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]