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

by Henry P. Bowie

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.