Influences
In most countries ancient art, because of limited communication and transportation, was physically and aesthetically dependent upon natural resources along with the inevitable influences of neighboring civilizations. This applied particularly to Japan, whose close proximity to the older Chinese and Korean civilizations resulted in adoption of their art forms and techniques along with assimilation of their culture, religions, mythology, and symbolism. Thus early Japanese lacquer was strongly influenced by Chinese art and lacquer through intercourse with China. However, when Japan closed her doors to the world from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century, entering virtually complete cultural and physical isolation, her lacquer art rapidly developed into a true Japanese art form both in technique and in artistic concept.
The physical restrictions, natural resources, and climate of Japan played a great part in the development of her arts. In regard to physical restrictions, for example, the absence of stone ranges, such as found in China, was responsible for the absence of large stone sculpture and stone architecture, with the exception of occasional small stone images and stone lanterns. The same reasoning may be applied to jade carvings, as jade is not indigenous to Japan, nor did Japan have any marble quarries. Similarly, ivory was not in common use until it became popular in the 18th century, after which it was imported in relatively large quantities. On the other hand, the field of metal art was stimulated by the discovery of gold, silver, and copper in the early 8th century. The local daimyo readily developed their own industries including that of mining metals. However, the amount of available gold was limited, so that pure good-quality gold was used only by the best lacquer and metal artists. The fine gold used by Korin, for example, was of a rich dark orange-yellow appearance in contrast to the diluted lighter yellow color of the inferior products of the late 19th century. Originally, up to the Nara period, woods were often imported from China for sculptural art. However, Japan soon turned to her own abundant native woods. The rainfall and humidity are responsible for the well-wooded, thick forests of Japan with their abundance of many varieties of woods. Light, well-seasoned, nonwarping woods provided the basis of lacquer work, while tougher, finer-grained woods offered themselves to the sculptural arts, such as that of the netsuke. The Japanese love of natural woods, including their shapes, forms, color, grain, bark, and even defects, is reflected and imitated in Japan's lacquer art. At other times the wood or bark itself was used for the lacquer ground.
The lacquer tree was not indigenous to Japan and was undoubtedly originally brought to Japan from China. The best lacquer is obtained north of the 36th parallel between latitudes 37° and 39°. In general, lacquer coming from the temperate zones, as in Japan and China, is superior to that of the tropics.
The subject matter of early Japanese lacquer was at first influenced by the neighboring Chinese art. These subjects were at first mostly religious or mythological, and the designs were of rigid, conventionalized patterns and arabesques with an overall symmetrical pattern. However, the innate love of the Japanese for their own landscapes, flowers and natural vegetation, plants, insects, and animal life, stimulated by Zen Buddhism, created an entirely new world of subject matter. This became most apparent by the 18th century. The beauty and softness of the Japanese countryside, in contrast to the more rugged Chinese terrain, also became apparent in their art. Flowers and trees indigenous to Japan, such as the iris, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum, plum blossom, and wisteria, were frequently depicted in pictorial form and often as ornamental or conventionalized powderings, such as the sixteen-petaled chrysanthemum used as the crest (kiku-mon) of the imperial house. Similarly, every detailed aspect of Japanese nature, both animate and inanimate, was carefully observed by the artist and portrayed either realistically or in accord with his aesthetic and religious concepts. On the other hand, an animal such as the tiger, not indigenous to Japan, was often represented quite inaccurately, being copied from prior inaccurate models or from Chinese portrayals.
The Japanese climate not only influenced the architecture of the Japanese but their art as well. In Japan the four seasons are sharply divided, each being about the same length of time. The lacquer artist, as well as the painter, was keenly aware not only of the distinct four seasons but also of the influences of the seasons on every aspect of nature. The lacquer artist, however, had a distinct advantage over the painter. He had at his disposal many more ways of portraying nature. Thus while the Japanese painter basically painted in black and white, using only washes and stroke pressure to obtain effects, the lacquer artist freely used all tonalities of color, such as when depicting autumn leaves, or expressed visual and tactile aspects of nature by using smooth or rough lacquer and enhanced the sense of depth by using raised lacquer or encrustations. Each one of dozens of lacquer techniques was at the disposal of the master lacquer artist in order to bring out his aesthetic concepts.
Chinese Influences
China both directly and indirectly exerted great influence on Japanese lacquer. The close proximity of Japan to China and Korea, with their intermittent political and commercial ties as far back as the 5th century A.D., brought the two countries into close cultural contact. This consisted of emigration of Chinese artisans (as well as Buddhist priests who were familiar with the fine arts) into Japan as well as emigration of Japanese priests, students, and artisans into China. Thus not only were various techniques of Chinese lacquer adopted in Japan, but of equal significance was the adoption of diverse Chinese Buddhist sects, philosophy, and aesthetics. Early Japanese lacquer—that is, from the 6th century to the 15th century—was patronized essentially by the Buddhist temples in addition to the. nobility in Kyoto, and this art reflected both pictorially, symbolically, and ornamentally Chinese and Buddhist art. Similarly, in regard to subject matter, the Japanese artisans adopted Chinese mythology and folklore but gradually added to their ornamentation their own folklore and finally, by the 18th century, their own local realistic genre topics. Along with these changes in pictorial design and subject matter were major Japanese alterations in ornamental design. Japanese ornamentation, including background effects, added a tremendous deliberately pleasing and decorative effect to the more conservative, formal, and stiff Chinese art concepts.
While the use of Chinese subject matter was gradually altered to suit the more flexible and decorative Japanese taste, the Japanese maintained to a greater extent certain important basic Chinese aesthetic principles. These principles form the core of Oriental art in general. These aesthetic canons involved in artistic portrayal consist of 1) living movement (sei-do), 2) spiritual elevation (ki-in), 3) strength, 4) accuracy, 5) invention (esoragoto), 6) foreshortening, and 7) contrast (in-yo). While these canons applied to Oriental painting, they were also applicable, sometimes uniquely, to Japanese miniature lacquer.
Living movement is the transmission, through the strength of the brush stroke into the art object, of the painter's feeling of the true nature of the object portrayed. Such is the artistic personal pictorial representation of the infinite beauty and power of nature or the saintly expression of a Buddhist priest. These expressions are often exaggerated, especially by the Japanese artisan.
Spiritual elevation expresses elevation of sentiment and nobility imparted by a work of art, without which, no matter how technically perfect, it can never become a divine masterpiece.
It can be seen that if these artistic canons are accepted with a little excessive freedom, imagination, and individual leeway it is possible to obtain the more extreme effects seen in Japanese art. Thus living movement and invention, when carried to their extremes, might well result in extreme personal variation such as seen in impressionistic Japanese lacquer works as exemplified, for example, by Korin and Koetsu, but never seen in Chinese art.
Strength refers to the power of the brush stroke as imparted into the art object by the inspired artist. Such a nebulous effect may be obtained by various other means in lacquer art. Thus the use of "strength" in impressionistic lacquer was often obtained through contrasting large and yet simple encrustations of mother-of-pearl and pewter.
Accuracy consists of correctness of subject matter. A historical picture must be accurate concerning the dress, customs, and manners of the periods
