美術

56 Introduction: - Art. called upon to heal in the next life the miserable condition of man's present existence. The images of this deity are scarcely to be distinguished from those of Shaka. 22. - ART. Painting. - The earliest painter mentioned in the national records was a Chinese immigrant named Nanryu or Shinki, who settled in Japan in the second half of the fifth century, and was followed by many generations of descendants. From the latter part of the fifth to the middle of the ninth century may be considered the first or educational period of Japanese painting. During this era, both pictorial and glyptic art were almost entirely in the hands of foreigners, - Koreans or Chinese.

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Unfortunately little is known of the quality of the pictorial art of that remote age. One of the least doubtful of the remains of it still in existence is the mural decoration in the Kondo of the temple of Horyuji (described in Route 39), which is said to date from A.D. 607. This work will compare not unfavourably with the best of the later productions of the Buddhist school, and both in composition and colouring bears not a little resemblance to the works of the early Italian masters. The second period in the history of Japanese painting dates from the middle of the ninth century, an era in which the arts of refinement had reached a high state of cultivation.

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At this time appeared the first great painter of native origin, Kose-no-Kanaoka, who rose into notice in the second half of the ninth century. He was a court noble of ancient lineage. He does not appear to have been indebted to any contemporary teacher, but is said to have acquired his knowledge of the laws of painting by a close study of the works of Wu Taotzu and other great Chinese masters of the T'ang dynasty, whose manner he followed without any noteworthy modification. Almost all the works of his brush referred to in history have perished; but a number of quaint legends testify to the effect which he made on the minds of his contemporaries.

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Kanaoka's skill was inherited by a long line of descendants down to the sixteenth century. They were known chiefly as painters of Buddhist pictures; but it is probable that the foundations of the Yamato Ryu, or "Native School," were laid by the earlier members of the Kose family. This school was established in the eleventh century by a court noble named Motomitsu, who had studied under Kose-no-Kimmochi.

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The subjects it most favoured were portraits of Court personages, official ceremonies, records of temples, and illustrations of the early native romances varied by careful drawings of falcons and horses taken from life, sketches of birds and flowers in the graphic Chinese style, with occasional burlesques in which the routine of human life was mimicked by frogs and other animals or by goblins of comic aspect. Landscape does not appear to have held as important a position in the list of motives as was the case in later times. It is seldom met with as the subject of a picture, and when appearing as an accessory is always extremely conventional in treatment.

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The drawing was careful and traced with a fine brush, but more formal in style and less vigorous in execution than that of the older Chinese artists. Despite the lavish use of gold and of bright pigments, the colouring possessed little breadth of effect. The perspective was isometrical, but often relieved by the curious practice of omitting the roofs of buildings in order better to display the incidents of the interior. This school is less forcible in style than those that followed.

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Art. 57 In the thirteenth century Tsunetaka, head of the Yamato Ryu, assumed the family name of Tosa. Hence the title of Tosa Ryu, or "Tosa School," retained to the present day. These painters monopolised the patronage of the Court until the renaissance of the fifteenth century. Speaking generally, the styles practised during the middle ages showed the effects of two divergent spirits, - the Chinese proper, simple and vigorous, and the decorative but conventional Buddhist style, which, though also transmitted through China, was of Indian origin with traces of remote Greek influence.

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Painting held a place amongst the refined accomplishments by the side of literature and calligraphy, and was exclusively in the hands of men and women of noble birth. Late in the thirteenth century, a school of caricature was founded by a Buddhist priest named Toba Sojo. The works in his manner, still known as Toba-e, or "Toba pictures," were often marked by Rabelaisian humour. The third period was ushered in by an energetic renaissance of the Chinese influence. Encouraged by the active patronage of the Ashikaga dynasty, the Medici of medieval Japan, a new school arose. The Cimabue of classical art was a priest named Josetsu, who, according to some authorities, came from Korea about A.D.

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1400, but by others is claimed as a native of Kyushu in Japan. He was great chiefly as a teacher. Cho Densu (died 1427) was the best and most original painter of Buddhist pictures, a splendid series of which still survives. He was worthily imitated by his pupil Kan Densu. The greatest of Josetsu's pupils was Sesshu (1421-1507). This artist, after acquiring all that could be learnt in his own country, went to China, where he remained several years and earned in the Imperial capital a reputation of which the Japanese are justly proud. On his return to Japan he founded a school, and left many noted pupils. Anderson says of him: "It is difficult for a European to estimate Sesshu at his true value. ...

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Notwithstanding the boast of the artist that the scenery of China was his only teacher, and the credit bestowed upon him by his admirers of having invented a new style, he has in no respect departed from the artificial rules accepted by his fellow painters. He was, however, an original and powerful artist, and his renderings of Chinese scenery bear evidences of local study that we look for in vain in the works of his successors.

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The grand simplicity of his landscape compositions, their extraordinary breadth of design, the illusive suggestions of atmosphere and distance, and the all-pervading sense of poetry, demonstrate a genius that could rise above all defects of theory in the principles of his art." Sesshu's contemporary, Shubun, lacked the advantage of study in China, but his genius and influence were scarcely inferior. Kano Masanobu, the nominal founder of the Kano School, was unequal to the painters characterised above. The real founder was his son Kano Motonobu, alias Ko-hogen (1477-1559). This great artist is held here in the same veneration as is felt in Europe for his contemporary Raphael.

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For many years he worked in relative poverty and obscurity, but at length rose into notice, and achieved a reputation unsurpassed even by that of Kose-no-Kanaoka. He was an avowed imitator of certain Chinese masters of the Sung and Yuan dynasties, and like Sesshu and Shubun, borrowed his motives almost entirely from Chinese sources, expending extraordinary powers of composition and drawing in the delineation of scenery and personages known to him only through the imagination or in the works of others. His school nevertheless became the most important in Japan, retaining its pre-eminence for nearly three

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58 Introduction: - Art. centuries after his death. The most eminent of its members was Tan-yu, who flourished in the seventeenth century. The Sesshu, Kano, and "Chinese" schools must all be classed as Chinese; for although distinguished by minor points of technique, their style was essentially one. It was characterised by a quiet and harmonious colouring, and by bold calligraphic drawing in which little attention was paid to naturalistic details. The favourite motives were portraits of Chinese sages or Buddhist saints, Chinese landscape, sketches of birds and flowers after the manner and often from the works of the Chinese masters. Fuji was one of the few native subjects exceptionally admitted.

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Iwasa Matahei (16th century), a Tosa artist, originated the "Popular School," which, abandoning prescribed subjects and conventional mannerisms, undertook to paint life as it is. But he found no following for over a hundred years, unless some rough caricatures known as Otsu-e, be deemed worthy of mention in this connection. Korin, also of the Tosa line, founded a new school in the seventeenth century. His dashing grace and wonderful colouring place him in the foremost rank of Japan's artists, despite an abnormally accentuated mannerism. The decoration of lacquer objects engaged much of his skill.

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Other noteworthy names belonging to this third period are: - Tosa School: - Mitsunobu and Mitsushige (15th century), Mitsuoki (17th century). Sesshu School: - Shugetsu, Sesson, Do-an (16th century). Chinese School: - Oguri Sotan (15th century), Ryu-rikyo, Taigado (18th century). Kano School: - Sho-ei, Eitoku, Sanraku (16th century), Naonobu, Yasunobu, Tsunenobu, Masunobu (17th century). The fourth and latest period of Japanese art began about 1780 with the rise of the Shijo School under Maruyama Okyo.

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Starting from a naturalistic theory, this artist and his numerous pupils nevertheless retained the faulty Chinese perspective and continued to ignore the laws of chiaroscuro, the result being a compromise between truth to nature and inherited conventions. Okyo's flowers, birds, and fish were astonishingly life-like, as were the monkeys of his pupil Sosen. Other famous followers were Rosetsu, Ippo and Keibun both noted for their birds, Ho-en (flourished circa 1840), and Yosai, who survived till 1878 at the great age of 91. The Ganku Ryu was a contemporary school derived from the Chinese, but modified through the influence of Shijo naturalism. Ganku and Bunrin are its best-known representatives.

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The most interesting phase in the art history of the period was, however, the prominence attained by the "Popular School" (Ukiyo-e Ryu), which was now recruited from the artisan class. Iwasa Matahei had foreshadowed this development in the sixteenth century, as already mentioned. At the end of the seventeenth century, Hishigawa Moronobu, Hanabusa Itcho, Nishigawa Sukenobu, and other artists of gentle birth took up the tradition, the first of these being the originator of artistic book illustration.

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But the culminating period of this school did not come till the eighteenth century, when the profession of drawing for engravers fell into the hands of commoners, of whom the earliest to win fame for their colour prints of actors and professional beauties were the Torii and Katsugawa families. The best artists in nishiki-e, as these colour prints are termed, were Utamaro, Torii Kiyonaga, Suzuki Harunobu, and Koryusai, together with their more popular successor Hokusai (1760-1849), whose ceaseless activity in illustrating books, drawing broadsides, and producing the more delicate little compositions called surimono,

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Art. 59 covered an immense range of subjects quaint, humorous, and homely. Of Hokusai's fellow-workers the name is legion. Pre-eminent among them were Toyokuni, Kuniyoshi, and Kunisada of the Utagawa family, who succeeded the Katsugawa as theatrical draughtsmen, and such guide-book (Meisho) illustrators as Shuncho-sai and Settan. In addition to these were Hokkei, Keisai, Eisen, Ryusen, Shigenobu, Hiroshige, and many more of lesser note.

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Among the most eminent artists who carried on the traditions of the older schools during the latest period were: - Chinese School: - Buson (died 1783), also noted as a poet, Keisai, and Tani Buncho (early 19th century), Korin School: - Ho-itsu (early 19th century), The shock of contact with Europe after 1850 paralysed native effort. The second Hiroshige, Isai, and Kyosai were for some time the only colour-print artists to rise above mediocrity. Quite recently Gekko and Kogyo together with Watanabe Seitei, Kiyosai, and Kansai, have led a revival.

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The native style of painting, too, though not without traces of European influence, is again assiduously cultivated, Hashimoto Gaho (died 1908) having been its best exponent. The government has lent its aid by establishing an Art Academy at Tokyo. Sculpture. - The history of this art being less well-known than that of painting, the briefest notice must suffice. Sculpture long remained exclusively in Buddhist hands, - at first in those of Korean priests or of descendants of Korean and Chinese craftsmen, - whence it not unnaturally exhibits Indian influence.

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Critics still hesitate as to the share to be attributed to native Japanese in a series of large wood and bronze images adorning the temples of Kyoto and Nara, many of which are now collected together in the museums of those cities. Whatever their origin and date (some are attributed to the sixth and seventh centuries), these figures, by virtue of their passionate vitality of expression and of their truth to anatomical detail, may claim a place among the world's masterpieces. The ideal they embodied has not again been reached on Japanese soil. Japan also possesses some early stone images and a few remarkable stone carvings in relief; but this branch of the art has remained comparatively unimportant.

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Reverting to wood, the names of the following carvers of Buddhist images call for mention: - Tori Busshi (7th century), Keibunkai and Kasuga (8th century), the abbot Eshin (942-1017), Jocho, founder of the important Nara school which included Kokei and Unkei (all three in the 11th century), and Tankei and Kwaikei (12th century). In bronze, the Daibutsu (lit. "big Buddha") at Kamakura and Nara are notable legacies from mediaeval times. The end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries witnessed a new development in the carved and painted wooden decorations of temples, especially at Kyoto, Tokyo, and Nikko.

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These beautiful works represent flowers, birds, angels, dragons, etc., being for the most part executed from designs by famous living painters or old masters. They are applied with splendid effect to every portion of a building, notably to the adornment of gateways, pillars, ceilings, palisades, and of what are termed ramma, a kind of ventilating panels between rooms. The greatest carver in this style was Hidari Jingoro (1584-1634). Originally a simple carpenter, as all the previous carvers of geometrical designs and conventional flowers had been, he raised the craft to the status of a separate art. His nickname of Hidari arose from his being left-handed.

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Many works currently attributed to him are not accepted as such by modern critics. Portraiture was attempted by some artists, occasionally

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60 Introduction: - Art. with good results. Many images, especially of gods and saints, were painted; others were lacquered. Besides the large images mentioned above, schools of workers in metal devoted themselves to the adornment of temple furniture, such as incense-burners, bells, bronze lanterns, and plaques of various alloys nailed to doors and pillars; others decorated sword furniture and armour, the application of art industry coming to cover almost the whole field of life among the upper classes from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries inclusive. Lacquer Work, originally introduced from China, like all else, flourished during the same period.

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As with carving, so here also, the designs were often supplied by painters. In some cases, as that of Korin referred to above, the same individual achieved triumphs in both arts. Among the most ornamental kinds of lacquer, mention may be made of maki-e, or "gold lacquer," produced in many varieties, e.g., nashiji, in which the gold is powdered over the surface. Togi-dashi is a soft style, the outline being brought out by a series of rubbings. In tsuishu there is a very thick coat of red lacquer which is afterwards carved; tsuikoku is the same in black. Aogai is a variety producing an iridescent effect like mother-of-pearl.

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The complicated process involved in the manufacture even of the simpler kinds will be found described in Things Japanese. With regard to Porcelain, various notices will be found scattered throughout this volume. The following names of Japanese art-forms not yet mentioned should be remembered, for most of which no English equivalents exist: - The fusuma, sliding doors between rooms, often beautifully painted. The inro, a small medicine-box in segments, generally made of lacquer. The segments are held together by means of a cord, to one extremity of which a netsuke is often attached. The kakemono, or hanging scroll, generally painted, sometimes embroidered.

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The koro, or incense-burner, generally of bronze or porcelain. The makimono, or scroll, not meant to be hung up. It is used chiefly for manuscripts, which are often beautifully illuminated. The netsuke, originally a kind of button for the medicine box, pipe-case, or tobacco-pouch, carved out of wood or ivory. These little articles have developed into gems of art. The okimono, a general name for various small ornaments having no definite use, but intended to be placed in an alcove or a cabinet.

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Mention may also be made of various gear appertaining to the Japanese sword (katana) and often cunningly wrought in metals and alloys, of which latter the best-known are shibu-ichi and shakudo, both formed of a basis of copper with varying admixtures of silver and gold. Specially noteworthy among these articles are the tsuba, or guard, and the menuki, - small ornaments fixed one on each side of the hilt, and held in place by the silk cord which binds together the various parts of the handle. The best books on Japanese art are very expensive. Anderson's Pictorial Arts of Japan and Morrison's Painters of Japan are splendidly illustrated.

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Brinkley's Japan and China has one volume - the eighth - entirely devoted to keramics. Dick's Arts and Crafts of Old Japan is a handy compendium. Strange's Japanese Colour Prints may be recommended for its special subject. The Kokkwa (a serial) and the Shimbi Sho-in's publications are beautiful, but costly.

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