cultured criticism. It was in the middle of the 18th century that the decorative, but relatively feeble, Chinese art of the later Ming period found favour in Japan and a clever exponent in a painter named Ryūrikyō. It must be regarded as a sad decadence from the old Chinese ideals, which was further hastened, from about 1765, by the popularity of the southern Chinese style. This was a weak affectation that found its chief votaries amongst literary men ambitious of an easily earned artistic reputation. The principal Japanese supporter of this school was Taigadō (1722–1775), but the volume of copies of his sketches, Taigadō sansui juseki, published about 1870, is one of the least attractive albums ever printed in Japan.
The fifth period was introduced by a movement as momentous as that which stamped its predecessor—the foundation of a naturalistic school under a group of men outside the orthodox academical circles. The naturalistic principle was by no means a new one; some of the old Chinese Fifth Period: Naturalistic School.masters were naturalistic in a broad and noble manner, and their Japanese followers could be admirably and minutely accurate when they pleased; but too many of the latter were content to construct their pictures out of fragmentary reminiscences of ancient Chinese masterpieces, not presuming to see a rock, a tree, an ox, or a human figure, except through Chinese spectacles. It was a farmer’s son named Okyō, trained in his youth to paint in the Chinese manner, who was first bold enough to adopt as a canon what his predecessors had only admitted under rare exceptions, the principle of an exact imitation of nature. Unfortunately, even he had not all the courage of his creed, and while he would paint a bird or a fish with perfect realism, he no more dared to trust his eyes in larger motives than did the most devout follower of Shūbun or Motonobu. He was essentially a painter of the classical schools, with the speciality of elaborate reproduction of detail in certain sections of animal life, but fortunately this partial concession to truth, emphasized as it was by a rare sense of beauty, did large service.
Okyō rose into notice about 1775, and a number of pupils flocked to his studio in Shijō Street, Kiōto (whence Shijō school). Amongst these the most famous were Goshun (1742–1811), who is sometimes regarded as one of the founders of the school; Sosen (1757–1821), an animal painter of remarkable power, but especially celebrated for pictures of monkey life; Shūhō, the younger brother of the last, also an animal painter; Rōsetsu (1755–1799), the best landscape painter of his school; Keibun, a younger brother of Goshun, and some later followers of scarcely less fame, notably Hoyen, a pupil of Keibun; Tessan, an adopted son of Sosen; Ippō and Yōsai (1788–1878), well known for a remarkable set of volumes, the Zenken kojitsu, containing a long series of portraits of ancient Japanese celebrities. Ozui and Ojyu, the sons of Okyō, painted in the style of their father, but failed to attain great eminence. Lastly, amongst the associates of the Shijō master was the celebrated Ganku (1798–1837), who developed a special style of his own, and is sometimes regarded as the founder of a distinct school. He was, however, greatly influenced by Okyō’s example, and his sons, Gantai, Ganryo, and Gantoku or Renzan, drifted into a manner almost indistinguishable from that of the Shijō school.
It remains only to allude to the European school, if school it can be called, founded by Kokan and Denkichi, two contemporaries of Okyō. These artists, at first educated in one of the native schools, obtained from a Hollander in Nagasaki some training in the methods and principles European School.of European painting, and left a few oil paintings in which the laws of light and shade and perspective were correctly observed. They were not, however, of sufficient capacity to render the adopted manner more than a subject of curiosity, except to a few followers who have reached down to the present generation. It is possible that the essays in perspective found in the pictures of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and some of the popular artists of the 19th century, were suggested by Kokan’s drawings and writings.
The sixth period began about 1875, when an Italian artist was engaged by the government as a professor of painting in the Engineering College at Tōkyō. Since that time some distinguished European artists have visited Japan, and several Japanese students have made a pilgrimage Sixth Period.to Europe to see for themselves what lessons may be gained from Western art. These students, confronted by a strong reaction in favour of pure Japanese art, have fought manfully to win public sympathy, and though their success is not yet crowned, it is not impossible that an Occidental school may ultimately be established. Thus far the great obstacle has been that pictures painted in accordance with Western canons are not suited to Japanese interiors and do not appeal to the taste of the most renowned Japanese connoisseurs. Somewhat more successful has been an attempt—inaugurated by Hashimoto Gahō and Kawabata Gyokusho—to combine the art of the West with that of Japan by adding to the latter the chiaroscuro and the linear perspective of the former. If the disciples of this school could shake off the Sesshū tradition of strong outlines and adopt the Kano Motonobu revelation of modelling by mass only, their work would stand on a high place. But they, too, receive little encouragement. The tendency of the time is conservative in art matters.
A series of magnificent publications has popularized art and its best products in a manner such as could never have been anticipated. The Kokka, a monthly magazine richly and beautifully illustrated and edited by Japanese students, has reached its 223rd number; the Shimbi Daikan, a colossal album containing chromoxylographic facsimiles of celebrated examples in every branch of art, has been completed in 20 volumes; the masterpieces of Kōrin and Motonobu have been reproduced in similar albums; the masterpieces of the Ukiyo-e are in process of publication, and it seems certain that the Japanese nation will ultimately be educated to such a knowledge of its own art as will make for permanent appreciation. Meanwhile the intrepid group of painters in oil plod along unflinchingly, having formed themselves into an association (the hakuba-kai) which gives periodical exhibitions, and there are, in Tōkyō and Kiōto, well-organized and flourishing art schools which receive a substantial measure of state aid, as well as a private academy founded by Okakura with a band of seceders from the hybrid fashions of the Gahō system. Altogether the nation seems to be growing more and more convinced that its art future should not wander far from the lines of the past. (W. An.; F. By.)
Although a little engraving on copper has been practised in Japan of late years, it is of no artistic value, and the only branch of the art which calls for recognition is the cutting of wood-blocks for use either with colours or without. This, however, is of supreme importance, and as Engraving.its technique differs in most respects from the European practice, it demands a somewhat detailed description.
The wood used is generally that of the cherry-tree, sakura, which has a grain of peculiar evenness and hardness. It is worked plankwise to a surface parallel with the grain, and not across it. A design is drawn by the artist, to whom the whole credit of the production generally belongs, with a brush on thin paper, which is then pasted face downwards on the block. The engraver, who is very rarely the designer, then cuts the outlines into the block with a knife, afterwards removing the superfluous wood with gouges and chisels. Great skill is shown in this operation, which achieves perhaps the finest facsimile reproduction of drawings ever known without the aid of photographic processes. A peculiar but highly artistic device is that of gradually rounding off the surfaces where necessary, in order to obtain in printing a soft and graduated mass of colour which does not terminate too abruptly. In printing with colours a separate block is made in this manner for each tint, the first containing as a rule the mere lines of the composition, and the others providing for the masses of tint to be applied. In all printing the paper is laid on the upper surface of the block, and the impression rubbed off with a circular pad, composed of twisted cord within a covering of paper cloth and bamboo-leaf, and called the baren. In colour-printing, the colours, which are much the same as those in use in Europe, are mixed, with rice-paste as a medium, on the block for each operation, and the power of regulating the result given by this custom to an intelligent craftsman (who, again, is neither the artist nor the engraver) was productive in the best period of very beautiful and artistic effects, such as could never have been obtained by any mechanical device. A wonderfully accurate register, or successive superposition of each block, is got mainly by the skill of the printer, who is assisted only by a mark defining one corner and another mark showing the opposite side limit.
The origins of this method of colour-printing are obscure. It has been practised to some extent in China and Korea, but there is no evidence of its antiquity in these countries. It appears to be one of the few indigenous arts of Japan. But before accepting this conclusion as final, one must not lose sight of the fact that the so-called chiaroscuro engraving was at the height of its use in Italy at the same time that embassies from the Christians in Japan visited Rome, and that it is thus possible
