27 MARCH 1886, Page 16

BOOKS.

JAPANESE PICTORIAL ART.• THE fertility of Sinico-Japanese art was prodigious. A com- plete list of the painters whose works have been examined for the purposes of the present treatise would fill several score of octavo pages printed in double columns ; and the examples of Japanese art collected by the author during a six-years' residence in Tokio, most of which are now in the British Museum, exceed in number the pictures that cover the walls of the foreign wing of the National Gallery. The immensity of the mass of materials these facts indicate was far from being the only difficulty Mr. Anderson had to cope with in the accomplishment of his task. A minute acquaintance with the annals, religions, folk-lore, and customs of the East, demanding wide and patient research—well exemplified in the description of Plate 70—was equally necessary ; and the com- plete treatise will add largely to our knowledge of the workings of the Oriental mind, as well as form a contribution of un- equalled value to the history of Oriental art. The work will contain eighty full-page illustrations, many executed by chromo- lithography, together with some hundreds of woodcuts printed with the text. The first part, with which we are at present con- cerned, deals with the general history of the subject, the second will treat of the methods, the third of the forms, and the last of the characteristics, of Japanese art, the whole closing with an outline of the history and characteristics of the pictorial art of China.

It was neither through conquest nor commerce that the rude dwellers on the great Ozaka plain, who laid the foundations of the Japanese State, were brought under the influence of the art, literature, and philosophy of the Middle Kingdom. In the earlier centuries of our era, Buddhism, dead or dying in its birth-land, was extraordinarily active on the frontiers of the terri- tory conquered by its apostles. Buddhist missionaries crossed from Korea to Japan in the sixth century, and one of the principal methods they employed for the propagation of their doctrine was its illustration by images and pictures representing the venerable forms and pious lives of the Buddha and his disciples. The stubbornness of unbelievers, and the backslidings of con- verts, soon necessitated the delineation of the torments of hell ; but as the new faith gained acceptance, a milder spirit ruled, and the artist, still essentially religions, began to portray the beauties of Nature,—the blossoming bush, the painted flower, the graceful flight of birds, the gliding movements of fish, and the picturesque and reposeful aspects of the surrounding landscape. The success of the Korean missionaries awoke the emulation of the Chinese, and the literates and painters of the Middle Kingdom began to cross the fabled Eastern sea, in search of fame and fortune among a people so frankly recipient of Celestial civilisation as the young folk of the Land of Reedy Moors. As early as the eighth century, a Chinese painter was gratified with the title of Yamato Yeshi, which may be rendered " Court Painter of Japan ;" and the native literature of the period shows that less than two centuries' intercourse with China had sufficed so thoroughly to transform the Japanese people and State, that none but vague memories were preserved, in more or less sinicised legends and traditions, of their pristine condition.

Thus the art, like the civilisation of Japan, had its origin in the fervent proselytism of the followers of Sakya, and was at first wholly Chinese, or, to speak more accurately, Sinico-Indian and religions in character. Of the schools that successively arose in the course of its development, and never greatly swerved from the principles that guided the work of the earliest amongst them, Mr. Anderson gives an excellent historical and descriptive account, to which space compels us to refer the reader. For practical purposes they fall under two categories, to which the terms " Sinico-Japanese " and " Native " may be respectively applied. The former category may be further divided

• The Pictorial Arta of Japan. With numerous Plates, Obromo-lithographs, and Woodcuts, and General and Descriptive Text. By William Anderson, P.R.C.B.,late Medical Officer to the British Legation, Tokio. Part I. Loudon : Sampson Low. 1886.

into the sub-categories of Buddhistic, or Religions and Profane, schools. It must be remembered, however, that most Japanese artists belonged more or less to schools of all three categories, though they usually shone as members of one particular school only. The native rather than the exotic schools have attracted the preference of the present writer, and nothing in the volume, or rather portfolio, under review tends to modify opinions long held as to their comparative merits. Buddhist demons, hells, and the like, belong to the conventional grotesque, and inspire aversion where they do not create tedium, but never excite horror. The faces of the Buddha himself, of the late Buddha known as Amida, and of the Chinese goddess Kwanyin, arrogated by the Buddhists, are types of which Greek repose, as is well seen in Plate 10, is the characteristic beauty. The comparative accuracy of muscular delineation displayed in the sculptures represented in Plates 1, 2, and 4—(is there, by-the-bye, any authority, inscriptional or other, for the dates given, which reach as far back as the beginning of the seventh century ?)—and so lamentably absent from later Chinese and Japanese work, is a heritage from the Greek artists whom Alexander's campaigns brought into intercourse with the Buddhists of North-Western India. In their Buddhist pictures and carvings, neither the Chinese nor the Japanese were original ; but the former were far more so than the latter, who were principally copyists of copyists, though we do not yet know to what extent the Chinese were indebted to Indian prototypes. A picture of the Buddha, by Liang-t'ai, a painter of the Sung dynasty (twelfth century), recently exhibited in Paris, though plainly inspired by an Indian original, portrays the resignation and benevolence characteristic of the son of Maya with a truth and power that denote a creative genius of the highest order, and will stand comparison with the best work of the primitive Christian painters of Northern Italy.

The earlier painters of the Profane schools were for the most part slavish followers of the great artists of the T'ang and Sung dynasties. A sort of Chinese renaissance took place in the fifteenth century, and the names of Shiubun, Meicho, Motonobu, and Sesshin, which belong to this period, are the most venerated in the annals of Japanese art. Of Motonobu, the great Japanese encyclopaedia (Wakan sanzai dzuye) says,—" He was the prince of painters, almost a god in his power." Examples of the three latter are given in the present portfolio, amongst which the exquisite chromo-lithograph of the arhat, or saint (Plate 8), by Meicho, is a strikingly beautiful work. Plate 41 is an evert more perfect specimen of tke extraordinary skill of the chromo- lithographer—Greve, of Berlin—though the work itself, save as an example of the artist's dexterity in dealing with com- plicated arrangements of colour, is of comparatively mediocre quality.

The Native school may be said to have originated with the Abbot Toba in the twelfth century. An example of his style, not without vigour, is given on page 33, representing the fright of a couple of countrymen at the apparition of a corpse rising from a well. In the sixteenth century, Iwasa Matahei founded the celebrated Mayo-ye, passing-world-picture or popular school. The style and method were still mainly Chinese, but a sincere attempt was made to represent things as they really are. A new life, in fact, was breathed into art, like that which the Gothic Lombards infused into the Byzantine classicism of the fourteenth century. By far the greatest name of the school was Hokusai, who died a nonagenarian in 1849. Unlike nearly all his predecessors, he was a heiinin (commoner). That he possessed true genius there can be no manner of doubt, as we see the moment we turn from his sketches of demons, dragons, heroes, at hoc genus omne, to his portrayals of the scenes and scenery amid which he lived. Two fairly representative examples of his work are given,—one an interior of a Chinese temple, drawn in nearly true perspective ; and another which Mr. Anderson calls "The Maniac." Of the latter, both the title and description appear to be in some degree misconceptions,—in fact, the motives of the Mayo-ye artists are not always easy to apprehend. We hasten to add that the inaccuracy (if it be such) is the only one we have detected in the text, general or descriptive. The legend in the right upper corner of the picture reads, " Kiy6-jo ch& ni tawamurern," which we take to mean, "A crazy woman [rather than a maniac'] amusing herself with chasing butterflies." At the exteme right-hand edge of the sketch, a couple of butter- flies are, in fact, to be seen. A number of urchins are teasing the poor creature, while a couple of women and a peasant look stolidly on. The sketch, which is fluently drawn, is distinguished

by a unity and breadth of composition that show a master's hand. To appreciate, however, the productionsof the Ulreiyo.ye school, some familiarity with Japanese life and scenery is necessary.

- Landscape is very imperfectly treated in far-Eastern art. The delineation of schistose rock-surface in Wutaotsu's mountain and waterfall (Plate 71) shows wonderful power, but the monotonous brush-strokes that do duty for much of the detail of the picture are nothing but symbolic writing. Work of this kind can please no one who remembers the con- scientious attention to incident displayed in the Direr wood- cuts. Nor do the landscapes reproduced on Plates 16 and 55, considered as pictorial efforts, merit any very high praise ; they are too " blottesque " in character to excite much pleasure, though not without a certain charm for those who have become accustomed to the conventionalities of Sinico-Japanese art. On

the other hand, the outline landscapes, common in the Afeisho (illustrated descriptions of the provinces), much less ambitions in aim, are full of power, as a glance at the examples printed in the text will show, though they presuppose some familiarity with Japanese scenery. The calligraphic style is well represented by Muh-ki's crow (Plate 75), and has become familiar through the innumerable bird and flower compositions (which the greatest of Japanese writers, Motoori, so cordially detested) that have reached Europe within recent years. These ars, for the most part, merely dexterous transcripts from the works and albums of generations of teachers, from the Chinese Muh-ki (eleventh century) downwards, and are essentially Chinese in conception and treatment. The shoal of carp (Plate 59), by an artist of the present century, is a most beautiful example of the modern non- Europeanised school ; a perfunctory execution of detail, however, is manifest in the monotonous and somewhat faithless rendering of the scales. A hint is once or twice thrown out that Sinico- Japanese art ought not to be judged by European canons, and so far as these are merely academical, the hint may be accepted. But a system of art, whatever its locus, must ultimately have its hierarchical position determined according to a real, not a comparative, standard,—in other words, by the essential canons of art ; and these are what their works teach us were observed by the sculptors of Greece, the great Italian painters, and the founder of modern landscape, Turner. Art, in fact, must be faithful to Nature as understood by a penetrative artist-mind of that lofty aim which, as Browning teaches us, although unrealised, yet "surpasses even little works achieved."

Here we must stop for the present, reserving a more detailed criticism of Japanese art until the remaining parts shall have appeared. Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson has fully shown that, despite its lack of knowledge, science, and thought, the narrow- ness of its limits, and its comparatively low aim, the art of Japan displays broadcast over the works of its practitioners the stamp of a high faculty, bordering upon, if not attaining, genius. Of the present instalment, it is not too much to say that it is nothing less than a revelation ; but it is impossible to give anything like an adequate notion of the wealth and variety of its contents within the limits of a review. Suffice it to say that the text is exhaustive and learned, but never dull or tedious, the illustra- tions well chosen, representative, and admirably executed, especially the chromo-lithographs, and the topography and general get-up all that can be desired. The design on the cover is, we believe, Mr. Anderson's own, and proves his 'title to be a judge of Japanese art. A rougher paper, perhaps, would have suited the woodcuts better than the smooth-surfaced one which has been used, and which gives them a slightly nnpleasing sharpness; and the sculpture, ceramics, lacquer, textiles, and bronze of Japan, hardly come within the scope of a work on pic- torial art. The painters and sketchers were alone creative. The other art-workers of Japan, excepting the portrait-sculptors of the seventeenth century, were craftsmen who depended on the painters for their subjects and compositions, but craftsmen often of high, occasionally of unsurpassed, quality.

This, however, by the way. If author and publishers complete their task in the spirit of the present part performance, neither, we feel assured, will have any reason to complain of the in- difference of the public, to whom the art of the remotest East., not unworthy, in point of grace and vigour, of comparison with European art, within the limits imposed by differences of history and circumstance, is now for the first time presented with adequate historical and descriptive comment, and unequalled fullness, beauty, and variety of illustration.