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ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
JAPAN: 
 
 ARTISTIC 
 
 A Monthly Illustrated Journal 
 
 OF 
 
 ARTS AND INDUSTRIES 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 S. BING 
 
 WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF 
 
 MM. PH. BURTY, EDMOND DE GONCOURT, LOUIS GONSE, T. HAYASHI, ANTONIN 
 
 PROUST, ARY RENAN, etc., in Paris. 
 
 Professor ROBERTS-AUSTEN, Mr. WM. ANDERSON, Mr. ERNEST HART, 
 
 Mr. CH. READ, in London. 
 
 Dir. Dr. JUSTUS BRINCKMANN, Dir. Professor CARL GRAFF, Dr. GEORG HIRTH, 
 Dir. Professor Dr. JULIUS LESSING, Dir. ARTHUR PABST, in Germany. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 F. M. A. 
 
 duel -coll. 
 
 ARTISTIC JAPAN, 
 
 220, FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 BRENTANO’S, 
 
 5, UNION SQUARE. 
 

 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN: 
 
 A Monthly Illustrated Journal 
 
 OF 
 
 ARTS AND INDUSTRIES. 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 S. BING. 
 
 WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF 
 
 Mr. WM. ANDERSON, MM. PH. BURTY, VICTOR CHAMPIER, TH. DURET, Mr. ERNEST HART, 
 MM. EDMOND DE GONCOURT, LOUIS GONSE, EUGENE GUILLAUME, PAUL MANTZ, 
 Professor ROBERTS-AUSTEN, MM. ROGER MARX, ANTONIN PROUST, 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 The English Edition is under the Editorship of 
 
 MR. MARCUS B. HUISH. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, M A R S T O N, S E A R L E, & RIVINGTON, 
 
 LIMITED, 
 
 s?t. IBunStan’tf $}ou£e, 
 
 FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C. 
 
Contents of Number i. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, by S. Bing. 
 
 The illustrations in the text are with few exceptions taken from the works of Katsu¬ 
 shika Hokusai, a painter and illustrator of books ; he belonged to what is known as 
 the Popular School, and was born in 1760. 
 
 4 / 1 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE SEPARATELY PRINTED PLATES. 
 
 A. View of Lake Bi wa. —This is one of the eight celebrated views on this lake. 
 
 The reproduction is from a coloured engraving by Hiro-shige, a landscape painter of 
 the Popular School, born in 1795. 
 
 C. Study of Grasses .—Facsimile of a pencil drawing. The inscription to the right 
 
 states : “ Copied from nature the 4th day of the 8th month, in the 2nd year of Kokwa 
 (1845).” The other inscriptions give indications as to the size and colour of the different 
 parts of the plant. 
 
 H. Decorative Matter, from a stencil design (nineteenth century). 
 
 E. Study of a Dead Bird. —Facsimile of a sketch dating from the end of the 
 
 eighteenth century, representing the Ikaru (Euphora personata), a native of China and 
 J apan. 
 
 G. Decorative Idea, by an artisan of the nineteenth century, composed of bands of 
 
 fern leaves on variously designed grounds. 
 
 B. Specimen of Brocade (silk) of the sixteenth century, the design wisteria 
 
 flowers. From the original. 
 
 I. Flower-Vases : bronze, dark patina, eighteenth century. 
 
 D. Group of Monkeys. —Reproduction from a kakemono painted in water-colours 
 
 by Mori Sosen, a celebrated animal painter of the Shijo School, born 1747. The 
 design on the border of the kakemono is taken from the flowers of the Clematis. 
 
 A.-J. Ornamental Designs after stencil patterns:— 
 
 1. Gourds interspersed between hexagonal ornaments taken from the scales of a 
 tortoise. 
 
 2. A medley of chrysanthemums and paulonias, these being the flowers which form 
 the Imperial badges or crests. The flowers are treated both singly and in groups. 
 The use of these flowers was forbidden except to members of the Imperial family. 
 
 3. Design of bamboo branches. This plant is used by the Japanese for almost 
 every article of daily use, and its graceful and elegant forms afford perpetually 
 recurring motives for the use of artists. 
 
 F. Mask of a No Dancer. —These dances are of very early origin, and are 
 
 connected with religious and Court ceremonies. The masks are usually of carved 
 wood lacquered, and the finest specimens are of considerable age. 
 
 The text of the Second Number will be written by M. Louis Gonse. 
 
6 4(o trcd (tu Ut’ o/?W<c 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 $ 
 
 V J 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 to unexplored regions, or the examination of recondite 
 theories. These have already been treated of by masters 
 of aesthetics, who have subjected them to the keenest analysis, 
 to the most careful verification, classification, and comparison. 
 
 Tut the section of the public which has been thus 
 catered for is a comparatively small one ; the inquiring spirit 
 who is never satisfied unless he is admitted behind the scenes, 
 and receives certificates of authenticity for every one of his much 
 piized objects as he acquires them, is only to be met with now and then. 
 These have had, as I have already said, their requirements met. To them 
 this publication is addressed, but not in the first instance. It is primarily 
 intended for the instruction of the general public in the real and rare beauties 
 of an Art which has hitherto attracted chiefly through its superficial qualities. 
 How, indeed, could this be otherwise ? In almost every country in Europe 
 (England perhaps excepted) the great State collections, in which marvels of all 
 styles, all epochs, and all lands are included, have disdainfully closed their 
 doors to Japanese Art. In the shop and the bazaar only has Japanese Art 
 been represented, and there merely in its least refined and elevated form. 
 
 There its productions, in picturesque disorder, have appealed to 
 the undiscriminating glance of the passer-by, who, indeed, could not 
 help being fascinated by the undeniable charm of nicknacks made 
 only for exportation, but who did not consider that what he saw 
 was no more than the vague reflection of an art which was formerly 
 vigorous and sound. He could not know that the sculptured groups 
 whose effeminate forms he admired had some masterpiece of life and 
 expression for their prototype; he has not been told that yonder garish 
 vase is but a feeble imitation of a piece of pottery marvellous in colour 
 and technical perfection. It is not surprising that he admired a 
 sample of tissue woven in the period of decadence, for he has 
 never seen any of those sumptuous stuffs which the artist in 
 embroidery of the feudal times covered with harmonious tints in a 
 style of lordly grandeur. Even the artist, when he stopped to 
 admire the drawings and engravings sketched with the cleverness 
 of the race by some draftsman of modern Japan, knew naught of 
 the wonderful albums in which the genius of the famous masters 
 of the bygone time was matched by that of the engravers who 
 interpreted and multiplied their works. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 It is in the power of but very few, when first they are 
 
 privileged to see side by side two phases of Japanese art_- 
 
 one in its pnme, the other in its decadence—to recognise 
 at a glance the vast distance that divides them. 
 
 It is by degrees only that the eye can dis¬ 
 tinguish between them. It is only as we 
 begin to examine them with closer attention that 
 we arrive at some knowledge of the subject, and come to see that 
 precisely the same distinction which there is in the case of the produc¬ 
 tions of our own country, exists between the masterly works of Japanese 
 art which were creations, and the current products of a modern industry, 
 in which the mighty genius of ancestral artists has been frittered away under 
 the mercantile influence of a later epoch. 
 
 This truth was, however, immediately recognised 
 by that limited number of connoisseurs who in every 
 age devote themselves to the study of the beautiful, and 
 it came with especial force to the few well-informed 
 collectors who were so fortunate as to meet at the onset 
 with specimens of a superior order. Unfortunately, such 
 specimens are rare, and are becoming more so every day, 
 and it is within the means of but few to acquire them. 
 
 Mj jk - To the great majority therefore the only way of instructing 
 
 W them as to what is really choice in Japanese Art is by 
 
 placing before them faithful reproductions of the original objects. This is the 
 task to which I am about to devote myself. I propose to furnish the lovers of 
 Japanese Art, by the aid of the best processes of engraving, with a continuous 
 series of diversified specimens, taken from every branch of that art, at all its various 
 epochs. The work will constitute a sort of graphic encyclopaedia, for the use 
 of all those students of Japanese Art who are desirous of tracing the course of 
 its development. 
 
 The present publication has yet another object. It is especially addressed 
 to those persons who, on any grounds, are interested in the future of the 
 industrial arts, and especially to those who, whether as manufacturers or as 
 ai tizans, have an active share in their production. In the new forms of art 
 which have come to us from the utter¬ 
 most parts of the East, we see something 
 more than a Platonic feast set before our 
 
 m 
 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 contemplative dilettanti, we find in them 
 examples worthy to be followed in every 
 respect, not, indeed, worthy to uproot 
 the foundations of the old aesthetic 
 edifice which exists, but fitted to add a fresh force 
 to those forces which we have appropriated to our¬ 
 selves in all past time, and brought to the support 
 and aid of our national genius. How could the 
 vitality of that genius have been maintained had 
 it not been recruited from fresh sources from time 
 to time ? Where is the civilized country, ancient 
 or modern, from which we have not at some time 
 borrowed some of its artistic culture ? Long since, alas! we exhausted the 
 patrimony of the anci'ents, and from the confines of central Asia, the cradle 
 of our race, even to oui own seaboard, nothing has been created for three 
 thousand years that we have not turned to our own uses in the endless 
 evolution, that we have not made a law to ourselves. And at last of any 
 novel addition there appeared to be no chance, when all at once, from behind 
 the barriers which a small insular people had erected around themselves with 
 jealous care, a fresh form of arc, quite startling in its novelty, revealed itself. 
 
 It was not therefore surprising that our artists and manufacturers availed 
 themselves eagerly of the discovery. Unfortunately, their precipitation was so 
 headlong that it threatened to be fatal to the cause which it was intended 
 to serve. Defective information concerning the new art led to the use of all 
 the scraps, good or bad, that came by chance into their hands, and a still oraver 
 
 4 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 mistake arose from an immoderate as well as an indiscreet 
 application of them. Time has now toned down this eagerness, and the 
 opportune moment for beginning again, with matured experience, on 
 another plan, seems to have arrived. Within the last few years extensive 
 and successful research has brought the finest models of Japanese industry to 
 western countries, and henceforth choice may be made from amongst them 
 of specimens not only racy of the soil, but possessed of that eclectic beauty 
 which is of no country. Especial care therefore ought now to be given to 
 the selection of subjects which lend themselves readily to the requirements 
 and customs of our western culture, with scrupulous avoidance of all those 
 which would encourage mere trick, or degrading imitation. Such are the 
 tendencies which will prevail in the choice of the specimens 
 which will compose the collection of which a first instalment 
 is now offered to the public, and which will gradually 
 accumulate in the series that we shall continuously 
 offer in this periodical. By them we hope that we 
 shall be enabled to estimate the marvellous fertility 
 of that Japanese imagination which has formed an 
 endless variety of brilliant designs, all bearing the 
 stamp of the purest and most ingenious taste. 
 
 Our producers will not we trust allow such valuable resources to remain 
 unutilised, for there is not one among technical designers, book illustrators, 
 architects, decorators, manufacturers of papers, printers, weavers, potters, bronze- 
 workers, or goldsmiths, and even the workers in the numberless small industries, 
 who may not derive benefit from consulting a collection which will form 
 a repertory of centuries of Japanese fine art. 
 
 It will not suffice, however, merely to borrow the designs 
 of these models ; they must be thoroughly analysed and 
 studied, with a view to arriving at their original conception. 
 This they will be found to be well worthy of, for undoubtedly 
 to discerning minds their aspect will suggest extremely 
 serious reflections upon the fundamental principles of 
 Japanese ornament as compared with the traditions of our 
 own schools. For whilst strict limits have been placed, by 
 the rigorous laws which we call our “ styles,” to the bounds 
 within which our imagination has been permitted to wander, 
 and whilst our industrial arts have in consequence assumed 
 
 5 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 a stiff and conventional character destructive to the boldness of originality, 
 Japan appears to have indulged in freedom from and laxity of rules and 
 method. Not that the Japanese artist emancipates himself from all rule, or 
 ever lets his fancy wander at haphazard. Far from this; the constant guide 
 whose indications he follows is called “Nature”; she is his sole, his revered 
 teacher, and her precepts form the inexhaustible source of his inspiration. 
 To Nature he surrenders himself with a frank fervour which expresses 
 itself in all his works, and invests them with touching sincerity. 
 
 The Japanese is drawn towards this pure ideal by a twofold 
 characteristic of his temperament. He is at once an enthusiastic 
 poet, moved by the spectacles of Nature, and an attentive and 
 minute observer of the intricate mysteries which lurk in the 
 infinitely little. It is in the spider’s web that he loves to study 
 geometry; the marks of a bird’s claw upon the snow furnish him 
 with a design for ornamentation; and when he wants to depict the 
 curves of a sinuous line he will certainly resort for inspiration to 
 the capricious ripples which the breeze draws upon the surface of 
 the waters. In a word, he is convinced that Nature contains the 
 primordial elements of all things, and, according to him, nothing exists in 
 creation, be it only a blade of grass, that is not worthy of a place in the 
 loftiest conceptions of Art. This, if I do not err, is the great and salutary 
 lesson that we may derive from the examples which he sets before us. Under 
 such influences the lifeless stiffness to which our technical designers have 
 hitherto so rigidly adhered will be relaxed by degrees, and our productions 
 will become animated by the breath of real life that constitutes the secret 
 charm of every achievement of Japanese Art. 
 
 In thus endeavouring to secure a welcome for this work, I have as yet 
 addressed myself only to the enthusiasts who have a special devotion to 
 Japanese Art, and to the larger class to whom it may be of practical use ; but 
 I have still to solicit the goodwill of that more general public, who, without 
 any set purpose, may take pleasure in looking over a publication, which, 
 although its purpose be a special one, is recommended by a tasteful array of 
 
 artistically-executed illustrations. We shall not be un¬ 
 mindful even of the interests of this branch of our 
 clientele . Sketches from Nature will alternate 
 with completed drawings by great masters ; land¬ 
 scapes, studies of birds and flowers, scenes from the 
 
 
 6 
 

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F 
 
THE 
 
 JAPANESE AS DECORATORS. 
 
 I have elsewhere expressed my opinion on the 
 artistic genius of the Japanese, and have said plainly 
 that they are the greatest decorators in the world. 
 This very decided verdict requires explanation and 
 elucidation, and this should not be inappropriate in a 
 publication especially designed to introduce the know¬ 
 ledge of, and do honour to the Art of Japan. I am 
 therefore grateful to M. Bing for having given me the 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 opportunity of unfolding shortly my opinion on a subject 
 that for a long time has deeply engrossed me. When I 
 said that the Japanese were the greatest decorators in the 
 world, I did not by any means intend to throw discredit on 
 the decorative art of other nations, or to disparage the merit 
 of productions whose artistic value is universally accepted. Such 
 products as Persian pottery, Gothic stained glass, Venetian stuffs of 
 the fifteenth century, and French furniture of the eighteenth century, 
 will always remain works of real beauty, to which no others of their kind 
 will ever be preferred. But I would draw attention to the fact that a feeling 
 for decorative art is born in the Japanese. Always and everywhere he 
 
 makes an object worthy of a decorator, and I here use the 
 word “ decorator ” in its noblest and most exalted sense. 
 Art exists for him as something more than a creation to 
 enhance the morality of life: it is to him a mental and 
 physical luxury which is intended by its refinement to increase 
 our satisfaction in living. In the same way in the higher and 
 more severe spheres, those of religious or historical art, the 
 Japanese artist submits to the ordinances of education which 
 compel him first of all to please the eye before exciting and 
 charming the intellect. He subordinates himself without any 
 apparent effort, and as if it was inherent in his nature, to all 
 the canons of taste. It is necessary to think of this in judging 
 and understanding a Japanese work of art, and this applies 
 to the commonest as to the choicest articles. If this is borne 
 in mind, then everything is clear, all explains itself, and all 
 that was inexplicable at first in those creations which are 
 Japanese in style becomes a new object of admiration. The 
 Japanese has, in common with his brethren belonging to 
 other Oriental races, an innate decorative sense; but in his 
 case it is assisted and refined by a clear conception of the 
 beauty of nature, by the influence of customs of ancient 
 date, and many other complex causes—such, for instance, 
 as his method of writing, and even of holding the brush. These have 
 enabled him to exercise to the extremest limits this decorative capacity. 
 
 This sense has been still further sharpened by a natural taste for 
 synthesis, by a marvellous instinct for the resources of colour, a thorough 
 
 From Hokusai’s Mangwa 
 (1820). 
 
 IO 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 
 V... 
 
 knowledge of 
 
 
 From an original sketch (late eighteenth 
 century). 
 
 colour harmony, 3 
 
 and a delicate per- 
 ception as to its 
 employment. This unique l 
 
 concurrence of qualities has 
 made the Japanese the most 
 thoroughly qualified nation to 
 take Art into the usages of 
 everyday life, for the ornamentation of the home ; 
 it has made them devotees of luxury, ornament, 
 grace, and originality in decoration. It is this 
 predominance over other races as regards the 
 decorative principle in every phase of Art, that has 
 given me ground for asserting that the Japanese 
 are the greatest decorators of the world. 
 
 Although I myself do not know how sufficiently 
 to praise this phase in their artistic genius, I am 
 well aware that by some it is used as an argument 
 in diminution of their artistic capacity. To such 
 as these, this power of design ought to add 
 psychological and quasi-literary suggestions which 
 should increase its value. This is the point of view 
 of the aesthetic of the Arian races, and we by no 
 means wish to speak disparagingly of it. The 
 point of view of the Japanese is more confined; 
 but, once understood, it will seem logical and 
 natural: it suits a people whose physical feelings 
 are refined in the extreme. The consequences of 
 this temperament have had their effect even on 
 the lowest branches of Japanese industry. During 
 the long periods of peace, when the creations of 
 its taste expanded themselves in all their wealth, 
 Japan was, as it were, seized with a 
 universal dilettantism. In all grades of 
 society, from the most humble workman 
 to the most accomplished prince, the 
 
 it. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 nation seemed to live for the study of 
 Art; it became, one might almost say, 
 possessed by an inherent love for the 
 beautiful. Greece alone offers 
 a parallel example of so 
 pure and complete an en¬ 
 thusiasm for the pleasures 
 of imagination and the con¬ 
 tinuous exercise of the 
 aesthetic faculties. 
 
 Religious art, so far as 
 regards the branches of painting and 
 sculpture, does not evidence in so marked 
 a degree the same love of the beautiful, but 
 still in outward form it witnesses in many 
 ways to the Japanese taste for decoration. V v ; ' : \ ; : 
 
 The great pictures of the temple, the "" ; • 
 
 Buddhist rolls with their dead-gold ornaments in the 
 style of old miniatures and with their costly mountings, . 
 
 the figures of bronze with their graceful out¬ 
 line and reposeful attitudes—all the apparatus 
 of that highly spiritual conception, the 
 religion of Buddha, is marvellously sym¬ 
 pathetic to the general idea of giving 
 pleasure to the eye. In addition to all this, the pomp of 
 ancient ceremonies, the unequalled splendour of the vestments 
 of the priests, and around all the colouring of the 
 architectural frame., and we shall have some idea of 
 the refinement which this nation of artists imparted 
 even to the minutest details of the exercise 
 of its religion. 
 
 The Japanese have nowhere given 
 fuller play to their delight in harmonising 
 colours than in the construction of their 
 temples—Buddhist or Shintoist. It is by 
 the thought bestowed upon this decoration, much more than by the structures 
 themselves, that the religious architecture of the Japanese recommends itself 
 
 From an original 
 Shigenobu 
 
 of Yanagawa 
 (1820). 
 
 From Hokkei’s Mangwa, (1820). 
 
 12 
 
From Hokusai’s Mangiua, vol. x. (1825). 
 
 ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 to the notice of the foreigner. From whatever point it is regarded it 
 seems the natural complement of the landscape; it associates itself like 
 a living organism; it is quite in keeping with the luxurious 
 vegetation which envelops it, the free growth of which 
 the Japanese take delight in, as making a picture 
 essentially picturesque. Trees, rocks, and water play 
 their part in the symphony. It is in the midst of 
 the choicest scenery that the Japanese delights to see 
 elegant porticos raising their graceful outline, arrangements of lanterns, bronze 
 vases, chapels with wonderfully carved roofs, and pagodas in red lac, whose 
 brilliant colours contrast with the green of the pine trees. It is by this 
 perfect accord between the framework and the picture that the esthetic 
 rightness of Japanese Art so strikingly affirms itself. According to this 
 sequence of ideas, the artists of Japan have produced work unequalled in 
 beauty. Look at the Temple of Nikko for instance, which was raised in 
 the seventeenth century by the Shogun Yemitsu to the memory of Yeyas 
 and see whether it was not designed quite as much for the general effect- 
 as a picturesque mise en scene, as we should say-as for its richness of 
 ornament. But what is true with regard to religious art is much more so 
 with regard to profane and familiar art. The Japanese painter in designing 
 a a emono or wall-painting always starts by remembering its particular 
 ecorative purpose, and thinks of it only as a roll of silk or paper made to 
 beautify the walls of a house. He knows that to look well on the walls of a 
 ouse it must not stand out as a spot, it must be easily read from a 
 ■stance, and it must at the same time have a quiet effect in the 
 subdued light. The formulas laid down by the old masters have been 
 carried on unchanged to modern times, namely, a simple design, 
 simple forms, a studied absence of light and shade, 
 employment of water colours, and lightness of 
 execution. One or two kakemonos hung on 
 the wooden divisions of the house, 
 
 Fragment of a composition representing a religious ceremony. From vol. v. of the Suikoden, a novel 
 
 m 90 volumes, by Hokusai (1800-1830). 
 
 13 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 a pair of movable screens, decorated like the kakemonos, 
 with some pleasant subject, a flower-vase or two, a few 
 commonplace objects in bronze or china, were deemed 
 sufficient by a Japanese of distinction for the decoration of 
 the chamber where he received his guests. It is remark¬ 
 able that the Japanese will have nothing to do with an object which does 
 not answer some particular use; he does not understand the use of anything 
 which serves the purpose merely of an art object; he is not a collector in 
 the European sense of the word ; he cannot 
 bear useless “ curios”; he likes in his home, air, 
 light, and plenty of space. But all the articles 
 used in the everyday life of the Japanese, or 
 which form part of his costume, are 
 designed so as to assume the most 
 varied forms, and they become either 
 
 by their intrinsic value, technical perfection, or the taste bestowed upon 
 them, works of Art in the highest meaning of the acceptation. 
 
 But we are trenching upon the domain of industrial art—an illimit¬ 
 able subject, wherein the power of invention shown is astounding: 
 lacquer, fabrics, chasing, pottery, engraving—all become marvellous 
 through the fairy touch of these artists. Here the genius of the Japanese 
 ■must provoke admiration, for nothing seems to have escaped them that 
 a subtle instinct for decoration would have conceived. They have 
 experimented with all forms, all combinations, all contrasts of colour, 
 and everywhere they have given proof of the greatest taste and the 
 
 most rational feeling. Those who only know Japanese Art from 
 the wretched modern products, so feeble in every way, will 
 perhaps smile at my praise; those, on the contrary, who love 
 Japanese Art, and have had chances of seeing authentic work of the 
 best time, will understand and, I hope, agree with me. The collections 
 formed by the amateurs of Paris, London, and New York give 
 us, happily, arguments of irresistible eloquence, for nowhere else can 
 one find such numerous specimens of the choicest work. Their 
 examination will show us better than all reasoning the variety and 
 ingenuity of the Japanese decorators. Every effort, every repetition, 
 every reproduction, is new, original, fresh, in perfect sympathy with 
 nature, object, and material, and, as it were, animated with a free 
 
 From an album of Hokusai, 
 signed “ Taito ” (1830). 
 
 14 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 iSSSi X ( 
 
 iTWh^An^C. 
 
 From an original sketch (late eighteenth century). 
 
 and airy grace. Yes, I repeat it, the Japanese are the 
 greatest decorators of the world. 
 
 They may have failed to adequately translate the 
 beauties of the human form, or the heights and depths of portraiture, but 
 
 they have carried picturesque treatment of line and colour further than any 
 other race. 
 
 I shall hope to return to some of the points that I have just glanced 
 at here, and show some of the lessons to be learnt from them. 
 
 LOUIS GONSE. 
 
NOTES UPON THE ILLUSTRATIONS TO Nos. 1 and 2. 
 
 When we first determined to offer to the public a work dealing 1 with Japanese Art, we did 
 not propose to supplement the illustrations with detailed explanation, for we considered that 
 each representation so clearly explained itself, that it would not require any commentary. But 
 others are not of our way of thinking, and therefore we shall in future to give a short epitome 
 of the history, character, and the peculiarities of our illustrations. 
 
 Taking up first those illustrations which deal with the art of painting, we would draw attention 
 to three distinct styles represented by the plates lettered D. (No. i), G.-G. (No. 2), and the 
 double-page plate (No. 2). None of these belong to the early academic or rival styles, known by 
 the names of the Tosa and Kano Schools. At the date of the oldest of the three, that of the 
 figure of a woman (the double-page plate, No. 2), these schools were in rapid decadence. The 
 dawn was breaking of a new style which was to revive the languishing strength of the painter’s 
 art, and to break through stiff rules which had been rigidly followed for many centuries. This 
 was the glorious epoch of Genroku (1688-1704),* when the whole nation seemed possessed 
 by an artistic furore. It was then that Moronobu flourished, the founder of the Popular School, 
 called Ukioye, of which Hokusai was the most perfect example. 
 
 The full-length portrait which (double-page plate, No. 2) we give is the work of Kaigetsudo, 
 one of the most brilliant pupils of Moronobu; he lived in the period 1716-1735. It is hardly 
 necessary to set out the masterly qualities which characterise this painting. The colour and 
 the gold so cleverly arranged, the harmony of the tones of colour, combine to heighten the 
 rich effect of a dress, the design of which is drawn with a vigour and certainty of handling 
 only to be found in the work of great artists. In Japanese paintings, more perhaps than in 
 any others, boldness and freedom in the brush-work are the invariable evidences of a master.! 
 
 Plate D., No. 1, offers us an example of another naturalistic school—known by the name 
 of Shijo, and founded at Kioto by Maruyama Okio (born 1733). This kakemono, representing 
 monkeys, is by Mori Sosen, born in 1747. The execution displays a genius for this style of 
 subject which is unequalled. It is said that Sosen passed the greater part of his existence in 
 the forests, in order to study the habits of animals in their wild state. 
 
 Plate G.-G. (No. 2), reproduces another kakemono of the same (Shijo) school. Here we 
 find a poetical landscape, painted in the early morning; the plains are lost to sight in a misty 
 atmosphere, which in Japan invariably calls forth the praises of the poet. The vapours which 
 
 * In Japan and in China, no calendar was known by which time was measured by regular intervals. Time in history 
 was divided into periods or cycles (called “ Nengo ”) of an uncertain duration, the beginning of each of which coincided with 
 some memorable event. 
 
 t To give an idea of the masterly drawing of this picture, we may add that in the original kakemono the figure measures 
 thirty inches in height. 
 
 16 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 cling to the. summits of the mountains or float down into the valleys form, during the greater 
 part of the year, a gauzy moving curtain through which the landscape seems but a mirage, 
 
 now assuming a solid form, and again veiling itself in uncertainty. In all times, and to all 
 artists, this condition of nature has been a favourite subject. 
 
 Passing now to our reproduction of engravings in colour, we find in Plate A. (No. l) an 
 example of a landscape with a clear bright atmosphere, a light mist only hiding the foot of 
 the mountain and rendering the hulls of the distant fishing-boats indistinct. The delicate touch 
 
 of the brush here gives way to the more precise and firm lines of the graver, and to the strength 
 of colour which a wood-block always produces. 
 
 The artist (Hiroshige) here represents the margin of the lovely Lake Biwa, whose shape 
 suggests the musical instrument like a guitar, which is called by the same name. 
 
 Hiroshige was born at Yedo in 1797, and belonged to the popular school; he treated 
 every imaginable subject, but above all landscape, which he rendered in an original manner. 
 
 In the plate G.-C. (No. 2), which reproduces an engraving from a work by Hokusai, we 
 now arrive at subjects taken from everyday life. These are treated with a clearnesl of 
 perception and a frankness so refreshing, the feeling in them is so natural and yet so personal, 
 everything is so intensely lifelike, and drawn with so sure a touch, that it requires but little 
 insight into Japanese Art to recognise the artist who produced them. It can be none other 
 than the great master Hokusai. What a vast difference exists between these sketches and 
 the portrait of the young woman by Kaigetsudo! The latter showed the first efforts of 
 the realistic school to break away from the trammels of tradition, but still evidences the 
 calm and almost severe style of the classic school; whereas Hokusai’s two drawings are the 
 
 product of an ait completely freed from all the obstacles which formerly held in bondage its 
 creative fancy. 
 
 Plate G.-D. (No. 2), which finishes for a time our series of reproductions of engravings, 
 
 is of a very modest tone. It does not pretend to amuse us with any lively story; but instep' 
 
 .t speaks very plainly of the peaceful life of a flower. It would be difficult to find a truer 
 
 portrait of a pink, with its ragged appearance, and its stem so frail that it bows at the will 
 of the tiniest breeze. 
 
 The studies of plants and birds in plates C. and E. (in No. 1) are examples of the con¬ 
 scientious care which the Japanese imposes upon himself in his art. While no detail escapes 
 lnm in his rendering of a blade of grass, the body of the bird is simply indicated under its 
 
 different aspects in a summary manner, the artist’s intention having been merely to jot down 
 certain notes for his future guidance. 
 
 In the plates G. and H. and A.-J. (in No. r), as in those lettered D.-H. and F.-D. in 
 the present number, we see some of the innumerable motives created by the fertile imagination 
 of the industrial designers of whose genius for decoration M. Louis Gonse pleads so ably. 
 
 17 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 
 If we are rightly proud of the creations of our European artists, surely we ought also to 
 reverence those outside our continent, who by their unaffected work have shown the way to 
 artisans in a country where all the industries are indissolubly connected with Art in its highest 
 sense. _ 
 
 Plates B. (No. i) and E.-G. (No. 2) show how much the weavers have profited from the work 
 of the great designers. The two examples of textiles which we have before us must at once excite 
 our admiration by the elegance of their designs, taken on this, as on all other occasions, from the 
 innumerable resources of nature. Thrown on a neutral ground with lightness, solidity, and ease, 
 the arrangement of the decoration produces an effect of great richness. At the same time the 
 technical perfection of the weaving and the durability of the dyes is such that several centuries of 
 wear have left none of their traces on the fabric. 
 
 After luxurious clothing comes furniture, such as the bronze vases of which we see specimens 
 on Plate I. (No. 1) and A.-B. (No. 2), which with us would be considered curios. For a Japanese 
 these are an essential element in the decoration of the house. For are they not for the 
 purpose of holding the flowering branch, which is to stand out in bright relief against the 
 sombre tones of the bronze or of the pottery ? And to render the contrast more striking, it is 
 usual to have a very simple form for the vases that are destined to hold the often curiously twisted 
 stalks of a flower. 
 
 We must not leave metal-work without saying at least a few words about sword guards, of 
 which four specimens are given on Plate E.-E. (No. 2). The subject of sword guards will no doubt 
 be treated in this publication eventually with all the importance that it commands. P'or the 
 description of these four reproductions we must refer to the “ contents ” of this number, here limiting 
 ourselves to admiration only of the wonderful work in so hard a metal as iron. One feels inclined 
 to believe that the metal must be easily malleable at will. The design is charming both in its 
 grace and the pureness of its outline, and a peculiarity not less worthy of note is the ease with 
 which the maker succeeds in confining within a circle a whole branch of a plant without losing 
 any of its natural suppleness. 
 
 We must speak shortly of the branch of art represented by Plate F., and by the altar-table, 
 Plate A.-A. (No. 2). No proof of weakness is to be gathered from these and similar works of 
 excessive fineness. When the nature of an object claims in its execution vigour and energy, the 
 Japanese artist at once pushes these qualities to their utmost limits, and now and then this 
 determination has no limits but his innate good taste. What is the secret force that carries him 
 so strongly onward? We can find it in the intentness with which he pursues his desire for 
 expression of life in his work—that life which (we cannot repeat it too often) ought to animate all 
 that makes his mind eager to produce new and original effects. 
 
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JAPANESE 
 
 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 How long, solemn, and imposing the word “architecture” seems 
 when applied to the frail and graceful constructions in which the 
 
 fascinating people of Nippon dwell! 
 
 My pen has just traced 
 the word, and I 
 
 A ■ inat once feel 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 distrustful of our European vocabulary, as being far too serious and 
 matter-of-fact for translating the affectations and niceties of an art 
 more delicate than anything of the sort with which we are 
 acquainted. The sensation is exactly that which one 
 experiences upon seeing some rare and fragile object 
 grasped by rough hands which threaten every moment 
 to destroy it. To my mind, whenever we speak of the 
 Japanese, it ought to be understood that our language 
 demands focussing to a special scale ; it must lose in 
 breadth in order to gain in clearness if we are to preserve 
 to the things we describe their true value, and to faithfully 
 represent the pictures of a country where everything appears on 
 a scale entirely different in proportion to all that we have 
 hitherto been accustomed to. 
 
 Japanese Architecture! Can we call it by the same term 
 as Greek Architecture, Roman Architecture, Gothic Architecture ? 
 
 What ! must the same word include colossal constructions of 
 stone, marble monuments which defy the centuries, and the airy 
 temples, and the little houses made in wood and paper, more like 
 bonbonnieres with movable divisions, minute boxes ingeniously 
 arranged, and coming to pieces like toys! Yes, though all 
 that difference exists, the term is the right one, and we must keep to it, even 
 if our language could furnish us with a diminutive having the same sense. 
 
 For, if the definition holds good, which says that architecture is the 
 material expression of the desires and the manners of a people; that the 
 style of building is the exterior form of the ideas, genius, and religion of a 
 nation, we must agree that the Japanese possess an architecture admirably 
 fitted to the character of their civilization, wonderfully appropriate to the 
 conditions of their climate, and which shows the elements of beauty 
 which we are accustomed to look for in this art, namely, unity 
 and harmony, in its varied forms no less than any European style. 
 
 It would be astonishing were it otherwise—that a people like 
 this, which has revealed itself to us in so brilliant a manner by 
 the wonders of industry, which we can never cease to 
 admire, which in the smallest objects of everyday use 
 can put such consummate art, so much character and 
 such perfection, could have built for themselves homes 
 
 20 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 without grace, or for their gods, temples without 
 design. 
 
 What are the distinguishing characteristics 
 of this Japanese architecture—what are the rules of its 
 structure, the logic of its composition ? These points I would briefly explain, 
 and they come with much appropriateness at the commencement of a review 
 devoted to the study of Japanese Art. 
 
 For to architecture (being as it is a manifestation of one of the 
 first wants of man, namely, shelter and comfort) one must go if it is 
 desired to find out the generative principles of those other arts which 
 follow, and are derived from it, and are less rigorously in bondage to 
 strict laws of reason. But before one begins to speak of the picturesque 
 aspect of the constructions and forms, which are the consequence of social 
 habits, and are peculiar to the race, it is necessary to remember clearly 
 certain fundamental laws of a peculiar nature to which Japanese architecture 
 
 has been subjected, and which have governed its development and limited 
 
 % 
 
 its range. 
 
 There are two principal factors which in all countries exercise an 
 influence on the fashion of architecture, but which do so in a still greater 
 
 degree in Japan than elsewhere—I refer to the climatic condition and the 
 nature of the soil. 
 
 The climate of Japan is of the most variable nature: although 
 in the centre of the country the cold is very great in winter, 
 in the south it is hardly felt at all. Everywhere rains are 
 frequent, especially from the end of the month of April till the 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 month of June, and they are followed by a long 
 period of heat. It has therefore been necessary 
 to construct habitations to serve as shelter both 
 against the rain and the sun, and which will -suit 
 both a quiet indoor life and a life in the open air. 
 
 From this cause have originated the special forms 
 given to the houses: those great roofs with the broad 
 eaves, which give shade from the sun and shelter from the rain; 
 the balconies and the terraces; the great recesses which form windows, 
 which can be opened more or less, and are closed by means of frames 
 
 running in grooves; the gardens, full of freshness, forming a frame of verdure 
 to nearly every house. 
 
 As to the other factor, it is even more exacting: the volcanic soil of 
 Japan, and the constant earthquakes resulting from it, have 
 from time immemorial necessitated the almost exclusive use 
 of wood in constructions. The whole explanation of Japanese 
 architecture lies in this fact. It is from the nature of the 
 materials that the choice of forms has arisen. It is from 
 this obstacle that the whole design of the art has sprung. 
 Edifices of an extreme elasticity were a necessity, capable of 
 resisting the storms of wind and of standing upright in 
 spite of the severest earthquake shocks. The genius of the 
 Japanese has triumphed over these difficulties. Their archi¬ 
 tects have built temples, of which some are a thousand years 
 old and are standing intact. 
 
 Obliged to abandon stone—of which there is abundance in 
 the country, in spite of what one has been given to under¬ 
 stand—in favour of wood, they have executed marvels of 
 elegance, richness, and solidity. What was a difficulty in 
 structure they have turned into an element of decoration ; 
 from obstacles which might have paralysed them they 
 have produced unlooked-for and beautiful 
 effects. 
 
 Examine from this standpoint any 
 structure in Japan, and you will easily be 
 able to account for the place that this 
 idea of resistance has held in the 
 
 22 
 

 ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 arrangements of the architect, 
 
 and how he has 
 made the best of 
 the materials he was 
 obliged to use with 
 infinite taste. 
 
 You will under¬ 
 stand at the same 
 
 ..»r ./.VmV'* ‘ ' 
 
 time why there 
 
 are often no foundations to the houses—why the curves of the supports have 
 one form rather than another—why window-panes, which might offer danger 
 when broken to pieces, are replaced by paper. The foundations, if affixed to 
 the earth, would ensure the destruction of the building at the least movement 
 of the volcanic soil. They therefore consist merely of stone pedestals, thick 
 and strong, on which are placed wooden supports which bear the edifice, at 
 the same time leaving at its base a small empty space between the pedestal 
 and the wood, so as to satisfy the two 
 following conditions:—First,’ if the building 
 were to receive a shock, not being fastened 
 to the pedestal it could not be broken ; it 
 keeps it elasticity, and after the oscillation, 
 falls into its place again; further, at the time 
 of the heavy rains, the water passes under 
 the supports without the wood getting 
 wet, thus preserving it from dampness. 
 
 One of the most ancient buildings of 
 Japan, the temple of the Goddess 
 Kwan-non, at Nara, which con¬ 
 tains the treasures of the Mikado 
 is built on this system: its 
 supports are elevated not . 
 to the height of several 
 inches, but more than a 
 yard, like piles. It dates 
 back more than 1200 
 years, and has not stirred 
 at all. Secondly, in 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 work. 
 
 consequence of this principle, 
 the roofing, which plays such 
 a great part in Japanese 
 architecture, is alway heavy and of 
 large dimensions, made with the 
 greatest care, in order that it may assure 
 the equilibrium of the erection which is not 
 fastened, and which in consequence could 
 easily be turned over. 
 
 The quantity of wood used in making the roofs and 
 ceilings of certain temples in Japan is extraordinary. One 
 is inclined to believe there must be waste; but all is 
 minutely calculated—each beam has its place, each mortice 
 its reason, and each support some object. Some ancient 
 pagodas exist of such an elevation that one wonders 
 how it is possible they have stood till now, in spite of 
 earthquakes ; it is because of the ingenuity of the frame- 
 rhere are some where one sees a central pillar of wood, which in 
 
 the interior is carried to the top and seems to support the roof. This would 
 be by no means the object of such a pillar in our architecture. In Japan, 
 things are reversed, and this pillar, far from carrying the roof, is actually 
 supported by it; it is, as it were, a prolongation of it; it does not rest on 
 the ground, as one would suppose; it is separated from it by a hardly 
 noticeable interstice ; yet it is nevertheless to this that the service is allotted 
 of keeping the centre of gravity of the combined strength of the beams of 
 the roof. In the same way for the characteristically-formed supports, which 
 constitute the entablature, or form the extraordinary projections of some 
 considerable size that one remarks on most Japanese temples; they are 
 tormed of little beams from 10 to 12 inches long, with bent ends which are 
 laid together and bound one to another, having regular spaces left between 
 each : from a distance one might compare them to the meshes in a net. 
 
 Evidently these supports also originated in the danger 
 of earthquake, and they answer the problem of elas¬ 
 ticity, lightness, and solidity, of which it was necessary 
 
 to find a solution. Nothing 
 can be more ingenious and 
 typical. 
 
 ' __ ; 
 
 1 
 
 
 24 
 
 ’ 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 
 In the train of these natural and weighty 
 reasons which have ruled the principles of 
 Japanese architecture, come religious influ¬ 
 ences ; but in this case there is no 
 question of construction or depend¬ 
 ence on climate. Style, ornament, and 
 decoration have to be considered in connection with the 
 particular intellect of the people, its primitive beliefs—in a 
 word, all that which connects itself with its intellectual and 
 moral development—to the vicissitudes in its history, to the 
 influence exercised on it by other races. It is a question 
 of determining in what measure it has departed from its 
 original sources, and to what extent it has had recourse to 
 borrowing. But such a study is surrounded with difficulties 
 so far as regards Japan, for although it has been of late 
 years the object of learned research, much is still hidden in obscurity. All 
 that one can say in a general way is, that the architecture of Japan is the 
 expression of a complicated Theogony, increased by myths more or less varied, 
 which have furnished nearly all its motives of decoration, and that it corres¬ 
 ponds to two distinct cults—Shintoism or the national religion, and Buddhism, 
 imported from India about the seventh century of our era. d he Shintoist 
 temples and monuments present marked differences from those of the Budd¬ 
 hists : they are more simple, and of a more unaffected simplicity, and can be 
 recognised by their very singular details of construction. A feature which 
 characterises the architecture of the nations of the extreme East is, that it 
 seems derived from the conception of a tent with its corners raised up and 
 pointed at its summit; but whereas in China the original form of this tent 
 sprang from a cloth thrown over a central pole which it covered in a circle, 
 in Japan, on the contrary, it arose from a cloth thrown over two poles tied 
 together in the form of a St. Andrews Cross at their upper extremity. 
 Shintoist architecture—in order, no doubt, to preserve the tradition 
 of this primitive construction—has left on the roof of temples two beams 
 crosswise, which are by no means essential to the structure, but are simply 
 there as the remains of ancient custom. 
 
 VICTOR CHAMPIER. 
 
 (To be continued in No. 4 .) 
 
 25 
 

 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 
 
 The art of painting was represented in our former issues by several examples which allowed 
 us to compare the early manifestations of the popular school with the works which show its final 
 expansion. The illustrations in the present number will show some intermediate phases, giving 
 us the productions of several painters who, each in his own particular style, is worthy of the name 
 of a master. 
 
 In Plate FB we find the work of a great genius of the eighteenth century. It has been left 
 to others to trace the solidity of bold outlines, or to endow their personages with a powerful 
 masculinity. Suzuki Haronobu has endowed his work with grace and poetical feeling. He is 
 perhaps the only one of Japanese artists who has transcribed the innocent love of early youth. 
 Was it the desire to place these tender scenes in an appropriate frame which caused him to 
 take up this hitherto ignored subject ? The engravings of Haronobu are always full of harmony 
 and a sweetness of tone that one searches for in vain in the works of any other time—we dare 
 to say, even in the works of aiiy other country. This will not be found a very hazardous assertion 
 when a few specimens of his art—the least known of any—have been published. 
 
 The subject which we give represents a girl who has just plucked two blossoms from a bush 
 at her feet. She has carefully folded round them a sheet of white paper, and destines them for 
 the object of her tenderest affections, whilst her hand prepares to trace the poem, or simple letter 
 perhaps, which will complete the charming message. 
 
 The Plate of “Women Shooting with Bows” is a reproduction of an engraving after a 
 composition of Katsugawa Shunsho, founder of a school illustrated by many followers, of whom 
 each has, according to Japanese custom and as a sort of rallying sign, taken the name of 
 Katsugawa, added to his surname. The page we have before us is taken from a work in three 
 volumes, bearing a title which may be translated somewhat in this manner, “A Mirror of the 
 Beauties of the Green House” (1776).* This work was executed with the collaboration of 
 another artist of merit called Kitao Shigemasa, who has copied in a striking fashion the manner of 
 his colleague Shunsho. The “Green House” here represented must have been a pleasure-resort 
 enjoying a great notoriety with the youth of the period ; for each of the figures represented 
 in it has her name written at her side. The authors of the work show, in the many pages of 
 which it is composed, a crowd of youthful beauties giving themselves up to their favourite 
 amusements, diverting themselves with games of skill, or improving their minds by the study of 
 painting or poetry. We will not dwell here on the strangeness of the associations of customs so 
 little serious with those of a refined, intellectual culture. We must recollect that we are here 
 
 * It is often difficult to find a translation which will give the exact sense of the names of books, which are constantly most 
 
 elaborate. 
 
 27 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 carried back to the civilization of a far distant period, which developed itself upon laws very 
 different to our own. 
 
 From the technical point of view, the eye is especially attracted, in these three volumes, by 
 the pink tone which is the essential characteristic of the illustrations. 
 
 Plate AI brings us back to Hokusai. It is a page taken from his Mangwa, that wonderful 
 series of fifteen volumes, which is not only the vcide mecum of every artisan, be he engraver, 
 lacquerer, designer, or decorator, but also offers a vast field of study to every one who is desirous 
 of knowing to what limits truth of attitude and expression of life and movement, united with 
 facility and vigour in the use of the brush, can be pushed in the reproduction of beings and 
 things. Observe on this leaf, which represents hardly the 400th part of the work, all the 
 crow r d of holiday-makers. How well represented is each grade of society by its own peculiar 
 characteristics, and how freely they seem to move, as if the artist had caught them in the midst 
 of their daily life! 
 
 Plate CB. Studies of flowers engraved after the sketches of Katawo Keisai Masayoshi, 
 who lived in the second half of the eighteenth century. This artist may be considered as the 
 precursor of Hokusai, who probably derived much from Masayoshi’s works, full of amusing sketches, 
 often drawn in outline only, and having the most comical aspect. Besides this, Masayoshi left 
 behind him a volume of landscapes, to which our most ardent Impressionists would gladly sign 
 their names ; also one of the most remarkable books on fishes ; and lastly, a series of studies of 
 flowers, from which we have borrowed our page which is published here. 
 
 The right of the composition is occupied by a branch of campanula (Campanula grandijlora), 
 in Japanese, “ Kikio,” an autumn flowering variety with pale-coloured flowers, which grows in Japan, 
 China, and Siberia ; the other is a charming grouping of flower and grass. This grass, the 
 Eulalia Japonica , as yet little known in our gardens, is a great resource to the Japanese decorator 
 whenever it is necessary for him to lighten his design. All we have here is nothing more than 
 simple information, and a brief summing-up of facts ; but the characteristics and the essential 
 organs of the plant are rendered with a truth which shows a profound knowledge arising from a 
 real study of nature. 
 
 Plate EH puts us in the presence of a very old friend, for it is a great many years since the 
 Camellia Japonica (the “Tsubachi” in Japanese) was brought from its native land to be the 
 founder of a family in our climate. This sketch, borrowed from an unsigned series, bewitches us 
 by the solidity of its composition, no less than by the pleasant form in which it is shown to us. 
 
 Plate ED. A vase with cover in terra-cotta. This is a work which dates back hardly 
 twenty years, but still it shows that it has issued from a hand clever in the style of the good old 
 times, and with a feeling for the art of composition which is now lost. The power is shown by the 
 manufacture of an object of this importance without any mould. It is entirely the work of the 
 hand, which has fashioned, as if in wax, the decoration in high relief, as well as the sides themselves 
 
 28 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 of the vase which form the foundation, and upon which the potter did not object to leaving thumb- 
 marks very plainly visible, doubtless with the intention of rendering some effect of light by this 
 particular method. As for the composition, which seems to have originated without the least 
 effort, it has the great merit of perfect unity—a principle the absence of which we are occasionally 
 obliged to regret in the models of our artists of the West. The feet and the handle of the cover 
 of the vase make us forget that they are indispensable accessories by the place their ornamentation 
 holds in the general idea of the object. 
 
 Plate DJ. Is this only the outcome of some lucky chance, or does it aim at a scientific 
 demonstration of the laws of mechanism, to which the lively inhabitant of the fish-pond owes 
 its wonderful suppleness ? Or again, has this work been inspired by a desire to wrestle with 
 a great technical difficulty ? There must have been something of all these in the mind of the 
 artist, for they all agree well with the Japanese temperament. It is, however, the charm of a 
 difficulty to surmount which must have predominated in this case; for instead of choosing 
 wood or some equally tractable material, the artist has determined on iron —that is to say, on 
 the substance which both in appearance and in texture offers the greatest contrast to the soft 
 and slimy nature of a frog. And he taxes his ingenuity, making movable the different parts 
 of the body by means of articulations so cleverly arranged that they act in the most natural 
 manner possible. 
 
 In his reproduction of the object Mr. H. Guerard has chosen three different aspects ; he 
 might easily have chosen a hundred, all equally quaint. Take the animal by his little foot and 
 throw him in the air, he will infallibly fall into the helpless attitude of a poor little corpse; put 
 him on his legs again and he looks ready to escape from you at one wild bound. The marks on 
 his back are copied by means of little silver nails, his movable eyes are imitated by gold 
 encrustation on the iron. 
 
 The specimen bears no signature ; but it is doubtless from the hand of one of the Miochins, 
 a family of celebrated artists who, during the course of five or six centuries, worked in iron in a 
 marvellous manner, making the gorgeous armour for all the warriors and princes of renown, 
 but not scorning sometimes to divert their genius by the manufacture of some such wondrous 
 object of fancy as this.* 
 
 Plates AF and CG. Two industrial designs, of which one (AF) represents fishes. It 
 is by no means a new thing to see the forms of animals used as elements of decoration in a 
 coloured paper or in stuffs; but while it has always seemed necessary to submit them to some 
 alteration, to conventionalise or ornamentalise them, so that even the Persians, those decorators 
 par excellence , themselves have not been able to avoid it, it has been reserved for the Japanese 
 to show the possibility of combining arabesques with all objects which attract the attention, 
 without changing their natural shapes. 
 
 * At the South Kensington Museum, London, there is a magnificent specimen of iron-work, executed in the sixteenth 
 century by Miochin Muneharu. It is an eagle, life-size, with outstretched wings, every feather of which is a separate piece 
 of iron. 
 
 29 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 To see these fishes twisting, turning and twining with a wonderful ease, one can with difficulty 
 persuade oneself that all these lines so naturally curved were drawn for practical utility. 
 
 In the design CG, where the clematis flower serves for a motive, one meets with the 
 application of a principle of the same nature. Recognising that the stems of this plant would 
 furnish an agreeable ornamental design, but fearing also that their rather slender elegance would 
 not offer to the view a sufficiently solid effect, the ornament has been cut to pieces, so to speak, 
 and the necessary strength has been imparted by a series of narrow transversal lines. The result 
 of this is a most curious vibratory effect—it appears as if the flowers and leaves were undulating 
 behind a transparent laminated screen. 
 
 Here we have, then, a design taken from a plant which, in spite of its almost diaphanous 
 lightness, sufficiently covers a surface without the help of any conventionalising nor of any 
 addition which could lessen the merit of its simplicity. Two slender duplicated stalks of bamboo 
 are thrown upon the surface with the evident intention of breaking up the sameness of the mass 
 of parallel lines. 
 
 Plate EL Reproduction of a dress material in brocaded satin of the eighteenth century. 
 When we stated in the preceding paragraphs that the Japanese artist composes his designs by 
 utilising without the least modification all the elements that he encounters on his way, we were far 
 from pretending that he determines to banish the interpretations that his inventive genius suggests 
 to him ; at the same time, always drawing his inspirations from the creations of nature, he seems 
 continually to give himself up to the pleasure of throwing into confusion natural combinations in 
 order to put them together again according to his own ideas. No one more than he has made 
 use of this stratagem, and has carried it to its utmost limits. Nevertheless, the original idea is 
 always traceable ; but it is at times so hidden, that it wants the practised eye of a Japanese to 
 recognise it. This is not the case with the pattern of silk that we have before us, because the 
 open floweis of the cherry, as well as the tender buds that accompany them, render it evident 
 that the dark curves that are displayed upon the ground are designed from the branches of 
 the tiee, with the intention of breaking up the straight transverse lines, and also to obtain the 
 wavy character desired for the material. 
 
Contents of Number 3. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE, by Victor Champier ... 19 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES .27 
 
 LOOSE PLATES. 
 
 EI. Piece Of Brocaded Satin. Eighteenth century. 
 
 CG. Industrial Design. Eighteenth century. Clematis branches. 
 
 FB. A Young Girl, from an engraving in colours, after Suzuki Horonobu (1765). 
 
 ED. Vase in Terra-Cotta (Ota). Nineteenth century. 
 
 EH. Branch of Camellia, from a water-colour study. Eighteenth century. 
 
 AF. Carp, from a stencil design for textiles. Eighteenth century. 
 
 Cross-bow Shooting, from “The Mirror of the Beauties of the Green House,” 
 (3 vols. 1776). By Katsugawa Shunsho. 
 
 DJ. Frog, in iron-work, with movable articulations. Fifteenth century. 
 
 CB. Wild Flowers, from an album: engraved after sketches by Keisai Masayoshi. 
 
 AI. Studies of Birds, from Vol. I. of Hokusai’s Mangwa. 
 
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JAPANESE 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 ( Conclusion .) 
 
 Whatever may be the dis¬ 
 tinctions which exist between the 
 architecture of Shintoist and 
 Buddhist temples, there is one 
 
 31 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 remarkable principle which is common to both 
 and which holds to the same idea—nam 
 that the two religions arise 
 from the role played by man in 
 nature. It is this which gives 
 them so individual an aspect. 
 
 While with us a buildino- 
 
 * o 
 
 is an organism having in itself 
 its principle of unity, in Japan 
 an edifice is not considered as 
 an isolated thing completing 
 the harmony of the functions 
 for which it is designed. It is 
 the part of, and must blend 
 
 itself With, the landscape. With Temple of Ouyeno at Tokyo. 
 
 them, a temple is a succession of smaller buildings spread over a vast space, 
 usually on the side of a mountain, each portion dedicated to a virtue of the 
 god of which it is in honour, and all within an enclosure. The forest 
 envelops it in its living foliage—it lends to it the wondrous concert of 
 its voice, either melancholy or loud with anger. It is this which 
 is the principle, the frame, the connecting-link of this architecture so 
 scattered in effect, but in reality submitted to laws of com¬ 
 position which a mystic conception inspires and orders. As for 
 the ornament which covers these temples—as for this luxuriant 
 vegetation, this marvellous show of blooms which covers the 
 columns and the foundations, which runs over the walls and 
 up to the very roof—this decoration which makes a crowd of 
 curious gods to grin from the capitols or the ceilings, strange in 
 aspect, which fills the edifice from top to bottom with a winged 
 world of chimeras, birds, dragons—as for these painted 
 walls where bronze harmonizes with wood that time has 
 toned so exquisitely—we must forego describing their 
 wondrous beauty. 
 
 What also strikes us is the elegance of the propor¬ 
 tions, the great perfection of detail—the walls of 
 lacquers encrusted with precious metals, the carved 
 panels, the finish of which bears witness to a 
 
 32 
 
 Gidiyo-Assadi, Mistress of Ta'irano-Kiyomari. From 
 a Novel illustrated by Hokusai. 
 
By Outamaro. 
 
 ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 surprising, ingenuity. What escapes us is the 
 symbolical meaning of all this grandeur, the 
 signification of this exterior merit which only 
 speaks to our eyes, and to understand which 
 thoroughly one must be a Japanese. 
 
 . For everything is symbolical in Japan. Bay and Fortress of Awaji. scan. 
 
 Symbols, those porticoes which are called “ toriis ” and which the Shintoists 
 place close to their temples, and visible from a long distance like the Grecian 
 pi'opylcca . It is a roost, as the word indicates, and its two bent beams are 
 made in order that the sun, the king of nature, may come like a bird to perch 
 there. Symbols also those beams which surmount all Buddhist temples, and 
 whose rings or added roofs, in number five, seven, or nine (gorin, kurin, &c.), 
 answer to religious attributes. The flowers painted on the pillars are also 
 symbols, for they all have a meaning to the Japanese imagination ; 
 as also have the animals so constantly repeated—cranes, tortoises, 
 emblems of longevity and happiness ; foxes, elephants, and fish, 
 which latter recall to the people their origin from fishermen. Even 
 the dragons, which are the crest of the Mikado, and are found on 
 all objects for his use, are symbols. Without wishing to still further 
 dilate on the symbolism of Japanese architecture—which is by no 
 means the least curious of its characteristics, and a theme upon 
 which Mr. Dresser* has so well written—I shall limit myself by 
 drawing the attention of my reader to one of the most interesting albums by the 
 well-known Hokusai,f in which the Japanese humorist, amusing himself by 
 tracing the origin and laws of religious conceptions whence arise the principal 
 ornaments employed in his country, arrives at giving this formula of one of the 
 commonest forms of construction, namely, the Portico, whose massive roof is, in 
 a curve, beautiful as it is graceful. Hokusai explains that this form arises from 
 the following idea. The sun, represented by a large circle on a horizontal line, 
 is supported on its right and left by four smaller circles representing the four 
 seasons ; from the top of the sun there come concentric lines which join by 
 geometrical combinations to the smaller circles of the seasons; and it is these 
 lines so arrived at which furnish the graceful curve of the portico in question. 
 Has this explanation any historical value, or is it only ingenious and poetical ? 
 At any rate, it is enough that it should come from a Japanese artist who does 
 
 * C. Dresser: Japan, its Architecture, Art, and Art Manufactures, 1882. 
 f Sin Hinagata. 
 
 33 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 not limit to that extent his indications 
 a like nature, in order to prove how 
 strong is the conviction in Japan 
 that architectural forms come more 
 or less from hazy recollections 
 of some ancient symbolism. 
 
 But in all this we have 
 only spoken of reli¬ 
 gious buildings ; I 
 scarcely dare to speak 
 
 Allegorical personage by Okamura Masenobu (1700). of civil architecture, 
 
 it being hardly represented in Japan except by the tiny houses no more than 
 summer-houses, looking like miniature villas hidden in the verdure of the 
 gardens, and of which one can form a fairly exact idea when looking at 
 kakemonos or lacquered trays representing everyday life. It is true that 
 now we begin to find a town or two with buildings in the European style. 
 The street called Ghinza at Tokio, for instance, has some resemblance to any 
 large French country-town, with heavy buildings of several storeys high, with 
 shops and windows like those in Paris—Grecian columns here completing 
 their tour round the world, and making no pleasant addi¬ 
 tion to the local colour. The Japanese, in spite of the 
 edicts which force them when they are functionaries to dress 
 up in our clothes, in our scanty jackets and high-crowned 
 hats, are faithful to their tiny houses, where they feel safe 
 in an earthquake—where they sleep secure under the wooden 
 roofs, dried by the suns of a hundred years, and which 
 vibrate to noise like some violin or the stretched skin of 
 a tam-tam. To describe truthfully the appearance of these 
 strange houses—divided into movable compartments by means 
 of paper screens which can be taken down at will like 
 children’s toys, and where a European hardly dares to move 
 for fear of doing some damage, so fragile do they seem— 
 one should be able to show briefly the most typical pecu¬ 
 liarities of Japanese life. It is colour that gives life to things; 
 and how can one depict a habitation if one does not 
 show its ordinary inhabitants—their costumes, manners, and 
 furniture—their mode of eating and sleeping ? Nothing is 
 
 34 
 
 A Juggler. From volume x. of 
 Hokusai’s Man-gwa. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN, 
 
 more characteristic than these houses—nothing could more 
 exactly express the manners of the Japanese-that people 
 so active and lively, so eager and sedulous, loving little 
 delicacies and roguish affectations. They are in their 
 e ement there, with the surroundings made for them agree- 
 mg with their desires, which are at once very simple and 
 refined; it is according to their taste for trees, flowers, light 
 an all the objects of nature—a nature rather curtailed 
 conventionalized, and seen through a microscope. As for 
 the exterior aspect, it is very much the same in the town 
 ., . , . 3S m the countr y a house one storey high, plastered out- 
 
 ' 7! t T tU1 ! ° f day and CUt StmW> and ° Ver th!s 3 sort of stucco made of 
 crushed shells; the garden, which forms a frame to it and where the Grass¬ 
 hopper makes incessant concert, loud and strong, both by night and day * this 
 
 garden is a prodigy of tiny and childish devices, but charming nevertheless 
 with its hlliputian rivers, and its trees stunted by nature-with 
 
 Its dwarf cedars, no higher than a cabbage, and which take 
 the attitude of weary 
 
 giants—with its toy rocks 
 which form the shelter 
 for tortoises—with its 
 wells surrounded by 
 bamboo plants, families 
 of gold-fish circling in 
 the clear water. When 
 the weather is suffi¬ 
 ciently warm twenty or 
 thirty wooden frames 
 are pushed aside in their 
 grooves, and the house 
 is open on all sides; the 
 fresh faces of the charm¬ 
 ing mousmes appear on 
 the balconies ; and the 
 passer-by who is of a 
 curious turn of mind 
 may look on the familiar 
 
 Fishing Boats leaving the Bay of Osaka, by Keissa YeiSSeh ^s). 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 scenes which take place in daily life. In the evening at about five 
 o’clock, the time for bathing, one sees women and children quietly 
 going through their regular toilet. Let us penetrate into the 
 interior of the house-^-a sight is awaiting us there which will 
 certainly surprise many of us, who think that a Japanese drawing¬ 
 room is full of an accumulation of curios, bronzes and lacquer, 
 gold embroideries and many-coloured satins. The fir$t impression, 
 on the contrary, that strikes one on entering the rooms on the 
 ground floor, that they are almost entirely bare, and most scrupulously clean; 
 their artistic objects are not displayed upon the walls, but are kept, carefully 
 labled, in a sort of mysterious apartment, whence they are only brought on 
 rare occasions in honour of some distinguised visitor ; everything seems fresh 
 and new, as if untouched by human hands ; nothing but mats of an un¬ 
 spotted whiteness, and yellow or white wood, kept also perfectly clean by 
 constant washing with soap ; perhaps two or three little screens placed here 
 and there. Now and then, in the rooms of the rich, a small bracket on the 
 wall opposite the entrance is seen, and which is called the tokonoba; often 
 also a kakemono is hung here, before which is a beautifully-decorated stand 
 on which rests a grotesque figure of ancient bronze, or perhaps a jar full of 
 flowers most tastefully arranged. 
 
 The woodwork has neither paint nor varnish, but it is chosen with the 
 greatest care, and it displays carpenters’ work which is unequalled by any 
 nation in the world. The pillars which support the woodwork are varied 
 in the most fantastic manner—some are of a geometrical form, perfect in pre¬ 
 ciseness ; others are artificially bent like the trunks of ancient 
 trees. The walls are formed of sliding frames covered with 
 white paper, which can be entirely removed by pushing them 
 aside in their grooves, so that it is possible to have a separate 
 room in a few moments. If we climb up the wooden staircase, 
 which is like a ladder creaking under one’s unshod feet—for in 
 Japanese houses one leaves one’s “getas” at the door—leading to 
 the first and only storey, one finds the same simplicity, the same 
 bareness : mats and unpainted wood, no furniture, no visible orna- 
 
 t- 
 
 ments. One of the four walls of the room may not be made in paper, 
 and not movable; in it, behind some painted panels—also of 
 paper, but decorated with a design or a sketch in indian-ink—is 
 a wardrobe beautifully constructed for holding clothes. There 
 
 36 
 
 A Ghost. From Hokusai’s 
 Man-gwa, vol. i. 
 
 By Sukenobu (1750). 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 is no bed : the Japanese sleep on the mats without taking off their 
 clothes, wrapped up in a quilted coverlet, the neck supported by, or 
 rather fitted into, the hollow in a little mahogany roller, in order to 
 prevent the wondrous head-dress of the Japanese lady being 
 disarranged. There are no tables—they eat off the tatamis ; no 
 seats—they squat on the ground. But we must remark this con¬ 
 trast ; in the midst of this absence of comfort, of this voluntary 
 bareness, and this elegance of emptiness, luxury exists—a luxury 
 of refinement of the smallest details, and a luxury of incredible 
 affectation. In this way: the wood of the beams, the framing 
 of the panels is in natural wood, looking as if it had just 
 come from the carpenter’s plane ; but the nails that fasten it are 
 hidden under bronze shields of the most exquisite workmanship. 
 The movable partitions, instead of being furnished with handles 
 such as we should have put, are pierced by small oval holes 
 having the shape of the end of our fingers, and are designed for 
 to pull them by this means ; and these little holes have bronze 
 decorations; which we remark, on close examination, are 
 wonderfully engraved—on this a lady fanning herself, on 
 that a blossoming cherry-branch. 
 
 This is Japanese all over: to pay the greatest attention 
 to a miniature work, and to conceal it in an aperture made 
 for insertion of the fingers, which appears only a flaw in the wood of a 
 large frame—all this patient work on a hardly visible accessory, in order 
 to force an exclamation of surprise or to produce an unlooked-for effect. 
 If this is not characteristic, it is at any rate a striking example of the work 
 by which we have become acquainted with this ingenious people, and by 
 which we must learn to understand its architecture and the decoration of 
 its homes. 
 
 Engraving from an old Enve¬ 
 lope for a letter. , 
 
 4 
 
 VICTOR CHAMPIER. 
 
 By Issai ( 1835 ). 
 

 
 ) ’ 
 
 
 r- 
 
 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 
 
 The Plate FF bears the signature of Tori-i Kiyomitsu, one of the most popular of the 
 painters of the Tori-i group (1750). In our last number, in a notice of the Katsukawas, we 
 gave a specimen of costume, and showed how an artist who inaugurated a new and personal 
 style, perpetuated his fame by founding a dynasty in which all his descendants adopted his 
 patronymic. There is probably no family of this nature which, within the space of a century, 
 has had so numerous a following as that of the Tori-i, the founder of which, Tori-i Kiyonobu, 
 invented in 1695 printing in colours; it may be added that there is no school which is so 
 easily recognisable by its uniformity of treatment and style. Until 1770, the Tori-i devoted 
 themselves almost without exception to the glorification of the theatre and the portraiture of 
 contemporary actors, but many of them showed a personality and an individuality; thus, for 
 instance, Kiyomitsu abandoned the violent dramatic mannerism and gesture in which his pre¬ 
 decessors had always thought fit to clothe their personages, and endued his with a soft harmony 
 of line and a calm and placid countenance. He also showed a marked preference for actors 
 who undertook female parts.* 
 
 The Figure in the Plate FF is an actor, the celebrated Tomedjuro Nakamura, in the part 
 of the charming Kai'shi, of whom it is said that “she is as fair as the day, as she walks 
 beneath the shade of her nun’s hat, which extends over her a radiation of flower-stems, and which 
 in its covering has a whiteness which equals the fresh-fallen snow on the summit of Mount Fuji.” 
 
 Landscape. From Hokusai’s “ Thirty-six Views of Fujiyama,” f 1820. Many Japanese artists 
 find it impossible to delineate any landscape without inserting somewhere or another in it the 
 classical cone of Fuji. Probably from the earliest moment, when the Japanese attempted to 
 draw upon paper or silk the picturesque details of his country, Fuji’s imposing mass exercised 
 a magnetic influence upon him. None appear to have been able to free themselves from this 
 fascination, which can only be properly understood by those who have been privileged with 
 the opportunity of personally experiencing it. Comparable in its majesty to the ancient 
 sovereigns of the land, the offspring of the sun, enthroned in solemn isolation, Fuji rears itself 
 alone, and exercises supremacy over the vast provinces which lie at its feet; like the 
 Mikados too, who hide their august faces from vulgar view behind a transparent veil, the 
 sacred mountain usually envelops its crest in a curtain of clouds. But on lovely autumnal 
 evenings its outline silhouettes itself in gorgeous splendour, and through a prismatic atmosphere, 
 appears in flaming colours, or detaches itself, a magnificent mass from the opalescent depths 
 of the heavens. « 
 
 It required the audacity of a Hokusai to create a work in which these numberless visions 
 should be perpetuated in a manner and with a strength of execution worthy of their splendour. 
 
 * In Japan, all the parts are filled by men, who imitate in a wonderful manner feminine gestures and voice. The only excep¬ 
 tion to this rule is when a theatrical company consists exclusively of girls, who then undertake in a similar way the r 5 le of either sex. 
 
 t Fujiyama, a volcano which has been inactive since I 7 ° 7 > is the highest mountain in Japan ; its height is 12,450 feet. The 
 word yama signifies mountain. 
 
 39 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 In this volume under notice he has denoted each and all, whether it be the mountain as it 
 appears like an enormous mass close at hand, or rising up on the furthest horizon, as if seen 
 through a reversed telescope, almost indistinguishable in the vast panorama. 
 
 The view before us is taken from a promontory or an island height which has had to be 
 scaled in order to discover the snowy peak of the celebrated mountain. At the spectator’s feet 
 extends the tranquil surface of Lake Sowa (province of Shinano), framed in verdant hills, which 
 shelter at their base fishing villages half buried in trees. To the left a castle, erected on a 
 narrow spit of land, encroaches on the water’s domain. It is worthy of remark that the painter 
 has cleverly contrived to place us somewhat to the rear of the extremity of the eminence, whence 
 the view unfolds itself. By this ingenious artifice the eye is first struck by the important mass 
 in the foreground, with the result that the rest of the picture is thrown back and all the distances 
 are accentuated. 
 
 Plate BG. “ Street Scene on New Year’s Day,” taken from Hokusai’s Sd-gwa (1820). All 
 sorts and conditions of men wade through a slush of melting snow. Here is the elegant 
 samurai, carefully wrapped up, and there a young girl of prepossessing appearance, each on 
 their way to pay a ceremonial call, whilst porters hurry about, hidden under their enormous 
 round hats. But the most characteristic of the figures are the two manzai who strut along in 
 the foreground of the picture. These two inseparables pass, according to ancient custom, 
 during the first months of the year, from house to house, giving their well-known performance. 
 
 v 
 
 Welcomed everywhere with their jests and buffooneries, they accept with the same good grace 
 a load of presents at the noble’s castle and the copper cash offered by the inhabitant of the 
 lowly cottage. 
 
 The personage of important mien who walks in front is the dancer, ready to display his 
 serio-comical poses or his full and measured gestures, whilst the fat, good-natured soul which 
 follows him will frisk around, to the sound of his hour-glass-shaped tambourine which he has 
 for the moment placed on his back under the protection of a cloth. 
 
 The Plate GE contains two studies of the Convolvulus Ipomcena (Jap. Assaguo), taken from 
 a treatise in three volumes (dated 1813), which are devoted entirely to the different varieties 
 of this plant. It enjoys, in common with the cherry-flower and the chrysanthemum, the distinction 
 of having publications concerning it specially illustrated by artists of renown. In the work 
 now under review more than a hundred varieties are depicted, as being noticeable either for 
 the difference of their flowers or foliage. For this genus affects the most varied forms and 
 colours; the former are long, short, or twisted, its edges are smooth or jagged in a variety 
 of ways, its colour is sometimes of a uniform green or bronze, at others speckled with yellow 
 or spotted with white, like one of those which is depicted here. What is most interesting is 
 that in all these drawings there is a total absence of that dryness which is inherent in all our 
 botanic treatises. The engraving and its printing are both artistic, and the tones almost as 
 harmonious as in Nature. Every part of the plant is modelled to perfection, and is redolent 
 of suppleness and grace. In order to avoid the semblance of monotony, many of the works to 
 which we refer represent in succession a cutting and the entire plant; in other cases the stem 
 is placed in a bronze vase or a porcelain jardiniere, and these again take interesting and 
 unexpected forms. And lastly, invention holds its own beside the most scrupulous fidelity to 
 
 40 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 Nature both in drawing and in observation. So great is the determination to invest with interest 
 a subject which always runs the risk of being monotonous. 
 
 Plate BJ. Bronze duck on a lotus leaf (eighteenth century). Artist unknown. A practical 
 opening in the back of the bird allows of the introduction of the ash-tray upon which the 
 incense or the odoriferous wood is lighted, and whence the perfume passes through holes in 
 the lid formed by raising of the feathers. The sculptor, in creating this object, endeavoured 
 to tran o m n n mate mass into a living and moving being. He restrained himself from 
 being led into the puerile idea of endowing his work with even a particle of that conventional 
 grace which is termed “prettiness.” He determined to perpetuate in all its heaviness the 
 awkward attitude and shambling gait which characterise this humble denizen of the poultry- 
 yard. The modelling of the head and breast is remarkably powerful. 
 
 Plate Cl. This seventeenth-century bronze vase of dark patina has less of Japanese 
 character than any subject which we have hitherto illustrated. Its form did not originate in 
 Nature, nor was its conception a sudden impulse derived from a simple and thoughtless line. 
 One at once recognises the Chinese influence in its severity, its archaicness and its architectural 
 character. In this instance a finikin grace gives way to solidity, and elegance to a robustness 
 of contour, united with great firmness in the details of the ornamentation. The contrast will 
 be great when a fragile, transitory flower takes its place in this vase above the sombre note 
 of venerable bronze, the emblem of indestructibility. 
 
 In the illustration CH we at once return to thorough Japanese Art. The subject which 
 occupies the upper portion is of porcelain lightly celadonised, and comes from a factory which 
 belonged, at the end of the last century, to the Prince of Nabeshima, Daimio of the Province 
 of Hizen. This little utensil is a water-jar (midzu-ire), serving the purpose of wetting the 
 stone upon which the Chinese ink is rubbed for writing or painting. It represents a folded 
 lotus leaf, upon which a frog vainly attempts to disengage himself from the grasp of a small 
 crab which has seized him by the foot. The stem of the leaf affords a commodious handle 
 whereby the water with which it has been filled (by plunging into a vessel of larger dimensions) 
 can be poured out upon the stone. A minute hole is always left on the upper part of objects 
 of this kind so as to allow of the pressure necessary for the flow of the water and the escape 
 of the air whilst the article is being filled. The lower piece is modelled in terra-cotta, of a 
 grey tone, and was probably made at Tokyo within the last half century. It is an okimono , 
 that is to say, “ a thing to be placed,” or “ ornament,” which serves no useful purpose. The 
 artist has delighted in reproducing this familiar picture of a group of cats, in which all the 
 intensity of the most touching maternal love is revealed. Compare the disquietude and watch¬ 
 fulness depicted in the attitude and look of the mother at the approach of a stranger, and the 
 trustful serenity of her two children. 
 
 Plate GA. Fragment of woven silk. The idea of this composition most certainly originated 
 in a mind which had carefully contemplated the stirring life which on a hot summer’s day 
 reigns over a piece of still water carpeted with a mossy bottom. Butterflies and dragon-flies 
 
 41 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 indulge in their frolics, and in grazing the water’s surface trace upon it, in a thousand tangled 
 streaks, the gyratory movements of their giddy evolutions. The many kinds of Lemna (Jap. 
 Oukikousa), a plant indigenous to the marshes, have scattered their gay red seedlings, whilst 
 mixed with these may be seen the delicate fronds of the water Ranunculus. 
 
 We may add in connection with this, that although it may occasionally happen that the 
 exact significance of a detail may not be apparent, or a mistake be made in its interpretation, 
 we must never doubt that a logical meaning, apparent or hidden, most certainly attaches to even 
 the most insignificant parts of a Japanese composition, if they be purely ornamental, the only 
 exception being in the case of certain geometric designs which serve habitually the purpose of a 
 foundation only. 
 
 The Plate CE shows an example of this exception in the central frieze, whilst in the arrange¬ 
 ment at the lower portion of the page the arabesque pattern serves as a basis for a design of 
 running water which carries with it sprays of the cherry in full bloom. The upper design consists 
 of a flight of a thousand small birds, which are drawn this, that, and every way. 
 
 The Plate DD confronts us with a much more striking composition ; the plant of the cala¬ 
 bash gouid (Sagena vulgaris; Jap. Hiotan), letting its serpentine tendrils laden with flowers and 
 fiuits wander hither and thither, apparently without any restraint, over a chequered ground, which 
 oiiginated piobably in an idea taken from the walls formed of large stones which sometimes 
 surround the Daimios properties. The Hiotan, which is much cultivated in China, and in India 
 whence it originated, holds an important place in the domestic life of the Japanese. Its skin used 
 as a bottle is the faithful travelling companion of the pilgrims, of whom a large number are to 
 be seen everywhere visiting places oftentimes as much for their beauty of situation as for the 
 purpose of offering up devotions at the feet of their tutelary deity ; it also, when suspended against 
 the walls, selves as the most popular of flower vases ; as such it is at times used in its natural 
 state, at others decorated with a rich ornamentation of lacquer, imitating the leafed tendrils of 
 
 the plant. The gourd has also afforded numberless varieties of models to the bronzists, ceramists, 
 and basket-makers. 
 
 42 
 
Contents of Number 4. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE (conclusion ), by Victor Champier . 31 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES .30 
 
 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 it \ 
 
 FF. Actor in Female Costume. By Tori-i Kiyomitsu. 
 
 Bj. Bronze Incense Burner, in the shape of a duck. 
 
 GA. Fragment of Silk Stuff. 
 
 CH. Ceramics. 
 
 1. Water vessel, Nabeshima porcelain. 
 
 2. Group of cats, Tokyo pottery. 
 
 Landscape, taken from “The Thirty-six Views of Fujiyama.” By Hokusai. 
 
 BG. Street Scene, from Hokusai’s Shiu-gwa. 
 
 CE. Industrial Designs for Stuffs or Paper. A flight of birds—Geometrical 
 design—Flowers on water. 
 
 Cl. Bronze Vase. 
 
 GE. Studies of Flowers, Convolvulus. 
 
 DD. Industrial Design. Gourd tendrils on a chequered ground. 
 
 Part V. will contain an Article on “Jewellers Work” by M. L. Falize. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 'K 
 
 life of the people, and even the strange typical masks used in 
 the] native plays, will, we believe, as they appear, interest 
 and amuse. 
 
 I cannot bring my too lengthy preamble to a close wdthout mention 
 of an apprehension which made me hesitate to undertake this task. I allude to 
 the fear that I might not be able to obtain satisfactory results in the reproduction 
 of the! subjects. All doubt on this point has been happily dispelled. I have 
 had the good fortune to obtain the assistance of M. Charles 
 Gillot, whose zeal and skill have been seconded by his fervent 
 love of Japan and its Art. M. Gillot has succeeded to perfection 
 in his engravings, and in the printing of them, and he has thereby 
 proved that mechanical means cease to be the irreconcilable foes of Art, 
 when they are employed by one who can turn them into docile auxiliaries, 
 as supple as the artist’s own fingers working under the direct inspiration 
 of his brain. 
 
 S. BING. 
 
 May, 1888. 
 
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JEWELLERY 
 
 In approaching the Art of Japan, it is 
 not my intention to touch upon its origin 
 or its marvels, or to ascertain the laws 
 upon which it is founded. A goldsmith 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 myself, I shall confine myself to a short dissertation on 
 the Art of that craft as practised in Japan. 
 
 Japan, correctly speaking, has neither the art of the 
 goldsmith nor of the jeweller. The males do not, like the 
 Indians, deck themselves out in jewellery, nor do the females 
 wear collars or bracelets; no vessels of silver are found upon 
 their tables, nor vases of gold upon their altars. From this 
 it will be seen that no comparison can be formed between 
 them and us in this respect, and it would be puerile to attempt to assign 
 a preference to the work of either. Originated for dissimilar wants, 
 governed by other laws, this branch of Art followed, in Japan, traditions 
 of so different a nature that it is impossible to compare either the form, 
 the decoration, or the style with anything Western. 
 
 This, notwithstanding, it is impossible not to admire in Japanese 
 jewellery, or rather in the products of the worker in metals, a taste in 
 the arrangement, a science in colouring, and a manual dexterity. 
 
 The forms are not derived, as in ours of the old world, from an 
 architectural fount; if vases occasionally appear to be constructed on 
 certain definite rules, they then most certainly have a Chinese or Corean 
 origin. The Japanese model is always supple; inspired by a flower, a 
 fruit, something in nature, it has never adapted itself to rule or to 
 measurement by the compass, but remains free, picturesque, and 
 daring. 
 
 The love of gold or silver, the desire 
 to impart to an object richness 
 and magnificence, has 
 never bound the workman 
 to the exclusive use of 
 those two metals. To 
 him they are merely two 
 colours upon his palette, 
 upon which he has also ranged 
 iron, copper, lead, pewter, and 
 brass, and these he uses like a 
 painter, mixing and combining 
 his tints, and varying his effects 
 through the use of alloys in 
 
 Daimio’s Son out walking, by Kiyonaga. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 Issai, vol. v. 
 
 a way we have never yet dared 
 to do. 
 
 Thus, then, we see this workman ^ 
 artist under no obligation to confine 
 his efforts to hammering out a silver 
 flagon, or shaping a gold ring, but free to model 
 to his liking his mass of metal, and to paint it in all the colours 
 which that metal offers to him. He constructs his model in wax; it is 
 perchance a rugged trunk of a tree which two hundred years of growth 
 and wear have delved into deep furrows, whose powerful roots grip the 
 ground, which has deep cavities burrowed by generations of insects, which 
 is overgrown with moss or other parasites, some old, some of infantine 
 freshness. All this our artist copies with the patient care of a workman 
 to whom time is of no value. He installs himself in the 
 depths of the forest before his model ; he studies it as a 
 botanist, he gets to understand, love, and admire it. 
 He changes nothing, arranges nothing—or rather 
 disarranges nothing—of what he considers that nature 
 has set out so well, and then, when his wax model 
 is complete to his satisfaction, he coats it with a fine earth ; 
 this he overlays in small pieces, and allows to dry, adding 
 to it wherever necessary, until he has made of it a mould 
 which covers his model with a solid envelopment. He then heats the whole 
 at a small fire in a specially constructed oven; the wax melts and runs out 
 of the air holes, and the mould remains entire, with its previously con¬ 
 structed core of earth. 
 
 Then our artist makes his alloy of shakudo, which is a mixture of 
 copper and gold; this will subsequently take a patina of intense black, and 
 of a transparent polish ; the metal is poured into the cavity of the mould, 
 and fills it in every part; the earthen envelope is then broken, and the 
 ru g& e d tree trunk appears in all its metallic beauty. 
 
 Our artist now sets to work again, squatting on the 
 ground before his tree model which sits so quietly to 
 him; shaded by a big parasol, his legs bent under him, 
 he holds the block of bronze between his knees. And 
 now watch him whilst he chisels, files, polishes, returns 
 again and again to the smallest details of his work, 
 
 45 
 
 From Hokusai’s Man-gwa, vol. xii. 
 
 From Hokusai’s Man-gwa, vol. i. 
 

 ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 From vol. i. Hokusai’s Man-gwa. 
 
 and when he has finished it, watch him as he 
 caresses it and rejoices that he has discovered 
 so many beauties, and has been aroused to so 
 much enthusiasm. But even then his task is in¬ 
 complete ; when he considers that his bronze cast 
 is finished, then he commences to cover it with moss 
 and verdure, or he furrows up with deep lines the fibres 
 of a root; this he encrusts either in small planes or in 
 delicate veins with pieces of shinshin (yellow copper), 
 shicio (violet copper), or shibuicki (an alloy of six parts 
 of copper and four of silver); then he hollows out the 
 contours of the leaves, and carves out small veneers of 
 green gold which he will inlay, hammer, and chisel, 
 until the whole grows like a picture under an artist’s brush, and his 
 sculpture appears, to a near-sighted person, painted with the fineness of a 
 miniature, and with the delicacy of flesh. Here we see a whole tribe of 
 ants issuing from a hole in the tree; their bodies are of gold or iron, their 
 legs of extreme tenuity; endowed with life, they bustle and hurry about their 
 accustomed duties. A golden, enamelled butterfly, whose delicate wings of 
 mother-of-pearl give out reflections as deep and changeable as those of the 
 original, has posed itself upon a white flower of silver, variegated with threads 
 of gold and blue enamel. A curious red spot is visible at the base of the 
 
 tree; it is a fungus, striped and spotted, admirable in its modelling; the 
 
 patient artist has filed and polished it, and then subjected it to several 
 coatings of red lac, each of which have had to be carefully and slowly dried, 
 repolished, recoated, pricked over with gold dust. And now only (after having 
 gone over all his work a hundred times, which never to his mind will 
 compare with the original, after having clothed it with a coating of 
 adherent silver-leaf, which is itself a mass of admirable design in niello-work, 
 after having baked it in sulphur, polished it with the finest powder, 
 tempered it in a vinegar formed from plums, fired it with infinite precau¬ 
 tions, exposing this part, protecting that, after a thousand caresses, and a 
 thousand retouches) does the artist place his signature upon it, 
 
 satisfied with his work; then he encloses it first in a covering of 
 embroidered silk which fits it like a garment, and then in a casing 
 of deftly-joined wood. And now at last we see the completed 
 
 work, the product of many months of assiduous, impassioned, 
 
 47 
 
 From vol. ii. Hokusai's Man-gwa. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 * happy toil, passed in communion with an out-of-the- 
 way corner of nature, with its imaginative dreamings, 
 yits enchanting life, its delights for the man at once a 
 sculptor, painter, and mechanic. 
 
 Can this be termed a piece of jewellery ? Who is the 
 man who will identify himself here with similar models and 
 work ? I have dwelt at some length upon this patient, 
 determined, capable, poet of the tool, in his 
 From Hokkei’s Man-gwa. open-air studio. For why? Because it is 
 a picture of the workman of old, as he once lived and 
 
 • i 
 
 worked. We cannot, unfortunately, now come across his -s] 
 fellows, for they do not exist. Japan, in its process of 
 civilizing itself, has ceased to produce anything except the 
 articles required for exportation to Western bazaars. 
 
 Fortunately, however, this great artist of the past has left 
 traditions, sleight-of-hand secrets of the craft, receipts for 
 alloys, methods of creating patinas and of decoration 
 which are still in vogue in the workshops of Kyoto, 
 
 Osaka, Tokyo, and Nagoya. 
 
 It is fortunate that as nowadays the secret is lost of 
 creating a sword-guard similar to those by these renowned 
 artists, there still remains to us the originals of those 
 powerful and charming productions, where the iron is 
 pierced, incised, carved out, tortured into the form of 
 monsters, interlaced into the shape of birds, insects, or 
 flowers, or modelled into a landscape forming a picture 
 no bigger than a child’s hand but containing within itself a complete poem. 
 
 Not only is the whole completely modelled, but a damascening of fine 
 gold overruns it, drawing the outlines of feather or scale, and streaking with 
 its colours of warm or cool gold or silver, the rugged iron basis. Perchance 
 a leaf encrusted with green or red attracts with the colouring of an emerald 
 or ruby. 
 
 And all this ornamentation was not lavished only on the sword-guard. 
 Even in the interfacings of the cord upon the hilt were 
 to be found the menuki , made of the same metal as the 
 rest of the furniture ; these would represent either some 
 extraordinary animals, or a god, or perchance a singing 
 
 48 
 
 
 ’ 1 '('ll,!.,, 
 
 Issai, vol. ii. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 woman, with her musical instrument, her robe all encrusted 
 with silver, and her hair of wondrous black metal, and all chased 
 and chiselled under the magnifying glass. Then again there is the 
 pommel of the sword, and the kodzuka and kogai, all replete with 
 ornamentation ! But it is needless to dwell upon these, for probably the 
 majority of those who read these lines know of or possess collections of 
 these wonderful things. And to all these must be added the engraved 
 pipes, the kanemonos , or pouch ornaments, the buttons, and the metal 
 netsukes which rival those in wood and ivory. Besides, the engravings of 
 these things, which will from time to time appear in these pages, will tell 
 far more than any written description. 
 
 It is now twenty years since, filled with admiration at the first specimens 
 I saw of an art which appeared to me as a tempting novelty and an 
 unexplained problem, I wished at once to set off to Japan in order to 
 study on the spot this unknown industry. I fondly hoped to be able to 
 carry thence some of their patient and talented workmen in order to 
 
 make them instructors for our own. I nursed this wise project for 
 several months, and dreamt of all that there was to be found in a 
 
 country which had yielded us so little as yet. My desire, however, had 
 to contend against a will that was stronger than my own. I did not 
 
 go, and I have elsewhere explained how I consoled myself by borrowing 
 from Japanese designs the idea of cloisonne enamels which I made, and 
 which has since spread widely. If I had been able to obey the instinct 
 which prompted me, I should have hoped to have been the Apostle of 
 Japan, its Prophet, and a capable translator of its Art. Knowing what 
 I did then, I should have been the first foreigner to examine the Art at 
 
 its fountain head, with the workman in his pristine condition. I need not 
 speak of the fortune which I feel sure I could have easily made ; I only 
 regret the loss of a journey which would have been full of artistic and 
 novel interest.- 
 
 Since then I have shown the way to others ; I have told and written 
 of all that I have seen, and what they and I have done. But impelled by 
 the necessities of rapid production, neither they nor I have approached the 
 disheartening perfection of those masters who are acquainted with every 
 metallic alloy, who found, beat out, chisel, engrave, encrust, damascene, 
 enamel, lacquer, polish, patinize, set, and carve with a subtlety of invention, 
 a taste for decoration, a variety of motives, a harmony of colours, and a 
 
 49 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 sense of form, and who are, in the opinion of our profession, artist workmen 
 whose productions in metal are simply adorable. 
 
 I believe that it will be worth while to examine the subject yet closer, 
 and this I hope soon to do in these columns from a purely industrial and 
 special point of view. 
 
 L. FALIZE. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 We have hitherto had some hesitation in presenting to the public certain productions of a 
 very special kind, because they deviated too decidedly from those hereditary forms out of 
 which Eastern aestheticism is built up. At the risk of being accused of a certain pusillanimity 
 we feared to fly in the face of preconceived ideas. However, come what may, we owe it to 
 our readers not to allow this omission in the survey of the different families of Japanese art 
 which we have undertaken to unfold to exist any longer. For it is especially due to those 
 whose natural taste is only moderately well disposed towards any liberty which is attempted 
 to be taken with well defined art precepts. Perhaps it may induce such to judge more 
 leniently those peculiarities of Art which at present they are tempted to despise on account of 
 their extreme novelty, and of a strangeness which is always disconcerting to well established 
 notions ; perhaps, too, they may assent to examine with greater toleration works which must 
 appeal to them on account of their evident sincerity. Who can tell, perhaps even they may 
 be lead to admit that certain doctrines, which to-day they term revolutionary, may have their 
 raison d'etre , nay, even a practical application elsewhere than at the other side of the world ? 
 However this may be, it will not do to prejudge the case before all the evidence has been 
 produced. 
 
 The Plate GB appears under the wing of the explanation just furnished. It represents a. 
 flight of tomtits (Zaster ops Japonica), and is taken from the Sui Seki Gwafu, a volume 
 published at Naniva (the ancient name for Osaka) in 1830. The work contains studies of 
 flowers, birds, &c., all remarkable for a simplicity of execution markedly defined, everything 
 being drawn in lines and dashes applied in bold, daring strokes of the brush, which reduce 
 everything to its most concise form. 
 
 The author of the work Sui Stfki was a disciple of an impressionist school at Ky 5 to, 
 whose programme was to show before aught else what were the essential characteristics of the 
 subject, to discover the most striking points, and to render these so clearly and legibly that 
 they should at once be communicated to others, and thus by a permissible license to push to a 
 ppint of exaggeration what there is to say, and to leave out altogether those parts which are 
 
 51 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 considered to be unnecessary for the demonstration, and which would in the opinion of the 
 artist only weaken the effect.* 
 
 We may, perhaps, grudge the absence of a thousand details, but the Japanese dilettanti 
 whose mind has been long accustomed to this method of workmanship is not so exacting ; he' 
 is aware that the artist wished to present such and such a thing in such and such a 
 manner, and if he finds this done he is perfectly satisfied, nay more, it elicits from him 
 a greater sense of admiration than a minutely elaborate work would have done. In the 
 composition before us the artist explains the subject in the following legend: “A flight 
 of tomtits leaving their nest with much fluttering of wings at daybreak.” 
 
 The Plate of Yoshivara by Utamaro is taken from the Seiro Nenjiu Gioji, published 
 in three volumes in 1803. 
 
 A similar scene, interpreted by Katsugawa Shunsho (Mirror of Beauties) was given in 
 our third part, to the descriptive text of which we would refer for an explanation of the 
 subject. It appeared to us that it would be interesting to compare these two similar 
 compositions treated at different dates, so that an estimate may be formed of the variety 
 of style and a parallelism after a kind established. 
 
 Two things at once strike one in connection with feminine portraiture as produced by 
 the Japanese; the first that, however much sameness, amounting often to monotony, one 
 artist imparts to his faces and figures, there is a vast difference in this respect in the types 
 assumed by different artists. Each of them—we are now of course speaking only of those 
 who have shown inventiveness—created a type of his own with which he rested satisfied 
 and which he reproduced at will. The raison d’etre of this peculiarity lies in certain fashions- 
 under the influence of which the painter was carried away, when he was not, as was often¬ 
 times the case, the originator of them. It must be remembered that fashion did not 
 confine itself, as with other nations, to simply altering the mode of draping, or of doing 
 the hair. In this eccentric country, where so many other customs follow hieratic laws 
 which admit of no change, the fashion imposes itself, by a strange aberration, even upon 
 the physiognomy of womankind, and endeavours to model it upon the lines of whatever con¬ 
 ventional style of beauty happens to be in vogue at the time. It sets to work to transform 
 artificially even the shape of the face and the form and dimensions of the lips or the eyes. In 
 certain cases the razor intervened, and the pencil stepped in to displace the eyebrows from their 
 natural position ; vermilion and even gold sometimes brought out by their brilliance certain 
 parts only of the mouth; all th resources of cosmetics were pressed into the service,, 
 and far from hiding these processes, the young coquettes revelled in the effects of this 
 their holiday adornment, just as much as they enjoyed on high days putting on their 
 best dresses. If it was necessary, therefore, for painters with such restriction and limitation 
 
 This school was undoubtedly founded upon the work of Korin , a celebrated lacquerist of the I7th-i8th century, 
 who formulated these principles of Art (which were in complete harmony with Japanese temperament, but remained latent 
 for a long period) in the most masterly manner. 
 
 52 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 to make great efforts to compass their ideal, they nevertheless had every facility for 
 exaggerating the system to its extremest limits. One is not therefore surprised to perceive 
 in pictures of Japanese customs, great divergences of type, which are very different from 
 those to which one is habituated in real life even amongst different classes of the population. 
 
 Once these singular practices are admitted, one cannot but recognize that woman as 
 she has been imagined by Kitagawa Utamaro, is in every respect most seductive, and 
 that the model he has given to us is perhaps the one with the most affinity to the 
 aristocracy of the Japanese nation. 
 
 Utamaro is never common; he displays a method which is always new and unexpected 
 in the grouping of his personages, which in themselves are full of life and movement, and he 
 shows great talent in the disposition of his accessories. Was it not, for instance, a happy audacity 
 to present, as he has done here, a number of figures seen through the bars of the open screen ? 
 The building faces the street whose liveliness is pictured by the presence of a quantity of 
 passers-by whose upper portions only are shown. The man to the right hides his face so that 
 he may not be recognised whilst carrying on a conversation with the young girls ; he is quite 
 indifferent to the sallies of two manzai * who are endeavouring to join a young elegant who 
 turns towards them. 
 
 The whole volume is inspired by Utamaro’s characteristic elegance, which .is accompanied 
 by admirable technical perfection. 
 
 The Plate GJ, also by Utamaro, shows the talent of this artist under an entirely 
 different aspect. 
 
 If he produced an immense majority of subjects where womankind plays the principal 
 part, as for instance in her varied attributions of lover, wife, or young mother, or in those 
 scenes filled with personages, as in the plate of Yoshivara, it was in order to meet the demand 
 which arose from every quarter—even from China, if we are to believe contemporary 
 historians. We do not hesitate to affirm that if we had been fortunate enough to be 
 a contemporary of Utamaro we should have been much less exclusive; for some productions 
 of an entirely different character, and of which, unfortunately, examples are very rare, make 
 us regret profoundly the taste for specialities which then existed. A work in two volumes 
 on birds, and two others of flowers, insects and reptiles, are real chefs d'czuvre of their kind. 
 
 It is from the last named of these two works, the Yehon Mushiyerabi (book of insects) 
 which appeared in 1788 that the- drawing of a pumpkin which we reproduce here is taken, 
 and which gives but an incomplete idea of the quality of the book, which we shall hope 
 very shortly to endorse by other extracts. Our plate to-day shows, fastened to the stalk 
 of the plant, one of the numerous varieties of grasshopper—that musical vagabond of which 
 similar ones in myriads fill the air of the country with a terribly strident concert, pro¬ 
 duced by the incessant friction of their attenuated legs. 
 
 * See Part 3. 
 
 53 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 Almost invariably, a short stanza accompanies the original engraving, and almost always 
 the imagination emphasises the outward form of the subject by a sentimental note, of a 
 dreamy or philosophic turn. “Little laughing one,” it says, “do not let your song be heard 
 too freely everywhere, for there are walls which have ears.” 
 
 The Plate DE, taken from the first volume of the Man-gwa of Hokusai, transports us. 
 into the very heart of stirring popular life. Hokusai was born in its midst, and there 
 passed the whole of his long and laborious existence. A plebeian by birth, it was in 
 painting the plebs that his power of observation gave itself the freest rein. 
 
 If we pass in review the numerous figures which, on this page initiate us into the daily 
 life of the masses of a Japanese city, we find, commencing at the left panel, two diners, 
 of whom one is at work swallowing a lengthy thread of a species of macaroni, whilst his 
 neighbour to the right indulges in a beatific vision of his forthcoming ample ration of 
 sake '* which he is warming at a stove and which will shortly moisten his repast. After 
 passing behind the back of a brave confectioner philosophically seated on the pavement of the 
 street, and offering for sale his small cream cakes, we encounter a group composed of a numerous, 
 family, seated in a circle, and celebrating the funeral rites of a deceased friend. The 
 priest, in the centre, strikes with a hammer on a metal plate, which acts as a noisy 
 knell and forms an accompaniment to the monotonous chant in the refrain of which he is 
 assisted by the whole company, who meanwhile pass from hand to hand the beads of a huge 
 rosary. This concert would afford little pleasure to any but the ear of a Japanese, but it is 
 given with the excellent intention of procuring for the deceased a moment’s gratification before, 
 he is escorted to his last home, and also with the hope that it will invoke for his soul 
 divine favours. Further on two wrestlers, on either side of the umpire, make their customary 
 salutation before commencing their bout, and an embroiderer is at work over his frame.. 
 Then we have an assiduous reader lying in a sufficiently nonchalant attitude, beside a scene 
 
 which depicts the priest in the old legend seeing with surprise his kettle transformed into 
 a badger. 
 
 The other half of the sheet is devoted principally to the employment of artisans, 
 boat-builders, makers of blocks for wood-engravers, dressing or carving delicately the wood : 
 all are working in feverish haste. At the lower portion of the sheet a peripatetic oil- 
 merchant is selling his ware, whilst a letter-carrier bears over his shoulder a yoke upon 
 which are suspended his tall quadrangular box and his lantern. ' The series closes with a 
 type which is very common in Japan, namely, one of the blind men who for the most 
 part follow the occupation of rubbers, and who, either singly or in company, traverse the 
 street spite of all its obstruction with a confident gait. They always carry a whistle, 
 
 whose harsh sound, well-known to all the inhabitants, is a request to them to afford a 
 free passage. 
 
 * A spirit distilled from rice. 
 
 54 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 These are only a very few of the numerous sketches with which the Man-gwa makes 
 •us familiar, and it is all contained within the narrow confines of a leaf which one would 
 .imagine had ;been torn out of a pocket-book. 
 
 The Plate HJ introduces us to another work of Hokusai’s, of which it forms one 
 page; that is the Santai Gwafu , in one volume (1816), a collection of figures, plants and 
 animals. The idea of the work is somewhat dissimilar to that of the Man-gwa , for it is 
 framed upon a more methodical classification of subjects. This sheet, for instance, shows us 
 studies of four different varieties of the Chinese Iris family, of which one is a specimen 
 of the Iris properly so called. The execution of this plate is commendable for its large, 
 simple, and free treatment, which gives with perfect clearness the elegance of the plant ’ 
 
 The Plates DB, EB, and the sheet with the Blue Butterflies, offer specimens of in¬ 
 dustrial designs. The motive of the first is taken from the perpendicular or transverse 
 fibres of which the texture of wood is composed. The second shows a pattern 
 of alternating chrysanthemum flowers entangled amidst bamboo shoots, thrown upon a 
 shield of rose-shaped design, the idea of which may have been obtained from snow-flakes 
 as seen under the microscope. Lastly, the sheet with the butterflies is a complex com¬ 
 position, undoubtedly inspired by the sight of a stream leaping over rocks on the side 
 of a flower-covered .mountain slope. 
 
 Of the Plate HE little need be said. The three vases date from the eighteenth 
 
 •century, and they are given here in continuation of the series of models which will serve 
 to illustrate the study of lines. 
 
 Plate HC. Pour sword guards. We have already sufficiently demonstrated the per¬ 
 fection which the Japanese exhibit in the reproduction of natural objects with all the 
 accompanying conditions of life and movement. But this extreme conscientiousness applied 
 to the faithful imitation of things has oftentimes put persons on the wrong scent as to 
 
 the real disposition of an art which in reality has far higher aspirations ; for in that case 
 
 m admiring the marvellous fidelity of the object and its correctness when compared with 
 nature itself, one fails to discover, or overlooks the fact that it is a composition which in 
 ■every particular is an emanation from the brain and the hand of an artist of talent. 
 
 The guard composed of mice, which will be found on the upper portion of Plate HC 
 
 furnishes a conclusive proof of this hypothesis. One would at first sight see only that 
 
 each of these small rodents has been drawn to the life in all its varying attitudes at once 
 so sharp and supple. And yet it is impossible to gainsay the fact that invention remns 
 supreme ,n this small piece, where the gift of. observation has only been the handmaid 
 of an art which was perfected through a consummate talent for composition. The mice 
 ■.which gambol or curl themselves up in accordance with the refinements of the composition’ 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 are each made of a different metal, so as to offer to the eye a variety of tones, and 
 to compose that key of colour upon which Mons. Falize has so ably discoursed in the chapter 
 at the commencement of this number. They are made of shakudo, gold, silver, shibuichi 
 and red bronze. Inlays of various metals add to the. effect, give an accent of life to the 
 eyes and of relief to the fine hairs in their whiskers. The guard bears no signature. 
 
 The guard which shows a chimera seated on a pedestal and appearing to support him¬ 
 self on the central piece, as if it were an heraldic shield, comes, according to the signature 
 upon it, from the hand of Umetada, the celebrated armourer of the sixteenth century. It is 
 decorated with encrustations of gold representing spots on the back of the beast, and 
 imitating wood veining on the pedestal which supports it. 
 
 The third guard, which illustrates a flight of chidori or sea-swallows, a bird very- 
 common in Japan, is made of shibuichi, the eyes being of minute inlaid points of gold: 
 The work is remarkable for its suppleness and softness, resembling a wax cast; and the 
 style is in imitation of that which Korin created in the interpretation which he gave of, 
 the forms of these birds. The compositions of Korin have now become so popular that 
 many artists evidently think involuntarily of him in some of his favourite compositions. 
 Thus, for instance, many never draw these chidori except in this particular form, to which, 
 the name of Korin no Chidori * has been applied. This piece is signed' by Hirochika, 
 who was an artist of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The fourth guard consists of a tiger, whose tail is impressed into the service of; 
 forming the circular band round the guard. A branch of bamboo completes the compo¬ 
 sition. The tiger is Buddhistic, and is-often drawn crouching in a bamboo brake from the 
 typhoon, showing the powerlessness of the king of beasts to withstand its fury, and this, 
 is evidently the motive here. The guard is of pierced iron encrusted with gold. It is, 
 signed “ Ikkin,” and the lettering states that it is after a design of Masayoshi, an artist 
 of the early part of the nineteenth century. 
 
 * See the note on Korin, p. 52. 
 
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I [ 
 
 I 
 
 I A TRAVELLING WRITING-SET, 
 
 ■ 
 
 MADE BY ONE OF THE FORTY-SEVEN RONINS. 
 
 ■ ■P- 
 
 One winter afternoon, some years ago, I happened to pay M. Bing a 
 visit just as he was having a consignment of goods from Japan unpacked. 
 Among many small -things already gathered together on a lacquer tray there 
 was a small portable writing-set, called in Japanese yalatt (arrow-holder), 
 which consisted of a little case hardly larger than a stick of barley-sugar, 
 containing the badger’s-hair brush for writing, and a tiny box in which is 
 enclosed a sort of sponge of rabbit’s-hair soaked in indian-ink. These 
 quaint little objects, each made of two pieces of bamboo, had upon them 
 representations of children playing, drawn in black upon the yellowish drab 
 colour of the natural wood. There was nothing in any way unusual about 
 
 i If M I 
 
 I 
 
 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 the childish games, but somehow the little 
 set seemed to me to have the appearance of 
 an object of use in bygone times, and a long 
 inscription engraved on the box, and one of 
 those very undisguised mends seen in objects 
 of value in Japan, doubly confirmed my ideas. 
 
 I offered a price which was not accepted, so, 
 with no little disappointment, I left the writing- 
 set, having all the time that feeling of regret 
 one so constantly has when sacrificing some 
 fascinating object. However, in the evening, 
 
 I was seized with so great a desire to 
 possess the toy that next day I returned chez 
 M. Bing. 
 
 Alas! it had already been sold to a well- 
 known collector of foreign curios, who, however, 
 in the course of a year or so, tired of his col¬ 
 lection of Oriental objects, and, when they were 
 dispersed, I again came across the writing-set at 
 Yadsuama, one of the lorty-seven Ronins, by the Freres Sichel’s, whence I at last secured it. 
 
 Kuniyoshl- The poor little thing remained in my house 
 
 some time, but little noticed, until at last Mr. Otsouka, a Japanese, recognised 
 that it was a work of the seventeenth century; but no one in the world had 
 the least suspicion that it was the work of any illustrious hand. At last, 
 one day, M. Hayashi, as he was going through my collection, discovered the 
 writing-set in a drawer. I saw his fingers trembling with excitement as if 
 he were touching some precious relic; at the same time he remarked to 
 me ; “ Do you know that you have here a great curiosity—an object made by 
 one of the forty-seven Ronins ? ” And, tearing a leaf from a pocket-book he 
 had with him, he directly translated the inscription on the box, as follows:— 
 
 family name of the 
 Ronin. 
 
 Christian name of the 
 Ronin. 
 
 name of the master of 
 the forty-seven Ronins. 
 
 | subject. 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 Which translation may be put thus:—“Carved by Otoka Nobukiyo, subject 
 of Prince Akao, in 1683, at the end of spring-time.”* 
 
 Without doubt, then, this little writing-set, this tiny toy, was made by 
 a vassal of Prince Akao—by one of the forty-seven heroes who devoted 
 themselves till death to the cause of avenging their lord and master—by one 
 of those men whose memory has become a form of religion in Japan; in 
 that country where they worship chivalry and valour, and where, according 
 to M. Hayashi, of all our European literature only the plays of Shakespeare 
 and the tragedy of Le Cid\ by Corneille, are considered worthy of attention. 
 
 A curious fact this, in the history of the human race, that this great 
 act of devotion, accomplished in feudal times by a family of vassals, should be, 
 for two centuries after, celebrated in the art, drama, and literature of Japan. 
 
 A Daimio of the name of Takumi-no-Kami, charged with a message 
 from the Mikado to the Court of Yeddo, was deeply insulted by Ivotsuke,f 
 one of the great functionaries of the Shogun. 
 
 o o 
 
 It is against the law to draw the sword within the walls of the palace, 
 and in doing so the risk is run of death and the confiscation of property. 
 Takumi was master of himself in spite of a first offence ; but at the second 
 he could no longer contain himself, and rushed upon his enemy, who, being 
 but slightly wounded, was able to escape. 
 
 Takumi was condemned to disembowel himself, and his family were 
 reduced to poverty, and < his retainers fell to the level of Ronins—rogues and 
 vagabonds, according to the Japanese expression. But Kuranosuke, the chief 
 councillor of the Daimio, and forty-six Samurai attached to his service, had 
 
 * The date of the making of the object, if it is correct—the Prince of Akao having been executed in 1690—seems to 
 indicate that the little writing-set was manufactured before Otoka was a Ronin and a merchant of bamboo articles ; but, 
 according to the custom in Japan, people who had no idea of becoming professional artists carved netsukes to amuse 
 themselves, and so Otoka, as a merchant later on, may have made profit by the amusement of his younger days, 
 t Tales of Old Japan. A. Mitford. Macmillan, 1871. 
 
 59 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 sworn to avenge their master, and this vow once made, these men, to calm the 
 suspicions of kotsuke, who had them watched by his spies at Kyoto, separated 
 themselves, and went to various towns disguised as artizans of various trades. 
 
 kuranosuke was also equally successful in deceiving Kotsuke. He 
 imitated drunkenness with such exactness that a man from Satsuma, finding 
 him ljing stretched out in a stream close by a tea-house and believing him 
 to be hopelessly drunk, spoke to him thus—" Poor wretch, unworthy of the 
 name of Samurai, who, instead of avenging thy master, givest thyself up to 
 
 drunkenness and wantonness! ” And then he pushed him over with his foot 
 further into the stream. 
 
 The faithful servant carried his devotion still further. He apparently 
 deeply wronged his wife, and, as it seemed, cruelly drove her from his 
 house, only keeping his son aged sixteen with him. But one must read of 
 this wondrous comedy in the original Japanese of Tamenaga Shunsui, 
 which leaves very far behind it even the description of the degradation 
 of Lorenzacchio from Alfred de Musset. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Alas, unfortunate creature that I am, how happy were those bygone 
 
 days when there was no cause of complaint against his wife ! ” exclaims 
 the unhappy woman, who attributes her husband’s brutality to madness 
 caused by the death of the prince, and she retires 
 sobbing wildly, having gazed with ineffable 
 sweetness on the apparently sleeping form. 
 
 Kuranosuke raises himself, and without a sio- n of 
 drunkenness in his manner, and which shows the greatest 
 emotion, cries Woe is me, this fidelity is more than 
 I can bear!” And, as he spoke, tears fell from his 
 eyes. “ Here is a model wife ! ” says he. “ Instead of 
 reviling me for what must seem a crime, she finds some 
 excuse for my conduct, and takes on herself the cause! 
 
 This must cease. She shall not know the 
 part I must play to carry out my plan ; 
 my little children shall not remember me 
 only as a drunken old man ! 
 
 I shall return her whence 
 she came. And yet, how 
 can I do this ? ” 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 • 
 
 The brave man paced his room, 
 and in the agony of his grief he 
 wrung his hands and ground his 
 teeth. Full of wisdom as he was, 
 he had forgotten, when undertaking 
 the part of a drunkard, that he 
 would be unable to tire the devo¬ 
 tion of his wife. His only means 
 were to give her a letter of divorce 
 and to send her back with his 
 younger children to her father, who 
 he knew would doubtless under¬ 
 stand the real reason which caused 
 him to act so, and who would 
 console the poor woman and give 
 her advice. 
 
 At this moment he heard his children’s 
 
 voices and then that of his wife, who was 
 speaking in low tones. 
 
 One of the forty-seven Ronins, by Kuniyoshi. 
 
 Hush, little ones—your father is ill—you will disturb him ! ” 
 
 Is he still as he was the other day?” asked the eldest. “He had 
 such a funny illness ! ” 
 
 Your father has many troubles, and you must not speak so,” is the 
 mother’s answer. 
 
 The unfortunate man turned his thoughts to his dead prince, and, 
 arming himself with a heart of steel against all sentiment, he lay down 
 again and pretended to sleep. 
 
 About mid-day his wife enters. She kneels close to him and waits till 
 
 he opens his eyes, then she says—“ Revered husband, thy bath is ready 
 for thee.” 
 
 He raises himself and takes a flute, which he commences to play, then 
 he says quickly—“ I am going.” 
 
 He goes towards the door, and his wife at once fetches his Ronins 
 hat and gives it him kneeling. 
 
 “Revered husband, wear this,” she says; “you have enemies around 
 you here.” 
 
 Kuranosuke turned towards her and said—“ You talk too much; I shall 
 
 61 
 
( 
 
 ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 give you a letter of divorce and you will be obliged to return to your 
 father. If you wish I shall give you the permission to take charge of our 
 two youngest children. My servant will go with you.” 
 
 Before she could answer he had put on his hat, and had staggered 
 down the path ; his wife saw him gradually disappearing, and it seemed to 
 her as if she was waking from some dream. 
 
 ****** 
 
 1 hen it is that Kotsuke (“ he who has committed a great crime hears, 
 in the footstep of a mouse, the tread of an avenger”)—then it is that 
 Kotsuke, quite reassured by the degraded life of his enemy, discontinued 
 having the watch which he had ordered around his house, and dismissed a 
 portion of his guards. 
 
 The night of vengeance had at last arrived, and here is its description, 
 as taken from the pictures of an album :— 
 
 One cold winter’s night, in December, 1701, at “the hour of the ox” 
 (i.e., two o clock in the morning), in a heavy snowstorm, the 
 conspirators, wrapped in black-and-white cloaks in order to re¬ 
 cognise one another, and underneath coats of mail, made their way 
 quietly to the yashki of the man whose head they 
 had vowed they would place upon the tomb of their 
 prince. They scaled the outer palisades and forced 
 open the inner doors with a hammer. They cut the 
 throats of Ivotsuke’s Samurais, and any who escaped 
 them they pursued even on to the roof, whence they 
 threw them. 
 
 But Kotsuke himself was nowhere to be 
 found, and they despaired of ever 
 finding him, until Kuranosuke, 
 plunging his hands into his bed, 
 found that the bed-clothes 
 were still warm ; he could not 
 be far off therefore, and, after 
 a careful search, his hiding- 
 place was found—a chest for 
 charcoal — with him, having 
 already been wounded in his 
 hip, concealed in it. (A coloured 
 
 62 
 
 Mas>e, one of the forty-seven Runins, by Kuniycshi. 
 
I 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 picture shows 
 us the old 
 man clothed 
 in white satin, 
 dragged all 
 trembling before the 
 chief of the conspirators.) 
 
 At this moment Kurano- 
 sukd falls on his knees before the 
 wounded man, and, after the ex¬ 
 pressions of respect due to one of 
 superior rank, says to him—“ Sire ! 
 we are the retainers of Takumi-no-Kami. Your 
 highness had a cjuarrel with him j he was made 
 to die, and his family was ruined. As his good 
 and faithful servants, we would earnestly entreat you to commit hara-kiri 
 (disembowelling), and, having taken your grace’s head, I will go and place 
 it as an offering on the tomb of the noble Takumi. Kotsuke, not taking 
 advantage of the invitation, Kuranosukci cut off his head with the little 
 knife that had been used by his own master to disembowel himself. 
 
 Then the forty-seven Ronins hastened towards the temple on the “ Hill 
 of Spring," where rested the remains of the Prince of Akao beneath three 
 layers of stone, surmounted by a tablet, on which was his epitaph as 
 follows“ The great Samurai rests here. He who enjoyed in life the 
 noble titles of Major-domo-general and Great-lord-of-the-privilege-of-audience- 
 with-the-Mikado.” And, having made their offering of Kotsuke's head, 
 they, counting themselves as dead men and beseeching the bonzes to bury 
 them, gave themselves up to justice. Condemned by Hayashi Daigaku', 
 Chief of the Academicians, who was consulted by the executive powe^, the 
 forty-seven Ronins disembowelled themselves, and, buried around their lord, 
 the grave of the Prince of Akao became a place of pilgrimage. 
 
 Such is the legendary history of these forty-seven men, one of whom 
 
 63 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 was the maker of the little writing-set. It is easy to understand, on hearing 
 the translation of the inscription by M. Hayashi, how much interest I felt in 
 an object which might even have played some part in the expedition 
 against the house of Kotsukd—of which, by the way, I find no mention 
 either in the romance of Tamenaga Shunsui, nor in the Legends of Old 
 Japan by Mr. Mitford. It is natural that I should be anxious to make 
 acquaintance with my artist-hero, either by a portrait, a sketch, or any 
 representation; and I set to work to ransack my albums, finding the 
 compilation which has for its title Sei tu Guishi-deu (the knights of duty and 
 devotion), where the painter Kuniyoshi shows us the Ronins in the act of 
 attacking the yashki of Kotsuke. One “carrying a bottle of dressing 
 for wounds, and for making great flames to terrify the enemy,” 
 another carrying “ two candles and two spikes of bamboo to act as 
 torches,” one putting out lamps with water, another with a whistle 
 to his mouth, whose three shrill sounds must have told of the dis¬ 
 covery of Kotsuke, and nearly every one in some warlike attitude, 
 brandishing in both hands lances and swords, and each clothed in a blue 
 robe, with his distinctive letter on it, having arms and accoutrements, 
 and each carrying a yatat£, a writing-set, and in their sleeve a paper 
 explaining the reason for their attack.* 
 
 * This was a copy of the instructions drawn up by 
 Kuranosuke, of which the original was still extant in the 
 temple of the Hill of Spring (Singakuji), 
 and which, among a mass of rules and regu¬ 
 lations preparatory for the combat, contains 
 this curious paragraph —“ Before going take 
 medicine ; do so in order to keep 
 well. Sudden emotion often 
 makes even strong men ill.” 
 
 Kotsuke discovered by tl 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 
 Having shown the album to M. Hayashi, I asked him to 
 
 pick out Otoka of the forty-seven Ronins represented, and whether 
 he knew no further details of the man. While searching through the 
 book, he said to me — “ Here is Otoka, or rather Quengo Tadao— 
 
 for it is not the custom to mention the real names of the Ronins— 
 
 they are always represented by the feigned names by which they are 
 
 known in the theatre.” While saying this, M. Hayashi had turned 
 to a page in the album where one finds a coloured print of a warrior 
 
 in a blue helmet, with a black-and-white robe lined with black, his 
 head bowed, his hands on the handle of a lance, one foot in the air, 
 the other flat on the ground, and making a great blow from side to 
 
 Hayashi cudgelled his memory for some biographical 
 his eye rested on the half page of letterpress 
 warrior, and he exclaimed, “His biography ! Here 
 it just as he translated it from the text of 
 
 side. Then, as M 
 detail of .Otoka, 
 printed under the 
 it is ! ” and I give 
 Ippitsuan. 
 
 “ Tadao be- 
 Akao. In spite of 
 his knowledge of 
 
 longed by descent to a family of vassals of 
 his youthfulness he was a well-known character ; 
 tactics and manoeuvring brought him 
 
 great 
 
 ° 
 
 ins, carrying lanterns, by Kunisada. 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 renown. After the disaster that befell the house of his master he came 
 to Yeddo, determined in his heart to have vengeance. But to the world 
 he appeared as an artist, and he was called among poets Shiyo, and a 
 great poet of this period, Kikaku, was his friend. He was admitted to 
 the tea-society of Tcha-noyu, and was pupil of Yamada Sohen, the cele¬ 
 brated master of tea-ceremonies, who was intimate with Kira (Kotsuke). 
 
 
 He so contrived to put himself into possession of the knowledge of the 
 habits of his enemy. In order to become perfectly acquainted, he disguised 
 himself as a merchant of articles made in bamboo and of brooms, of which 
 he sold the finest sort; so he constantly visited the palace of Kira. 
 So it was that he learnt that the fourteenth day of the twelfth month was 
 the day of general cleaning, and that on this day all the people in the 
 palace were either drunk, or asleep from fatigue. So it was, also, that he 
 showed Oishi which was the night that an attack should be made. In 
 the combat he was wounded during the night, and it is believed that 
 
 66 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 Kobayoshi Heihate was his adversary.” One remarks the words “ dis¬ 
 guised himself as a merchant of articles of bamboo; ” he must have 
 made them himself, as is proved by the little portable writing-set in 
 my collection. 
 
 EDMOND DE GONCOURT. 
 
 Tokuda, one of the forty-seven Ronins, Vy Kuniyoshi. 
 
 67 
 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 
 
 The story of the forty-seven Ronins is represented, beside the engravings in the text, by 
 plates HI and IJ, in colours, from the brush of Hiroshige, one of whose works—a landscape— 
 we reproduced in No. i. 
 
 Plates HI and IJ are from a set of eleven engravings representing as many scenes in the 
 history of the Ronins. In plate HI the conspirators reach at the break of day the point of 
 attack, they pass a bridge covered with snow, while two of their party, recognized from their 
 black-and-white cloaks, wait for them in a boat which is to carry them over to one of the 
 least-guarded points of Kotsuke’s palace. 
 
 Plate IJ shows us Kotsuke seized in the Gardens of Yashki, whither he has tried to escape. 
 In the background the faithful followers continue the combat with the palace guards. 
 
 Plate DA is a reproduction of a hand-screen in bronze of a light patina of a recent date, 
 and which can hardly ever have been used to cool the face of any Japanese, for it weighs 
 nearly four pounds. The plate shows it three quarters smaller than its real size. 
 
 It is formed of two plates so cleverly fastened together at the edges that no joining is 
 visible. Nevertheless, the two pieces of bronze represent in a wonderful manner the two 
 leaves, which in ordinary fans are glued on separate pieces split from the bamboo, which 
 forms also the handle ; and even the cleverest of our European workmen would find it hard 
 to say what means can have been employed to divide the bronze cylinder which is held in 
 the hand; how the sticks of the fan are cut, and how their ends are fixed between the 
 two plates. 
 
 The artist, whose name is Ko-un, has displayed a marvellous method of working the 
 metal into a novel form, but it would be difficult to find any practical use for the screen. 
 Fastened against one of the wooden partitions of a house, its patina would form a charming 
 point of colour, contrasting pleasantly with the scheme of decoration, and if some newly- 
 arrived visitor were to notice it, the host could not fail to be gratified by the admiration it 
 would cause. The figure chased in relief on it, and afterwards cleverly touched up with some 
 
 69 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 sharp implement, represents a mendicant priest, tired out by constantly beating a drum in 
 order to draw the attention of charitable passers-by. 
 
 Plate BD represents the mask of a N 6 dancer (see the notes in No. 2 on the tenth plate 
 in No. 1), in lacquered wood, making a grinning grimace, and showing two rows of teeth. 
 From time to time plates will be given representing these masks. They lend important aid 
 in establishing this important fact in Japanese Art—that beauty is not always in regular lines 
 and forms, but also, and very decidedly so, in the strength of the rendering of the inner life, 
 and the expression of character. With us, many people are apt to be scornful when one dares 
 to call these objects beautiful; but there is a great contrast between the taste for Japanese 
 Art and that of the general public. 
 
 It is always worth while remarking that, however exaggerated the features may be, there 
 is always a well-executed cast of the human face in these masks ; and even those which are 
 hideous and grotesque would serve a physiognomist perfectly in the study of the distinctive 
 characteristics of the race. 
 
 In Plate BA there are various decorative designs of the most simple description. The 
 border of clematis flowers is from a page by Hokusai. 
 
 The stencil pattern in two tones consists of the nibbled leaves of the Potcimogeton 
 fluitans , which grows, as its name indicates, in low and damp spots where the abundance of 
 snails causes the cuts which divide nearly every leaf. 
 
 The artist has even been so bold as to reproduce the plant as it is most commonly seen, 
 and he has had the double satisfaction of being true to nature, and at the same time, from a 
 decoiative point of view, he has produced a design both novel and original, which pleases the 
 
 eye and is not the least monotonous. In this direction the Japanese artist considers he cannot 
 go too far. 
 
 The series of decorative motives in this number is completed by Plate FC, which is a 
 \ eiy simple airangement of a few fans carelessly thrown down on a trellis-work ground, which 
 is already strewn with some dead rose-leaves. The fans themselves present various geometrical 
 designs, and a pattern of birds flying among branches. 
 
 Plate GA is composed of two portions, taken from Hokusai’s Sogona —a source from which 
 we have already drawn specimens. 
 
 We here again find expressed in quiet colouring the same ingenuity and the same love of 
 flowers and small animals which we have already so constantly remarked. 
 
 On a gray ground the great artist has drawn chrysanthemums and the double-pink, whose 
 loose petals and bending leaves he loves even more than the bright-coloured rose. 
 
 At the top of the bunch are chrysanthemums, while below, the modest pink blooms, but 
 with double the five petals which are the sign of its kind. Two bees, in their striped armour 
 and with their great eyes, most truthfully drawn, give life to this tiny piece of nature. 
 
 The second portion is more full of movement—one might almost say more lively. The 
 
 70 
 
ARTISTIC JAPAN. 
 
 broad treatment of Hokusai is more especially to be noticed in his studies of birds; broadly 
 expressed and well-sustained, his execution shows no slightness, and demands, in order to 
 avoid heaviness, all the care of the great artist. 
 
 Plate FA is a study of irises, from an unsigned water-colour drawing, but most probably 
 dating from the eighteenth century. The artist, having endeavoured to give the suppleness of 
 the flower in the simplest manner, has been obliged to neglect the details of the structure, 
 but he has taken care to reproduce the tiniest ribs. 
 
 Plate IA shows a specimen of Ceramic art, from the hands of the celebrated Kensan 
 (1663-1743), who worked first at Kyoto, and then at Yeddo, where he founded the manufactory 
 of Imado, which exists to the present day. Kensan endued the many works from his hand 
 with a strong originality, not only by the use of quite novel materials, but also by 
 ornamentation of bold and strong designs very different to the thin work of his predecessors 
 in his art. 
 
 The vase represented in Plate IA forms part of a Japanese dinner service—it is the 
 “ donbri,” in which are served cooked fruits, and sometimes fish. It is in earthenv/are, covered 
 with green enamel strewn over with blossoms ; the upper part is open-work. 
 
 
 p 
 
Contents of Number 6. 
 
 A TRAVELLING WRITING-SET, by Edmond de Goncourt . . 57 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.. 6g 
 
 SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 Hi. Scene from the History of the Forty-seven Ronins. By Hiroshige 
 DA. Bronze Hand-Screen. By Ko-un. 
 
 IA. Specimen of Ceramic Art. By Kensan. 
 fa. Study of Irises. 
 
 ij. Second Scene from the History of the Forty-seven Ronins. 
 
 By Hiroshigd 
 
 FC. Decorative Design. 
 
 CA. Flowers, Insects, , and Birds. By Hokusai. 
 
 BD. Mask of a No Dancer. 
 
 BA. Model Industrial Design. 
 
 Leaves and Flowers (in stencil). 
 
 The Text of Part VII. will be by M. Thbodore Duret (“ Engraving in Japan ”). 
 

 
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ULCIJ 
 
 l uw. 
 
 ARTISTIC 
 
 JAPAN 
 
 A Monthly Illustrated 
 Journal of Arts 
 
 & Industries 
 
 conducted by 
 
 S. BING 
 
 — 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
~ IN' - J.‘ ~ ".lune TBfw. 
 
 
 ARTISTIC 
 
 JAPAN 
 
 A Monthly Illustrated 
 Journal of Arts 
 & Industries 
 
 conducted by 
 
 

 
 
 
 •• - 
 
IN c5. — July 1888. 
 
 MONTHLY. —Price : 2 
 
 ARTISTIC 
 
 JAPAN 
 
 A Monthly Illustrated 
 Journal of Arts 
 & Industries 
 
 S. BING 
 
 nducted by 
 
 
 
IN" 4. — AllgUSt 1888. 
 
 MONTHLY.— Price 7 2 
 
 
 
 ARTISTIC 
 
 JAPAN 
 
 A Monthly Illustrated 
 Journal of Arts 
 
 & Industries 
 
 conducted by 
 
 S. BING 
 

 % 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A Monthly Illustrated 
 Journal of Arts 
 & Industries 
 
 conducted by 
 
 S. BING 
 
 
 
 ARTISTIC 
 JA PAN 
 

 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 . \ 
 
 I. 
 
 Programme. By S. Bing. 
 
 SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 A. View of Lake Biwa, By Hiro-shighe. 
 
 C. Study of Grasses. 
 
 H. Design for Decoration.—Mallow. 
 
 E, Study of a Dead Bird. 
 
 G. Design for Decoration. 
 
 B. Specimen of Brocaded Silk.—Wisteria. 
 
 I. Three Bronze Vases. 
 
 D. Group of Monkeys.—Kakemono. By Sosen. 
 
 AJ. Ornamental Designs. 
 
 F. Mask of a No Dancer. 
 
II. 
 
 The Japanese as Decorators. By Louis Gonse 
 Notes on the Illustrations. 
 
 SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 EG. Fragment of Girdle in Brocaded Satin. 
 
 GC. Two Designs. By Hokusai. 
 
 I. Crabs and Sea-weed. II. Persons caught in a Shower. 
 
 EE. Four Sword Guards. 
 
 FD. Decorative design.—Chrysanthemums. 
 
 AA. Altar in Carved Wood. 
 
 Double Plate.—Portrait of a Lady. By Kaigetsudo. 
 DH. Decorative Design.—Plum Flowers. 
 
 GD. Study of Pinks. By Bumpo. 
 
 GG. Landscape with Misty Effect. 
 
 AB. Bronze Vase. 
 
 III. 
 
 Japanese Architecture (Temples). By V. Champier 
 Description of Plates. 
 
 SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 El. Piece of Brocaded Satin. 
 
 CG. Industrial Design.—Clematis. 
 
 FB. A Young Girl. By Harunobu. 
 
 ED. Vase in Terra-cotta. 
 
 EH. Branch of Camellia. 
 
 AF. Carp. From a Stencil Design. 
 
 Cross-bow Shooting. By Shunsho. 
 
 DJ. Frog, in Ironwork. 
 
 CB. Wild Flowers. By Masayoshi. 
 
 Al. Studies of Birds. By Hokusai. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Japanese Architecture (Houses). By V. Champier . 
 Description of Plates. 
 
SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 FF. Actor in Female Costume. By Kiyomitsu. 
 
 BJ. Bronze Incense Burner, in the shape of a Duck, 
 GA. Fragment of Silk Stuff. 
 
 CH. Ceramics. 
 
 I. Water Vessel. II. Group of Cats. 
 Landscape. By Hokusai. 
 
 BG. Street Scene. 
 
 CE. Industrial Designs for Stuffs or Paper. 
 
 Cl. Bronze Vase. 
 
 GE. Study of Convolvulus. 
 
 DD. Industrial Design.—Gourd tendrils. 
 
 V. 
 
 Jewellers’ Work. By L. Falize 
 Description of Plates. 
 
 SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 GJ. Flowers, Fruit, and Insects. By Utamaro. 
 HE. Three Bronze Vases. 
 
 Yoshivara. By Utamaro. 
 
 HJ. Studies of Flowers.—Irises. By Hokusai. 
 
 Butterflies and Flowers, Design for Stuff. 
 
 DB. Industrial Design. 
 
 GB. Tomtits. By Sui Seki. 
 
 EB. Industrial Design. 
 
 HC. Four Sword Guards. 
 
 DE. Popular Sketches. By Hokusai. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A Travelling Writing-Set. By Edmond de Goncourt . 
 Description of Plates. 
 
 57 
 
 • 69 
 
SEPARATE PLATES. 
 
 HI. Scene from the History of the Forty-seven Ronins. By Hiroshige. 
 DA. Bronze Hand-Screen. By Ko-un. 
 
 I A. Specimen of Ceramic Art. 
 
 FA. Study of Irises. 
 
 IJ. Second Scene from the History of the Forty-seven Ronins. 
 FC. Decorative Design. 
 
 CA. Flowers, Insects, and Birds. 
 
 BD. Mask of a No Dancer. 
 
 BA. Model Industrial Design.—Leaves and Flowers. 
 
 THE 
 
 SIX COLOURED COVERS. 
 
 COLLECTED AT THE END OF THE VOLUME. 
 
 No. i. Ducks. By Hiroshige. 
 
 No. 2. Cranes. By Hokusai. 
 
 No. 3. Women on a Bridge, By Utamaro. 
 No. 4. Crow on a Torii. 
 
 No. 5. Laundresses. By Yeishi. 
 
 No. 6. A Ron in. By Kuniyoshi. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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