The two ribbons, which so pleasantly break the monotony of the upper part of the mount, are not merely ornamental. When the moving screens forming the side of the house have been moved back for coolness, and the kakemono hangs in the open air, the futai, as these ribbons are called, flap in the breeze, and prevent birds from alighting on the upper roller.

The makimono, or horizontal roll, is largely used for historical scenes or for landscape sketches, the series, many feet long, often forming one continuous composition. It is not hung up but laid on the floor, and unrolled and examined bit by bit, as we would look at the pictures in a book. Originally the kakemono was exclusively used for sacred, and the makimono for secular, subjects, but this distinction has long since ceased to exist.

A third form, gaku, is stretched on a frame, after the manner of our pictures, but is little used.

Screens, both folding and sliding, were greatly used for the longer and more important pictures. Sometimes a screen of five or six panels will be so treated that while the whole forms one composition yet each panel taken separately also forms a complete picture. Books, each page stiff and opening on a hinge like a miniature screen, are also used. Lastly, mural decorations on wood or plaster, and the dainty little paintings on fans, complete the forms of pictorial art most in vogue in Japan.

Some time about the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century the Buddhist priests crossed over from Korea, and formed the first Japanese school of painting, devoted almost entirely to the sacred subjects which were used to decorate the Buddhist shrines. Very beautiful and dignified are many of these old Butsugwa paintings, recalling in their rich, full colour and their lavish use of gold the illuminations and early paintings of our European monasteries. In most cases they are unsigned, the holy man deeming it unfitting that objects intended for such sacred uses should be contaminated by earthly associations. The British Museum collection contains several fine specimens, which, though faded and sadly blackened with incense fumes, show these early works worthy to compare, for elevation of tone and religious fervour, with the finest works of Christian art.

For many years this Buddhist school of painting continued, its traditions lasting without a break until the fifteenth century. And here at the outset it will be well to call attention to a difficulty which arises in any attempt to give a brief and clear account of the history of painting in Japan. The matter is complicated by the fact that, though the different schools of painting are evolved one from the other, the later did not supersede the earlier form, but usually both continued to exist contemporaneously. Many artists painted in the styles of more than one school, the manner often being decided by the choice of subject, and latterly it was part of the training of Japanese artists to go through all the schools.

Then, again, some of the greatest masters, especially those of the last two centuries, formed their styles by adopting and combining what appeared to them best in each school. To follow out logically the growth of the various schools, and at the same time to treat of the different artists in a chronological order, is, therefore, a matter of some difficulty.

The oldest picture in Japan of which there is any authentic record was painted, probably by a Korean priest in the beginning of the seventh century, on the plaster wall of the Buddhist temple Horiuji at Nara, a storehouse filled with treasures of ancient art. For three hundred years little more is known—the names of a few priests and one or two priceless paintings are all that remain; but by the ninth century civilisation had reached an advanced stage, the country was rich and prosperous, and entered into a great literary and artistic epoch. The poets Narihira and Komachi, still ranked among the immortals, were contemporaries of Kosé no Kanaoka, the first great secular painter of Japan, and, if the double evidence of popular legend and the verdict of critics and artists of his own and later days is to be believed, the greatest of all Japanese artists. About a dozen examples, said to be by Kanaoka, exist, but, one by one, the genuineness of each has been questioned by experts. Perhaps the most authentic is the portrait of Shotoku Daishi at the Ninnaji temple in Kioto, which has been reproduced in colours in the Kokkwa, the Japanese Government publication. Although nearly all the existing pictures attributed to him are Buddhistic figure pieces, Kanaoka’s popular reputation was based on his paintings of secular subjects, portraits, landscapes, and animals. He was especially famous as a painter of horses.

The story goes that in a certain temple hung a painting by Kanaoka of a magnificent black steed. The peasants in the neighbourhood were much annoyed by the ravages of some wild animal, which nightly raided their gardens, eating the herbs and trampling the flowers. At last they lay in wait, and found to their surprise that the intruder was a huge black horse. On their pursuing it disappeared into the temple, but when they followed the building was empty. As they stood below the picture great drops of sweat fell down, and there was Kanaoka’s horse all hot and steaming. Then one of them had a happy idea. Seizing a brush he rapidly painted in a rope tethering it to a post, and the gardens were no more invaded by the nocturnal visitor.

The work of the immediate followers of Kanaoka seemed to be chiefly Buddhistic in style, but this may only mean that the only specimens which have survived the ravages of time are those sacred pieces which were safely stored in the temples, and that, like Kanaoka, they were equally at home in secular subjects.

In the tenth century Kasuga no Motomitsu founded the first purely native school, called the Yamato school, which afterwards, under the name of the Tosa school, became the recognised style for the treating of historical subjects.

The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries formed a period of great literary and artistic activity. Buddhism was then in the height of its power, and there is no greater period than this in the history of Japanese art, but of these old masters we know little more than the names. In the twelfth century we have Takuma Shoga, Sumiyoshi Keion, and Toba Sojo, the last a marvellous animal painter, but examples of their work are practically unknown out of Japan. In the thirteenth century we have Fujiwara no Nobuzané, of whose Buddhistic work the British Museum has a fine specimen; and a hundred years later Kosé no Korehisa, renowned as the greatest military painter of Japan.

In 1351 was born a truly great artist, Meicho, or Cho Densu, whom some rank as the equal of Kanaoka himself. A Buddhist priest, he was famed for his sanctity, and the bulk of his works are of a religious nature, to which field he did much to bring new life and vigour, for the school had relapsed into the dull repetition of cut-and-dry formulas. But in secular subjects he was equally great. The British Museum is fortunate enough to possess a masterpiece by Cho Densu—a figure of an Arhat seated with a lion at his feet. The whole picture is presented with extraordinary force. The attention is seized and held by the eyes of the figure as they stare fixedly at the lion, which, with head thrown back and gums bared, glares savagely in return. The drawing is superb in its easy power, the colour rich and sombre, its highest note in the bright red of the lion’s jaws.

A new influence arose with the Chinese renaissance of the fifteenth century, and we come to the times of the great landscape painters. Nothing could be further removed from the attitude of the modern European landscapist than that of these old Chinese and Japanese masters. Their object was not to depict a scene in a naturalistic manner but to convey its inmost spirit. In speaking of a painter of a later day a Japanese critic writes: “But in his landscape there is less success, as he was so particular about ensuring correctness of forms that they were lacking in high ideas and deep spirit. For a landscape painting is not loved because it is a facsimile of the natural scene but because there is something in it greater than mere accurate representation of natural forms, which appeals to our feelings, but which we cannot express in words.” It is this deeper and inner art which the old landscapists give us. In monochrome, or with a few sombre tints added, they suggest the beauty, the repose, and the dignity of nature in a way that, to my mind, no landscape painters have done before or since. One little Chinese landscape especially lingers in my memory, though it was not the original I saw, only one of the delicate collotypes which can only be produced in Japan. It was called “The Evening Bell.” On the strip of soft, brown-tinted silk is faintly touched a range of peaks against the sky; nearer is a grove of trees. Mist lies in the hollows and softens the forms, and in the distance, amid the tree-tops, peeps out a temple roof. Nothing could be slighter or yet more complete.

The old Chinese style, so strongly marked in the work of the old painter priests, had gradually fallen into disuse before the more popular Tosa style, when Josetsu, a Chinese painter, settled in Japan early in the fifteenth century. Little is known of Josetsu’s own work; but his influence soon began to make itself felt, and he gathered round him a band of pupils. Of these the most famous is Shiubun, a Buddhist priest, still regarded as one of the greatest of Japanese landscape painters. The British Museum contains a very fine painting attributed to him, though expert criticism rather inclines to assign it to a somewhat later period.