Matahei

K6rin.

We are told that Matahei tried to found a naturalistic school, whose followers should go direct to nature for their subjects, but the movement did not receive any hearty impulse. However it was taken up afterwards by a series of book-illustrators. Next we read of Korin whose "works demonstrate remarkable boldness of invention, associated with great delicacy of colouring, and often .... masterly drawing and composition," It is quite marvellous to see the work of this seventeenth-century artist.

Winding up his account of the third period, Mr. Anderson says, "But three-quarters of the eighteenth century were allowed to pass without a struggle on the part of the older schools to elevate the standard of their art, and painting was beginning to languish into inanition when the revolutionary doctrines of a naturalistic school and of a few artisan book-illustrators brought new aims and new workers to inaugurate the last and most characteristic period of Japanese art."

Fourth Period

Shijo school.

Mr. Anderson says, "The fourth and last erabeganabout thirty years before the close of the last century, with the rise of the Shijo naturalistic school of painting in Kioto, and a wider development of the artisan popular school in Yedo and Osaka, two steps which conferred upon Japanese art the strongest of those national characteristics that have now completed its separation from the parent art of Amia."

He goes on to say "that the study of nature was admitted to be the best means of achieving the highest result in art by the older painters of China and Japan, but they limited its interpretation,"

Okio

We are told that Maruyama Okio was the first painter who seriously endeavoured to establish naturalistic art (1733 - 1795). He preached radical ideas in art at Kioto, the centre of Japanese conservatism, and gathered a school around him. In summing up this school, Mr. Anderson remarks, "The chief characteristics of the Shijo school are a graceful flowing outline, freed from the arbitrary mannerisms of touch indulged in by many of the older masters; comparative, sometimes almost absolute, correctness in the interpretation of the forms of animal life; and lastly, a light colouring, suggestive of the prevailing tones of the objects depicted, and full of delicate harmonies and gradations." Their naturalistic principles do not, however, seem to have fully developed, and their works show ignorance of the scientific facts of nature, except, perhaps, in the painting of plants, birds, and animals. Yet the work has a verve which renders it very fascinating.

Hokusai

One great man, Hokusai, appears as the last of the race purely Japanese and uninfluenced by European ideas, as all the Japanese artists are now.

So we find that through various phases the Japanese developed to impressionistic landscape-painting, and no doubt when they have got more scientific knowledge, they will make for themselves, by their wonderful originality and patience, a position in art which will surpass all their past efforts.

The Japanese Commission

Japanese art at the British Museum.

Since writing this section, a collection of Japanese and Chinese art has been opened at the British Museum, which the student must by all means study, for there he will see works of most of the masters cited in these notes. In connection with this subject our readers may have seen the very interesting report on Art by the Japanese Commission that visited the galleries and schools of Europe; wherein the conclusion of the commission on the best European art is very interesting, - Millet being the greatest painter to their mind. They think, too, that Japan will soon be able to show the world something better than anything yet accomplished, which we very much doubt.

Japanese' Art

We feel, however, that wonderful as Japanese art has been, yet there is a great gulf between it and the best Greek and modern art. To us Japanese art is the product of a semi civilized race, a race in which there is strong sympathy with nature, but a very superficial acquaintance with her marvellous workings. In short, we feel the Japanese need a deeper and more scientific knowledge of nature, and that their work falls far short of the best European work. At the present day there is a craze for anything Japanese, but like all crazes it will end in bringing ridicule upon Japanese work; for their work, though fine for an uncivilized nation, is absurd in many points, and this stupid craze by indiscriminate praise will only kill the qualities to be really admired.

Chinese Art

Wu-Tao-Tsz'.

The earliest authentic records of Chinese painting date about a.d. 251. The earliest painters were painters of Buddhist pictures. Mr. Anderson mentions as one of the best known of the early masters, one Wu-Tao-Tsz', whose animals were remarkable. He thinks that the art of China of to-day is feeble compared with that which flourished 1100 years ago. We are informed too that the "artistic appreciation of natural scenery existed in China many centuries before landscapes played a higher part in the European picture than that of an accessory," and judging from the specimens he gives in his book of the work of the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279 a.d.), the Chinese artists had a great feeling for landscape. We are told that the painters of the thirteenth century "studied nature from the aspect of the impressionist," and their subjects were all taken from nature, landscape especially delighting them. In the fifteenth century we read "decadence began by their neglect of nature and their cultivation of decorative colouring, calligraphic dexterity, and a compensating disregard for naturalistic canons," We are told, and can readily believe it, that in painting of bird life they were unequalled save by the Japanese, and that down to 1279 the Chinese were at the head of the world in painting, and their only rivals were their pupils, the Japanese. Korean art seems also to have degenerated since the sixteenth century.

Thus we ever find the same old story. China, when she painted from nature, was unequalled by any nation in the world; when she neglected nature, as she does now, she fell to the lowest rank.