On the Laws of Japanese Painting: An Introduction to the Study of the Art of Japan

by Henry P. Bowie

CHAPTER TWO. ART IN JAPAN

In approaching a brief exposition of the laws of Japanese painting it is not my purpose to claim for that art superiority over every other kind of painting; nor will I admit that it is inferior to other schools of painting. Rather would I say that it is a waste of time to institute comparisons. Let it be remembered only that no Japanese painting can be properly understood, much less appreciated, unless we possess some acquaintance with the laws which control its production. Without such knowledge, criticism—praising or condemning a Japanese work of art—is without weight or value.

Japanese painters smile wearily when informed that foreigners consider their work to be flat, and at best merely decorative; that their pictures have no middle distance or perspective, and contain no shadows; in fact, that the art of painting in Japan is still in its infancy. In answer to all this suffice it to say that whatever a Japanese painting fails to contain has been purposely omitted. With Japanese artists it is a question of judgment and taste [pg 8] as to what shall be painted and what best left out. They never aim at photographic accuracy or distracting detail. They paint what they feel rather than what they see, but they first see very distinctly. It is the artistic impression (sha i) which they strive to perpetuate in their work. So far as perspective is concerned, in the great treatise of Chu Kaishu entitled, “The Poppy-Garden Art Conversations,” a work laying down the fundamental laws of landscape painting, artists are specially warned against disregarding the principle of perspective called en kin, meaning what is far and what is near. The frontispiece to the present volume illustrates how cleverly perspective is produced in Japanese art [(Plate I).]

Japanese artists are ardent lovers of nature; they closely observe her changing moods, and evolve every law of their art from such incessant, patient, and careful study.

These laws (in all there are seventy-two of them recognized as important) are a sealed book to the uninitiated. I once requested a learned Japanese to translate and explain some art terms in a work on Japanese painting. He frankly declared he could not do it, as he had never studied painting.

The Japanese are unconsciously an art-loving people. Their very education and surroundings tend to make them so. When the Japanese child of tender age first takes his little bowl of rice, a pair of tiny chop-sticks is put into his right hand. He grasps them as we would a dirk. His mother then shows him how he should manipulate them. [pg 9] He has taken a first lesson in the use of the brush. With practice he becomes skilful, and one of his earliest pastimes is using the chop-sticks to pick up single grains of rice and other minute objects, which is no easy thing to do. It requires great dexterity. He is insensibly learning how to handle the double brush (ni hon fude) with which an artist will, among other things, lay on color with one brush and dilute or shade off (kumadori) the color with another, both brushes being held at the same time in the same hand, but with different fingers.

At the age of six the child is sent to school and taught to write with a brush the phonetic signs Japanese (forty-seven in number) which constitute the Japanese syllabary. These signs represent the forty-seven pure sounds of the Japanese language and are used for writing. They are known as katakana and are simplified Chinese characters, consisting of two or three strokes each. With them any word in Japanese can be written. It takes a year for a child to learn all these signs and to write them from memory, but they are an excellent training for both the eye and the hand.

His next step in education is to learn to write these same sounds in a different script, called hiragana. These characters are cursive or rounded in form, while the katakana are more or less square. The hiragana are more graceful and can be written more rapidly, but they are more complicated.

From daily practice considerable training in the use of the brush and the free movement of the right arm and wrist is secured, and the eye is taught [pg 10] insensibly the many differences between the square and the cursive form. Before the child is eight years old he has become quite skilful in writing with the brush both kinds of kana.

He is next taught the easier Chinese characters,—Chinese kanji and ideographs. These are most ingeniously constructed and are of great importance in the further training of the eye and hand.

So greatly do these wonderfully conceived written forms appeal to the artistic sense that a taste for them thus early acquired leads many a Japanese scholar to devote his entire life to their study and cultivation. Such writers become professionals and are called shoka. Probably the most renowned in all China was Ogishi. Japan has produced many such famous men, but none greater than Iwaya Ichi Roku, who has left an immortal name.

From what has been said about writing with the brush, it will be understood how the youth who may determine to follow art as a career is already well prepared for rapid strides therein. His hand and arm have acquired great freedom of movement. His eye has been trained to observe the varying lines and intricacies of the strokes and characters, and his sentiments of balance, of proportion, of accent and of stroke order, have been insensibly developed according to subtle principles, all aiming at artistic results.

The knowledge of Chinese characters and the their ability to write them properly are considered of prime importance in Japanese art. A first counsel given me by Kubota Beisen was to commence that [pg 11] study, and he personally introduced me to Ichiroku who, from that time, kindly supervised my many years of work in Chinese writing, a pursuit truly engrossing and captivating.

In all Japanese schools the rudiments of art are taught, and children are trained to perceive, feel, and enjoy what is beautiful in nature. There is no city, village, or hamlet in all Japan that does not contain its plantations of plum and cherry blossoms in spring, its peonies and lotus ponds in summer, its chrysanthemums in autumn, and camelias, mountain roses and red berries in winter. The school children are taken time and again to see these, and revel amongst them. It is a part of their education. Excursions, called undokai, are organized at stated intervals during the school term and the scholars gaily tramp to distant parts of the country, singing patriotic and other songs the while and enjoying the view of waterfalls, broad and winding rivers, autumn maples, or snow-capped mountains. In addition to this, trips are taken to all famous temples and historical places including, where conveniently near, the three great views of Japan,—Matsushima, Ama No Hashi Date, and Myajima. Thus a taste for landscape is inculcated and becomes second nature. Furthermore, the scholars are encouraged to closely watch every form of life, including butterflies, crickets, beetles, birds, goldfish, shell-fish, and the like; and I have seen miniature landscape gardens made by Japanese children, most cleverly reproducing charming views [pg 12] and contained in a shallow box or tray. This gentle little art is called bonsai or hako niwa.

The Tea Ceremony, by Miss Uyemura Shoen. Plate II.

My purpose in alluding to all this is to indicate that a boy on leaving school has absorbed already much artistic education and is fairly well equipped for beginning a special course in the art schools of the empire.

These schools differ in their methods of instruction, and many changes have been introduced in them during the present reign, or Meiji period, but substantially the course takes from three to four years and embraces copying (isha mitori), tracing (mosha, tsuki-utsushi), reducing (shukuzu, chijime-ru), and composing (shiko, tsukuri kata).

In copying, the teacher usually first paints the particular subject and the student reproduces it under his supervision. Kubota's invariable method was to require the pupil on the following day to reproduce from memory (an ki) the subject thus copied. This engenders confidence. In tracing, thin paper is placed over the picture and the outlines (rin kaku) are traced according to the exact order in which the original subject was executed, an order which is established by rule; thus a proper style and brush habit are acquired. The correct sequence of the lines and parts of a painting is of the highest importance to its artistic effect.

In reducing the size of what is studied, the laws of proportion are insensibly learned. This is of great use afterwards in sketching (shassei). I believe that in the habit of reproducing, as taught in [pg 13] the schools, lies the secret of the extraordinary skill of the Japanese artisan who can produce marvelous effects in compressing scenery and other subjects course within the very smallest dimensions and yet preserve correct proportions and balance. Nothing can excel in masterly reduction the miniature landscape work of the renowned Kaneiye, as exhibited in his priceless sword guards (tsuba).

Sketching comes later in the course and is taught only after facility has been acquired in the other three departments. It embraces everything within doors and without—everything in the universe which has form or shape goes into the artist's sketch-book (ken kon no uchi kei sho arumono mina fun pon to nasu)—and forms part of the course in composition, which is intended to develop the imaginative faculties (sozo). Kubota was so skilful in sketching that while traveling rapidly through a country he could faithfully reproduce the salient features of an extended landscape, conformable to the general rule in sketching, that what first attracts the eye is to be painted first, all else becoming subordinate to it in the scheme. Again, he could paint the scenery and personages of any historical song (joruri) as it was being sung to him, reproducing everything therein described and finishing his work in exact time with the last bar of the music. His arm and wrist were so free and flexible that his brush skipped about with the velocity of a dragon-fly. As an offhand painter (sekijo), or as a contributor to an impromptu picture in which several artists will in turn participate, [pg 14] such joint composition being known as gassaku, Kubota stood facile princeps among modern Japanese artists. The Kyoto painters have always been most gifted in that kind of accomplishment. In their day Watanabe Nangaku, a pupil of Okyo, Bairei, and Hyakunen, all of Kyoto, were famous as sekijo painters.

The art student having completed his course is now qualified to attach himself to some of the great artists, into whose household he will be admitted and whose deshi or art disciple he becomes from that time on. The relation between such master (sensei) and his pupil (deshi) is the most kindly imaginable. Indeed, deshi is a very beautiful word, meaning a younger brother, and was first applied to the Buddhist disciples of Shakka. The master treats him as one of his family and the pupil reveres the master as his divinity. Greater mutual regard and affection exist nowhere and many pupils remain more or less attached to the master's household until his death. To the most faithful and skilful of these the master bestows or bequeaths his name or a part of it, or his nom de plume (go); and thus it is that the celebrated schools (ryugi or ha or fu) of Japanese painting have been formed and perpetuated, beginning with Kanaoka, Tosa, Kano, and Okyo, and brought down to posterity through the devoted, and I might say sacred efforts of their pupils, to preserve the methods and traditions of those great men. Pupils of the earlier painters took their masters' family names, which accounts for so many Tosas and Kanos.

Great painters have always been held in high esteem in Japan, not only by their pupils, but also by the whole nation. Chikudo, the distinguished tiger painter, Bairei, one of the most renowned of the shijo ha or Maruyama school, Hashimoto Gaho, a pupil of Kano Massano and a leading exponent of the Kano style (Kano ha), and Katei, a Nangwa artist, all only recently deceased, were glorified in their lifetime. Strange to say, no one ever saw Gaho with brush in hand. He never would paint before his pupils or in any one's presence. His instructions were oral. On the other hand, Kubota Beisen was always at his best when painting before crowds of admirers.

Prior to the Meiji period the great painters attached to the household of a Daimyo were called O Eshi. Painters who sold their paintings were styled E kaki. Now all painters are called gwa ka. Engravers, sculptors, print makers and the like were and still are denominated shokunin, meaning artisans. The comprehensive term “fine arts” (bijutsu) is of quite recent creation in Japan.

To say a few words about the different schools of painting in Japan, there were great artists there, many centuries before Italy had produced Michael Angelo or Raphael. The art of painting began more than fifteen hundred years ago and has continued in uninterrupted descent from that remote time down to this forty-fourth year of Meiji, the present emperor's reign. No other country in the civilized world can produce such an art record. One thousand years before America was discovered, [pg 16] five hundred years before England had a name, and long before civilization had any meaning in Europe, there were artists in Japan following the profession of painting with the same ardor and the same intelligence they are now bestowing upon their art in this twentieth century of our era.

When Buddhism was introduced there in the sixth century, a great school of Buddhist artists began its long career. Among the names that stand out from behind the mist of ages is that of Kudara no Kawanari, who came from Corea.

In the ninth century lived the celebrated Kose Kanaoka. He painted in what was called the pure Japanese style, yamato e, yamato being the earliest name by which Japan was designated. He painted portraits and landscapes, and his school having a great following, lasted through five centuries. Kose Kimi Mochi, his pupil, Kimitada and Hirotaka were distinguished disciples of Kanaoka.

The Tosa school came next, beginning with Tosa Motomitsu, followed by Mitsunaga, Nobuzane and Mitsunobu. It dates back to the period of the Kamakura Shogunate eight hundred years ago. Its artists confined themselves principally to painting court scenes, court nobles, and the various ceremonies of court life. This school always used color in its paintings.

After Tosa came the schools of Sumiyoshi, Takuma, Kassuga, and Sesshu. Sesshu was a genius of towering proportions and an indefatigable artist of the very highest rank as a landscape painter. He had a famous pupil named Sesson.

Following Sesshu came the celebrated school of Kano artists, founded in the sixteenth century by Kano Masanobu. It took Japan captive. It had a tremendous vogue and following, and has come down to the present day through a succession of great painters. There were two branches, one in Edo (Tokyo), which included Kano Masanobu, Motonobu, his son, Eitoku, Motonobu's pupil, and later, Tanyu (Morinobu) Tanshin, his pupil, Koetsu, Naonobu, Tsunenobu, Morikage, Itcho, and finally Hashimoto Gaho, its latest distinguished representative, who is but recently deceased. The other branch, known as the Kyoto Kano, included the famous San Raku, Eino, San Setsu, and others. By some critics San Raku is placed at the head of all the Kano artists.

The Kano painters are remarkable for the boldness and living strength of the brush strokes (fude no chicara or fude no ikioi), as well as for the brilliancy or sheen (tsuya) and shading of the sumi. This latter effect—the play of light and shade in the stroke, considered almost a divine gift—is called bokushoku, and recalls somewhat the term chiaroscuru. The range of subjects of the Kano painters was originally limited to classic Chinese scenery, treated with simplicity and refinement, and to Chinese personages, sages and philosophers; color was used sparingly.

Other schools, more or less offshoots of the Kano style (ryu) of painting, came next—e. g., Korin and his imitator, Hoitsu, the daimyo of Sakai, who was said to use powdered gold and precious stones in [pg 18] his pigments. Korin has never had his equal as a painter on lacquer. His work is said to be le regal des delicats.

Another disciple of the Kano school, and a pupil of Yutei, was Maruyama Okyo, who founded in turn a school of art which is the most widely spread and flourishing in Japan today. Maruyama, not Okyo, was the family name of that artist. The name Okyo originated thus: Maruyama, much admiring an ancient painter named Shun Kyo, took the latter half of that name, Kyo, and prefixing an “O” to it, made it Okyo, which he then adopted. His style is called shi jo fu, shi jo being the name of that part of Kyoto where he resided, and fu meaning style or manner, and its characteristic is artistic fidelity to the objects represented. By some it is called the realistic school, and includes such well-known household names as Goshun, pupil of Busson, Sosen, the great monkey painter, Tessan [(Plate III.)] and his son, Morikwansai, Bairei, Chi-kudo, the tiger painter, Hyakunen and his three pupils, Keinen, Shonen and Beisen, Kawabata Gyokusho, Torei, Shoen, and Takeuchi Seiho.

There are still other schools (ryugi) which might be mentioned, including that of the nangwa, or Chinese southern painters, of Chinese origin and remarkable for the gracefulness of the brush stroke, the effective treatment of the masses and for the play of light and shade throughout the composition. Among the great nangwa painters are Taigado, Chikuden, Baietsu [(Plate VIII)] and Katei. To this school is referred a style of painting affected [pg 19] exclusively by the professional writers of Chinese characters, and called bunjingwa. To these I will allude further on. The versatile artist, Tani Buncho, created a school which had many adherents, including the distinguished Watanabe Kwazan and Eiko of Tokyo, lately deceased, one of its best exponents.

The art of painting is enthusiastically pursued at the present time in Kyoto, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. In Tokyo, Hashi Moto Gaho was generally conceded to be, up to the time of his death in 1908, the foremost artist in Japan. Although of the Kano school, he greatly admired European art, and the treatment of the human figure in some of his latest paintings recalls the manner of the early Flemish artists.

My first meeting with Gaho was at his home. While waiting for him, I observed suspended in the tokonoma, or alcove, a narrow little kakemono by Kano Moto Nobu, representing an old man upon a donkey crossing a bridge. A small bronze vase containing a single flower spray was the sole ornament in the room. This gave the keynote to Gaho's character—classic simplicity, ever reflected in his work. He had many followers. His method of instruction with advanced pupils was to give them subjects such as “A Day in Spring,” “Solitude,” “An Autumn Morning,” or the like, and he was most insistent upon all the essentials to the proper effect being introduced. His criticisms were always luminous and sympathetic. He advised his students to copy everything good, but to imitate [pg 20] no-one,—to develop individuality. He left three very distinguished and able pupils—Gyokudo, Kan Zan and Boku Sen.

Chickens in Spring, by Mori Tessan. Plate III.

Since Gaho's death, Kawabata Gyokusho, an Okyo artist, is the recognized leader of the capital. In Kyoto, Takeuchi Seiho, an early pupil of Bairei, now occupies the foremost place, although Shonen and Keinen, pupils of Hyakunen, still hold a high rank.

Recurring to the time of Tosa, there is another school beginning under Matahei and perpetuated through many generations of popular artists, including Utamaro, Yeisen and Hokusai, and coming down to the present date. This is the Ukiyo e or floating-world-picture school. It is far better known through its prints than its paintings. The great painters of Japan have never held this school in any favor. At one time or another I have visited nearly every distinguished artist's studio in Japan, and I know personally most of the leading artists of that country. I have never seen a Japanese print in the possession of any of them, and I know their sentiments about all such work. A print is a lifeless production, and it would be quite impossible for a Japanese artist to take prints into any serious consideration. They rank no higher than cut velvet scenery or embroidered screens. I am aware that such prints are in great favor with many enthusiasts and that collectors highly value them; but they do not exemplify art as the Japanese understand that term. It must be admitted, however, that the prints have been of service in several [pg 21] ways. They first attracted the world's attention to the subject of Japanese art in general. Commencing with an exhibition of them in London a half century ago, the prints of Ukiyo or genre subjects came rapidly into favor and ever since have commanded the notice and admiration of collectors in Europe and America. Many people are even under the impression that the prints represent Japanese painting, which, of course, is a great mistake. There have been artists in Japan who, in the Ukiyo e manner, have painted kakemono, byobu and makimono. The word kakemono is applied to a painting on silk or paper, wound upon a wooden roller and unrolled and hung up to be seen. Kakeru means to suspend and mono means an object, hence kakemono, a suspended object. byobu signifies wind protector or screen; makimono, meaning a wound thing, is a painting in scroll form. It is not suspended, but simply unrolled for inspection. Such original work by Matahei and others is extant. But most of the Ukiyo e, or pictures in the popular style, are prints struck from wood blocks and are the joint production of the artist, the wood engraver, the color smearer and the printer, all of whom have contributed to and are more or less entitled to credit for the result; and that is one reason why the artist-world of Japan objects to or ignores them; they are not the spontaneous, living, palpitating production of the artist's brush. It is well known that artists of the Ukiyo e school frequently indicated only by written instructions how their outline drawings for the prints should be colored, [pg 22] leaving the detail of such work to the color smearer. Apart from the fact that the colors employed were the cheapest the market afforded, and are found often to be awkwardly applied, there is too much about the prints that is measured, mechanical and calculated to satisfy Japanese art in its highest sense. Frequently more than one engraver was employed upon a single print. The engravers had their specialties; some were engaged for the coiffure or head-dress (mage), other for the lines of the face, others for the dress (kimono), others still for pattern (moyo), et cetera. The most skilful engravers in Yedo were called kashira bori and were always employed on Utamaro and Hokusai prints. Many of the colors of these prints in their soft, neutral shades, are rapturously extolled by foreign connoisseurs as evidence of the marvelous taste of the Japanese painter. But, really, time more than art is to be credited with toning down such tints to their present delicate hues. In this respect, like Persian rugs, they improve with age and exposure. An additional objection to most of the prints is that they reproduce trivial, ordinary, every-day occurrences in the life of the mass of the people as it moves on. They are more or less plebian. The prints being intended for sale to the common people, the subjects of them, however skilfully handled, had to be commonplace. They were not purchased by the nobility or higher classes. Soldiers, farmers, and others bought them as presents (miage) for their wives and children, and they were generally sold for a penny apiece, so that in Japan [pg 23] prints were a cheap substitute for art with the lower classes, just as Raspail says garlic has always been the camphor of the poor in France. The practice of issuing Ukiyo e prints at very low prices still continues in Tokyo, where every week or two such colored publications are sprung up in front of the book-stalls and are still as eagerly purchased by the common people as they were in Tokugawa days.

The prices the old prints now bring are out of all proportion to their intrinsic value, yet, such is the crescendo craze to acquire them that Japan has been almost drained of the supply, the number of prints of the best kind being limited, like that of Cremona violins of the good makers.

Prints are genuine originals of a first or subsequent issue, called respectively, sho han and sai han, or they are reproductions more or less cleverly copied upon new blocks, or they are fraudulent imitations (ganbutsu) of the original issues, often difficult to detect. The very wormholes are burnt into them with senko or perfume sticks and clever workmen are employed to make such and other trickery successful. A long chapter could be written about their dishonest devices. Copies of genuine prints (hon koku), made from new blocks after the manner of the ancient ones, abound, and were not intended to pass for originals. Yedo, where the print industry was chiefly carried on, has had so many destructive conflagrations that most of the old Ukiyo e blocks have been destroyed. At Nagoya the house of To Heki Do still preserves the original blocks of the mangwa or miscellaneous drawings of [pg 24] Hokusai, but they are much worn. Prints are known by various names, such as ezoshi (illustrations), nishiki e, edo e (Yedo pictures), sunmono and insatsu. It may be of interest to know that the print blocks, when so worn as to be no longer serviceable for prints, are sometimes converted into fire-boxes (hibachi) and tobacco trays (tobacco bon) which, when highly polished, are decorative and unique.

Perhaps a useful purpose prints have served is to record the manners and customs of the people of the periods when they were struck off. They show not only prevailing styles of dress and headdress, but also the pursuits and amusements of the common folk. They are excellent depositaries of dress pattern (moyo) or decoration, upon which fertile subject Japan has always been a leading authority. In the early Meiji period print painters frequently delegated such minute pattern work to their best pupils, whose seals (in) will be found upon the prints thus elaborated. The prints preserve the ruling fashions of different periods in combs and other hair ornaments, fans, foot-gear, single and multiple screens, fire-boxes and other household ornaments and utensils. They also furnish specimens of temple and house architecture, garden plans, flower arrangements (ike bana), bamboo, twig and other fences. Again, they reproduce the stage, with its famous actors in historical dramas; battle scenes, with warriors and heroes; characters in folk-lore and other stories, and wrestling matches, with the popular champions; and we will often find upon [pg 25] the face of the print good reproductions of Chinese and Japanese writing, in poems and descriptive prose pieces. Hokusai illustrated much of the classic poetry of China and Japan, as well as the senjimon, or Thousand Character Chinese classic, a work formerly universally taught in the Japanese schools. The original characters for this remarkable compilation were taken from the writings of Ogishi. The prints have aided in teaching elementary history to the young; the knowledge of Japanese children in this connection is often remarkable and may be attributed to the educational influence of the Ukiyo e publications.

So there are certainly good words to be said for the prints, but they are not Japanese art in its best sense, however interesting as a subordinate phase of it, and in no sense are they Japanese painting.

If limited to a choice of one artist of the Ukiyo e school, no mistake would be made, I think, in selecting Hiroshige, whose landscapes fairly reproduce the sentiment of Japanese scenery, although the prints bearing his name fall far short of reproducing that artist's color schemes. Hokusai's reputation with foreigners is greater than Hiroshige's, but Japanese artists do not take Hokusai seriously. His pictures, they declare, reflect the restlessness of his disposition; his peaks of Fuji are all too pointed, and his manner generally is exaggerated and theatrical. Utamaro's women of the Yoshiwara are certainly careful studies in graceful line drawing,—as correct as Greek drapery in marble.

Iwasa Matahei, the founder of the popular school, was a pupil of Mitsunori, a Kyoto artist and follower of Tosa. Matahei disliked Tosa subjects and preferred to depict the fleeting usages of the people, so he was nicknamed Fleeting World or Ukiyo Matahei, and thus originated the name Ukiyo e or pictures of every-day life. There are no genuine Matahei prints. He dates back to the seventeenth century. Profile faces in original screen paintings by him have an Assyrian cast of countenance, the eye being painted as though seen in full face.

Hishikawa Moronobu was his follower and admirer. He was an artist of Yedo. Nishikawa Sukenobu belonged to the Kano school and was a pupil of Kano Eiko. He adopted the Ukiyo e style and depicted the pastimes of women and the portraits of actors. He lived two hundred and twenty years ago and in his time prints came greatly into vogue. Torii Kyonobu painted women and actors and invented the kind of pictured theatrical powers which are still in fashion, placarded at the entrance to theaters and showing striking incidents in the play.

Suzuki Harunobu never painted actors, preferring to reproduce the feminine beauties of his time. It was to his careful work that was first applied the term nishiki e or brocade pictures, on account of the charm of his decorative manner. He lived one hundred and thirty years ago.

Among the many able foreign writers on Japanese prints Fenollosa stands prominent. He resided for a long time in Japan, understood and spoke the [pg 27] language, and lived the life of the people. He was in great sympathy with them and with their art and enjoyed exceptional opportunities for seeing and studying the best treasures of that country. Had he possessed the training necessary to paint in the Japanese style I do not think he would have devoted so much time to Japanese woodcuts. Visiting me at Kyoto, where I was busily engaged in painting, “Ah!” he cried, “that is what I have always longed to do. Sooner or later I shall follow your example.” But he never did. Instead, he issued a large work on Japanese prints. His death was a real loss to the art literature of Japan. During eight years he was in the service of the Japanese government ransacking, cataloguing and photographing the multitudinous art treasures, paintings, kakemono, makimono, and byobu (pictures, scrolls and screens), to be found in the various Buddhist and other temples and monasteries scattered throughout the empire. The last time we met, he remarked, “How can one willingly leave this land of light? Japan, to my mind, stands for whatever is beautiful in nature and true in art; here I hope to pass the remaining years of my life.” Such was his genuine enthusiasm, engendered by a long acquaintance with art and everything else beautiful in that country. Japan impresses in this way all who see it under proper conditions, but unfortunately the ordinary traveler, pushed for time, and whose acquaintance is limited to professional guides, never gets much beyond the sights, the shops and the curio dealers.

Snow Scene in Kaga, by Kubota Beisen. Plate IV.

The question is often asked, “Is there any good book on Japanese painting?” I know of none in any language except Japanese. The following are among the best works on the subject:

	A History of Japanese Painting (Hon Cho Gashi), by Kano Eno.
	A Treasure Volume (bampo zen sho), by Ki Moto Ka Ho.
	The Painter's Convenient Reference (Goko Ben Ran), by Arai Haku Seki.
	A Collection of Celebrated Japanese Paintings (Ko Cho Meiga shu e), by Hiyama Gi Shin.
	Ideas on Design in Painting (To Ga Ko), by Saito Heko Maro.
	A Discourse on Japanese Painting (Honcho Gwa San), by Tani Buncho.
	Important Reflections on All Kinds of Painting (Gwa Jo Yo Ryaku), by Arai Kayo.
	A Treatise on Famous Japanese Paintings (Fu So Mei Gwa Den), by Hori Nao Kaku.
	Observations on Ancient Pictures (Ko Gwa Bi Ko), by Asa Oka Kotei.
	A Treatise on Famous Painters (Fu So Gwa Jin), by Ko Shitsu Ryo Chu.
	A Treatise on Japanese Painting (Yamato Nishiki Kem Bun Sho), by Kuro Kama Shun Son.
	A Treatise on the Laws of Painting (Gwafu), by Ran Sai, a pupil of Chinanpin. The work is voluminous and is both of great use and authority.
	Cho Chu Gwa Fu, by Chiku To.
	Sha Zan Gakugwa Hen, by Buncho.

Translations of all these works into English are greatly to be desired.

There is much that has been sympathetically written and published about Japanese paintings both in Europe and America, but however laudatory, it might be all summed up under the title, “Impressions of an Outsider.” Such writings lack [pg 29] the authority which only constant labor in the field of practical art can confer. A Japanese artist, by which I mean a painter, is long in making. From ten to fifteen years of continuous study and application are required before much skill is attained. During that time he gradually absorbs a knowledge of the many principles, precepts, maxims and methods, which together constitute the corpus or body of art doctrine handed down from a remote antiquity and preserved either in books or perpetuated by tradition. Along with these are innumerable art secrets called hiji or himitsu, never published, but orally imparted by the masters to their pupils—not secrets in a trick sense, but methods of execution discovered after laborious effort and treasured as valued possessions. It is obvious, then, how incapable of writing technically upon the subject must anyone be who has not gone through such curriculum and had drilled into him all that varied instruction which makes up the body of rules applicable to that art.

I have read many seriously written appreciations of Japanese paintings published in various modern languages, and even some amiable imaginings penned for foreigners by Japanese who fancy they know by instinct what only can be acquired after long study and practice with brush in hand. All such writers are characterized in Japan by a very polite term, shiroto—which means amateur. It also has a secondary signification of emptiness.

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