CHAPTER II
PAINTING
In a general survey of the arts of Japan it will be best to begin with the art of painting. In a land of paradoxes there is this paradox regarding Japanese art, that while their pictorial art is the most decorative of all pictorial arts, yet their decorative art is the most pictorial of all decorative arts. For the Japanese decorative artist rarely or never uses ornament merely as ornament; it almost invariably represents something more than mere beauty of line, mass, or colour; there is usually some pictorial motive attached. The lacquerer, for instance, rarely uses purely conventional forms, but flowers, birds, figures, even landscapes, make up his schemes of decoration. It follows, then, that the decorative arts of Japan are dominated by, and indeed are based upon, its pictorial art, and, therefore, the necessary preliminary to their consideration is a study of the art of painting.
The European’s introduction to the study of Japanese art is apt to be rather misleading, for in all probability the first specimens which come under his notice are the colour prints and paintings of the naturalistic and decorative schools of the last century. His first shock of surprise overcome, for both the medium and the style of presentment are new and strange, he speedily discovers in them real beauties. Harmonies of line and colour, finer and more subtle than any we have to show, arouse his enthusiasm, and he thinks that he has penetrated the mysteries of Japanese art, and that all its treasures lie before him. Even were it so the boon would be no small one; but, as a matter of fact, he merely stands upon the threshold. The real glories of Japanese painting are the works of hundreds of years ago. As well could one judge of the glories of English literature from the ephemeral periodicals of the day as of the painting of old Japan from the products of the more materialistic schools of recent years. To know English literature one must read the classics; to realise its full glory we must go back to Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. And so with Japanese art, we must go back to the works of the old masters—to Cho Densu with his amazing power, to Sesshiu with his wonderful dream landscapes—ere we realise its grandeur. Then we feel that, beautiful pieces of decoration though the modern works are, here we breathe a purer and a finer air; we are in another world, a nobler and a greater one. The finest landscapes in the world are those painted by the old Chinese and Japanese artists; monochromes, slight and shadowy as morning mist, but breathing the very poetry of nature.