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.