PREFACE
This little book is intended not for the collector or the connoisseur, but merely for those who require an introduction to a field of art hitherto little explored but which will well repay further study.
For fuller information on the subject many sources are available, but a word of caution is necessary. A bibliography of works on Japanese art would be misleading rather than useful, for much of what has been written regarding it is, as criticism, quite valueless.
On Japanese painting the most important, indeed the only sound work, is contained in a series of articles contributed by Mr Arthur Morrison to The Monthly Review, 1902-3. The writings of Mr E. F. Strange deal fully and adequately with Colour Printing; Captain Brinkley is a good authority on Keramics, and Mr Josiah Conder on Landscape Gardening and Flower Arrangement.
The Transactions of the Japan Society contain many interesting and well-illustrated articles on Japanese minor arts, and the charm of Japanese life is nowhere reflected more pleasantly than in the writings of Sir Edwin Arnold and Mr Lafcadio Hearn.
To the custodians of public and the owners of private collections I am indebted for many courtesies, and especially to Mr M. Tomkinson, Franche Hall, Kidderminster, for permission to reproduce several of the illustrations in the sumptuous catalogue of his collection.
S. D.
October 1904.