JAPAN
from their wooden niches, and plum-trees seem to grow on a panel. But the general rule is that the sculptures do not gain by independent scrutiny. It is in their subordinate rôle that they command charmed enthusiasm. The statement is in itself a high tribute to the decorative genius of the Japanese, but it involves also the conclusion that the subjective element had to be almost entirely abolished from the work of the sculptor, and that his highest success was achieved when his efforts showed least individuality.
As to the general character of the designs chosen by painters and sculptors for the adornment of these temples and mausolea, an excellent criticism is contained in the introduction to Mr. J. Conder's unpublished work on Japanese architecture:—
Behind the general impression of harmony produced by the decorated architecture as it existed and still exists in the best examples of the Buddhist style, there is revealed, upon careful analysis, a combination of curiously incongruous elements. The weird and the grotesque are blended with the severe and the natural. Archaic forms, which one must follow back to Indian creeds for their original meaning, are quaintly combined with free and flowing natural forms. Demons, monsters, and crude conventional representations of foreign or imaginary animals are painted side by side with the birds, flowers, and landscapes of the changing seasons. The subtle elements of wind, cloud, water, and spray are in one place represented in definite conventional lines which convey but a vague idea of their respective force and motive, and in another place by soft dreamy touches and blurred effects. There is everywhere to be traced the influence upon an artistic Oriental mind of the beautiful forms and colours of the mundane universe, combined with the external influence upon his imagination of the Buddhist religion, dictating awe-inspiring shapes and mysterious symbols which he accepted and depicted as a portion of his superstitious belief and
158
