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Title: Arts and crafts of old Japan
Author: Stewart Dick
Release date: September 6, 2025 [eBook #76830]
Language: English
Original publication: London: T. N. Foulis, 1906
Credits: Richard Illner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARTS AND CRAFTS OF OLD JAPAN ***
_The World of Art Series_
ARTS AND CRAFTS OF OLD JAPAN
BY
STEWART DICK
[Illustration]
T. N. FOULIS, 3 FREDERICK STREET,
EDINBURGH; & 35 LEICESTER SQUARE,
LONDON . . . . . . . . . MDCCCCVI.
[Illustration: A RAINY LANDSCAPE
From a Kakemono by SANSETSU
(_British Museum_)]
PREFACE
This little book is intended not for the collector or the connoisseur,
but merely for those who require an introduction to a field of art
hitherto little explored but which will well repay further study.
For fuller information on the subject many sources are available, but
a word of caution is necessary. A bibliography of works on Japanese
art would be misleading rather than useful, for much of what has been
written regarding it is, as criticism, quite valueless.
On Japanese painting the most important, indeed the only sound work,
is contained in a series of articles contributed by Mr Arthur Morrison
to _The Monthly Review_, 1902-3. The writings of Mr E. F. Strange deal
fully and adequately with Colour Printing; Captain Brinkley is a good
authority on Keramics, and Mr Josiah Conder on Landscape Gardening and
Flower Arrangement.
The Transactions of the Japan Society contain many interesting and
well-illustrated articles on Japanese minor arts, and the charm of
Japanese life is nowhere reflected more pleasantly than in the writings
of Sir Edwin Arnold and Mr Lafcadio Hearn.
To the custodians of public and the owners of private collections I
am indebted for many courtesies, and especially to Mr M. Tomkinson,
Franche Hall, Kidderminster, for permission to reproduce several of the
illustrations in the sumptuous catalogue of his collection.
S. D.
_October 1904._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. PAINTING 16
III. COLOUR PRINTING 46
IV. SCULPTURE AND CARVING 63
V. METAL WORK 77
VI. KERAMICS 96
VII. LACQUER 121
VIII. LANDSCAPE GARDENING AND THE ARRANGEMENT
OF FLOWERS 138
[Illustration: Stylized Chrysanthemum]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAINTING --
A Rainy Landscape, by Sansetsu _Frontispiece_
Flying Ducks, by Korin _To face page_ 4
Fukurokujiu and Crane, by Korin 12
Arhat and Lion, by Cho Densu 18
An Impressionist Landscape, by Sesson 22
A Landscape in the Chinese Style, by Sesshiu 30
Shoriken crossing the Sea on his Sword, by Motonobu 34
Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, by Tanyu 36
Bird and Pine Branch, by Naonobu 38
Flower Panel, by Korin 40
Monkeys and Plum Blossom, by Sosen 42
A Peacock, by Ippo 44
COLOUR PRINTS --
A Figure Group, by Utamaro 52
A Figure Study, by Toyokuni 56
One of the Thirty-six Views of Fuji, by Hokusai 60
A Landscape, by Hiroshigé 62
SCULPTURE AND CARVING --
Colossal Bronze Image of a Bodhisatwa 66
Portrait of Senno Rikiu, carved in Wood and Lacquered 70
A Group of Netsukés 74
METAL WORK --
Two Bowls Cast in Bronze 78
Eagle in Cast and Hammered Iron 82
A Group of Tsubas 90
KERAMICS --
A Group of Porcelain 104
Vase, Satsuma Faience 108
A Group of Various Wares 114
LACQUER --
Lid of Suzuri-bako or Writing-case 124
A Group of Inro 130
A Group of Inro, by Korin 134
FLOWER ARRANGEMENT --
A Flower Composition 148
TAILPIECES --
Equestrian Figures from the Mangwa of Hokusai; Fans
from Korin Hiakuzu; and Crests.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
In coming to the study of Japanese art we must remember that we are
entering a strange world, where life and language, and even modes of
thought, run on other lines than ours.
When Japan, only fifty years ago, was thrown open to the Western
nations, in our ignorance and folly we were at first inclined to treat
the Japanese as a barbaric people. But never was there a greater
mistake. For the truth is that their civilisation is not only older
than ours but in some respects has advanced much further than we have
ever attained. In an æsthetic sense the people of Japan are cultured
to a degree far beyond our Western standards; their arts are full of
beauties which are too subtle, too refined, for our comprehension.
Here, in the most civilised of all Western nations, one is dubbed a
visionary and a dreamer if he hopes to see the day when the pleasures
of art shall be the solace of the poor as well as the luxury of the
rich. But this happy state has existed in Japan for ages. One of the
chief characteristics of the people is their love for beauty both in
nature and in art. On the public highways are notices indicating to
the wayfarer the points from which the most beautiful prospects may be
obtained. The artisan mother in the city carries her babe out into the
public parks at the festival of the cherry blossom, that its infant
mind may be permeated by the beauty and fragrance of the flowers.
And, loving beauty, they can also express it, for to learn to write in
Japan is in itself a course of training in drawing. In art the European
requires that everything should be stated with the utmost fulness of
a tedious realism before he can grasp its meaning, but to the more
cultured Japanese a mere hint or slight suggestion is sufficient. The
leading characteristic of Japanese art is, perhaps, that it leaves so
much unsaid. For the Philistine, who bulks so largely in the West, and
has to be considered and propitiated at every turn, seems to be quite
unknown in Japan. What wonder, then, that, with such a public, their
art should be somewhat above our heads.
Doubtless the canons of European art differ widely from those of the
Far East, but these things are not essentials. All art is based on
convention, in the terms of which its meaning is expressed. If we would
understand Japanese art we must accept its conventions; we must learn
the language of their art and see things with their eyes.
It is the fault of too many critics of Japanese art that they fail
to approach it in this sympathetic attitude, and by such it is quite
misunderstood. The mystic and beautiful Buddhist figures are tried by
rules of anatomy, and the dreamlike Chinese landscapes by the laws of
perspective. The materialist weighs the spiritual in the balance and
finds it wanting.
But we seem to be improving in these matters; perhaps we are becoming
more humble. Of late years some of our leading artists are beginning
to acquire the qualities which Japanese art has shown so long. Who
shall say that the work of such an one as Whistler, in its sensitive
feeling for balance, in its grace of line, in the unerring instinct
which marks its spacing, and in the delicate harmony of its colour,
is not essentially Japanese in style? Whether these qualities were
knowingly borrowed from the Japanese, or whether the artist evolved
them from his own inner consciousness, matters little. The important
fact is that the qualities which mark the work of one of the greatest
of our modern painters, and distinguish it from that of the vast body
of his contemporaries, are just the qualities which for centuries have
marked the art of Japan. But we know that Whistler was an enthusiastic
admirer of Japanese art, and, doubtless, he would have been the first
to acknowledge his debt.
With the younger school Japanese influence has been all-powerful. One
might safely say that, but for the Japanese colour print, there would
have been no modern poster school, working so daringly in bold outline
and broad, flat tints; and recent black and white work is equally
indebted to the Japanese woodcuts, with their beautiful, flowing line
and dexterous use of solid masses of black.
[Illustration: WILD DUCKS
By KORIN
(_From a Woodcut in the Korin Hiakuzu_)]
The difference of mental attitude is not the only reason for the
wide divergence in methods and ideals of Japanese art from that to
which we are accustomed. There are other physical and material causes
of great importance which have helped to decide its course. The basis
of all pictorial and applied art is architectural, and here we find one
starting-point of difference between the styles of the East and the
West. The frequency of earthquakes in Japan has rendered impossible
the erection of buildings of the stately proportions and massive
grandeur of other climes. The old Buddhist temples, which are the chief
buildings, cannot vie in importance with those of India or China.
In the Japanese house the walls are but paper screens, the whole
weight of the roof being supported by the four corner posts, which, in
their turn, are not sunk in the ground but stand on four large stones.
This lightness of construction has to a great extent dictated the
course taken by the arts of Japan. The Japanese picture, instead of
being enclosed in a massive frame, is placed on a light mount of silk
brocade, and when not in use is rolled up as we roll a map. And the
field of applied art is similarly restricted. The temples contain most
of the larger and more important works; there is no place for such in
the house. The household furniture is reduced to a minimum. A few mats
to sit on, for the Japanese use no chairs; one or two paper screens
dividing the house into separate chambers at will; a charcoal brazier;
a few cooking utensils and articles of pottery; some lacquered vessels,
fans, mirrors, and other ornaments; articles of dress, weapons, and
a few personal belongings, form the whole field which is open to the
craftsman.
So in Japan we have no rooms crowded with a profusion of heavy
ornament. Reticence is the keynote; but what ornament there is must be
of exquisite quality.
Before dealing in detail with the different branches of Japanese art
it will be well to glance for a little at the history of the nation,
in the light of which knowledge we shall better understand the social
system under which these arts arose and the mental qualities which they
embody.
The civilisation of Japan was the slow growth of many centuries. For
more than two thousand years, if we may believe the ancient records,
the Mikado and his forefathers have been absolute rulers of Japan,
the present dynasty stretching back in unbroken line to the Emperor
Jimmu, who flourished about 600 B.C. But, as written history did not
exist till some centuries after the beginning of the Christian era, the
records of those early days are of a more or less legendary character,
as one might surmise from the fact that the Emperor Jimmu was reported
to be the grandson of the Sun Goddess herself.
The origin of the Japanese race is shrouded in mystery. Little is known
of them except that, somewhere between two and three thousand years
ago, they invaded Japan, and drove out the Ainos, who still survive
in the island of Yezo. A Mongolian race, no one can say positively
whether the invaders came from China or Korea, from the Malay peninsula
or Siam, or whether, indeed, they were an offshoot from the wild Huns
against whom China raised the Great Wall. One thing tending to show
that they were not a branch of the Chinese race is that, even at that
early date, China was the abode of an advanced civilisation; while the
Japanese were certainly little removed from barbarism, and, indeed,
hardly more civilised than the Ainos whom they displaced.
But the Japanese character has always been receptive, and just as
their new civilisation is borrowed from Europe, so for the foundations
of the old they are indebted to China. When they first came into
contact with influences from the mainland it is hard to tell. It is
said that the use of Chinese characters was introduced as early as
157 B.C., and the early records give a full account of an invasion
of Korea by the Empress Jingo about 200 A.D. After this victorious
expedition many captives are said to have been brought back, who laid
the foundations of Chinese learning and culture.
The real civilising of Japan, however, began with the coming of the
Buddhist priests from Korea in the middle of the sixth century.
Buddhism became the chief religion of the country, largely absorbing,
though it never quite superseded, the collection of myths and
superstitions known as Shintoism. For Shintoism was hardly a religion
in the usual sense of the term. As a Japanese writer admits, it had
no moral code; but, he adds naively: “Morals were invented by the
Chinese because they were immoral people; whereas in Japan there was no
necessity for a system of morals, as everyone acted rightly if he only
consulted his own heart.”
The chief centres of the new culture which spread over the land were
the great Buddhist monasteries. Just as our own mediæval cathedrals
and monasteries were the nurseries of the arts, so in Japan arose a
race of artist priests. Their work at first applied solely to religious
purposes, but afterwards widened out till, along with the sacred, there
existed also a secular school. For three or four hundred years under
these benign and mellowing influences the country grew and prospered.
The quiet and peaceful times from the eighth to the tenth century
especially marked a period of great literary activity, several of the
most famous poets of Japan, whose writings still live in old tradition,
flourishing during this period.
As time went on, however, the horizon became overcast, and from the
twelfth to the end of the sixteenth centuries Japanese history is one
long record of strife and civil war. The Mikado became more and more
only the nominal ruler; the real power lay in the hands of the warrior
nobles.
In the twelfth century arose the terrible struggle between the two
rivals, the Taira and Minamoto families, each supporting its own
candidate for the throne--a war which gave to legend and story one of
its chief heroes--Yoshitsuné, the Bayard of Japan.
A hundred years later Japan, for the only time in her history, had to
repel a foreign invader, a huge Tartar armada threatening her shores;
but, as in the case of England, the elements fought for the islanders.
A terrific storm played havoc with the Tartar fleet, and of all the
invading forces it is said that only three men escaped alive, and were
sent home to tell the tale.
Then in the fourteenth century the bitter wars of the Ashikaga period
once more bathed the country in blood.
Those long years of war set their stamp on the nation, hardened its
fibre, and brought out its sterner virtues. A military class--the
Samurai--arose, and these trained warriors were maintained by the local
Daimios, or princes, to whom they owed feudal obedience. Bushido, the
way of the warrior, a stern but lofty creed of valour and devotion
to duty, became the real moral code of the nation. For the annals of
Japanese knighthood are full of tales of dauntless heroism--tales still
told in every cottage in Japan, and retold a hundred times in Japanese
art.
In those warlike days there was little place for the gentler arts of
peace. But the Buddhist temples still stood--quiet sanctuaries where,
undisturbed by the turmoil and strife around them, the gentle, priestly
philosophers pursued the even tenor of their way, and kept the lamp
of art burning bright and clear. In the outer world the military arts
alone flourished, and the swordmaker was the king of craftsmen.
In the fifteenth century, however, during a period of peace, a second
wave of Chinese influence gave a new impetus to art. The Court of the
retired Shogun Yoshimasa was a circle of artists and learned men,
culture once more reached a high level, and one of the most brilliant
periods of Japanese art began.
The sixteenth century saw a gradual consolidation of the empire. The
Mikado for long had been little more than the nominal ruler, the chief
power lying in the hands of the Shogun, who controlled the whole
executive of the state; but the local Daimios gave little more than a
mere formal submission to the central authority--each was practically
absolute king in his own province. In 1603 Iyeyasu, the first of the
Tokugawa Shoguns, for in his family the office became hereditary, came
into power. A man of great ability, he set himself to complete the work
of subjugation which his predecessors Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had begun,
and finally reduced the turbulent nobles to the state of vassals, owing
feudal obedience to the Mikado. Under his wise rule the country settled
down to a prolonged period of peace, unbroken for two hundred and fifty
years, in which art and industry developed greatly.
The Tokugawa period, 1603-1867, especially in its earlier stages,
is pre-eminently the period of the minor arts, which then reached a
perfection which has not been attained before or since. The force of
the nation formerly expended on war was turned into these more peaceful
channels. The Daimios of the various provinces carefully fostered the
local arts, specimens of which were sent yearly to the Shogun and the
Mikado, and a keen rivalry existed between the different districts.
[Illustration: FUKUROKUJIU AND CRANE
By KORIN
(_From a Woodcut in the Korin Hiakuzu_)]
Often the local lord would establish a kiln on his private estate,
where articles of pottery and porcelain were manufactured solely for
his own use. In the shelter of his castle, too, the artist in metal
or in lacquer worked peacefully, freed from all sordid cares. Time
was no object to him, the final result everything. He had to consult
no demands of popular taste, his work was always the best he could
produce, and often years of labour went to the making of one perfect
piece.
As time went on, however, gradually the work lost its first freshness
and originality. It became richer and more elaborate but tamer and less
vigorous, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century only echoed
faintly its former glories. For the burden of feudalism was pressing
on the country with more and more weight. The military classes, their
employment gone, gradually sank into luxury and indolence; the only
sign of life was the gradual rise of a more democratic feeling among
the people. The later schools of painting were more or less of the
nature of a revolt from the traditions of the older styles, and the art
of colour printing saw the rise of a school of democratic artists.
The soil was already prepared, some change was inevitable, and the
change came when the country was thrown open to the nations of the
West, feudalism finally abolished, and a democratic government
established in its place.
But contact with Western ideas and Western methods seemed to give the
deathblow to Japanese art. In painting, the European standards have
played havoc with the charming and beautiful conventions of old Japan.
Aniline dyes have spoilt the soft harmonies of the colour prints. In
metal, in carving, and in lacquer the new work is vastly inferior to
the old. What the European market clamoured for was not quality but
cheapness, and so, adaptive as ever, the Japanese turn out by the
hundred superficial and mechanical imitations of the beautiful old
work. Modern commercial methods have little to do with art, and in this
case seemed at once to turn the artist into a trader.
Japan is now a modern nation, Western in its civilisation, in its
methods, and seemingly in its ideals--destined to become a great
industrial state. Perhaps, as she has done so often before, she may
absorb the new influences, and without loss of individuality follow out
her own course. Perhaps, phœnix-like, from the ashes of the old, new
arts as brilliant may arise. But, again, some say that art belongs only
to the more youthful stages of the world, and that in these days of
science never again can the artist be more than a mere survival of an
earlier age--one who still keeps green within him the youth which in
others has long since withered and died.
[Illustration: Rider on Horseback]
CHAPTER II
PAINTING
In a general survey of the arts of Japan it will be best to begin with
the art of painting. In a land of paradoxes there is this paradox
regarding Japanese art, that while their pictorial art is the most
decorative of all pictorial arts, yet their decorative art is the most
pictorial of all decorative arts. For the Japanese decorative artist
rarely or never uses ornament merely as ornament; it almost invariably
represents something more than mere beauty of line, mass, or colour;
there is usually some pictorial motive attached. The lacquerer, for
instance, rarely uses purely conventional forms, but flowers, birds,
figures, even landscapes, make up his schemes of decoration. It
follows, then, that the decorative arts of Japan are dominated by, and
indeed are based upon, its pictorial art, and, therefore, the necessary
preliminary to their consideration is a study of the art of painting.
The European’s introduction to the study of Japanese art is apt to be
rather misleading, for in all probability the first specimens which
come under his notice are the colour prints and paintings of the
naturalistic and decorative schools of the last century. His first
shock of surprise overcome, for both the medium and the style of
presentment are new and strange, he speedily discovers in them real
beauties. Harmonies of line and colour, finer and more subtle than
any we have to show, arouse his enthusiasm, and he thinks that he has
penetrated the mysteries of Japanese art, and that all its treasures
lie before him. Even were it so the boon would be no small one; but,
as a matter of fact, he merely stands upon the threshold. The real
glories of Japanese painting are the works of hundreds of years ago.
As well could one judge of the glories of English literature from the
ephemeral periodicals of the day as of the painting of old Japan from
the products of the more materialistic schools of recent years. To know
English literature one must read the classics; to realise its full
glory we must go back to Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. And so with
Japanese art, we must go back to the works of the old masters--to
Cho Densu with his amazing power, to Sesshiu with his wonderful dream
landscapes--ere we realise its grandeur. Then we feel that, beautiful
pieces of decoration though the modern works are, here we breathe a
purer and a finer air; we are in another world, a nobler and a greater
one. The finest landscapes in the world are those painted by the old
Chinese and Japanese artists; monochromes, slight and shadowy as
morning mist, but breathing the very poetry of nature.
[Illustration: ARHAT AND LION
From a Kakemono by CHO DENSU
(_British Museum_)]
The art of painting was borrowed by Japan from China, the first
teachers being the Buddhist priests who crossed over from Korea in the
sixth century. This origin, and also the nature of the materials used
in the art, stamped it at the outset with qualities which have ever
since distinguished it. The ordinary instrument for writing in China
and Japan was the brush, dipped in Indian ink, and to form the native
characters was in itself an exercise in drawing. Caligraphy, indeed,
as penmanship in the old days of mediæval Europe, was reckoned as one
of the fine arts; or rather, from the Chinese point of view, painting
was reckoned one of the branches of caligraphy. This caligraphic basis
is the root of most of the conventions of Chinese and Japanese
painting, and in the quality of the brush work are to be discovered
many of its beauties. For by means of line alone, not a pen line,
thin and hard, but the supple, swelling line of the brush, the artist
not only renders the outlines and shapes of things but suggests
modelling, chiaroscuro, even the different planes of distance, in a
manner indefinable in its subtlety. Colour, except in the later and
more naturalistic schools, is used in flat tints only. This absence of
chiaroscuro is often quoted as a defect of Japanese art; but if all
that can be said has been expressed by line why add light and shade?
One has only to study the work of one of their masters in the use of
the brush, such an one as Motonobu, of the Kano school, to understand
not only how unnecessary it would be but how impossible. We would as
soon wish to see filled in one of the exquisite outlines of Flaxman. It
is like setting a beautiful poem to music: you may exchange one melody
for another, but both cannot exist together. And we must remember that
all use of line is a convention, for line does not exist in nature, and
Japanese art, after all, only differs in this respect from European
art in having used this convention with greater freedom and more
consummate mastery.
The simplicity of the means at the artist’s disposal--a brush or two,
Indian ink, a few liquid colours, and a sheet of paper or silk--tended
to produce directness and simplicity of effect, and this tendency was
increased by another influence. The Buddhist priests, then as now, were
of a type of mind essentially idealistic. Their religion taught them
to regard the spiritual essence of things as the great fact and the
outward and visible world as merely a temporary and changing phase,
and so in their art, for they were the first painters, they aimed
not at a literal transcription of nature but at an expression of its
inner significance. And this training has always affected the attitude
of Japanese art. Directness, reticence, and restraint are its main
characteristics. To present the essential quality of a scene, not its
mere outward appearance, and that with the least possible obtrusion of
the material, was its object.
Even in later days, in their more naturalistic studies, the Japanese
artist never dreamt of drawing direct from nature as we do. His
system, the system by which children still learn to draw in Japan, was
to look steadily at the object to be depicted until it was learned by
heart and could be reproduced at will.
In painting the artist seats himself on the floor, the sheet of silk
or paper before him. For a while he gazes abstractedly, till the whole
picture is clear to his mental vision. Then with the first touch the
central point of interest--the eye of a bird, say--is indicated.
Swiftly and surely, with a full brush, the rest of the subject is
filled in. There is no niggling, no retouching, for the delicate,
absorbent surface of the silk will not stand repeated workings. Each
stroke is placed on the picture direct as it is to remain, and, though
the result may be a masterpiece, the work, in many cases, is that of a
few minutes. The technique of the brush has, indeed, been carried to a
degree of perfection by the Japanese artist otherwise unheard of. He
fills it, or it may be in the case of a large brush each part of it,
with just as little or as much ink or colour as he desires, carefully
arranges the hairs in a certain way, for the preparation and loading of
the brush is often as important as the actual brush stroke, and then
with one single sweep obtains the whole effect he requires. Many are
the wonderful tales of the feats which the old masters could perform
with one stroke of the brush.
A word may here be said as to the forms which pictorial art assumes in
Japan.
The first and most common form is the kakemono, or hanging picture,
formed of a sheet of silk or paper, richly mounted on brocade of
various colours. It is furnished with rollers like a map, and is
rolled up tightly when not in use. This is bad for the surface of the
painting, cracks being inevitable if much body colour has been used,
but it is a great protection against the fires which are so frequent in
the light wooden houses of Japan; for, as there is a considerable space
between the picture and the top of the mount, several layers of brocade
and tough mounting paper are thus tightly wound round the painting.
[Illustration: AN IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE
From a Makimono by SESSON
(_British Museum_)]
The two ribbons, which so pleasantly break the monotony of the upper
part of the mount, are not merely ornamental. When the moving screens
forming the side of the house have been moved back for coolness, and
the kakemono hangs in the open air, the _futai_, as these ribbons
are called, flap in the breeze, and prevent birds from alighting on the
upper roller.
The makimono, or horizontal roll, is largely used for historical scenes
or for landscape sketches, the series, many feet long, often forming
one continuous composition. It is not hung up but laid on the floor,
and unrolled and examined bit by bit, as we would look at the pictures
in a book. Originally the kakemono was exclusively used for sacred, and
the makimono for secular, subjects, but this distinction has long since
ceased to exist.
A third form, gaku, is stretched on a frame, after the manner of our
pictures, but is little used.
Screens, both folding and sliding, were greatly used for the longer and
more important pictures. Sometimes a screen of five or six panels will
be so treated that while the whole forms one composition yet each panel
taken separately also forms a complete picture. Books, each page stiff
and opening on a hinge like a miniature screen, are also used. Lastly,
mural decorations on wood or plaster, and the dainty little paintings
on fans, complete the forms of pictorial art most in vogue in Japan.
Some time about the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth
century the Buddhist priests crossed over from Korea, and formed the
first Japanese school of painting, devoted almost entirely to the
sacred subjects which were used to decorate the Buddhist shrines. Very
beautiful and dignified are many of these old Butsugwa paintings,
recalling in their rich, full colour and their lavish use of gold the
illuminations and early paintings of our European monasteries. In
most cases they are unsigned, the holy man deeming it unfitting that
objects intended for such sacred uses should be contaminated by earthly
associations. The British Museum collection contains several fine
specimens, which, though faded and sadly blackened with incense fumes,
show these early works worthy to compare, for elevation of tone and
religious fervour, with the finest works of Christian art.
For many years this Buddhist school of painting continued, its
traditions lasting without a break until the fifteenth century. And
here at the outset it will be well to call attention to a difficulty
which arises in any attempt to give a brief and clear account of the
history of painting in Japan. The matter is complicated by the fact
that, though the different schools of painting are evolved one from
the other, the later did not supersede the earlier form, but usually
both continued to exist contemporaneously. Many artists painted in the
styles of more than one school, the manner often being decided by the
choice of subject, and latterly it was part of the training of Japanese
artists to go through all the schools.
Then, again, some of the greatest masters, especially those of the
last two centuries, formed their styles by adopting and combining what
appeared to them best in each school. To follow out logically the
growth of the various schools, and at the same time to treat of the
different artists in a chronological order, is, therefore, a matter of
some difficulty.
The oldest picture in Japan of which there is any authentic record was
painted, probably by a Korean priest in the beginning of the seventh
century, on the plaster wall of the Buddhist temple Horiuji at Nara,
a storehouse filled with treasures of ancient art. For three hundred
years little more is known--the names of a few priests and one or two
priceless paintings are all that remain; but by the ninth century
civilisation had reached an advanced stage, the country was rich and
prosperous, and entered into a great literary and artistic epoch. The
poets Narihira and Komachi, still ranked among the immortals, were
contemporaries of Kosé no Kanaoka, the first great secular painter of
Japan, and, if the double evidence of popular legend and the verdict
of critics and artists of his own and later days is to be believed,
the greatest of all Japanese artists. About a dozen examples, said
to be by Kanaoka, exist, but, one by one, the genuineness of each
has been questioned by experts. Perhaps the most authentic is the
portrait of Shotoku Daishi at the Ninnaji temple in Kioto, which has
been reproduced in colours in the _Kokkwa_, the Japanese Government
publication. Although nearly all the existing pictures attributed to
him are Buddhistic figure pieces, Kanaoka’s popular reputation was
based on his paintings of secular subjects, portraits, landscapes, and
animals. He was especially famous as a painter of horses.
The story goes that in a certain temple hung a painting by Kanaoka of
a magnificent black steed. The peasants in the neighbourhood were much
annoyed by the ravages of some wild animal, which nightly raided their
gardens, eating the herbs and trampling the flowers. At last they lay
in wait, and found to their surprise that the intruder was a huge
black horse. On their pursuing it disappeared into the temple, but when
they followed the building was empty. As they stood below the picture
great drops of sweat fell down, and there was Kanaoka’s horse all hot
and steaming. Then one of them had a happy idea. Seizing a brush he
rapidly painted in a rope tethering it to a post, and the gardens were
no more invaded by the nocturnal visitor.
The work of the immediate followers of Kanaoka seemed to be chiefly
Buddhistic in style, but this may only mean that the only specimens
which have survived the ravages of time are those sacred pieces which
were safely stored in the temples, and that, like Kanaoka, they were
equally at home in secular subjects.
In the tenth century Kasuga no Motomitsu founded the first purely
native school, called the Yamato school, which afterwards, under the
name of the Tosa school, became the recognised style for the treating
of historical subjects.
The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries formed a period of
great literary and artistic activity. Buddhism was then in the height
of its power, and there is no greater period than this in the history
of Japanese art, but of these old masters we know little more than the
names. In the twelfth century we have Takuma Shoga, Sumiyoshi Keion,
and Toba Sojo, the last a marvellous animal painter, but examples of
their work are practically unknown out of Japan. In the thirteenth
century we have Fujiwara no Nobuzané, of whose Buddhistic work the
British Museum has a fine specimen; and a hundred years later Kosé no
Korehisa, renowned as the greatest military painter of Japan.
In 1351 was born a truly great artist, Meicho, or Cho Densu, whom some
rank as the equal of Kanaoka himself. A Buddhist priest, he was famed
for his sanctity, and the bulk of his works are of a religious nature,
to which field he did much to bring new life and vigour, for the school
had relapsed into the dull repetition of cut-and-dry formulas. But in
secular subjects he was equally great. The British Museum is fortunate
enough to possess a masterpiece by Cho Densu--a figure of an Arhat
seated with a lion at his feet. The whole picture is presented with
extraordinary force. The attention is seized and held by the eyes of
the figure as they stare fixedly at the lion, which, with head thrown
back and gums bared, glares savagely in return. The drawing is superb
in its easy power, the colour rich and sombre, its highest note in the
bright red of the lion’s jaws.
A new influence arose with the Chinese renaissance of the fifteenth
century, and we come to the times of the great landscape painters.
Nothing could be further removed from the attitude of the modern
European landscapist than that of these old Chinese and Japanese
masters. Their object was not to depict a scene in a naturalistic
manner but to convey its inmost spirit. In speaking of a painter of
a later day a Japanese critic writes: “But in his landscape there
is less success, as he was so particular about ensuring correctness
of forms that they were lacking in high ideas and deep spirit. For
a landscape painting is not loved because it is a facsimile of the
natural scene but because there is something in it greater than
mere accurate representation of natural forms, which appeals to our
feelings, but which we cannot express in words.” It is this deeper and
inner art which the old landscapists give us. In monochrome, or with
a few sombre tints added, they suggest the beauty, the repose, and the
dignity of nature in a way that, to my mind, no landscape painters have
done before or since. One little Chinese landscape especially lingers
in my memory, though it was not the original I saw, only one of the
delicate collotypes which can only be produced in Japan. It was called
“The Evening Bell.” On the strip of soft, brown-tinted silk is faintly
touched a range of peaks against the sky; nearer is a grove of trees.
Mist lies in the hollows and softens the forms, and in the distance,
amid the tree-tops, peeps out a temple roof. Nothing could be slighter
or yet more complete.
The old Chinese style, so strongly marked in the work of the old
painter priests, had gradually fallen into disuse before the more
popular Tosa style, when Josetsu, a Chinese painter, settled in Japan
early in the fifteenth century. Little is known of Josetsu’s own work;
but his influence soon began to make itself felt, and he gathered
round him a band of pupils. Of these the most famous is Shiubun, a
Buddhist priest, still regarded as one of the greatest of Japanese
landscape painters. The British Museum contains a very fine painting
attributed to him, though expert criticism rather inclines to assign it
to a somewhat later period.
[Illustration: A LANDSCAPE IN THE CHINESE STYLE
By SESSHIU
(_British Museum_)]
Shiubun had two brilliant pupils, Oguri Sotan and No-ami, the first
a priest, a fine landscapist, and a wonderful painter of birds and
flowers; the second a brilliant and versatile man of the world,
courtier, poet, caligraphist, critic, and painter. In the last capacity
he was especially renowned for his paintings of tigers. No-ami had a
son Gei-ami and a grandson So-ami, both of whom, especially the latter,
became famous landscapists of the Chinese school.
But the most famous of all the masters of the Chinese renaissance is
Sesshiu, born 1420, died 1506, one of the greatest of all Japanese
painters. As a youth he entered a Buddhist temple, but his thoughts
were often far away from his religious duties. The story goes that
once, as a punishment for some fault, he was tied to a pillar of the
temple. With tears for ink, and using his toe as a brush, he sketched
some rats on the floor, and as each was completed it sprang up, and
began to gnaw through the rope that bound him. On the approach of the
chief priest they scampered away; but the good monk was so impressed
by the miracle that the youthful artist was henceforth allowed to
follow his own bent.
At the age of forty Sesshiu, satisfied that he had learned all he could
from the artists of his native country, went to China to study under
the masters there, but to his surprise and discouragement he found none
there who could teach him more than he already knew. Then said he:
“Nature shall be my teacher; I shall go to the woods, the mountains,
and the streams and learn from them.” So for some time he travelled
in China painting and studying nature. His fame soon spread through
the land, and the Chinese artists, frankly acknowledging him as their
master, came to him for instruction. By the Emperor himself he was
commissioned to paint a series of panels on the walls of the palace at
Pekin, and on one of these, to mark his Japanese origin, the artist has
placed a view of Fujisan.
It is by his landscapes that Sesshiu is best known, and never was
the grandeur and the dignity of nature more fully expressed; but his
figure subjects, notably the magnificent painting of Jurojin, the
god of longevity, reproduced in the _Kokkwa_, and, in the British
Museum collection, a wonderful study of Hotei, the god of contentment,
frolicking with some children, must be seen before his full scope and
great power can be realised. For he was in every sense a great painter;
in each department his work is marked by lofty conception, great
breadth of treatment, and an absolute certainty and ease of execution.
His brushwork is very distinctive, and even by the novice may be
recognised at a glance. Strong and vigorous, but angular and jagged
like forked lightning, it often seems rude and clumsy when examined
closely, but it never so asserts itself when we step back and look at
the _picture_, but expresses exactly the effect intended. The British
Museum possesses several very fine specimens of Sesshiu’s work. Even of
the most famous of his pupils--Shiugetsu, Sesson, and Keishoki--space
will not permit us to deal. Mention must be made, however, of a
makimono by Sesson. It consists of eight views in monochrome roughly
dashed off. Nothing could be more sketchy than the treatment or yet
more vigorous. It is a veritable _tour de force_ of caligraphic
impressionism.
A secondary result of the Chinese renaissance was the foundation of
the Kano school, which, based on the broad, caligraphic methods of the
Chinese masters, gradually adapted them to their own use, evolving a
freer and looser style of handling distinctly Japanese. The founder
of the school was Kano Masanobu. When the artist Oguri Sotan died, in
1469, he was engaged in the decoration of the walls of the temple of
Kinkakuji at Kioto, and, on Sesshiu’s recommendation, Masanobu, then
only known as an amateur, was engaged to finish the work.
[Illustration: SHORIKEN CROSSING THE SEA ON HIS SWORD
From a Kakemono by MOTONOBU
(_British Museum_)]
Masanobu’s son Motonobu was even more famous, and to him is due the
credit of forcing the new school into public favour. Born in 1477,
in his youth he wandered over the country, carrying little but his
brushes, painting everything he saw, and paying his way with the
results. But those lean years of poverty and study stood him in good
stead. Fortune smiled at last, and he became the most popular painter
of his day. Goto Yujo, the famous metal worker, adopted his designs
for sword ornaments, his painted fans were chosen as ceremonial gifts
to the Mikado and Shogun, and, to crown all, Mitsushigé, the head of
the exclusive and aristocratic Tosa school, gave him the hand of his
daughter in marriage. He died, full of years and honours, in 1559.
For landscape, birds, and figure subjects he is equally famous, and as
a master of the brush he is unsurpassed. In the work of the Chinese
schools the quality of line, though often striking, is used in a more
reticent way, entirely as a means to an end; but in the Kano school
the line becomes a thing of beauty and life, almost an end in itself.
The astonishing power and sweep of Motonobu’s line may be seen to
perfection in the Shoriken in the British Museum.
During the sixteenth century the Kano school numbered many famous
names. Yeitoku, a grandson of Motonobu, became the favourite painter
of the Shogun Hideyoshi. Kaihoku Yusho was noted for his beautiful
misty effects; and more famous, perhaps, than either is Kimura
Sanraku. Sanraku was at first a page in the service of Hideyoshi, who,
discovering his talent, sent him to study under Yeitoku. His work has
all the dash and swing of the Kano style, and his colouring is rich
and harmonious, while his line is almost worthy to rank with that of
Motonobu. Sanraku’s adopted son Sansetsu carried on the tradition
of the family, though his work has more of the restrained quality
of Sesshiu and his followers than the dash of his more immediate
predecessors. The British Museum has a beautiful rainy landscape by
Sansetsu, slight in treatment--only some dim hills drenched in misty
rain, with the suggestion of a bridge and a stream and a fisherman’s
cottage--but everything, even the cottage roof, looks wet. (See
frontispiece.)
In the beginning of the seventeenth century the Kano school took a
new lease of life with the advent of the three brothers, grandsons of
Yeitoku, Tanyu, Naonobu, and Yasunobu.
Of the three, Tanyu is the most famous, and is recognised as one of
the greatest masters of the Kano school. He is distinctly a painter’s
painter, and delights in what we should call fireworks. Handling his
brush with careless ease he makes a smudge, a few blots, and a swirl,
and behold a landscape! A very Japanese Whistler; but it marks the
difference between the two publics that, while Whistler is with us
still “caviare to the general,” the Japanese substitute is one of the
most popular of all their painters. His two large pictures of Kwannon,
however, in the British Museum, stamp him as no mere swaggerer but
a great and serious artist. In the private collection of Mr Arthur
Morrison are two magnificent sixfold landscape screens, which show
him to rank with the first of Japanese landscape painters, and, among
other unique examples of his work, a dainty little study of birds and
convolvulus, touched with the utmost lightness and delicacy.
[Illustration: KWANNON, THE GODDESS OF MERCY
From a Kakemono by TANYU
(_British Museum_)]
Naonobu, the second brother, died at an early age, and from this
cause, and from the fact that he seemed to spend much of his time in
hunting out and destroying his earlier work, his paintings are rarer
than Tanyu’s. There could hardly be a greater contrast than the work
of the two brothers--the first exulting in its strength, and full of a
superb recklessness and dash; the second restrained and quiet, though
not lacking in force, and full of a soft, liquid quality. Some charming
examples of his work are in the British Museum.
The third brother, Yasunobu, was known chiefly for his landscapes, full
of delicacy and feeling, and recalling the work of Sesshiu and
Sansetsu.
Naonobu’s son Tsunenobu, born in 1636, was a worthy successor, and, in
the opinion of many, is worthy to be ranked with Tanyu and the other
great men of the Kano school.
Then we have one of the most striking personalities among Japanese
painters--Hanabusa Itcho, the last of the great Kano painters. A born
humorist, his faculty for practical joking was always getting him into
trouble. Indeed, on more than one occasion he found himself in prison
owing to liberties he had taken in the pictorial representation of
those in high authority. But he is no mere caricaturist. His drawings
are pictures first and humorous afterwards, and as a colourist he ranks
high even in Japan.
Another pupil of Yasunobu was Sotatsu, one of the greatest flower
painters of Japan. He also studied under Sumiyoshi Jokei, a Tosa
painter, but can hardly be classed with either of these schools.
It must not be supposed, however, that with the coming of the Sesshiu
and Kano schools the old Tosa style had been driven out. It continued
to exist alongside the newer schools, and many artists changed from one
style to the other according to subject. The Tosa school at this time
was distinguished by a minuteness of detail, and also by a richness
of colour which gradually came to affect the Kano artists, whose work
became much brighter in colour as time went on. Sesshiu, Masanobu,
and Motonobu worked chiefly in monochrome, using colour sparingly; but
Sanraku’s work, a hundred years later, is full of fresh, bright tints.
A curious convention of the Tosa painters in their historical subjects
was to leave out the roof of a house in order to expose the interior to
view.
[Illustration: BIRD AND PINE BRANCH
From a Kakemono by NAONOBU
(_British Museum_)]
We now come to Ogata Korin, one of the most individual of all Japanese
artists. Born in 1661, he is said to have studied under Yasunobu, and
the influence of Sotatsu seems to appear in his work; but he can be
classed with no existing school, striking out an entirely new line for
himself. A wonderful draughtsman, Korin possessed in the highest degree
the Japanese faculty for spacing and balance. Slight, and often almost
bizarre, as his compositions are, one feels that it would be impossible
to alter a line. He is more frankly decorative than any of his
predecessors, and is even more famous as a lacquerer than a painter.
Indeed, often in his painting, especially in the enamel-like quality
of his colour effects, one sees the hand of the lacquerer rather than
the painter. Japan, perhaps, possesses one or two greater artists, but
none more original, or whose work exercises a more subtle fascination.
To commemorate the centenary of his death his follower Hoitsu issued
several volumes of woodcuts from the master’s designs. Slight as these
are they are never trivial, nothing is expressed but what is necessary,
the non-essentials are absolutely ignored, and the results are masterly
in their telling arrangements of black and white.
We must now retrace our steps a little and return to the beginning of
the seventeenth century, when Iwasa Matabei founded the style which was
known as the Ukioyé, or “pictures of the passing world” school, and
which soon became the great popular school of painting. The distinction
between the Ukioyé and the older classical schools, however, was not
one merely of subject. Many of the earlier men had turned to the
scenes of everyday life for their subjects. Toba Sojo, Sanraku, and
Itcho, to name but a few, and, on the other hand, the Ukioyé painters,
frequently treated of classical subjects. The real difference is one
of treatment, not of subject, and the starting-point of variance
was the mental attitude of the painter. It was a departure from the
subjective attitude of the older men. The Ukioyé and later schools took
the standpoint of the poet: “The earth--that is sufficient; I do
not want the constellations any nearer”--and their works are frankly
decorative or frankly naturalistic. Materialists, in a sense, they
turn from the beauties of the ideal world to show us the beauties of
the natural world around us. This does not necessarily mean that their
treatment was what we term realistic; but, while with the classical
schools one looked through the picture, as it were, to the thought
beyond, in this case one looks at the picture for the beauty which it
presents, and which is inherent in the subject itself. The fact that
the rise of the Ukioyé school was more or less a popular revolt against
the old classical traditions which had governed the art for a thousand
years will help to explain to us why its masters were hardly esteemed
as highly by the cultured classes in Japan as, by their undoubtedly
fine qualities, they deserved to be. On the other hand, we must admit
that they never attain to the power and dignity of the older schools.
[Illustration: FLOWER PANEL
By KORIN
(_From a Woodcut in the Korin Hiakuzu_)]
The works of Matabei are excessively rare. He was a fine draughtsman,
his figures of dancing girls being particularly graceful in line and of
quiet, harmonious colouring.
The next great artist of the school was Hishigawa Moronobu, who
flourished during the latter part of the seventeenth century. Formerly
a designer of embroideries, the inexhaustible fancy with which he
adorns the costumes of his figures adds a special charm to his work,
and his drawing of the figure is marked by a wonderful lightness and
grace. He was the first artist of importance to devote himself to
the production of the woodcut prints which afterwards attained such
popularity, and during the next two hundred years became a separate
branch of art industry.
During the eighteenth century the school obtained many adherents, whom,
for lack of space, we can do no more than name. Torii Kiyonobu, the
first of the Torii artists, noted for their treatment of theatrical
subjects; Miyagawa Choshun, Nishikawa Sukenobu, Okumura Masanobu,
Nishimura Shigenaga, and Suzuki Harunobu are but a few. But as most of
these painters of the Ukioyé school were more famous as producers of
colour prints we shall leave their further consideration to the next
chapter.
[Illustration: MONKEYS AND PLUM BLOSSOM
From a Kakemono by SOSEN
(_British Museum_)]
A great painter of the eighteenth century who did not follow the Ukioyé
or older schools, but, like Korin, struck out a line of his own, was
Tani Buncho, who was born in 1763 and died in 1841. As a painter of
landscapes, figures, birds, and flowers he was equally a master.
Another artist who struck out for himself is Maruyama Okio, 1733-1795,
sometimes regarded as the founder of the Shijo or naturalistic school.
According to the old critics, “the art of painting may be pursued
according to either of two systems: the one in which the spirit of
nature is expressed; the other in which its outward forms are copied.”
Okio broke away from the old traditional method, and instead of
endeavouring to interpret Nature endeavoured to so present Nature that
she should deliver her own message. His favourite subjects were birds,
fish, and flowers, and in their naturalistic treatment are more akin
to European work than that of his predecessors, though in grace and
elegance they are still essentially Japanese.
In the hands of his followers the Shijo or naturalistic school soon
became popular. Even more famous than Okio was Mori Sosen, 1747-1821,
now recognised as one of the world’s greatest animal painters. He is
especially noted for his paintings of monkeys, whose habits he studied
for years, often living in the woods for months at a time. He has two
styles: one rough and bold, generally on paper; the other on silk, and
often of extraordinary delicacy and fineness. That his abilities were
not by any means confined to the depicting of monkeys may be seen from
his exquisite studies of deer and other animals.
To landscape Mori Ippo applied the principles of the Shijo school,
employing a much more naturalistic colouring than had hitherto been the
custom, and Hoyen depicted birds, flowers, and insects with charming
delicacy and refinement.
In 1749 was born another great independent artist--Ganku, who founded a
school of his own, combining with the naturalism of the new something
of the suavity and dignity of the older styles.
Though treating of him more fully in the next chapter mention must be
made here of the great Hokusai--in Whistler’s words, “the greatest
pictorial artist since Vandyke.” To European ears his name is more
familiar than that of any other Japanese artist. As a draughtsman he
ranks with the very first, and as a painter his brushwork was bold and
free and often masterly, though lacking just the grace and finish of
the old Kano masters, and, at its best, his colour is superb. Some of
his figure subjects have the grandiose quality of a Velasquez. His
versatility was extraordinary, every style of subject coming within the
range of his brush.
[Illustration: A PEACOCK
From a Kakemono by IPPO
(_British Museum_)]
Of nineteenth century painters the greatest is Kikuchi Yosai, the last
of the great painters of Japan. In his youth he studied in all the
schools, and afterwards made a tour through the country studying the
great pictures stored in the various temples. His own style is strongly
individual, combining the dignity of the older schools with the realism
and rich colouring of the modern. A fine example in the British Museum
is his painting of Fukurokujiu, the god of longevity--an old, old
man with worn, wrinkled features. It is said to be a portrait of the
artist, and was painted in his eighty-fifth year. He had many pupils
but no successors; and on his death, in 1878, the only painters worthy
of mention are Zeshin, better known as a lacquerer, who died in 1891;
and Kawanabé Kiosai, a humorous draughtsman of remarkable dexterity,
who died in 1889.
CHAPTER III
COLOUR PRINTING
The art of colour printing, which, as pointed out in the previous
chapter, was an offshoot of the Ukioyé school of painting, is one of
the most interesting of the minor arts of Japan. It was the colour
prints that first aroused the interest of the European in Japanese art,
and it is from them that in most cases he still receives his first
impressions. And though, indeed, these impressions require largely to
be corrected in the light of further knowledge, yet on the whole this
is the most natural introduction; for, fantastic though these prints
may at first appear to the unaccustomed eye, yet in their frankly
decorative feeling they approach more nearly the Western standpoint
than the earlier and more ideal schools of Japanese art. In the colour
prints, which we may buy for a few shillings, there are obvious
beauties of line, of composition, and of colour which cannot fail to
appeal to us; however strange or bizarre they may otherwise appear we
at once recognise them as charming pieces of decoration.
And though on further acquaintance with the subject of Japanese art
we find that those who produced this beautiful work were but the
journalists of art, and that the real classics stand on another and
higher plane, yet on their own merits we cannot grudge them unstinted
praise. They have not the noble elevation of the old schools, they
do not climb the misty heights of the ideal, but they realise with
exquisite feeling and refinement the beauty of the passing world that
lies around them.
And while Japanese paintings, especially of the older schools, are
almost unknown except to the connoisseur, and are only to be seen in
a few isolated collections, the colour print is more or less familiar
to all who take an interest in matters artistic. Hardly a studio but
possesses a print or two, and it would be difficult to over-estimate
their influence on the work which goes on around them.
But the art of the colour printer has this additional interest for
us: it was a truly democratic art, its followers men of the artisan
class, its customers the common people. And at a time when the upper
classes of society were suffering from a gradual degeneration, when
the arts became less and less alive and more and more a repetition of
outworn conventions, this growth from below of a school of living art
shows that the popular masses were beginning to stir, and that even two
hundred years ago the bonds of feudalism were getting weaker, and the
growth of a popular art was only one manifestation of the tendencies
which finally overthrew the old system and substituted for it a
democratic government.
The colour print artists were, for the most part, ignored by the
cultured upper classes. They were men of little or no education.
Toyokuni I. was the son of a maker of puppets; Kunisada was at one
time the keeper of a ferry-boat; and Hokkei was a fish-hawker before
he found his vocation. Then there was another reason for this social
boycotting--the subjects of which they treated in their pictures. A
large proportion of these were representations of actors in character.
Now, in Japan the fondness for the theatre was an overwhelming passion
with the common people, but by the nobility and aristocracy the stage
was utterly tabooed. No person of good family dared openly to attend a
theatrical performance. Actors, therefore, were ranked in the social
scale as the lowest of the low--beneath even the humblest artisans.
Even the colour print artists, who earned their living by depicting
them, would never dream of associating with them on terms of equality.
Then another favourite subject was the delineation of the famous
beauties of the Yoshiwara and the tea-houses. It is evident that the
nature of the subject in this case also would be sufficient to damn the
prints in the eyes of the better classes.
But, with the alien, “where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be
wise”; and where the educated Japanese would see vulgarity and
coarseness--where, perhaps, such was even intended--we, happily, see
only a beautiful decorative effect.
So in Japan the colour print was the picture of the poorer classes.
Costing a mere trifle, it occupied in their humble homes the place of
the more expensive kakemono.
It is a matter of surprise to the cultured Japanese to find how these
despised objects are prized by European collectors; and, valuing
them little themselves, they have exported them wholesale, till
comparatively few remain in Japan, the bulk of fine prints being now in
Europe or America.
Though far surpassing in delicacy and beauty the colour prints of
Europe and elsewhere, the Japanese prints are produced by means
wonderfully simple, and depend for their fine qualities entirely on the
wonderful skill of the craftsman.
The process is as follows:--The drawing is first made by the artist,
with brush and Indian ink, on a sheet of thin paper. After being oiled
to make it transparent this paper is pasted, face downwards to ensure
the necessary reversal, on a block of soft cherry-wood. The engraver
now proceeds to outline the picture with a knife. Then with gauge and
chisel the superfluous wood is boldly cut away, and the result is a key
block in line. From proofs coloured by the artist a further series of
blocks are cut, one for each colour used. It may be mentioned here that
the cherry-wood blocks are not cut across the grain, as in the case of
the boxwood blocks we use for wood engraving, but in a line with the
grain.
Then comes the work of a third craftsman, the printer. He mixes his
colours for each printing, and applies them carefully to the block with
a brush. Then the paper is damped and laid on the block. No press is
used, but with a rubber or baren, made of a bunch of twisted fibre in
a sheaf of bamboo leaf, the impression is carefully rubbed off. And
so each block is used in succession until the picture is complete,
accuracy of register being obtained in the most wonderful manner by
rough guiding marks cut on the blocks. Sometimes metallic dusts are
used in printing, and again a kind of embossing or high relief is
obtained by pressure on an uninked block. It is said that this pressure
is often applied by using the point of the elbow as a rubber.
The prints were issued by publishers chiefly in Yedo, the engraver and
printer being simply workmen in the publisher’s employment. Sometimes
the artist, too, was employed entirely by him, living in his house, and
occupying a position somewhat equivalent to that of a designer for a
commercial firm.
The first Japanese artist to make drawings for the wood engraver was
Hishigawa Moronobu (1637-1714). These, however, were not colour prints
but merely woodcuts in black and white. He illustrated quite a number
of books during the latter half of the seventeenth century.
A further development was the colouring of the prints by hand, which
was introduced largely by Torii Kiyonobu (1664-1729), the founder of
the long line of Torii artists who devoted themselves almost entirely
to theatrical subjects. It is among the immediate successors of Torii
Kiyonobu that the art of printing in colours direct from the blocks
appears to have arisen--at first only one or two tints being used.
The perfecting of the process is due to Suzuki Harunobu, who, going
beyond a few tints on the main objects, filled in the whole picture
with colour. And, though the first of the great colour print artists,
in many respects his work has never been surpassed. Most of his prints
are small in size, containing only a single figure, exquisitely poised,
and characterised by extreme elegance and grace of line. His colour
schemes were quiet and refined--grey, a pale red, one or two tints
of olive green, being the components of some of his most delicate
harmonies. His prints are rare, and his signature has been paid the
doubtful compliment of being more extensively forged than that of
any of his fellow-artists. His style, however, was more difficult to
reproduce. Many of his successors fell under his influence, but even
in their most successful efforts they never quite caught his peculiar
elegance and charm.
[Illustration: A FIGURE GROUP
From a Colour Print by UTAMARO]
Of his contemporaries the most noteworthy was Koriusai. Less delicate
and refined than Harunobu, he worked in a bolder style, his drawing
being particularly vigorous. His bird studies are very fine; and South
Kensington Museum contains some excellent examples of his work--notably
one, a clever contrast of a crow and a white heron against a grey-green
background.
Reflecting Harunobu more decidedly is Shunsho, who became the master
of the great Hokusai. His studies of female figures are particularly
graceful and of charming colour, and his prints of theatrical subjects
vigorous and striking. He died in 1790, at the age of sixty-seven.
Contemporary with Shunsho was Torii Kiyonaga, an artist who not only
did fine work himself but exercised a great influence on the artists
who followed him. Working with fuller colour than his predecessors he
increased the number of blocks considerably, and his charming drawings
of the gorgeously-dressed beauties of the Yoshiwara set the fashion
afterwards so largely followed.
We now come to one of the chief of the colour print artists--Kitagawa
Utamaro, next to Hokusai the most famous of all. His female studies
were something quite new and distinctive, superb in line and
composition, the heavy masses of black being used with consummate
ease and mastery. There is an exquisite quality in his drawing, too;
the features are delineated with the utmost fineness and delicacy.
Indeed, to distinguish a forgery from a genuine Utamaro, one has
only to examine the drawing of the hands and the face. His colour
is delightful, and beautifully subtle--lavender, pink, green, and
grey--but always saved from weakness by the dexterous use of the masses
of solid black. Besides his female figures we have a few landscapes
and flower studies, and a particularly fine little volume of insect
drawings. It is related by his father in the preface of this book that,
when a child, Utamaro was continually catching and examining insects,
till he was afraid that the boy might acquire a habit of killing the
harmless creatures. The book, however, is not entirely devoted to
harmless insects, one of the drawings being a masterly study of a
snake. A touch of mica used in the printing gives it a slimy sheen,
and the long, coiling body, every inch of it alive and moving, is a
wonderful piece of drawing. To rival it one would require to turn to
the work of another Japanese artist--the netsuké carver.
Yeishi, Yeizan, and Kiyomine, who followed immediately after, adopted
his style and followed his methods closely; but rich though their
effects are, and full of detail, they lack the dignity and simplicity
of the earlier workers.
One of the most characteristic of all the great artists, and worthy
to rank with Harunobu and Utamaro, is Toyokuni I., born in 1769. His
work also was at first affected by the ornate style of Kiyonaga; and
among his earlier prints are studies of gorgeously-dressed ladies,
a riot of rich colour and elaborate detail, but later he turned his
attention to theatrical prints, and evolved the style, distinctively
his own, which became afterwards the recognised method of treating such
subjects. In his lines the grace and suavity of the earlier masters
become hardened to a certain severity, but what was lost in grace was
gained in strength. The violent action in some of his prints is an
illustration of the forcible manner in which the truth can be conveyed
by a judicious exaggeration; and again, in repose, his figures have a
dignity which is monumental. This effect is heightened, too, by the
reticence and restraint with which he uses colour--full, strong tints,
but few, and laid on in broad masses. Breadth of effect was what he
aimed at and secured. In Japan he was more popular than any of his
contemporaries, Utamaro not excepted; and, whereas their followers were
limited to a few immediate successors, he was the founder of a regular
school. Of these the best is Kunisada, known as Toyokuni II., whose
early work especially was almost worthy to rank with that of his master.
But the greatest master of all the colour print artists, and one who by
European critics has been acclaimed as worthy to rank with the great
artists of the world, was Hokusai. It is a mark of the power of his
personality that, though he lived and died in poverty and obscurity,
the facts of his life are recorded with some degree of fulness; while,
as a rule, little record is left of his contemporaries but their work.
Born in 1760, he was apprenticed at the age of eighteen to Shunsho,
but was too original in his methods, and too independent, to remain in
that position long. For some years he drifted about, being reduced at
one time to hawking red pepper, calendars, and other small wares in the
streets of Yedo, but all the time he was getting more and more command
over his art.
[Illustration: A FIGURE STUDY
From a Colour Print by TOYOKUNI]
In the preface to the “Hundred Views of Fuji” he thus summarises his
life: “From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of
things. By the time I was fifty I had published an infinity of designs;
but all I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking
into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real
structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and
insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made still
more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at a
hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvellous stage; and when I
am a hundred and ten everything I do, be it but a dot or a line, will
be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my
word. Written at the age of seventy-five by me, once Hokusai, to-day
Gwakio Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.”
And, indeed, this was no idle boast, for he lived to a great age, and
steadily gained power. When finally stricken down the old man’s lively
spirit is still unsubdued, and he writes playfully to a friend: “King
Yemma [the Japanese Pluto], being very old, is retiring from business,
so he has built a pretty country house, and asks me to go and paint a
kakemono for him. I am thus obliged to leave, and when I go shall carry
my drawings with me. I am going to take a room at the corner of the
street, and shall be happy to see you whenever you pass that way.”
To the end his mind was absorbed by his art. On his death-bed he was
heard to murmur: “If Heaven could only grant me ten more years.” Then a
moment after: “If Heaven had only granted me five more years I should
have become a real painter.” He died on the 10th of May 1849, in his
ninetieth year.
On his tomb is inscribed this little verse, composed, according to the
national custom, during his last hours:
“My soul, turned Will-o’-the-wisp,
Can come and go at ease over the summer fields.”
All his life beset with poverty, unhappy in his domestic life, his
dauntless spirit sustained him, and his incessant industry never
flagged. He lived for the most part with one daughter, an artist
also, in a bare room, with little or no furniture beyond his painting
materials. When the room became unbearably dirty--and they were not
squeamish--they changed to another house. Always poor, dressed like
a pauper, ascetic in his mode of life, he had an utter contempt for
money. When he received payment for his work the money lay uncounted
at his side, and when importuned by a creditor he threw him one of the
unopened packets and went back to his work.
In 1817 he published the first volume of the “Mangwa,” a collection
of rough sketches, which, in its fifteen volumes, forms a veritable
encyclopædia of Japanese life and industries, and is sufficient alone
to establish him as one of the great draughtsmen of the world. These
sketches were printed from woodblocks in a scheme of black, grey,
and light red, and included studies of every kind--street scenes,
architecture, birds, beasts, flowers, and insects. The “Hundred Views
of Fuji,” similar in style, added still further to his reputation.
But even more striking and distinctive is the great series of colour
prints illustrating the landscape of his country--the waterfalls, the
bridges, and the “Thirty-Six Views of Fuji,” which are something quite
new in Japanese art, not conventional landscapes of the old Chinese
style, abstract and ideal scenes, but pictures of certain places, each
with its individuality strongly stamped upon it. They are, however,
equally far from the Western realistic standpoint, each picture being
an audacious decorative arrangement both as regards line and colour.
Most daring of all are the waterfalls, superb in their boldness of
conception and rich, full colour, but equally fascinating are the
quieter harmonies of the “Thirty-Six Views of Fuji.” To study such
pictures is to be lifted out of the commonplace view of things and to
look at nature through the temperament and with the eyes of a poet.
But, while so highly esteemed by European connoisseurs, Hokusai is
by no means so highly thought of in Japan. And this is not entirely
due to the fact that he was a man of the people, a painter of the
vulgar and the commonplace. Though it is hardly possible for us to
overrate the magnitude of his genius, still, the more we learn of
the great painters of the older schools the more we see the reason
of the Japanese verdict, for even we would hesitate to place his
work alongside that of Cho Densu, of Sesshiu, and of the great Kano
masters. The fact is that no man, however great, can afford to do
as Hokusai did--to set aside altogether the accumulated benefits of
centuries of experience and work absolutely fresh from the beginning.
The greatness of his achievement shows the power of his personality,
but the greatest results of all are built on the foundations of others.
And in spite of its amazing originality and its force we must recognise
that in Hokusai’s style there is a lack of the dignified reticence and
grace--the culture, in fact--of the best work of the classic schools.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE THIRTY-SIX VIEWS OF FUJI
From a Colour Print by HOKUSAI]
But the distinction lies even deeper. His outlook, keen and
marvellously accurate to catch any passing phase, has not the
deep seriousness of the older masters. He was a modern of the
moderns--materialistic, humorous, somewhat flippant--while they were
mystics, striving to pierce through the veil and discover the truths
lying beyond. Each represents the spirit of his time, and, though the
comparison is interesting and needful, it is due more in justice to
the older men than to Hokusai, whose reputation, it is safe to say,
will in Europe mount higher and higher, while the qualities of the old
classic painters will appeal to but a few kindred spirits.
One other colour printer of the first rank remains--Hiroshigé I.,
worthy to rank with Harunobu, Utamaro, Toyokuni, and Hokusai. His
landscape prints are particularly charming in their delicate renderings
of effects of atmosphere and light, and no one could portray better the
peaceful effects of quiet evening light.
But the art which culminated in the work of these great men entered now
into a period of decline. The latest artists brought nothing that was
new; and, charming though much of their work was, it merely repeated,
with continually lessening effect, what had been said before.
With the opening of the country to European influence came the final
degradation--the introduction of violent aniline dyes to take the place
of the old soft Japanese tints.
Since 1880 a slight revival of the art has taken place, but it has, as
yet, produced nothing to rival the productions of even fifty years ago.
[Illustration: A LANDSCAPE
From a Colour Print by HIROSHIGÉ]
CHAPTER IV
SCULPTURE AND CARVING
Like the sister art of painting, the art of sculpture arose in Japan
with the coming of the Buddhist priests from Korea in the sixth
century. But though both existed together in the great Buddhist
monasteries the latter seemed for the first few hundred years to
entirely eclipse the former, for the first great products of Buddhist
art in Japan were seen in the figures carved in wood or cast in bronze
which adorned the shrines of the temples.
Time, too, has dealt less severely with these relics, or rather, less
perishable in their nature, they have been better able to survive the
dangers that so often swept away the frailer kakemonos of the painter,
and in many of the old temples are preserved the works of these early
sculptors. Such statues were rarely or never in stone, but either of
wood--which material always seems as plastic as clay in the hands of
the Japanese craftsman--or cast in bronze. Why this should have been it
is difficult to say. Perhaps the lack of a suitable stone at hand, and
the difficulty of transporting large and heavy blocks long distances in
a rough and hilly country, had something to do with the matter. In any
case, wood and bronze were at first entirely used for the work. Some
centuries later a fine grey clay, found at Nara, mixed with vegetable
fibre, like the bricks of Egypt, and, like them, hardened without
baking, came into use. Another interesting method of working was the
covering over with thin lacquer, mixed with powdered bark, a model made
of coarse cloth stiffened with glue. Works in both these last styles
were frequently gilded or painted.
Arising in India, Buddhist art spread northward with the spread of
the creed through China to Korea, and as it went farther north its
characteristics were largely altered and moulded by the different
types of the northern Buddhists. The Hindu sensitiveness gave place
to a Chinese solidity, which, again, was mellowed and softened by the
gentler influences of Korea.
The early Buddhist altar-pieces of Japan are marked by a sweet and
dignified serenity. Unlike the great Greek sculptures, they do not
represent the ideal of the natural human form, but rather endeavour to
express in terms of the human form an abstract or spiritual beauty.
Their figures are personifications of abstract qualities--Reason, Pity,
Charity, Fortitude, Beauty, Divine Love, for the northern Buddhist
doctrine was a gentle one; the world was not a hopeless dream, as in
the Hindu form, but a storehouse of forms to be idealised.
The temple of Horiuji at Nara, the first Buddhist temple built in
Japan, is one of the richest of all in art treasures, and contains many
fine examples of the old work. One of the earliest known specimens
there is a life-sized seated figure of Kwannon, said to be the work of
Prince Shotoku himself, and, in any case, dating from about the end of
the sixth century. The figure is nude from the waist upwards, and is
modelled with great severity of style, so that the anatomical forms
are almost lost; but this, with the simplicity of the drapery, only
concentrates the attention on the serene dignity of the expression, and
adds to the power and impressiveness of the statue.
During the seventh century there arose at Nara a school of bronze
casters, who produced a number of beautiful altar-pieces, more than a
hundred of which still exist. They are of small size, varying from
six inches to three feet in height, and in delicacy of modelling and
elegance of style they far surpass any of the Indian, Chinese, or
Korean work. The triumph of the school is seen in a little group of
three at Horiuji: a seated Buddha with two standing figures, backed by
a richly-wrought folding screen.
It is a beautiful piece of work, the lines graceful and flowing, the
modelling subtle and of exquisite finish. Perhaps the finest part of
all is the openwork halo, pierced with a floral design, behind the head
of the central figure. In its own way this group, executed about 680
A.D., is one of the gems of Japanese art.
Towards the end of the seventh century a wave of Greek feeling, which
had slowly spread from India and had produced what was known as the
Greco-Buddhist art, reached Japan, and its influence is seen in a
certain ampler sense of human dignity and proportion absent in the
earlier works. In 695 A.D. an attempt was made to cast three large
bronze figures of about twelve feet high, but it was a failure. In 715
A.D., however, Giogi, who ranks among Japan’s greatest sculptors,
successfully cast an altarpiece for the temple of Yakushiji, Nara, of
even greater dimensions--a trinity of a seated Buddha and two standing
figures. In the opinion of many this work represents the culmination of
the art of bronze casting in Japan. For largeness of conception, easy
grace and elegance of pose, richness and beauty of finish, it has never
been surpassed.
[Illustration: COLOSSAL BRONZE IMAGE OF A BODHISATWA
(_South Kensington Museum_)]
But a still more astonishing development was yet to come in the
colossal bronzes, which exceed in size any other pieces of casting the
world has seen. The largest of all, a seated Buddha, is at Nara, and,
no less than fifty-three feet in height, is the greatest bronze statue
that has ever been cast. A figure of great dignity, it has, however,
suffered much by the lapse of years. The head was damaged by an
earthquake in 855 A.D., and later by a fire, and was finally replaced
by another in the sixteenth century. Much finer as a work of art,
though slightly smaller, being forty-nine feet seven inches in height,
is the Daibutsu, or Great Buddha, at Kamakura, which is considerably
later in date, the best judges placing it at 1252. The seated figure,
with hands folded in contemplation, is of almost oppressive dignity and
power. The modelling is simple and severe, the drapery hangs in large
ample folds, and the face bears an expression of profound and majestic
calm. In the history of art we have met such an expression before;
there is something akin to it in the strange, inscrutable smile of the
Sphinx. But the calm of the Buddha has a deeper and more spiritual
quality: it is the calm of perfect knowledge; it speaks of the conquest
of human passions and a spiritual peace elevated far above all earthly
things.
The statue was originally surrounded by a building fifty yards square,
the roof supported by sixty-three massive pillars; but this shelter was
swept away by a tidal wave in 1369, and again in 1494. Since the latter
date it has not been rebuilt, though the stone foundations may still be
seen. In the rather irreverent phrase of the Japanese, the Daibutsu has
become a “wet god.”
The process of casting these colossal bronzes is not known in detail.
In all probability a full-sized model was first built up, and from
it the mould made in several pieces. The Kamakura Daibutsu is formed
of sheets of bronze, each cast separately, then brazed together, and
finished on the outside with the chisel.
With the decline of this old Buddhist work in bronze appeared another
phase of the sculptor’s art, which continued to a much later date, and
exhibited a different side of the national character. I refer to the
grotesque figures of gods or demons which are so characteristic of
early Japanese carving. These vary in size from a few inches to between
twenty and thirty feet in height, and are chiefly executed in wood,
several pieces being joined together in the larger works.
The most famous exponent of the school was Unkei, who lived at the end
of the twelfth, and beginning of the thirteenth century. At the gateway
of the temple of To-Dai-ji at Nara stood a pair of Nio, or Temple
Guardians--huge figures of sinister aspect and terrific power, hewn out
of wood--the one by Unkei, the other by Kwaikei, his contemporary. It
is said that after Unkei’s death the king of the nether world objected
that, whereas the sculptor had many times endeavoured to depict him, he
had never succeeded in doing him justice. Accordingly, Unkei was sent
back to the earth that, having seen the god himself, he might carve his
portrait faithfully.
Though on a small scale, only standing two and a half feet high, a
pair of little wooden demons by Koben, the third son of Unkei, exhibit
the same grotesqueness, combined with an almost terrible power. The
masterly representation of the straining muscles shows clearly that
the Japanese artist could model the human figure realistically when he
pleased, and that when he conventionalised he did so knowingly, and for
a given purpose, as has been the custom of the decorative artist from
time immemorial.
The third phase, which marks the early sculptures, is the series of
portrait statues, chiefly carved in wood, and it is curious to know
that most of these extremely realistic studies were executed during
the highly idealistic Buddhist period. The statues of two saints, for
instance, Asanga and Vasubandhu, in Kofukuji, which are said to date
from the eighth century, are absolutely realistic in style. The drapery
certainly is treated in a broad and simple manner, but the face and
expression is obviously a portrait, a study of an individual. Many
of these portraits exist, dating chiefly from the eighth to about the
thirteenth century, and are all strong and characteristic presentments
of actual men--speaking likenesses.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SENNO RIKIU,
CARVED IN WOOD AND LACQUERED
(_British Museum_)]
Towards the end of the thirteenth century the sculptor’s art gradually
fell into disuse, the traditions of the craft only surviving in the
beautiful carving which adorned the temple buildings, but which
was looked on not as the work of an artist but merely as that of a
carpenter.
The legitimate successor of the old sculptors appeared some hundreds
of years later, and not as the maker of colossal images and life-sized
portraits, but as the netsuké carver, the greatest master of the art
of _multum in parvo_ that the world has seen. In the narrow field
of a cubic inch or so the sculptor, for he is no less, combines a
largeness of conception with a breadth and vigour of execution which
are absolutely astonishing. But there is between the old Buddhist
sculptor and the netsuké and okimono carver the same difference which
divides the painter of the old classic schools from the more modern
exponent of the Ukioyé-Riu--the change from the ideal point of view to
the material. The art of the netsuké carver, often bold and vigorous,
sometimes elaborately finished, is always frankly realistic.
The netsuké (pronounced netské) is a toggle or button varying in size,
but often little larger than a marble. The Japanese gentleman in native
costume has no pockets other than his wide sleeves, and so his pipe and
tobacco pouch, his inro or medicine-box, and other small objects, are
carried slung by a cord to his girdle, like a chatelaine. At the end of
the cord was the netsuké, which prevented the objects from slipping to
the ground.
It is said that the use of the netsuké dates from the fifteenth
century, but the great majority have been made within the last two
hundred years. In the opinion of the expert the finest specimens date
from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As the nineteenth
century advanced a loss of breadth in the treatment is observable, with
a greater elaboration of detail, and this tendency caused the gradual
degeneration of the art, until it became little more than a wonderful
exhibition of perfect manual skill, lacking the life which breathed in
the older work.
The netsuké is made of various materials, of which the two chief
are wood and ivory, and is pierced with one or more holes for the
passage of the cord. In the eyes of the connoisseur the wooden
specimens are generally the most valuable; and justly so, for not
only are the Japanese most masterly artists in wood, but the material
lends itself to a freer and bolder style of work than the harder and
unsympathetic ivory, retaining the slightest impression of the artist’s
individuality. Between the two there is much the same difference
as between the free and spontaneous clay sketch of the sculptor,
recording the very print of his fingers, and the coldly severe and more
pretentious marble.
Still, it must be admitted that even in ivory the Japanese carver
attained in a wonderful degree the qualities of freshness and ease
which we are accustomed to look for only in more ductile materials.
The shape and size of the netsuké is regulated by the purpose for which
it is intended. It must be large enough not to slip through the girdle,
and we usually find that they range from about the size of a walnut to
nearly three times that size. Any excrescences or projections would,
of course, be liable to snap off, and so, especially in the older
specimens, the outline is generally rounded, and without sharp angles.
The holes through which the cord passes are often ingeniously made to
form part of the design. The fact that many netsukés were also used as
seals, and also that so many early examples are of triangular form, so
as to stand firmly on their base, is looked on by some authorities as
evidence that the netsuké was evolved from the seal.
Often the wood used was coloured, lacquered, and gilt. Sometimes wood
and ivory were combined, often ivory and metal, but almost every
material was used on occasion. Porcelain netsukés were not uncommon,
and gold, silver, jet, coral, and enamel were all applied to the
ornamentation of the netsuké.
The Kagami-buta were buttons of metal with a shank at the back. This
was enclosed in a circular hollow dish of ivory or wood, which had a
hole in the back through which the cord attached to the shank passed.
These examples are often very beautiful, the combination of the metal
centre, often chased and adorned with gold and silver, with the plain
outer ring of ivory being very pleasing in effect.
The Manju netsuké, a round, flattened disc, so called from its
resemblance to a Manju, or rice cake, is another well-known form.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF NETSUKÉS
(_British Museum_)]
As to subject, the whole field of Japanese mythology, history, and
literature is recorded in their netsuké. Perhaps the finest of
all are the miniature representations of the masks used in the No
dance--sometimes beautiful, sometimes comical, often grotesque, but
always artistic. Then we have the beautifully finished carvings of
insects; snakes twisted in lifelike coils; a goose with its bill
caught in a closed clam shell, and vainly flapping its wings; fishes,
tortoises, mice--all varieties of animal life: it is a veritable
illustrated natural history. Then in lifelike groups we have the whole
world of legendary folklore laid before us. The Tongue-cut sparrow,
Motomoro the peach child, and many other old fairy tales, are here
retold; while men and women in all the occupations of their trades and
callings give an epitome of contemporary Japanese life.
The names of the famous netsuké carvers are too numerous to record
here. One of the most celebrated was Shuzan, who lived early in the
eighteenth century, a volume of whose designs was published in 1781.
Of late years, since the use of the netsuké has begun to die out, the
carver has turned his attention to okimono--small pieces not pierced
for the cord, and intended merely as cabinet ornaments. Many of these
little ivories are exquisitely beautiful. European work, even of the
best, looks weak and poor beside them; and even the best Chinese
carving, though perhaps equally dexterous in manipulation, seems
dull and mechanical contrasted with their never-failing fertility of
imagination.
[Illustration: Rider on Horseback]
CHAPTER V
METAL WORK
We have already treated, with some fulness, of the beautiful bronze
statues which adorned the old Buddhist temples; but though his highest
achievement, these represent only a small part of the work of the
Japanese bronze caster. The old temple bells, the incense burners, the
great temple lanterns, all were of exquisite workmanship. And the art
was also applied to domestic uses, the ordinary cooking utensils, the
more ornamental vases, and the dainty bronze mirrors being but a few of
its products.
One of the finest and oldest bells is at the temple of To-Dai-ji at
Nara. Cast in 732 A.D., it stands 13 feet 6 inches high, the diameter
across the rim is 9 feet 1 inch, while the weight of metal is over
forty tons.
The method of ringing such a bell is different from that to which we
are accustomed. Instead of a loose tongue hung inside, a heavy swing
beam is mounted outside the bell, which it strikes on the rim. The
vibrations of each stroke are allowed to die away ere the next is
struck, and the great waves of sound go pealing for miles over the
quiet countryside.
The casting of a temple bell was made the occasion of a great
religious festival. A large kiln was built, worshippers attended from
all the surrounding country, women casting their ornaments into the
melting-pot. The priests announced with a loud voice the successful
accomplishment of each stage of the work, and the concluding operations
took place amid scenes of great rejoicings.
At To-Dai-ji is also a very fine specimen of a temple lantern,
ornamented with beautiful openwork panels; while at the temple of
Kofukuji, Nara, is a masterly piece of bronze in the shape of a musical
instrument, a sort of gong, called the Kwagen-Kei, surrounded by four
twining dragons--a most fantastic but vigorous piece of modelling.
The mirrors of polished bronze are said to have been first cast in
the reign of Keiko, about 100 A.D. They are of two kinds--the first
fitted with a handle, or with a stand of metal or carved wood; and
the second much smaller, often not more than four inches in diameter,
with a hole at the back through which a cord passed. The face was
burnished, and the back beautifully wrought in designs of great
delicacy.
[Illustration: TWO BOWLS OF CAST BRONZE (18TH CENTURY)
(_South Kensington Museum_)]
The method of casting employed in these and similar articles, which
is still characteristic of Japanese work, was as follows:--An exact
model of the object, with the ornamentation complete as in the finished
article, was made in wax. A slip was then prepared with very fine sand,
clay, and water, and the model carefully coated with the mixture,
special care being taken to run it into all the hollow places, so that
a complete skin covered the wax at every part. When the first coat
dried another was added, and another and another, a slightly thicker
paste being used for each successive coat. A coarser and stronger
mixture was used for the outer layers, till the model was encased in
a hard, solid crust. Vent holes were then drilled and the wax melted
out. After being carefully heated the moulds were ready to receive the
molten metal, which was then poured in. When the casting was cold the
moulds were broken off and the metal exposed to view. This system not
only ensured individuality in the work, a fresh mould being made for
each piece, but allowed of a depth of modelling and under-cutting which
would have been impossible had the mould been in pieces to be drawn
apart and afterwards used again.
The metal work of Japan may be conveniently grouped in three classes.
First, the early work characterised by extreme elegance, ornament being
used sparingly, though with great taste and often marvellous vigour.
Then comes a middle period, dating from the coming of the Tokugawa
dynasty at the end of the sixteenth century, when a class of work
highly ornamented and rich in detail came into vogue. And, lastly, we
have the more modern naturalistic school, wonderful in technique, but
lacking the inspiration of the older styles, and beside it appearing
dull and commonplace.
South Kensington Museum is particularly rich in Japanese metal work,
especially bronzes, of all these styles. There are several fine temple
lanterns, notably one pair, standing about eight feet high, of very
elegant design, and ornamented with great reticence and taste. A
smaller pair, evidently later in date, contain some wonderful casting,
but in their more ornate quality lack the dignity of the first pair.
A piece much esteemed by some critics is the large Koro, or incense
burner, of quite modern work, cast in 1878--a life-sized study of
peacocks, doves, and sparrows. It is certainly a wonderful piece
of realism. The poses are natural, the texture of the feathers is
imitated in the unyielding metal with marvellous fidelity, single
plumes standing out in full relief; but, placed beside the best old
work, the whole thing seems trivial and even vulgar. The birds are
lifelike to just this extent: if they were only coloured we should
think they were stuffed specimens. But from the true artist we get
more than this camera-like reproduction of nature; he can also give us
the spirit. Turn from this case to the Miochin eagle beside it. As a
piece of realism it is worthy to compare with the other, but how much
more it conveys. There is a marvellous poise about the bird, a vigour
and sweep of line that makes it live and breathe the intense ferocity
of its nature. It is alive, while the other merely irritates by its
close resemblance to life. Of iron, partly cast and partly made up
of hammered plates, it is the work of Miochin Muneharu, a member of
the famous Miochin family of armourers, and dates from the sixteenth
century.
The smaller pieces in the collection--the vases, trays, bowls, and
candlesticks--are also well worthy of study, and illustrate the same
tendency--the older work charming by its stately simplicity, and
sometimes also by its vigorous treatment of the grotesque; the modern
apt to become a mass of exquisitely executed decorations of a highly
naturalistic but rather trivial nature.
But in the early years of Japan the implements of war chiefly occupied
the attention of the metal worker, and during the bitter civil wars
that devastated the country the swordsmith and the armourer became
persons of great importance.
The famous family of Miochin has been associated with the making of
arms and armour as far back as records extend. An authentic member of
the family, Masuda Munemori, wrought helmets and armour in 75 A.D.;
and, further back still, there is the legendary founder of the line,
who is said to be the grandson of the god Takara himself, who taught
him the art of working in metals. From the twelfth to the eighteenth
centuries they held the position of armourers to the Court.
[Illustration: THE MIOCHIN EAGLE
Cast and Hammered Iron, 16th century
(_South Kensington Museum_)]
The armour of the Miochins was formed of thin iron plates, very light,
but wonderfully strong. One specimen, a helmet of the sixteenth
century, though 12 inches in length, 10 in width, and 8 in height, only
weighs 2 lbs. 2 oz. The usual shape of helmet was a domelike headpiece,
strengthened with ridges of iron plates, while flaps formed of a number
of narrow plates hung at the sides, and covered the back of the neck.
From the centre, just above the forehead, rose two curious curved
horns, called tsunomoto, and between them was worn the crest of the
warrior. In a famous suit of Miochin armour of the twelfth century the
helmet has a dragon worked in repoussé coiling round it, the head, with
open mouth, glaring from between the tsunomoto, while the tail forms
the spike on the top. Although wrought in so hard a metal as iron the
dragon’s head stands up in relief at least an inch from the background.
Similar work in repoussé adorns the breastplate and armpieces.
But much of the finest work of the Japanese metal worker is found in
the two-handed swords, which were the chief weapon of the soldiers,
and which, in feudal times, became the distinctive mark of the
Samurai, the aristocratic military class. The Japanese blades are
unsurpassed by the most famous swords of Damascus, India, and Persia,
and the craft of the swordsmith was looked on as the most honourable of
all handicrafts. Men of aristocratic birth often took up its duties,
and the famous swordmakers had the highest titles conferred upon
them. The name of the greatest of them all--Masamuné--passed into the
language as a term signifying supreme excellence, for a Masamuné blade
was unequalled, and would sever a floating hair carried against its
edge by the gentle current of a stream, or cleave through a solid bar
of iron.
The sword, indeed, was the centre of the old military life of Japan.
To know its history, its etiquette, was part of the education of all
Samurai youths, and it was a grand moment for them when, at the age of
fifteen, they entered on man’s estate and girded on the coveted weapon.
A fine sword was handed down from father to son as an heirloom; it was
their most cherished possession, and especially in the more peaceful
times which followed the establishment of the Tokugawa dynasty it was
enriched with the finest work that art could produce.
The forging of a sword was conducted with almost the solemnity
attending a religious rite. The katanya, or swordsmith, fasted for days
before, and when all was prepared he went to the temple and prayed for
a blessing on his work. In the forge was hung a consecrated rope of
straw and clippings of paper to drive away evil spirits; and, having
first propitiated the five elements--fire, water, wood, metal, and
earth--the smith donned the ceremonial robes of a Court noble, and,
binding back the wide sleeves, was ready to take hammer in hand.
First a strip of steel is welded to a bar of iron, which serves as a
handle; other strips are placed upon it, and it is wrought into a bar
of the required dimensions. Carefully coated with a paste of clay and
ashes, and never touched with the naked hand, this bar is heated in the
charcoal furnace, notched in the middle with a chisel, doubled over,
and then beaten out to its former size and shape. This folding process
is repeated fifteen times, then four such bars are welded together, and
the doubling and welding repeated five more times, so that if each
bar consisted first of all of four flakes this has now been increased
to 16,777,216 layers of metal. Many different textures are obtained by
flattening the bar in different manners, some giving the appearance of
a grain as in wood. The preparatory welding being finished, the blade
is then drawn out to its full length, shaped, and roughly ground.
But the most critical part of the process, the tempering of the steel,
is now to come. And the peculiar combination required--an extremely
hard edge, with the rest of the blade soft and tough--the Japanese
swordsmith, unlike others, produces in one operation instead of two.
The blade is coated with a mixture of fine clay and powdered charcoal.
This covering is then scraped away along the edge, leaving exposed a
strip of metal about a quarter of an inch wide. Raised in the furnace
to the required heat, the blade glowing dull red while the edge is
white hot, the sword is then plunged into a bath of water at a certain
temperature, and the operation is finished.
The process of tempering was always conducted by the forger himself,
no one else being allowed to enter the precincts of the forge, so
jealously were his professional secrets guarded. It is said that a
famous swordsmith paid for this knowledge by the loss of his hand. He
had learned all but the heat of the tempering bath, and this vital
secret his master refused to impart to him, so at the critical moment
he burst into the forge and plunged his hand into the water. The
furious master struck off his hand with one blow of the unfinished
sword, but the apprentice had learned his secret.
The old smiths used to sing while tempering a blade, and the spirit
of the music was said to enter into the metal. Masamuné chanted a
refrain: “Tenku, taihei, taihei”--“Peace be on earth, peace”--and his
swords never failed their owner, but always bore him to victory. But
the blades of his saturnine pupil Muramasa always brought trouble with
them. Their owners were ever in quarrels, and, once unsheathed, the
sword was never satisfied without blood, so that it could not even be
handled with safety. The reason for this was that, as he tempered the
blades, Muramasa sang grimly: “Tenku tairan, tenku tairan”--“Trouble in
the world, trouble in the world.”
After tempering, the blade was slowly ground on a series of
whetstones, getting finer and finer, finishing with a careful polishing
with stone-powder, and oil.
A volume might be written on the decoration of the sword. The tsuba
or guard, the handle of the ko-katana or little knife, carried in the
side of the scabbard; the fuchi and kashira, or mounts of the handle,
especially were marked by the most exquisite ornamentation.
In his knowledge of the properties of different metals and their
alloys, and in his combinations of these for one general effect, the
Japanese metal worker is unique. Many of the alloys used by him were
quite unknown to us, and were chosen chiefly for their colours. For the
metal workers’ designs were in reality colour studies, and in metal he
possessed a palette of really astonishing variety. For black he had
shakudo, a rich, deep tint, flashing in some lights a violet blue.
Oxidised iron gave a very dark brown, almost black, and also a rich
chocolate colour. Light browns, running from coffee colour to saffron
yellow, were obtained from different kinds of bronze. Copper gave a
deep ruddy tint, coban and other combinations of gold and silver a pale
greenish yellow, gold a rich, full yellow, shibu-ichi a dull grey,
while white was obtained by the use of silver or polished steel.
In South Kensington there is a vase, a very fine specimen of this work
in colours. The vase itself, beautifully shaped, is of iron, a warm
chocolate brown. On this is inlaid a graceful design of birds and
flowers, gleaming and sparkling in gold and silver, copper colour,
green, blue, and violet.
In sword mountings this style of decoration was extensively used, and
effects of great richness and beauty were obtained.
The tsuba, or sword guard, is a flat plate of metal, usually circular
or slightly elliptical in form; but other styles, such as diamonds,
squares, octagons, and irregular shapes decided by the exigencies of
the design, are not uncommon. In size they vary from three to four
inches in diameter, according to the size of the sword, and weigh from
two to three ounces. The tsuba usually contains three openings--the
central one wedge-shaped, through which the tang of the blade passes,
and two other smaller openings, one on each side, to allow for the
passage of the kozuka and kogai to their sheaths in the sides of the
scabbard.
The earliest guards were made entirely of iron, and in many later
tsuba this still forms the basis. But bronze in its various forms was
also much used as a ground for ornamentation; and an alloy, sentoku,
containing copper, zinc, tin, and lead, and of a soft yellow tint like
brass, was another favourite material. In the latest periods other
substances, such as bone, ivory, tortoiseshell, wood, leather, and
papier-maché, the last three being coated with lacquer, were sometimes
used.
One of the earliest methods of ornamenting the iron tsuba was what is
known as kebori, or hair-line chasing. This was not executed with a
graving tool but with a small chisel held in the left hand, and driven
towards the worker with blows from a light hammer. This style of
ornament reached its height during the sixteenth century, and may be
seen in great perfection in the work of Goto Yujo.
A development of this style was the hira-zogan. In this lines were
first engraved to a uniform depth and then undercut. Soft gold or
silver wire was then hammered in, the wedge-shaped opening retaining it
firmly without the use of any solder. Kebori-zogan was a combination of
the two styles.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF TSUBAS
(_From the Collection of Mr M. Tomkinson_)]
The kata-kiri-bori style depended for its effect not on the inlay
of different metals but on designs in relief or intaglio. Often the
design was defined by piercing, and the detail brought out by chasing
and modelling in relief. In most cases the work was entirely that of
the chisel and the hammer, untouched by any subsequent grinding or
polishing.
In the kata-kiri-bori-zogan style--figured, sculptured, and encrusted
work--we find the latest and most elaborate productions of the more
modern schools, enamels being also used to add richness to the effect.
The iron, which forms the most usual material, is of exceedingly fine
quality and of unusual softness. In many cases it was left rough
from the hammer and punch, the marks, seemingly so careless, forming
essential parts of the decoration. Etching with acids was sometimes
adopted to bring out into greater prominence the twists and foldings of
the wrought iron. In some cases, also, a surface grained like wood was
obtained by welding together many strips of iron of different qualities
and then treating with acid, which, of course, affected more strongly
the softer layers.
It is doubtful when the tsuba first began to be an object of art, no
specimens of an earlier date than the fourteenth century existing even
in representations. Most of the tsubas on the older swords are much
more modern than the blades to which they are attached. In the olden
times, when the Samurai fell into evil days, he sometimes stripped
off and sold the rich embellishments of his sword, retaining only the
trusty blade.
Kaneiye, who worked about the end of the fourteenth century, is
regarded as the first maker of tsubas artistically ornamented.
In the fifteenth century were produced many iron tsubas decorated with
saw-cut silhouettes of birds, leaves, or animals, and with hammer or
punch marks. Those last were probably the work of armourers, as in the
case of Nobuiye of the Miochin family, whose iron tsubas were greatly
valued. Some of these are of openwork, some with heads or masks in
relief, others with punch marks. Another of the most famous workers in
iron is Umetada, who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century.
Another of the fathers of the art was Goto Yujo, the founder of the
Goto school, who lived between 1434 and 1512, and often worked from the
designs of the painter Kano Motonobu. By this school, it is said, was
introduced the peculiar ground of raised dots known as manako, or fish
roe ground, and also the free use of gold, the excess of which marred
so much their later work.
To the sixteenth century belong most of the beautiful specimens of
saw-cut work in iron, chrysanthemums, kiri, and other crests being
the favourite motives, though a number of conventional floral designs
showing a strong Portuguese influence are also found.
In the early part of the seventeenth century the use of enamel in the
ornament of the tsuba was introduced by Hirata Donin, and continued to
be characteristic of the work of the Hirata family till the present
century.
The time which produced much of the finest work of all is known as
the Joken-in period, 1681-1708--the rule of the Shogun Tokugawa
Tsuneyoshi--perhaps the most famous artist being Somin, who worked
largely from the designs of the Kano painter Hanabusa Itcho. About this
time the wonderful palette of colours in metal came into full use,
and the range of subjects became more and more varied. As in the case
of netsuké, so in tsuba one may read the whole history, legends, and
mythology of Japan.
But the art had now passed its zenith, and a gradual degeneration set
in, the work produced in later years being rich and ornate, but lacking
the distinction of the earlier schools.
A few words must be said of the kozuka, the handle of the small
knife, called the ko-katana, which is sheathed in the scabbard of
the wakizashi, or short sword. The kozuka contains much beautiful
ornamentation, and from its more sheltered position this is often of
greater delicacy than that applied to the tsuba. The manner in which
the problem of filling the long, narrow field is solved is a perpetual
source of charm to the student of design.
The fuchi, or ferule, at the lower end of the handle of the sword, and
the kashira, its lozenge-shaped cap, are also finely ornamented, the
two combined usually forming one design.
South Kensington Museum has a varied collection of sword furniture,
including many fine specimens, but, unfortunately, probably from lack
of space, the objects are arranged in tall cases placed so closely face
to face as to render the study of their contents almost impossible
without the help of a candle.
[Illustration: Rider on Horseback]
CHAPTER VI
KERAMICS
Though the golden period of Japanese Keramic art was attained during
the Tokugawa dynasty, 1603-1868, yet its origin is lost in the mists of
antiquity. An interesting passage in an old Japanese chronicle shows
that in the times of the Emperor Suwinin, about the beginning of the
Christian era, the craft of the potter was the recognised industry of
certain tribes. After giving an account of the death and burial of the
Mikado’s brother the record proceeds:
“On this they assembled those who had been in his immediate service,
and buried them all upright round his sepulchre alive. For many days
they died not, but day and night wept and cried. At last they died and
rotted. Dogs and crows assembled and ate them. The Mikado, hearing
the sound of their weeping and crying, felt saddened and pained in
his heart. He commanded all his high officers saying: ‘It is a very
painful matter to force those whom we have loved during life to follow
us in death, and though it is an ancient custom why follow it if it
be bad? From now and henceforth plan so as to stop causing men to
follow the dead.’ On the death of the Empress, some time afterwards,
the Emperor called his advisers together, and asked them: ‘What shall
be done in the case of the present burying?’ Thereupon Nomi-no-Sukune
advanced, and said: ‘It is not good to bury living men standing at the
sepulchre of a prince, and this cannot be handed down to posterity. I
pray leave now to propose a convenient plan, and to lay this before
the sovereign.’ And he sent messengers to summon up a hundred of the
clay-workers’ tribe of the country of Idzumo, and he himself directed
the men of the clay-workers’ tribe in taking clay and forming shapes
of men, horses, and various things, and presented them to the Mikado,
saying: ‘From now and henceforth let it be the law for posterity to
exchange things of clay for living men, and set them up in sepulchres.’”
The result of Mr W. Gowland’s excavations of the dolmens, or burial
mounds, which date from about 200 B.C. to 600 A.D., has been the
discovery of a great deal of the ancient pottery--coarse ware unglazed
and unpainted, and decorated only with simple patterns of lines incised
in the clay while soft. The shapes, however, are often graceful and
pleasing. In the dolmens were also found the rude terra-cotta figures
of men above referred to.
For many centuries the art of the potter remained in very much the same
primitive condition. A coarse ware sufficed for the domestic utensils
of the common people, and lacquered vessels supplied the wants of the
more luxurious. There is, indeed, mention of Korean potters having been
brought over to Japan after the Empress Jingo’s victorious campaign,
and it is said that the art of glazing was practised at Hizen in the
eighth century.
Little real advance, however, was made till the thirteenth century,
when Kato Shirazayemon, better known as Toshiro, a native of Seto in
Owari, and the father of Japanese pottery, appears. Dissatisfied with
the results of the native kilns he visited China in 1223 to study the
methods practised there, and after six years’ absence returned to
Seto. His pottery is a brown stoneware of firm and dense texture,
and is covered with a glaze of a deep rich brown, sometimes mottled,
altogether a great advance on the previous product of the country.
The vessels made by him, mostly cha-ire, or tea-jars, used in the tea
ceremony, are now valued at fabulous prices by the Japanese dilettante.
A certain authority states that Japanese history has been denominated
by three factors: the sword, the tea-cup, and the paper house. The
effects of the first and the last have been already indicated, and a
few words here as to the second may not be out of place.
Legend ascribes a supernatural origin to the tea-plant. The Buddhist
saint Daruma, he who sat wrapt in meditation for eight long years so
that he quite lost the use of his lower limbs, once at his devotions
was overpowered by sleep. On awakening, filled with shame at his
frailty, he took a pair of scissors, and, snipping off the offending
eyelids, cast them indignantly from him. They took root where they
fell, and from them sprang a plant whose leaves had the magic quality
of driving away sleep from weary eyes. In the temples it was much
valued by the holy men, and a certain degree of ceremony or ritual
attended its use.
It was in the time of Yoshimasa, in the fifteenth century, that the
cha-no-yu, or tea ceremony, began to assume public importance. In his
peaceful retirement, surrounded by artists and philosophers, it was
practised by the ex-Shogun. The priest Shuko drew up a code of its
rules, characterised by a severe and dignified simplicity. The room
used was small, and plain to bareness, the utensils were unornamented,
but, though to the ordinary eye crude and rough, were much prized by
the connoisseur. Indeed, Yoshimasa often rewarded important services
not by a grant of land but by the gift of a valued tea-jar.
A hundred years later Hideyoshi revived the ceremony, and its rules
were revised by the famous philosopher Rikiu, the greatest of all the
Cha-jin, or tea professors. Rikiu considered that the essentials of the
tea ceremony were: “Purity, peacefulness, reverence, and abstraction.”
“It was important for the guest to come with clean hands, but much more
so with a clean heart.” Social rank was ignored: those present took
rank according to their standing and reputation as Cha-jin. The most
perfect courtesy and politeness governed all the proceedings. Frivolous
or worldly talk was forbidden, and the conversation chiefly turned on
the merit of the kakemono adorning the room, the flower decoration
hanging before it, and the implements used in the ceremony.
A special ware was used for the tea bowls termed Raku ware. It is
said first to have been made by a Kioto potter Ameya from a design by
Rikiu, and so delighted Hideyoshi that he presented the maker with a
gold seal, with the characters “Raku” (enjoyment) inscribed upon it,
with permission to use it as a stamp. The ware is soft and porous,
and covered with a thick, soft glaze. Not turned on the wheel but
shaped by hand, it is rough and uneven in shape, and usually bears no
ornamentation. Coarse and unsightly and rough as it may appear to the
uninitiated, to the eye of the connoisseur it possesses many beauties;
its irregular shape is comfortable to the hand, its soft glaze pleasant
to the lips, and is said even to impart a flavour to the tea.
As the relaxation of the most cultured of the land, the tea ceremony
had effects of far-reaching importance. As a corrective to the
military spirit its glorification of the gentler virtues was
invaluable, and to it in no small degree it is said the Japanese owe
their character as the most courteous nation in the world. In art,
though most strongly felt in the field of Keramics, its influence
extended widely, affecting to no small extent the various branches of
the minor decorative arts, and dominating, almost in a sense creating,
the arts of landscape gardening and flower arrangement.
With Hideyoshi’s revival of the tea ceremony, and the importation
of Korean potters, the real history of Japanese Keramic art begins.
Kilns were founded in many different parts of the country, and as each
produced its own distinctive ware the development of these local art
industries can best be traced separately.
The province of Hizen, lying in the south of the island of Kiushu, and
the nearest point of the Korean mainland being only some two hundred
miles away, it is natural that here the borrowed industry should first
take root.
The most ancient kiln was erected at Karatzu as early as the seventh
century, and a hundred years later glazing was there used for the
first time in Japan. So famous did the Karatzu ware become that
Karatzu-mono, “things of Karatzu,” became the current name for all
sorts of pottery. The Old Karatzu ware, however, was coarse and rough
in quality, though some of its rich brown glazes were not without
beauty.
In the sixteenth century Gorodayu Shonzui visited China and learned the
art of making porcelain, and on his return to Japan brought a quantity
of the clay with him. On the supply being exhausted, however, the
manufacture stopped.
After Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea, towards the end of the century,
many captives were brought back, including a Korean potter, Risampei,
who discovered on the hills of Hizen a clay suitable for the making
of porcelain. Kilns were erected, and the new manufacture started in
earnest.
When the Dutch traders dealt with the port of Nagasaki the chief
article of their export was the porcelain ware of Arita--known as Imari
ware, from which port it was shipped to Nagasaki.
It is this ware that was distributed through Europe and gave the first
and totally erroneous idea of the Keramic art of Japan. For the “Old
Japan” ware, as it is called, was deliberately manufactured to suit
the vulgar taste of the barbarous foreigner, who demanded copious and
crowded decoration. It is almost ludicrous to compare it with the
ware manufactured at the same time for home use. The one, the work of
the artist Kakiyemon, is decorated with dainty and graceful designs,
which in their reticence and simplicity are the embodiment of good
taste; the other is quite un-Japanese in style, the ornament crowded
and overloaded with colour, and often a mere gaudy jumble. But the
“Old Japan” ware formed the models for half the factories of Europe,
and we only need to turn to the Old Crown Derby porcelain to find its
atrocities repeated with ludicrous fidelity.
In 1660 Prince Nabeshima established a kiln at Okawachi. It was
reserved for the finest porcelain only, which was made for his private
use, the sale being prohibited. Beautiful ware with a fine blue under
the glaze was the chief product, and at a later date fragile imitations
of flowers were made, of wonderful delicacy.
[Illustration:
A GROUP OF PORCELAIN
(_British Museum_)
1. Large Plate, Kutani ware (purple, blue, and green, on yellow
ground)
2. Plate, Imari ware (design by Kakiyemon, red, blue, green, and
yellow, on white ground)
3. Plate, Nabeshima ware (blue, on white ground)]
Another famous factory of Hizen is that at Mikawachi, where the Hirado
ware, perhaps the finest of all Japanese porcelains, was produced. The
factory was founded towards the end of the sixteenth century, and its
first manufacture was an earthenware covered with a blue-grey glaze.
In 1712, however, the discovery of fine porcelain stone was made in
the vicinity, and in 1751 Matsura, the feudal chief of Hirado, took
the kiln under his patronage, and for the next hundred years the ware
may be assigned the first place among Japanese porcelains; for not
only is the ground a pure and clear white, but the paté, free from
gritty particles, is of a fineness of texture which is not possessed
by other similar wares. With rare exceptions blue is the only colour
used in its decoration, not the deep Chinese blue nor yet the rather
weak tint of Nabeshima, but a delicate shade between the two. The
favourite decorative motive was a scene with pine-trees and children at
play. In ware of the finest quality seven children were introduced, in
the second quality five, and in the third three. Many charming pieces
were also made in plain white ware with pierced patterns or designs in
relief, and at a later date the factory became famous for a delicate
blue-and-white eggshell porcelain. Since 1830, however, the wares of
the factory have declined greatly in quality.
Until within the last forty years the Keramic arts of Japan were
only known to Europe by their porcelain, and only crude and inferior
specimens of that, but the pottery and faience which merited even more
attention were utterly unheard of. Since then matters have changed
very much, and the faience of Satsuma is now the most sought after of
all Japanese wares. But though Old Satsuma ware has become almost a
household word, and there are few collections but boast of a specimen
or two, the bulk of these objects are more or less clever imitations
of a later date, excellent often in themselves, but not the rare
and wonderful old Satsuma with its soft, ivory tint and its almost
imperceptibly crackled glaze.
The original kiln appears to have been founded by Prince Shimazu
Yoshihiro, chief of Satsuma, on his return from the Korean expedition,
from which he brought back seventeen skilled Korean potters. In 1598
a kiln was opened close to his castle at Chosa, in the neighbouring
province of Hiuga, which manufactured chiefly objects for the tea
ceremony not unlike those previously made at Seto; but the glazes were
of many varieties and very beautiful, some of them being exceedingly
rich and brilliant. Prince Yoshihiro took great interest in the
manufactory, settling handsome annuities on the most skilful potters,
and stamping the finest pieces of work with his own seal.
In the year 1618 Boku, one of the original seventeen Korean potters,
discovered in Satsuma a fine white clay or sand and other materials
suitable for the manufacture of a finer quality of faience, and the
result was a great improvement in the ware.
In 1630 the kilns were removed to Nawashiro, and by 1675 the ware had
reached a high degree of excellence. About this time Tangen, a pupil of
the great Kano painter Tanyu, was employed to paint or furnish designs
for the potters, and Satsuma Tangen now constitutes one of the greatest
treasures of the Japanese connoisseur. The decoration of such pieces as
remain is slight and sketchy, the designs usually landscape, bird, and
floral subjects, and the colours few and simple, often a reddish brown
only being used.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century two Satsuma potters, Hoko
of the Tatsumonji factory and Chiubei of the Tadeno factory, were sent
by Shimazu Tomonobu, the chief of the clan, to travel all over Japan,
visiting the different factories and learning the processes used in
each. They visited Hizen, Kioto, Bizen, Owari, and other places, and
particularly seem to have profited by their insight into the methods
used in the production of the enamelled faience of Awata, for after
their return, in 1795, may be dated a large increase in the manufacture
of enamelled Satsuma faience, Nishiki-de, and it is this faience that
is so widely known and valued as Old Satsuma.
The characteristics of this beautiful ware may be briefly noted. The
paté is close as pipeclay and almost as firm and hard as porcelain.
The chalky, porous nature of the newer work at once proclaims its late
date. The old glaze is soft, lustrous, and mellow, with an exceedingly
fine crackle. The decoration is simple, chiefly diapers and floral
subjects in comparatively few colours, and the pieces are invariably
small--tripod incense burners of about seven inches high being,
perhaps, the largest objects. The large examples profusely decorated
with human figures, peacocks, and other designs, are all of later
date belonging to the period of forgeries which set in with the great
increase of European trade after 1868.
[Illustration: VASE IN FORM OF LOTUS,
SATSUMA FAIENCE (18TH CENTURY)
(_From the Collection of Mr M. Tomkinson_)]
Of imitations there are many varieties. But first it may be mentioned
that, prior to 1868, undecorated white faience was largely made at
Satsuma, which was afterwards decorated at Tokio, but the refiring
necessary completely takes away, in most cases, the distinctive and
beautiful qualities of the crackled glaze.
The rarity of Old Satsuma ware may be judged from the fact that the
average number of genuine pieces offered for sale in Japan during the
last fifteen years has probably not been more than ten, and not more
than half of these have left the country.
Though the Satsuma faience has the distinction of being the most
beautiful ware produced in Japan, it is in association with the
Kioto factories that we find most of the great names of Japanese
Keramics--Ninsei, Kenzan, and Hozen.
The wares of Kioto may be divided into three classes: first, the Old
Raku ware used in the tea ceremony; second, the decorated faience of
Awata and the neighbouring kilns; and third, the porcelain which was
the product of the early part of the nineteenth century.
During the civil wars which preceded the Tokugawa period the city of
Kioto, though the seat of the Imperial Court, dwindled rapidly in
importance; even the Mikado and his Kugé, or Court nobles, lived in
dire poverty. Its tide of prosperity did not turn until the seventeenth
century, and it is with the advent of Nomura Seisuke (also called
Seiyemon and Seibei) that the great period begins. His native place was
Ninnaji, near Kioto, and, taking the first syllable of that name and
adding to it the first syllable of his own, he adopted the name Ninsei,
with which he stamped his work.
As already described, the porcelain makers at Hizen had learned the
secret of vitrifiable enamels as early as 1620, but it was guarded by
them most jealously. It is said, however, that between 1650 and 1655
Kurobei, a Kioto dealer in porcelain, obtained the precious secret from
an Aritu potter, Aoyama Koemon. The miserable man was immediately put
to death by his irate lord; but the secret was out, and passed from
the dealer to Ninsei, to the great future benefit of Japan. He applied
it to the decoration of faience with the most excellent results, for
his taste and skill as a decorative artist were unrivalled among his
contemporaries, and to his influence may be traced many of the most
charming developments of later years.
A man of birth, he was not actually a potter by profession, and had,
therefore, no fixed workshop, working at the factories of Awata,
Iwakura, and Mizoro. He seems to have made no secret of the processes
he had mastered, but gladly imparted them to those with whom he came
in contact, and to this fact is doubtless due the rapid rise in the
quality and increase in the output of the Kioto ware.
A word as to the Kioto kilns, which were all within a radius of a few
miles, may be here advisable. The best known were Awata, Iwakura, and
Mizoro; the others were grouped together under the general term Kyomizu.
Ninsei’s faience is almost worthy to compare with the best ware of
Satsuma, but is marked by a slightly darker colour, and is a trifle
fragile in appearance, lacking the firm solidity of the Satsuma ware.
Its crackle is fine and beautifully regular, giving the appearance of a
covering of fine netting. His glazes range from a metallic black to a
pearl white, through which a pink flush seems to spread.
His designs for decoration are simple and chaste, and the clear, pale
greens and blues and rich reds of his enamels are of exquisite quality.
After Ninsei’s death the next great name at Awata is that of Ogata
Shinsei, or Kenzan, a younger brother of the still more famous Ogata
Korin, painter and lacquerer, perhaps the greatest decorative artist
Japan has produced. Kenzan was also a decorator of great power and
originality. In complete contrast to the delicate harmonies of Ninsei,
his designs are rough and bold, but his colour is superb and his
decorative sense unerring. His work was at first confined to the
coarser wares of the cha-no-yu, and here the singular force of his
decoration harmonises well with the rude shapes, rough earthenware, and
rich glazes, so that the Kenzan Raku ware is indeed a thing of beauty.
But in faience he had equally great success. Once seen, his style can
be recognised anywhere; a rough sketch of a landscape, a branch in
blossom, a flight of birds, or the conventional shape of a flower,
dashed in with seeming carelessness, but each touch placed in exactly
the right spot for decorative fitness. A very fine specimen of his
work--a brown pot decorated with an extremely rich design of peacock’s
feathers, blue-green and purple--may be seen in the British Museum.
The third great name of the Kioto group is that of Nishimura Zengoro,
by Keramists known as Hozen. Born towards the end of the eighteenth
century, he was one of a long line of potters. In 1801-3 he studied at
the Awata factory, and soon his celadon and blue-and-white porcelain
became celebrated. His fame attracted the notice of the feudal chief
of Kiushu, who, in 1827, invited him to his province, and built a kiln
for him in his private park, at which he produced the well-known ware
called, from its stamp, Kairaku-en ware. Zengoro had made a special
study of glazes, and the great beauty of this ware is the rich harmony
of purple, blue, and yellow glazes which he obtained.
His versatility is shown by another ware which has an equally high
reputation--the “Eiraku,” or Kinrande (scarlet and gold brocade style).
This is a porcelain ware of great delicacy and beauty, and usually made
only in small pieces. The ground is of a soft coral red, upon which is
traced a wealth of decoration in gold, with here and there a mass of
rich blue.
Of the many other well-known names remaining among the Kioto potters
only passing mention can be made. In many families the same stamp
was used by one generation after another, rendering it difficult to
distinguish their individual work.
The Kinkozan, Hozan, Taizan, and Tanzan families carried the traditions
of Ninsei in Awata faience right down to the present day; while in the
beginning of the nineteenth century the Dohachi family and the Kyomizu
potter Rokubei followed in their decoration the newer naturalistic
school. Mention must also be made of Shuhei and Kantei, potters of the
end of the eighteenth century, who are regarded as the most eminent
masters of the little Japanese tea-pot, or kuisu, and also of their
contemporary Mokubei, a potter of so great ability that it is a pity
he confined himself almost entirely to imitations of Chinese and other
wares.
The history of the founding of the Kaga factories, which turned out
the Kutani ware, is interesting and curious. Maeda Toshiharu, feudal
lord of Daishoji, having discovered a bed of fine porcelain stone
near Kutani, established a kiln about 1650, under the charge of two
well-known potters--Tamura Gonzaemon and Goto Saijiro; but the venture
was not a success owing to the lack of knowledge of the workers. Not
to be outdone, Saijiro went to Hizen to learn there the secrets of
porcelain making. The only way in which he was able to do this was
by becoming a permanent member of the community. The manner in which
he accomplished this was peculiar. He took service in the house of a
potter, married a woman of the district, and worked there for several
years. When he had learned all there was to learn he calmly deserted
wife and family, and fled home to Kaga, where he imparted the needed
information. Shortly after this time, about 1664, the Kutani potters
were turning out wares of great beauty and individuality.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF VARIOUS WARES (_British Museum_)
1. Tea-Jar, by Toshiro I.
2. Tea Bowl--Raku Ware.
3. Tea Bowl after Ninsei.
4. Tea Bowl--Omuru, Kioto.
5 and 6. Tea Bowls, by Kenzan.
7. Kairaku-en Ware.
8. Kioto Ware.
9. Soma Ware.
10. Yatsushiro Ware.
11. Bizen Ware.
12. Banko Ware.]
Of these there were several kinds--the first, Ao-Kutani, was so called
from the deep green glaze (ao = green) which was largely used in
its decoration; and other glazes--yellow, purple, and soft Prussian
blue--made up a rich, low-toned harmony of great beauty. In the second
class of ware the Arita style of decoration was followed, except that
the Kutani potter used blue under the glaze very seldom, and only in
subordinate positions. Their chief colours were red--a soft, dull, rich
colour varying from Indian red to a russet brown--and yellow, purple,
and blue, supplemented by silver and gold.
Their designs were largely made by Morikaga, a pupil of Tanyu--
landscapes, birds, and flowers being the chief subjects.
A third famous ware of Kutani, which may be termed the red Kutani as
distinguished from the green, had a ground of rich red, with diapers or
medallions decorated in yellow, green, purple, and red enamels. Another
style had the ground entirely of red, to which designs were applied in
silver and gold, light green, and sometimes yellow and purple enamels.
For some reason the activity of the Kutani factory only continued
for about sixty years, and during the next hundred years there
followed a period of inaction. In the middle of the nineteenth century
the manufacture was revived, both the red and the green Old Kutani
wares being imitated, but with doubtful success. The modern colours,
especially in the case of the red, lack the softness of the old, and
are, comparatively speaking, harsh and glaring.
In 1827, at Edamachi Kanazawa, a kiln was founded which produced
a beautiful faience known as Ohi-yaki, which is characterised by
enamelled decoration of great delicacy and refinement.
The foregoing are the most important of the old Keramic arts, for the
most distinguished products of the pre-Meji days may be summed up as
the porcelain of Hizen and Kutani and the faience of Satsuma and Kioto.
A number of wares of lesser importance remain, chief among these being
the Owari wares.
It will be remembered that it was to Seto in Owari that Toshiro
returned after his visit to China in the thirteenth century, and
founded the industry which entitles him to the name of “The Father
of Japanese Pottery.” But from that time till the beginning of the
nineteenth century little change took place in the character of the
Seto wares, which continued to be stoneware and earthenware vessels,
and little else. About 1801, however, a Seto potter visited Hizen,
and after studying in the factories there returned, and founded a
porcelain manufactory in Seto. Soon they attained great proficiency in
the production of a blue-and-white ware which rivalled the products of
Hizen. Their large pieces were particularly fine examples of firing,
the technical difficulties to be overcome being enormous. The quality,
however, of this ware rapidly deteriorated after 1850.
At about the same time a soft-crackled faience was made at Nagoya by a
potter called Toyosuke. It is a soft-crackled faience of the Raku type,
covered on the inside with a greenish white glaze decorated with bold
floral designs, and on the outside with a thin coat of lacquer.
And now, for the remaining smaller branches of the industry a passing
mention must suffice.
In the province of Bizen was manufactured a curious hard stoneware
of a bluish grey colour, which chiefly took the form of vigorously
modelled figures of gods, men, animals, and birds. Indeed, in the Bizen
stoneware you find repeated in another form, but with the same vigour
and originality, the achievements of the netsuké carver and the tsuba
worker--Hotei, the pot-bellied god of contentment, being a favourite
subject for treatment.
At Ise a wealthy amateur named Gozayemon founded a kiln in 1736,
executing a ware which was known as Ko Banko. In the beginning of
the nineteenth century a potter, Mori Yusetsu, conceived the idea
of imitating this old ware. The imitator, however, was a much better
artist than his prototype, and soon the new Banko ware was both widely
different from, and of a much finer quality than, the old. This ware
was worked on a mould, which was placed inside the article, and the
clay pressed in with the fingers, the mould being afterwards removed in
sections. The decoration was vigorous and artistic, consisting often of
dragons, storks, etc., in relief.
In Higo a very beautiful ware called Yatsushiro was made. It is a
dense faience coated with a film of pale grey clay by immersion in
slip; the design, usually a delicate diaper, is then engraved and
the lines filled in with white clay--the whole being covered with a
finely-crackled glaze.
Mention must be made also of the beautiful eggshell ware of
Mino--delicate little saké cups and other vessels encased in envelopes
of bamboo basket-work; and also of the Fujina ware of Idzumo--a faience
decorated with beautifully executed designs of insects.
At Nakamura, in Iwaki, a kiln was opened in 1650, and here the ware
known as Soma ware was produced. It is said that the Kano painter
Naonobu, drew as a crest for Soma Yoshitane the galloping horse which
in varying forms is seen on almost every piece of this ware.
Other lesser kilns are too numerous to mention, and existed in almost
every province.
The British Museum possesses a good and varied collection of Japanese
Keramic ware, but, unfortunately, the lack of a catalogue and the
absence of any systematic arrangement, or even of proper labelling,
takes away much from its usefulness to the student.
[Illustration: A Japanese Fan]
CHAPTER VII
LACQUER
The most wonderful of all Japanese arts is their lacquer-work, and,
perhaps, in this more completely than in any other medium does the
peculiar genius of Japan find expression. For the combination of
qualities required for the production of a piece of fine lacquer are
such as could have been found in no other people. And it comes to
us with a shock of surprise that this work, so free and spontaneous
and yet so delicate, is wrought in, perhaps, the most difficult and
intractable material ever used by man, and built up slowly and by
infinitesimal stages, layer by layer, through weeks and months of
labour.
Even were the same brilliant faculty of design the gift of the
European, the amazing and unfaltering precision of hand, and the
limitless patience and unceasing care required by the technical
processes, place lacquer-work far beyond his scope. It is only
the Eastern who can combine the imagination of the artist with the
technical powers and steady perseverance of the ant or the bee. For,
indeed, in examining one of these marvellous Japanese works, so full
of exquisite detail, so perfect in every part, one is irresistibly
reminded of the honeycombs which form the monument of the humble
insect worker; but where the one is the repetition of a single design
fixed unalterably the other is free and spontaneous, the product of an
ever-varying fancy.
It is difficult to imagine anything more perfect than a piece of
really fine lacquer--the smooth, translucent surface pleasant even
to the sense of touch; the design simple and slight, and sensitively
placed so as to cause the blank spaces to form essential parts of the
composition; and the whole glowing with soft gold of varying tints,
or, perhaps, relieved with a boldly inlaid piece of mother-of-pearl,
flashing with its brilliant irridescent hues.
To one who has seen specimens of the finest work--the glorious
lacquer of old Japan--the words of the French critic, M. Louis Gonse,
exaggerated though they may seem to the uninitiated, appear no more
than a mere statement of fact: “Japanese lacquered objects,” he says,
“are the most perfect works that have ever issued from the hands of
man.”
But specimens of really fine lacquer are rarely to be seen outside
Japan, where they are treasured in the collections of the wealthy. The
British Museum possesses hardly anything which is really fine, South
Kensington only a few small pieces. The bulk of the fine lacquer in
this country is divided between a few private collections, chief among
which is that of Mr M. Tomkinson at Franche Hall, near Kidderminster--a
marvellous collection, rich in examples of all periods, and containing
many exquisite pieces of work.
Though tradition says that lacquer-work was known in Japan as early as
392 B.C. it is supposed that the art, like others, came originally
from China. At first its uses were purely utilitarian. Drinking-vessels
were coated with lacquer to render them water-tight, and as the surface
was hard as glass, and withstood considerable heat, it was also used
largely for cooking and other household utensils. Indeed, this explains
the slow development of the potter’s art in Japan, for where we would
use glass or earthenware the Japanese used lacquered vessels. The
armour of an old Japan warrior was often leather coated with lacquer;
the sword was in a lacquered scabbard. He ate off a lacquered tray,
drank out of a lacquered cup, and rode in a lacquered carriage.
The lac is a natural product--the gum exuded by the urushi-tree (_rhus
vernicifera_), a species of sumach. The finest lac of all was obtained
from very old trees; but, as the tapping and drawing of the sap
resulted in the death of the tree, the supply had to be continually
renewed, and so in mediæval times landowners were compelled by law to
plant annually a certain number of trees, and the export of lac was
strictly forbidden. Even the Dutch traders of Nagasaki were not allowed
to include it in their shiploads of porcelain and other wares, with the
exception of a few pieces of inferior quality, specially manufactured,
like the Imari ware, for the European market. It is safe to say that
until the Paris Exhibition of 1867 no really fine lacquer had ever been
seen in Europe.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE OF LID OF SUZURI-BAKO OR WRITING-CASE
_In Green, Gold, and Silver, on Black Ground.
Koma, Early 18th Century_
(_From the Collection of Mr M. Tomkinson_)]
At what date lacquer began first to be ornamented is unknown. The
earliest known examples are preserved in the Todaiji and Shosoin
temples at Nara, and date from the sixth and eighth centuries, and by
the tenth century some very fine work had been produced. It was not,
however, until the seventeenth century, when the country, under the
firm hand of the Tokugawa Shogun Iyeyasu, after centuries of turmoil
and civil war, had settled down to a peaceful existence that the period
of the great lacquer workers set in. For in lacquer, as in many of the
minor arts, the Tokugawa period marked the highest point of excellence.
In the households of the wealthy Daimios the artist was freed from the
more sordid cares of life. He need take no thought for the morrow,
what he should eat or what he should drink, but could give his whole
life to his art. And it was by the quality of his work, and not by the
quantity, that he was judged. He had no idea of increasing his output
in order to double his returns, but would spend months of labour on an
object no larger than a few inches square. The larger pieces of work,
exquisitely wrought outside and inside, the more delicate work being
reserved for the inside, as there less liable to damage, in many cases
represent the work of years.
For the process is long and tedious, and bristling with technical
difficulties. First the wooden foundation for the box or other object
to be lacquered is made of specially selected wood, generally a hard
wood called by the Japanese hi-no-ki, which is not liable to warp,
and admits of a very fine finish. These wooden objects are examples
of beautiful cabinet making, often little thicker than cardboard, but
fitting with great exactness. This foundation is strengthened with a
layer of thin hempen cloth, and after laying on one or two preliminary
coatings of a sort of paste mixed with lacquer, and carefully grinding
down on a whetstone to ensure a perfectly smooth and even surface, the
object is ready for the lacquering proper.
With a flat, short-haired brush--the hair used being generally human
hair--the coating of lacquer is laid on in a thin, even layer, and the
object set aside to dry, the period required for this varying from
twelve hours to several days. Lacquer has this peculiar quality, that
it dries best in a damp atmosphere, the moisture in the air seeming to
draw out that in the lacquer. The articles are, therefore, placed to
dry in a damp cupboard. On removal from the cupboard the surface is
then carefully smoothed and polished by rubbing with charcoal. Coating
after coating is added in this way, the final polishings being made
with a fine ash of calcined deer’s horn, applied with the fingers.
Such are the complicated processes in the production of a piece of
plain, unornamented black lacquer--the number of separate operations
being no fewer than thirty-three, each one requiring the greatest skill
and care; while for the production of one of the more elaborately
ornamented pieces the number may extend to sixty or more, for the
methods of decoration are many and varied, several being frequently
applied to the same piece of work.
First of all we have the varieties of carved lacquer. There was the
old Kamakura lacquer, in which the wood was first carved, then covered
with a foundation of black lacquer, to which a red surface was added.
In tsuishu and tsuikoku, carved red and black lacquer respectively, the
article was first thickly coated with lacquer and afterwards carved.
The process is said to have been invented by a Kioto workman in the
fifteenth century, and in the time of Iyeyasu an artist, Heijuro, so
excelled in it that he took the name Tsuishu Heijuro.
Chinkinbori is a form of incised lacquer, generally on a black ground.
The lines are engraved with a rat’s tooth, as being less easily blunted
than a metal tool, and are usually filled in with gold. Ninomya Johei,
a physician of Yedo in the eighteenth century, was especially famed
for this work. Raden is a form of lacquer in which mother-of-pearl and
other shells, either in irregular or shaped pieces, are largely used,
the colour effects obtained being of great brilliancy. A form of raden
called aogai, a mosaic of green or purple irridescent shell crushed
small, is especially used for the decoration of sword scabbards.
Togidashi is a style in which no rigid outline is used, but the forms
left soft and blurred, being brought out by a series of rubbings. The
greatest masters of this class of work were Yamamoto Shunsho and Koma
Kiuhaku.
A curious and interesting form is guri lacquer. Here many layers of
different coloured lacquers are applied, and the surface is then carved
with conventional designs, in deep V-shaped incisions, exposing the
different layers of colour.
The most gorgeous of all, however, is gold lacquer, the generic term
for which is makiye, but this includes many varieties. In the same
piece the gold will vary from solid masses standing up in relief to a
dim, impalpable dust blending imperceptibly into the rich black ground.
When the decoration is smooth and level with the ground it is termed
hiramakiye, when in relief takamakiye. Kirikane is an inlay of small
squares, hirakane or hirame an inlay of small pieces made from filings
of gold flattened on an anvil. In okibirame, another inlay, the pieces
are not dusted on but inserted singly by hand.
Giobu is a variety in which gold leaf is laid down on an irregular
ground. This is covered with a deep red lacquer coloured with “dragon’s
blood.” After drying the surface is rubbed down flat, and the gold is
visible below, taking different tints according to its varying depth
from the surface.
Nashiji (pear ground), one of the most famous styles, is a rich ground
of powdered gold with the quality and texture of the rind of a ripe
pear, and is largely used in conjunction with other forms of decoration.
A silver ground is also often used with charming effect. In Mr
Tomkinson’s collection two very fine pieces of silver lacquer by
Goshin, a lacquerer of the eighteenth century, deserve special
mention. The ground is of a dim, misty grey, and on this is depicted a
landscape with fir-trees on black lacquer. The nearest trees stand out
bold and clear, those farther off seem embedded in the mist.
Another style largely used for sword scabbards was samé-nuri,
shark-skin lacquer. The skin of a species of ray was stretched over
the surface, the rough nodules filed down partially, and the whole
covered with black lacquer. On the lacquer being rubbed down smooth and
polished the nodules show as white discs on a ground of black.
Such are a few of the leading styles of lacquer; but numberless
variations exist, and one piece often includes work in several
different styles.
As already pointed out, the use of lacquer was at first entirely
utilitarian; its adaptation to the purposes of ornament belongs to a
later date. Perhaps the first ornamental lacquer was that applied to
sword scabbards, horse furniture, and other warlike trappings. With the
growth of a more peaceful civilisation came its application to the arts
of peace.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF INRO
(_From the Collection of Mr M. Tomkinson_)
1. Cock and Flowers (in gold and shell on brown ground). Kajikawa,
18th century.
2. Flowers and Paper Packets for Perfumes (ivory and gold, on black
ground). Kajikawa, 19th century.
3. Pier of Bridge (in gold and shell, on black ground). By Kwoyetsu
(Korin’s master).
4. Well overshadowed by Tree (gold and shell on black ground).
Kajikawa, 18th century.]
A very favourite object for the lacquerer is the inro or
medicine-box--a little box made in three or four separate sections and
hung from the girdle by a cord. On the small surface here available
he lavished all the resources of his art, and in inro we find many
of the finest specimens of lacquer-work. Indeed, few things are more
beautiful than a fine inro, with its rich but exquisitely judged
ornamentation, for the Japanese artist possesses in a marvellous degree
the power of working on a small field without loss of power or dignity.
Even a specimen in plain black lacquer, unornamented, is a thing of
beauty, pleasing to touch and to handle, and so perfectly made that
the divisions between the sections are often invisible until they are
pulled apart. This perfection of fitting is one of the tests by which
the work of the old masters can be distinguished from that of their
modern imitators.
Of the larger pieces of work the chief is the suzuri-bako, or set of
writing materials. Then we have the jisshu kobako, or implements of the
perfume game, comprising a cabinet containing the koro or miniature
brazier, the kobako or perfume-box, fuda-bako or counter-box, and
several other articles; and the sagé-ju, or portable picnic case,
containing boxes, trays for sweetmeats, saké bottle, and so on.
Japanese authorities divide the history of lacquer into four eras--that
of Nara, prior to 784 A.D.; Heian, 784-1185; Nanbokucho and Ashikaga,
1397-1587; Toyotomi and Tokugawa, 1597-1867. Of the earlier lacquerers
little is known. In the fifteenth century, during the reign of the
Ashikaga Shoguns, fine work was produced by Igarashi, the first of a
line of lacquerers of that name. Little progress was made, however,
until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when, after years of
strife, the turbulent Daimios were finally subdued by Iyeyasu, the
first of the Tokugawa Shoguns, and the country entered on a period of
peaceful development. Towards the end of the seventeenth century began
to rise the first of the great lacquerers, whose works are still the
envy and wonder of their successors.
As in other branches of art, the traditions of this craft were handed
down from father to son, and certain families became famed for lacquer.
Two stand out especially as masters in the art--the Koma and the
Kajikawa families.
The Komas were Court lacquerers for more than two hundred years, the
first of the family, Koma Kiui, who died in 1663, being lacquerer to
the Shogun Iyemitsu, and the line lasted until the nineteenth century.
The rise of the Kajikawa family was somewhat later; the first, Kajikawa
Kujiro, one of the most excellent artists in lacquer, and famous for
his giobu nashiji, lived about the end of the eighteenth century. He
also was followed by a line of famous artists.
Both the Koma and the Kajikawa families were especially famous as
inro-makers, and in this branch of the art it is difficult to say
which was the greater. The Koma were remarkable for their coloured
decorations, in which the design looked at by oblique light appears to
be of gold but by direct light shows in brilliant colour.
One of the earliest lacquerers of whom there is any record is Honami
Koyetsu, 1590-1637. Korin is said to have founded his style on that
of Koyetsu, whose work certainly resembles to some extent that of the
later and more famous artist. In Mr Tomkinson’s collection are two
inros by Koyetsu and Korin respectively, each decorated with the same
design--the pier of a bridge in mother-of-pearl and gold--and treated
in an almost identical manner.
The greatest of all names in lacquer is that of Ogata Korin, born
1660, died 1716. As a painter he is entitled to a place among the
highest, but as a lacquerer he stands alone. His absolute originality
and boldness of conception, his masterly instinct in design, and his
splendid draughtsmanship are seen equally in his lacquer as in his
paintings, but it is in his lacquer only that his unrivalled decorative
powers find their fullest scope.
If the Japanese decorative artist has a fault it is that he is too
pictorial in his methods, that he is almost invariably endeavouring
to tell a story. But Korin does not lacquer like a painter, he paints
like a lacquerer. He is first of all boldly and frankly decorative--the
literary appeal is secondary. And though to one not thoroughly in
sympathy with the artist there is much in his work that appears obscure
or unintelligible, to the eye of the enthusiast these “obscurities” are
splendid and triumphant pieces of decoration. Mere prettiness appealed
little to Korin, but his work has on this account the greater dignity.
Even when at first sight it startles and almost repels it soon grows
on one; the longer one looks the stronger is its fascination.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF INRO BY KORIN
(_From the Collection of Mr M. Tomkinson_)
1. Deer (in lead on gold ground)
2. Biwa in the Waves (gold and shell on black ground)
3. Fukurokujiu (lead and shell on gold ground)
4. Storks and bamboo (in pearl and lead on gold ground)]
The breadth of his treatment is the amazing thing about Korin’s work,
large masses of mother-of-pearl, the body of a bird, for instance,
being laid in boldly in one piece, as in the inro with cranes here
reproduced. Metals also, such as lead and pewter, were used just as
daringly. But in the refinements of his art Korin was equally great.
His gold mat grounds were especially famous, and were imitated by many
of his successors. They are characterised by a steady, rich, full tint
with a glow in it, and vary from a silvery to a deep copper hue, and in
texture from an impalpable dust to an inlay of square dice. Then from
the solid mat the gold will thin out into the lacquer till lost in its
depths. His bolder work earned the same sincere flattery of imitation,
but the imitator can easily be detected. Mr Tomkinson’s collection is
especially rich in fine specimens of Korin’s work, and through his
courtesy I reproduce one or two characteristic examples.
Ritsuo, a pupil and contemporary of Korin, was born in 1663. Like
his master, he was celebrated in many branches of art; not only
a lacquerer, he was a skilful metal worker, a carver, a potter,
and a painter. In his more richly decorated lacquer, that known as
hiaku-ho-kan (a hundred precious things inlaid), he often introduced
pieces of his own pottery. His work is very distinctive, bold,
and strong, with firm modelling and rich, full colouring. In his
suzuri-bako he appears to special advantage; the outside of the box
rough and bold, the inside enriched with work full of delicacy and
refinement. One fine example in Mr Tomkinson’s collection has the
outside in rough wood, the grain being made more prominent by the soft
parts having been eaten out with acid. In the centre the wood is cut
away, and a figure of Daruma, in pottery, is inlaid. The inside of the
lid is a complete contrast to the rudeness of the exterior, and is
wrought with the utmost delicacy and beauty of finish.
Ritsuo’s pupil Hanzan also did very fine work in a similar manner.
South Kensington Museum possesses a very beautiful little inro from his
hand, inlaid with fish in rose-tinted mother-of-pearl.
Of modern masters the most famous is Zeshin, born in 1807, died in
1891, and both as a lacquerer and painter he was worthy to rank with
his great predecessors. Zeshin is almost the only one of the moderns
whose work could at all compare with that of the old masters, but he
lived and died in poverty and obscurity.
Modern industrial conditions hardly admit of the same patient
workmanship--months, and perhaps years, being expended on one article.
Speedier results are required, and this causes the use of inferior but
quicker drying lac, which has neither the beauty nor the durability
of the finer quality. A proof of this was given after the Vienna
Exhibition of 1872. The vessel which was taking back a number of pieces
of lacquer, old and new, was wrecked off the coast of Japan. Eighteen
months after the pieces were recovered, the new utterly ruined, but the
old work entirely unharmed, bright and untarnished, as if fresh from
the maker’s hands.
CHAPTER VIII
LANDSCAPE GARDENING AND THE ARRANGEMENT OF FLOWERS
No review of Japanese art, however superficial, can pass over without
mention one of the most interesting of all its phases--the application
of its conventions to the living and plastic forms of nature in the
sister arts of landscape gardening and the arrangement of flowers. And
here, as in other departments, the Japanese artist does not seek dully
and slavishly to copy nature, but by a frank and dexterous use of these
conventions he endeavours to suggest its spirit. By this departure
from mere literal truth he attains a wider fidelity to nature. In the
limited space at his disposal he knows that he cannot transplant a
piece of natural scenery--he must work to scale--but his miniature
rocks, trees, hills, and streams are so exquisitely proportioned as
to express within the area of a few yards the breadth and expanse of
nature.
So, too, in flower arrangement, the master secures the appearance
of naturalness by the most careful and daring manipulation. Twigs
and stems are twisted and broken, leaves and petals even shaped and
cut, to produce the effect apparently so spontaneous, so free from
artificiality.
And the reason is obvious. The defect or incongruity that would pass
unnoticed amid the wealth and profusion of the living plant, balanced
with superb ease by countless other points of interest so that the eye
could not dwell on the deformity, when transferred to the narrower
field of the flower vase, stands out with awful distinctness, and
assumes an importance which formerly it did not possess. The artist
dare not take the liberties which Nature allows herself. Her keyboard
is limitless, but his harmonies must be built up of a few carefully
selected chords.
The rise of both arts dates from that wonderful period of
awakening--the coming of the Buddhist priests in the sixth century. The
first gardens were those of the old Buddhist temples; the first flower
arrangements were placed as offerings before their shrines.
Among the earliest examples of landscape gardening were the temple
groves of Biodo-In at Uji, and Todaiji and Kofukuji at Nara, and
this old style of temple garden, simple and severe, was called
Shinden-Shiki, but little is known regarding the details of its
arrangement.
With the Kamakura period, from the twelfth to the fourteenth
centuries, we come to more familiar ground. Then the landscapes took
a freer form--hills and valleys, lakes, streams, and waterfalls being
represented. A curious form was the Kare-sansui, or dried-up water
scenery, where the bed of a stream or the hollow of a lake was shown
dry, as if in time of drought, and this style was usually combined with
a bare mountain or moorland scene.
But a great impetus was given to the art when, in the fifteenth
century, Yoshimasa, retiring from active life, and surrounded by a
group of artists and sages, revived the ancient tea ceremony, and made
it the nucleus of so many forms of art. The wide-reaching effects of
this quaint ceremonial on art generally have already been indicated in
a previous chapter. A special form of garden was devoted to its use;
while also the art of flower arrangement flourished for long merely as
an adjunct of the cha-no-yu.
In the first group of Cha-jin, or tea professors, were Shuko (the
teacher of Yoshimasa), Showo, and the famous artists No-ami and Oguri
Sotan; while a little later we have the names of Gei-ami, So-ami, and
later still Senno Rikiu and Enshiu. So-ami was one of the greatest
masters of landscape gardening, and in his quiet and dignified
compositions one sees the hand that produced the delicate landscape
paintings of misty hill and lake. Examples of his gardens exist to this
day, the best known being that of the Silver Pavilion at Ginkakuji,
which was laid out about the year 1480.
A hundred years later Enshiu was the founder of a new school, which
afterwards became very popular. One of his greatest works was a palace
garden near Kioto, through which flowed the river Katsura, and so
highly esteemed was this garden that for one hundred and fifty years
after his death not a stone or shrub was altered.
During the luxurious Tokugawa period it became the custom for the
wealthy Daimios to have their gardens laid out by well-known artists;
and the art grew still more in importance, a modern style being
introduced by Asagori Shimanosuke of Fushimi in the early part of the
nineteenth century.
The training of the landscape gardener was long and arduous, for it was
by no means the same thing to compose an actual landscape as to paint
one. The novice was sent direct to nature to sketch and study natural
forms, not, as in painting, from one point of view only, but so as to
realise how a scene would appear from all sides.
In designing a garden the first step was a careful survey of the
site; its drainage, levels, size, and shape had all to be taken into
consideration. The aspect then was chosen, and this was generally
south or south-east, so as to be sheltered from the cold west wind,
though near Tokio a vista to the west was always left open commanding
a view of Mount Fuji. Then the style of the garden had to be decided.
Was it to be a hill garden or flat plain land? Was it to follow the
“Rocky Ocean,” the “Wide River,” the “Mountain Torrent” or the “Lake
Wave” style? The character of the surrounding country would largely
determine the answer to this question, for a garden was designed to
fill harmoniously its place in the natural scene. The artist also,
while endeavouring to obtain a result that would look well from any
point, had to bear in mind that the best view of all should be from the
house itself.
A striking characteristic of Japanese gardens is that water, in the
form of cascade, lake, or stream, is almost universally present, its
cool and refreshing properties being considered well-nigh indispensable.
The main levels fixed, the hills and valleys modelled, the next
important feature consisted of the rocks and stones which represent the
crags and precipices of nature. Great care is taken in the selection
of these, which are termed the bones of the garden. Certain stones,
which are highly valued are often brought great distances, the larger
ones sometimes carefully split to render carriage more easy, and pieced
together again on their arrival. Fancy prices were paid for such
stones; and, indeed, to such a height did this form of extravagance
attain, that early in the nineteenth century an edict was issued
limiting the price to a certain sum.
The size of the garden, which varied from about fifty square yards to
a few acres, gave the scale of the stones, and these again in their
turn fixed the size of the shrubs, the trees, the fences, and other
furnishings of the garden. In a large garden there were no less than
one hundred and thirty-eight of these stones, each with its special
name and purpose assigned to it.
In the arrangement of the trees, shrubs, and flowers a regular or
symmetrical arrangement was avoided, the growths and forms of nature
were carefully followed, and the result made to appear as free and
unstudied as possible. Contrasts of form and line, and of colour in
the foliage, were sought after. No garden was deemed complete without
maple-trees, so placed that the light of the setting sun would enhance
the richness of its crimson leaves. Deciduous trees were not so
largely used as evergreens on account of their bareness in winter; but
exceptions were made in the case of the plum and the cherry, so highly
prized for the beauty of their blossom.
Flowers were chiefly grouped round the house, and were sparingly
distributed among the foliage; but here again we have exceptions in the
case of the iris and the lotus, which were used in large masses with
gorgeous effect.
Miniature pagodas appeared among the trees in the larger gardens,
little bridges crossed the streams, and large stone lanterns cast a dim
and mysterious light over the scene when darkness had fallen.
But now let us turn to the sister art. The love of flowers has long
been a characteristic of the Japanese people. As long ago as the ninth
century the Emperor Saga held garden parties during the flowering of
the cherry blossom, at which the literati of the day composed verses
in honour of the flowers; and now, after the lapse of ten centuries,
the transient glory of the cherry blossom is still a national festival,
observed alike by the rich and the poor.
Nowhere but in Japan has the flower motive been so extensively used in
art or with such grace and charm. The Japanese flower paintings stand
in a class by themselves, beside which all others seem clumsy and
coarse, alike in conception and execution, but it is in the applied
arts that their fancy is allowed to run riot. In lacquer floral designs
are wrought wonderfully in gold or inlaid in mother-of-pearl; in metal
they appear in chasing, embossing, inlaying, and many other forms; they
form the chief decorations of pottery and porcelain; but it is perhaps
in the textile fabrics of Japan, in the gorgeous silk brocades, that
they are seen in their greatest glory.
This being so, need we be surprised that in Japan the arranging of
living flowers has for hundreds of years been recognised as a fine art,
has had its schools, its laws, and its traditions, and has numbered
among its exponents such great artists as So-ami, Oguri Sotan, and
Korin? The flower artist, they say, “must be thoroughly imbued with a
sympathetic feeling for the character, habits, virtues, and weaknesses
of the members of the floral kingdom from which he seeks his material,
till he possesses the same love and tenderness for their qualities as
for those of human beings.”
And so to the arrangement of flowers the Japanese bring an enthusiasm,
a delicacy, and a refinement of dainty pedantry that, even in its
most stilted and artificial forms, is full of charm, for the spirit
underlying the formality and giving life to the most mannered
productions is this genuine and reverential love for the beauties
of nature. It is related of Rikiu, the famous flower artist and
philosopher, that he once observed a fence covered with a beautiful
growth of convolvulus. After standing for a while rapt in admiration he
plucked one flower and one leaf, which he carefully arranged in a vase.
“Why so humble,” asked his friends and pupils, “when the whole plant is
there at your disposal?” “Nay,” answered the master; “it is impossible
to rival nature in magic of design, and so any artificial arrangement
should be marked by modesty and simplicity. But even one leaf and one
flower are sufficient to call for admiration.”
The Japanese art of the arrangement of flowers deals not only with
blooms but also with many non-flowering plants characterised by a
graceful habit of growth. The effects aimed at are pre-eminently those
of line and balance, colour being more or less subordinated to these
qualities.
The earliest flower studies, placed as offerings before the shrines in
the temples, followed a style of erect composition known as the Rikkwa
school, and with their vertical central mass and supporting side
groups approached more nearly to symmetry than is usual in Japanese art.
In the later styles symmetry was carefully avoided, and, perhaps,
to no department of art does the style of asymmetrical yet balanced
composition seem more suited than to those delightful arrangements of
freely growing natural forms.
The most popular school is that of Enshiu, which groups the essentials
under three heads. First, the quality of giving feeling and expression
to compositions, for the Japanese artist is no mere copyist of nature;
each group must mean something, must convey some idea. Second, truth to
nature in the sense of presenting correctly the style of growth of the
plants used; and third, truth to nature in the strict observance of the
laws of season and locality.
The different parts of the composition have each a special name, as
also have many of the faults into which the novice is liable to fall.
[Illustration: A FLOWER COMPOSITION]
Nagashi, the arrangement of long, streaming sprays on each side of a
group, is, as approaching the symmetrical, especially to be avoided.
“Window-making,” the crossing of stalks in such a manner as to give the
appearance of loopholes, and “lattice-making,” where the crossing
suggests lattice-work, are both grave faults, as is also any suspicion
of parallelism in the main lines.
It is not sufficient either that the finished study should look well
from the front. It must bear the test of examination from all points of
view.
There are also distinct rules regarding the vessels employed to hold
the compositions. Sometimes beautifully wrought bowls of bronze are
used, sometimes vessels of wood or porcelain, sometimes a simple wicker
basket.
The shallow bronze bowl is the most usual, as in it little vices of
wood may be conveniently fixed across to hold together the stems, and
metal crabs, dragons, tortoises, and frogs are often used to hold the
cuttings in position, and at the same time form part of the design.
Sometimes the vessel is made in the shape of a boat, a style said to be
first inaugurated by So-ami, and since forming a class of composition
by itself.
A favourite combination is a rough wooden tub used for horses to drink
from and a bronze horse’s bit. Its use dates back to a time when
a famous general of old, during one of the duller intervals of a
campaign, employed his leisure in composing a flower study, using as
vessel and vice the only articles at his disposal.
Holders of bamboo are used in various forms, as many as forty-two
different methods of cutting and notching the hollow stem
being recognised. Some of the names of these are delightfully
expressive--such as “lion’s mouth,” “singing mouth,” “flute,”
“stork’s neck,” “conch shell,” and, most imposing of all,
“cascade-climbing-dragon’s form.”
The plants themselves are grouped in many grades. Seven--the
chrysanthemum, the narcissus, the maple, the wisteria, and the
evergreen rhodea--are of princely rank, and form a veritable
aristocracy of flowers. The iris, also, is of equal rank with the
foregoing, but, owing to its purple colour, must never be used at a
wedding.
Then, again, within the same species, the flowers take rank according
to their colour, in most cases the white bloom ranking highest. Among
chrysanthemums, however, the yellow takes precedence, with the peach
and cherry pale pink, and with the camellia and peony red.
Certain plants, also, must never be used, and this “Index
Expurgatorius” includes all strong-smelling or poisonous plants,
and a long list comprising the aster, the poppy, the orchid, the
rhododendron, and many others.
Male and female attributes are also applied to plants in many ways.
The front of leaves is male, the back female; red, purple, pink, or
variegated flowers are male; blue, yellow, and white female. So that a
flower composition in Japan, apart from its intrinsic beauty, bears a
wealth of symbolic meaning.
In all important rooms there is an ornamental alcove or recess,
called the toko-no-ma, with raised floor polished and lacquered, and
a handsome corner pillar of rare wood. On the back wall is hung the
kakemono, or in some cases a pair, or set of three, and on the dais
before it, or suspended from above, is placed the flower study. In this
recess are displayed, one at a time, the choicest art treasures of the
house, and in front of it is the place of the honoured guest.
There is an etiquette even in looking at flower studies, and in
praising them only appropriate epithets should be used, always softly
expressed. White flowers are “elegant,” blue “fine,” red “charming,”
yellow “splendid,” and purple “modest.”
But the greatest compliment that can be paid to a guest on such an
occasion is to ask him to make an extempore arrangement himself. And
here the ceremonial is delightful in its graceful formality. The host
brings a tray with vase, cut blooms and sprays, scissors, knife, and
a little saw. If the vessel brought be a very valuable one the guest
modestly protests that he can produce nothing worthy of so fine a
setting, but, on being pressed by his host, should comply with his
wishes. The host then removes the kakemono, for to allow it to remain
would impose upon the artist the task of designing his group in harmony
with it, and with the rest of the company withdraws to an adjoining
room until, the work being completed, the guest summons them, having
placed the scissors beside his composition as a silent request for the
correction of its faults. When his host enters he apologises for the
imperfections of his work, and begs that the whole may be removed. The
host in his turn assures him that in beauty it is all that could be
desired, and so the delicate interchange of compliments goes on.
Not the least attractive feature of this gentle art is the evanescent
nature of its charms. The painter, the sculptor, the artist in lacquer
or in metal, works for posterity: hundreds of years hence his fame may
be greater far than it is to-day. But the artist in flowers can hope
for no such permanence in his work, its creations are verily but “the
lilies of a day,” his modest task but to give sweetness and beauty to
the passing hour.
[Illustration: A Japanese Fan]
THE WORLD OF ART SERIES
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