Two Ladies. By Hokusai.
Ukiyo-ye is the supreme expression, the concentrated essence of the schools, a river of art whose fount was India, Persia and China. For centuries it was forced into narrow channels by the haughty and exclusive aristocracy; but ever widening, its branches at last united and swept into their joyous current the common people of Japan, who, intuitively art lovers, had ever thirsted for the living stream. Now they beheld themselves reflected, in all the naturalness of daily life, yet with a spiritual rendering, “appealing,” said Jarves, “to those intuitions with which the soul is freighted when it first comes to earth, whose force is ever manifested by a longing for an ideal not of the earth, and whose presence can only be explained as an augury of a superior life to be, or else the dim reminiscence of one gone; and the recognition of this ideal is the touchstone of art—art which then becomes the solution of immortality.”
The originators of Ukiyo-ye, which included in its scope painting proper, book illustration and single-sheet pictorial prints, were Iwasa Matahei and Moronobu, followed in long succession by Shunsui, the precursor of Hokusai’s master, Shunsho; and united with it were the engravers of the Torii school, culminating in Kiyonaga (with whose grace and beauty of line Hokusai could never compete), the refined offshoot of the Kitao, and the elegant scion of Kano—Yeishi.
Hokusai’s individuality and independence long galled his master, and a final rupture was caused by the pupil’s enthusiasm for the bold and sweeping, black-and-white, calligraphic strokes of Kano. Then began a hard struggle for the youthful artist, who had no money and no influence. His father was a maker of metal mirrors, Hokusai’s real name being Nakajima Tetsu Jiro, but his pseudonyms were legion. In the atelier of Shunsho, he was called Shunro,—taking with the other disciples of this school of Katsukawa, the first syllable of his master’s name.
Cast adrift upon the streets of Yedo, he sold red pepper, and hawked almanacs, at the same time constantly studying, and seizing the best ideas from all the schools. Blent with an intuitive instinct for art, the Japanese nature is essentially histrionic, and throughout the whole career of Hokusai there is an element which is genuinely dramatic. C. J. Holmes, in his beautiful work on Hokusai, gives many romantic incidents in the artist’s life, and was it not by a theatrical tour de force that he first won popular favour?
He chose no doubt a national holiday, perhaps the festival of “Cherry Viewing,” when Uyeno Park is thronged with sightseers of every station in life. Here in the heart of the great city of Tokyo is a hallowed spot—majestic, grand and peaceful, where in mystic solemnity the sacred cedars enshrine that wondrous necropolis of illustrious dead,—for at Uyeno lie buried six of the famous Shoguns.
In the courtyard of one of the temples, Hokusai erected a rough scaffolding, upon which was spread a sheet of paper, eighteen yards long and eleven in width. Here in the sacred heart of Japan, with tubs of water and tubs of ink, the master and predestined genius of his country manifested his power. He swept his huge brush this way and that, the crowd constantly increasing in density, many scaling the temple roof to see the marvellous feat,—a colossal figure, springing into life at the touch of the creator. All who know his work can in imagination picture the grand sweeping curves and graduated shadings that the magic broom evolved; and the artistic people gazed spell-bound, while many a murmured “Naruhodo!” (Wonderful) and sibilant inhalation of the breath marked their recognition of the master’s power.
Displaying less of the artist than the genius at legerdemain were Hokusai’s street tricks—almost reprehensible did we not know the dire straits to which genius is often reduced. An eager expectant crowd dogged his footsteps and watched with delighted curiosity, while he sketched landscapes, upside down, with an egg or a bottle, or a wine measure, anything that came to his hand,—changing with bewildering effect from huge figures of Chinese heroes and demigods to microscopic drawings on grains of rice, and pictures made out of chance blots of ink.
His fame was noised abroad, and at last reached the ears of the Shogun, and now an unprecedented honour was conferred upon the humble apostle of the artisan, for he was summoned before the august presence to give an exhibition of his skill. The Japanese are ever imitative, and Hokusai may have borne in mind the legend of his prototype Sesshiu, an artist-priest of the fifteenth century, who sketched before the Emperor of China a marvellous dragon, with splashes from a broom plunged in ink.
Still more spectacular and theatrical was Hokusai’s debut, for, spreading a sheet of paper before the feet of the monarch, he covered it with a blue wash,—then seizing a live cock, he daubed its feet with a red pigment, and let it run over the wet colour, when the Shogun and his astonished courtiers beheld a flowing stream of liquid blue, upon which appeared to float filmy segregated petals of red maple leaves. A mere trick!—unworthy of genius, we might say, but Hokusai had gauged his countrymen, and knew that his jeu d’esprit would arouse and impress these aristocratic connoisseurs, jaded with ceremonial observances, more than any display of technical knowledge,—for the Japanese, as a nation, are naively childish in their love of novelty and amusement, and of the unusual and bizarre.