CHAPTER ONE. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

In the year 1893 I went on a short visit to Japan, and becoming interested in much I saw there, the following year I made a second journey to that country. Taking up my residence in Kyoto, I determined to study and master, if possible, the Japanese language, in order to thoroughly understand the people, their institutions, and civilization. My studies began at daybreak and lasted till midday. The afternoons being unoccupied, it occurred to me that I might, with profit, look into the subject of Japanese painting. The city of Kyoto has always been the hotbed of Japanese art. At that time the great artist, Ko No Bairei, was still living there, and one of his distinguished pupils, Torei Nishigawa, was highly recommended to me as an art instructor. Bairei had declared Torei's ability was so great that at the age of eighteen he had learned all he could teach him. Torei was now over thirty years of age and a perfect type of his kind, overflowing with skill, learning, and humor. He gave me my first lesson and I was simply entranced.

It was as though the skies had opened to disclose a new kingdom of art. Taking his brush in hand, with a few strokes he had executed a masterpiece, a loquot (biwa) branch, with leaves clustering round the ripe fruit. Instinct with life and beauty, it seemed to have actually grown before my eyes. From that moment dated my enthusiasm for Japanese painting. I remained under Nishigawa for two years or more, working assiduously on my knees daily from noon till nightfall, painting on silk or paper spread out flat before me, according to the Japanese method.

Japanese painters are generally classed according to what they confine themselves to producing. Some are known as painters of figures (jim butsu) or animals (do butsu), others as painters of landscapes (san sui), others still as painters of flowers and birds (ka cho), others as painters of religious subjects (butsu gwa), and so on. Torei was a painter of flowers and birds, and these executed by him are really as beautiful as their prototypes in nature. On [plate VII] is given a specimen of his work. He is now a leading artist of Osaka, where he has done much to revive painting in that commercial city.