NOTAN
VIII.—HARMONY-BUILDING WITH DARK-AND-LIGHT
As there is no one word in English to express the idea contained in the phrase “dark-and-light,” I have adopted the Japanese word “no-tan” (dark, light). It seems fitting that we should borrow this art-term from a people who have revealed to us so much of this kind of beauty. “Chiaroscuro” has a similar but more limited meaning. Still narrower are the ordinary studio terms “light-and-shade,” “shading,” “spotting,” “effect” that convey little idea of special harmony-building, but refer usually to representation.
Notan, while including all that these words connote, has a fuller meaning as a name for a great universal manifestation of beauty.
Darks and lights in harmonic relations—this is Notan the second structural element of space-art; p. 7.
The Orientals rarely represent shadows; they seem to regard them as of slight interest—mere fleeting effects or accidents. They prefer to model by line rather than by shading. They recognize notan as a vital and distinct element of the art of painting.
The Buddhist priest-painters of the Zen sect discarded color, and for ages painted in ink, so mastering tone-relations as to attract the admiration and profoundly influence the art of the western world.
Our etching and book illustration have long felt the effect of contact with Japanese classic painting, though the influence came indirectly through the Ukiyoye color prints and books. Such names as Kakei, Chinese of the Sung dynasty (p. 96), Soga Shubun, the Chinese who founded a school in Japan in the fifteenth century (p. 17), Sesshu, one of the greatest painters of all time (p. 97), Sotan, Soami, Motonobu, Tanyu are now placed with Titian, Giorgione (p. 51), Rembrandt, Turner, Corot and Whistler. The works of Oriental masters who felt the power and mystery of Notan are becoming known through the reproductions that the Japanese are publishing, and through precious examples in our own museums and collections. This in one of the forces tending to uproot our traditional scientific art teaching which does not recognize Dark-and-Light as worthy of special attention.
Appreciation of Notan and power to create with it can be gained, as in the case of Line, by definite study through progressive exercises. At the outset a fundamental fact must be understood, that synthetically related masses of dark and light convey an impression of beauty entirely independent of meaning,—for example, geometric patterns or blotty ink sketches by Dutch and Japanese.