Keisho literally means shape, but in oriental art it signifies also the proprieties; it is a law which enforces among other things canons of good taste and suppresses all exaggerations, inartistic peculiarities and grimaces.
The law touching historical subjects and the manner of painting them is called ko jutsu. Special principles apply to this department of Japanese art. The historical painter must know all the historical details of the period to which his painting relates, including a knowledge of the arms, accoutrements, costumes, ornaments, customs and the like. This subject covers too vast a field and is too important to be summarily treated here. Suffice it to say that there have been many celebrated historical painters in Japan. I recall, on the other hand, a picture once exhibited by a distinguished Tokyo artist which was superbly executed but wholly ignored by the jury because it violated some canon applicable to historical painting.
The term yu shoku refers to the laws governing the practices of the Imperial household, Buddhist and Shinto rites. Before attempting any work of art in which these may figure the painter must be thoroughly versed in the appointments of palace interiors, the rules of etiquette, the occupations and pastimes of the Emperor, court nobles (Kuge), daimyo and their military attendants (samurai), the costumes of the females (tsubone) of the Imperial household and their duties and accomplishments. The Tosa school made a thorough familiarity with such details its specialty. All Buddhist paintings come under the law of yu shoku.
Let us next consider briefly some of the principles applicable to Japanese landscape painting. Landscapes are known in art by the term san sui, which means mountain and water. This Chinese term would indicate that the artists of China considered both mountains and water to be essential to landscape subjects, and the tendency in a Japanese artist to introduce both into his painting is ever noticeable. If he cannot find the water elsewhere he takes it from the heavens in the shape of rain. Indeed, rain and wind subjects are much in favor and wonderful effects are produced in their pictures suggesting the coming slorm, where the wind makes the bamboos and trees take on new, weird and fantastic shapes.
The landscape [(Plate XVIII)] contains a lofty mountain, rocks, river, road, trees, bridge, man, animal, et cetera. The first requisite in such, a composition is that the picture respond to the law [pg 52] of ten chi jin, or heaven, earth and man. This wonderful law of Buddhism is said to pervade the universe and is of widest application to all the art of man. Ten chi jin means that whatever is worthy of contemplation must contain a principal subject, its complimentary adjunct, and auxiliary details. Thus is the work rounded out to its perfection.
Tiger, by Kishi Chikudo. Plate VI.
This law of ten chi jin applies not only to painting but to poetry (its elder sister), to architecture, to garden plans, as well as to flower arrangement; in fact, it is a universal, fundamental law of correct construction. In [Plate XVIII] the mountain is the dominant or principal feature. It commands our first attention. Everything is subservient to it. It, therefore, is called ten, or heaven. Next in importance, complimentary to the mountain, are the rocks. These, therefore, are chi, or earth; while all that contributes to the movement or life of the picture, to wit, the trees, man, animal, bridge and river, are styled jin, or man, so that the picture satisfies the first law of composition, namely, the unity in variety required by ten chi jin.
There is another law which determines the general character to be given a landscape according to the season, and is thus expressed: Mountains in spring should suggest joyousness; in summer, green and moisture; in autumn, abundance; in winter, drowsiness. The formula runs as follows: shun-zan, warau gotoshi; kazan, arau gotoshi; shuzan, yoso gotoshi; tozan, nemurugotoku.
Similarly, according to the season, there are four principal ways of painting bamboo (chiku). In fair-weather bamboo (sei chiku) the leaves are spread out joyously; in rainy-weather bamboo (uchiku) the leaves hang down despondently; in windy-weather bamboo (fuchiku) the leaves cross each other confusedly, and in the dew of early morning (rochiku) the bamboo leaves all point upwards vigorously [(Plate LIII a 1 to a 4)].