channel to set forth the life of the people. Besides painting and illustrating books, he began printing single sheets, occasionally adding to the printed outlines dashes of colour from the brush, principally in orange and green. These sheets, the precursors of the Ukiyo-e prints, superseded the Otsu-e – impressionistic hand-paintings, drafted hastily for rapid circulation. The Otsu-e were sometimes richly illuminated, the largest surfaces in the costumes being filled in with a ground of black lacquer, and ornamented with layers of gold leaf attached by varnish.
Moronobu acquired his technique from both Tosa and Kanō, but was originally a designer for the rich brocades and tissues woven in Kyoto. He added to this art that of embroidery, and leaving Kyoto, took up this branch at the rival city Edo, where all the arts and crafts were developing under the fostering care of the Tokugawa Shoguns, the dynasty with which Ukiyo-e art is practically coextensive. It was he who designed for his countrywomen their luxurious trailing robes, with enormous sleeves, richly embroidered – gorgeous and stately garments which he loved to reproduce on paper, with marvellous powers of sweeping line. As in all fashions of dress, in time the graceful lines became exaggerated until, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, they overstepped the limits of beauty, and approached the realm of caricature. Today, in the modern poster, we see perpetuated the degenerate offspring of the genius of Moronobu, of whom it is remarked that his enlarged compositions have the plasticity of bas-reliefs.
An artist who greatly influenced Moronobu was Kanō Tanyu of the School of Kanō, whose masterpiece may be seen at the great temple in Kyoto – four painted panels of lions of indescribable majesty. Under Tanyu’s direction the task of reproducing the old masterpieces was undertaken. The artists of Ukiyo-e were always ready to profit by the teaching of all the schools; therefore, to properly follow the methods of the Popular School, we must study the work of the old masters and the subjects from which they derived their inspiration.
In this brief résumé we cannot follow the fluctuations of Japanese Art through the centuries. During long periods of conflict and bloody internecine strife, art languished; when peace reigned, then in the seclusion of their yashikis these fierce and princely warriors threw down their arms and surrendered themselves to the service of beauty and of art. Nor had the dainty inmates of their castles languished idly during these stirring times. Often they defended their honour and their homes against treacherous neighbours. It was a Japanese woman who led her conquering countrymen into Korea. In the arts of peace the cultured women of Japan kept pace with their lovers and husbands. A woman revised and enlarged the alphabet, and some of the most beautiful classic poems are ascribed to them. Well might the Japanese fight fiercely for his altar and home, with the thought of the flower-soft hands that were waiting to strip him of his armour and stifle with caresses the recollection of past conflict. The early history of Japan suggests a comparison with ancient Greece, and the Japanese poets might have encapsulated their country, as did Byron the land of his adoption:
“The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace —
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!”
Happily Japan, unlike Greece, withstood the enervating influences of luxury and the passionate adoration of beauty. Princes laboured alike with chisel and with brush, and the loftiest rulers disdained not the tools of the artisan. Art Industrial kissed Grand Art, which remained virile beneath the sturdy benediction. Therefore Japan lives, unlike Greece, whose beauty in decay called forth that saddest of dirges, ending,
“‘Tis Greece,
but living Greece no more.”
In Japan, art lightens the burden of labour, utility and beauty go hand in hand, and the essential and the real reach upward, and touch the beautiful and the ideal.
Okuruma Masanobu, Scene from the Nakamura Theatre, 1721.
Katsushika Hokusai, Dragon Flying over Mount Fuji, 1849.
Hanging scroll, ink with light colour on silk, 95.8 × 36.2 cm.
The Hokusai Museum, Obuse.
Genroku. The Golden Era of Romance and Art
The era of Genroku (“Original happiness”), from 1688 to 1703, was that period of incomparable glory which the Japanese revere – as the French do the time of Louis XIV. Peace had long reigned and art flourished under the fostering care of the Tokugawa Shoguns.
Then lived the great worker in lacquer, Ogata Korin, pupil of Sotatsu Tawaraya, the flower painter, both unrivalled artists who had absorbed the secrets of both Kanō and Tosa. Hanabusa Itcho, the grand colourist, flourished, and Ogata Kenzan, brother of Korin, the “Exponent in pottery decoration of the Korin School.”
Edo (now Tokyo), the new capital of the usurping Tokugawas, now became the Mecca of genius, rivalling the ancient metropolis Kyoto, for the great Shoguns encouraged art in all forms, not disdaining to enrol themselves as pupils to the masters in painting and lacquer. The greatest ruler became one of the greatest artists, even assuming the art title of Sendai Shogun. In this age the height of perfection was reached in metal work, both chased and cast.
“The sword is the soul of the Samurai,” says the old Japanese motto, therefore its decoration and adornment was a sacred service to which genius delighted to dedicate itself. In Japan the greatest artists were sometimes carvers and painters and workers in metals in one, and suggest comparison with the European masters of two centuries earlier. Did not Botticelli take his name from the goldsmith for whom he worked, and Leonardo da Vinci began his art life by “twisting metal screens for the tombs of the Medici”?
Also in Japan, as in Europe, the genius of the nation was consecrated to the dead. More than half of Michelangelo’s life was devoted to the decoration of tombs, and the shrines of the Shoguns are the greatest art monuments in Japan. Preoccupation with graves perhaps enabled the Japanese to face death so readily, even embracing it upon the slightest pretext.
Genroku was the acme of the age of chivalry. Its tales of deadly duels and fierce vendettas are the delight of the nation. The history of the forty-seven Ronin equals any mediaeval tale of bloodthirsty vengeance and feudal devotion. This Japanese vendetta of the seventeenth century is still re-enacted upon the stage, and remains the most popular drama of the day, and the actor designers of Torii delighted in it as a subject for illustration. A brief outline of the story may be of interest and serve to recall its charming interpretation by Mitford.
The cause of this famous drama of vendetta was the avarice of Kira Kozuke-no-Suke Yoshinaka, a courtier of the Shogun at Edo. This pompous official was detailed to receive two provincial noblemen at his castle and instruct them in court etiquette. Asano Naganori Takumi-no-Kami and Kamei Sama had been assigned the onerous task of entertaining the Emperor’s envoy from Kyoto. In return for this tutelage they duly sent many gifts to Kira, but not costly enough to gratify the rapacity of the minister, who day by day became more insufferably arrogant, not having been “sufficiently insulted”.
Then a counsellor of one of these great lords, Kamei, being wise in his generation, and fearing for his master’s safety, rode at midnight to the castle of the greedy official, leaving a present or bribe of a thousand pieces of silver. This generous donation had the desired effect.
“You have come early to court, my lord,” was the suave welcome the unconscious nobleman received the next morning. “I shall have the honour of calling your attention to several points of etiquette today.” The next moment the countenance of Kira clouded, and, turning haughtily toward his other pupil from whom no largesse
