested the combination of two or more of them, and it is probable that examples of this will be discovered much earlier in date than those known at present.

About the year 1680 Hishigawa Moronobu achieved a great popularity for woodcut illustration, and laid the foundations of the splendid school which followed. The names of the engravers who cut his designs are not known, and in fact the reputation of these craftsmen is curiously subordinated to that of the designers in all Japanese work of the kind. With Moronobu must be associated Okumura Masanobu, a little later perhaps in date, whose work is also of considerable value. During the ensuing thirty years numerous illustrated books appeared, including the earliest yet known which are illustrated by colour-printing. Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1751) illustrated a very large number of books, many of which were not published until after his death. With him may be associated Ichiō Shumboku (d.c.1773) and Tsukioka Tange (1717-1786), the latter of whom made the drawings for many of themeishōor guide-books which form so interesting and distinctive a branch of Japanese illustration. The work of Tachibana Morikuni (1670-1748) is also of great importance. The books illustrated by the men of this school were mainly collections of useful information, guide-books, romances and historical and religious compilations; but much of the best of their work is to be found in the collections of pictorial designs, very often taken from Chinese sources, which were produced for the use of workers in lacquer, pottery and similar crafts. These, both for design and for skill of cutting, hold their own with the best work of European wood-cutting of any period. The development of the art of Japanese colour-printing naturally had its effect on book-illustration, and the later years of the 18th and the earlier of the 19th century saw a vast increase of books illustrated by this process. The subjects also now include a new series of landscapes and views drawn as seen by the designers, and not reproductions of the work of other men; and also sketches of scenes and characters of everyday life and of the folk-lore in which Japan is so rich. Among the artists of this period, as of all others in Japan, Hokusai (1760-1849) is absolutely pre-eminent. His greatest production in book-illustration was theMangwa, a collection of sketches which cover the whole ground of Japanese life and legend, art and handicraft. It consists of fifteen volumes, which appeared at intervals from 1812 to 1875, twelve being published during his life and the others from material left by him. Among his many other works may be mentioned theAzuma Asobi(Walks round Yedo, 1799). Of his pupils, Hokkei (1780-1856) and Kyōsai were the greatest. Most of the artists, whose main work was the designing of broadsheets, produced elaborately illustrated books; and this series includes specimens of printing in colours from wood-blocks, which for technique have never been excelled. Among them should be mentioned Shunshō (Seirō bijin awase kagami, 1776); Utamaro (Seirō nenjyū gyoji, 1804); Toyokuni I. (Yakusha kono teikishiwa, 1801); as well as Harunobu Yeishi (Onna sanjyu rokkasen, 1798), Kitao Masanobu and Tachibana Minko, each of whom produced beautiful work of the same nature. In the period next following, the chief artists were Keisai Yeisen (Keisai so-gwa, 1832) and Kikuchi Yōsai (Zenken kojitsu), the latter of whom ranks perhaps as highly as any of the artists who confined their work to black and white. The books produced in the period 1880-1908 in Japan are still of high technical excellence. The colours are, unfortunately, of cheap European manufacture; and the design, although quite characteristic and often beautiful, is as a rule merely pretty. The engraving is as good as ever. Among the book-illustrators of our own generation must be again mentioned Kyōsai; Kōno Bairei (d. 1895), whose books of birds—theBairei hyakucho gwafu(1881 and 1884) andYūaka-no-tsuki(1889)—are unequalled of their kind; Imao Keinen, who also issued a beautiful set of illustrations of birds and flowers (Keinen kwachō gwafu), engraved by Tanaka Jirokichi and printed by Miki Nisaburō (1891-1892); and Watanabe Seitei, whose studies of similar subjects have appeared inSeitei kwachō gwafu(1890-1891) and theBijutsu sekai(1894), engraved by Gotō Tokujirō. Mention should also be made of several charming series of fairy tales, of which that published in English by theKobunshain Tōkyō in 1885 is perhaps the best. In their adaptation of modern processes of illustration the Japanese are entirely abreast of Western nations, the chromo-lithographs and other reproductions in theKokka, a periodical record of Japanese works of art (begun in 1889), in the superb albums of theShimbi Shōin, and in the publications of Ogawa being of quite a high order of merit.

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