Third period.
Coming now to Mr. Anderson’s third period, from the end of the fourteenth century to the last quarter of the eighteenth,|Meichō.| we find that Meichō seems to have been to Japanese art what Giotto was to European art, and at about the same period. We read further on that in the early part of the fifteenth century the revived Chinese movement referred to made its influence felt in Japan. |Shiūbun.| An example given by Mr. Anderson of Shiūbun’s idealized landscape painting, while far from satisfactory or even pleasing, is, we venture to think, superior to the work of Giotto. Therein is shown some power, and there is not the childishness which is visible in Giotto’s work. |Soga Jasoku.| Much more naturalistic, powerful, and pleasing are the works of Soga Jasoku, fifteenth-century Chinese school. These landscapes show the artist had a feeling for nature, and although he attempted in the upper plate (Plate 16) what we consider to be beyond the scope of art, yet in the lower the master-hand shows itself. There is atmosphere in the picture. Close observation of nature resulted in a grasp of subtlest movement and expression. |Soga Chokuan.| Witness the “Falcon and Egret” by Soga Chokuan (sixteenth century), where the power shown in depicting the grasp of the falcon’s talon as it mercilessly crushes the helpless egret, is very great. Then look at the paintings of birds in any of our books, and see how wooden, how lifeless they are, compared with even the sixteenth-century Japanese representations of bird life.
Sesshiū.
Sesshiū, we are told, was another great painter, and the founder of a school (1420-1509). This great man, we are told, “did not follow in the footsteps of the ancients, but developed a style peculiar to himself. His power was greatest in landscape, after which he excelled most in figures, then in flowers and birds,” and later on, we are told, in animals. He preferred working in monochrome, and it is said asserted “the scenery of nature was his final teacher.”
Kano school.
Then came the Kano School, all of whose artists evidently struggled for Naturalism, and had great power of expression of movement but not of form. The leader, we are told, was an eclectic, and painted Chinese landscapes in Japan, so that he must have neglected nature, and his works belong to the so-called imaginative or unnatural school. The best men of this period were decidedly impressionists, and their chief aim seems to have been to give the impression of the scene and neglect the details, and it is perfectly marvellous how well they succeeded in depicting movement by a very few lines. The “Rain Scene” by Kano Tanyu is a fine example of this.
We read that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of decadence; we conclude therefore that in Japan art reached its highest state during the second period, under Shiūbun, Soga Jasoku, Sesshiū and Tanyu, who were all students of nature, and several of whom would have been called impressionists had they painted in these days.
Matahei.
We are told that Matahei tried to found a naturalistic school, whose followers should go direct to nature for their subjects, but the movement did not receive any hearty impulse. However it was taken up afterwards by a series of book-illustrators. |Kôrin.| Next we read of Kôrin whose “works demonstrate remarkable boldness of invention, associated with great delicacy of colouring, and often ... masterly drawing and composition.” It is quite marvellous to see the work of this seventeenth-century artist.
Winding up his account of the third period, Mr. Anderson says, “But three-quarters of the eighteenth century were allowed to pass without a struggle on the part of the older schools to elevate the standard of their art, and painting was beginning to languish into inanition when the revolutionary doctrines of a naturalistic school and of a few artisan book-illustrators brought new aims and new workers to inaugurate the last and most characteristic period of Japanese art.”