Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/616

588 JAPAN editions have been reprinted. Some works on ancient pottery and other antiquities have also appeared. Drama. The drama does not hold in Japan the position it enjoys in European countries. No classic author such as Shakespeare was ever known, and the pieces represented on the stage are as a rule of a popular character. The style of these plays is often rather stilted, a large number of ancient and almost obsolete words and expres sions being used; but the ordinary farces and light pieces are in the everyday colloquial. Theatre-going is a favourite amusement, especially among the lower classes in the larger towns. News- The growth of the newspaper press during the past few years papers, deserves special attention. At the period of the recent revolution there existed but one publication that could be properly classed under this head, the so-called "Government Gazette," which was read only by the official class, for whom alone its contents possessed any interest. But since then so many newspapers have come into existence that the list for the whole country now comprises several hundreds. In the chief cities they are issued daily, in country districts every two or three days or only once a week. The Tokio papers have the widest circulation, and are forwarded even to the most remote post-towns. Among these the Nichi-niclii Shimbun ("Daily News"), the Choy a Shimbun (" Court and Country News"), and the Jfochi Shimbun ("Information News") are per haps the best known ; the first-named is a semi-official organ. These journals appear on every day except holidays. They are all similar in style : the first page contains Government notifications and a leading article, the second miscellaneous items of information, and the third contributed articles, sometimes of a political but oftener of a popular or satirical character, while the fourth page is devoted to advertisements. The papers are chiefly printed from movable metal type. The style of composition is principally Chinese, interspersed with kana at intervals ; but the papers pub lished for the express benefit of the very low classes are almost entirely in kana, and are in many cases illustrated by rough wood cuts. Freedom of the press is as yet unknown, and many an editor has been fined or imprisoned for publishing what was deemed by the officials an infraction of the press laws recently notified. These laws are in some respects very stringent, and the newspaper press is in no slight degree trammelled by them. Before a paper is started, a petition requesting the permission of Government must be sent in, and a promise made that if such permission be granted the press laws shall be strictly obeyed. The paper, once it is started, is under the supervision of the local officials, and whatever they may deem to be a contravention of the laws in question is punished by fine, imprisonment, or siispension or total abolition of the offending journal. It is needless to point out that under this system anything like free and open criticism of the proceedings of Government is well nigh impossible, although ingenious plans have been contrived, whereby, though keeping within the actual letter of the law, the editor can proclaim his true views on the subject under discussion. A very common method is to draw a satirical picture of Japan under the name of some other country. The bonds imposed by the Government are felt to be galling, and perfect freedom of the press would be hailed with delight by the exceed ingly large and influential class interested in the maintenance and publication of this kind of literature. NoTels. Another large section consists of romances or novels, some of considerable length. In many instances the fiction is woven in with a certain degree of historical fact, as, for instance, in following the supposed adventures of some noble s retainer, during one of "the campaigns of the mediaeval civil wars. In these, as in European works of the same description, the reader is generally introduced to a hero and heroine, whose thrilling adventures are described in graphic terms. Pretty little fairy-tales also abound, and short story-books with small woodcuts fill every bookstall in the streets. Many of these are entirely written in kana, and, the prices being very mode rate, they are within the reach of even the lowest classes. Unfortu nately, hardly any of these popular works would bear translation into a foreign language. Children s toy books, illustrated with large and gaudy pictures in colours, and representing chiefly the warlike heroes of ancient days or the noted actors of modern times, complete the final section of the very interesting literature of Japan. (T. M C.) ART. The range of Japanese art, its origin, and its progress, in con nexion with some of its most characteristic features, cannot fail to interest all true lovers of art, especially as applied to industries and manufactures. In this latter category should be placed all those applications of art "in the vast and diversified region of human life and action," to quote Mr Gladstone s words, " where a distinct purpose of utility is pursued, and where the instrument employed aspires to an outward form of beauty," in which consists " the great mass and substance of the Kunst-Lcben, the art-life of a people." As it is within these limits that art has taken its chief development in Japan it is in this respect more especially that some account will be given here of its leading characters and principles. If art in its application to purposes of utility may be taken as the first stage in all countries towards the higher art more especially appealing to the imaginative and intellectual faculties, the degree of perfection attained by any nation in this first Kunst-Lebcn must be taken into account in judging of their artistic power and capabilities. Viewed in this light, it is not too much to say that no nation in ancient or modern times has been richer in Art-motifs and original types than the Japanese. They un doubtedly have the merit of having created one of the few original schools of decorative art handed down to us from past ages, a school uninfluenced by any foreign admixture, if we except the first rudiments of all their arts and industries, derived in remote periods from their more advanced neighbours the Chinese, but from that time left to native influences and powers of development. A strangely constituted race, unlike even the Chinese, from whom in fact they may have descended, voluntarily maintaining an iso lated state for a long succession of centuries, the Japanese nation has grown up under the circumstances best adapted to produce originality, and the "insular pride" so natural in their isolated position among a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Thus left to themselves, the genius of the race has led them rather to direct their efforts to confer beauty on objects of common utility and materials of the lowest value than to create masterpieces of art to be immured in palaces or only exhibited in museums. The faculty of making common and familiar things tell pleasurably upon the ordinary mind, by little artistic surprises and fresh in terpretations of the common aspects of natural objects and scenes, is specially their gift, and a gift as valuable as it is rare. It is from this standpoint that the art of Japan should be viewed for a right appreciation of its claims to admiration, and for the proper application of the lesson it conveys to art-workmen and manufac turers of objects of utility. Previous to the London International Exhibition of 1862 Japan had in fact been a sealed book to the Western world, save in so far as a small collection of industrial and natural products of the country to be seen at the Hague" could afford information. The Portuguese via Macao, and later the Dutch traders allowed to occupy a factory at Nagasaki in Japan in the 17th and 18th centuries, were in the habit of shipping a few articles for Europe, of utilitarian rather than ornamental character. These consisted chiefly of dinner services of porcelain made to order after European models known as " Old Japan"- with heavy gilding and staring colours, as unlike any native work as can well be imagined. Lac quered cabinets and large coffers or chests of rough workmanship also found their way to Europe, and some of these are still occasionally to be met with in old country houses or curiosity shops, both in England and on the continent. AVhen the London exhibition, therefore, made its display in the " Japanese court," followed, as this was, by a great exhibition in Paris in 1867 and in Vienna in 1875, the Japanese contributions to which were carefully selected on a large scale by the Japanese Government itself, the rich treasures of art-work came ;pon Europe as a new revelation in decorative and industrial arts, and have continued since to exercise a strong and abiding influ ence on all industrial art-work. In London, as in every Continen tal capital, specimens of Japanese manufacture in great variety speedily followed in the shop windows ; and large importations, taking place almost monthly at depots in London, are speedily bought up to be distributed over the country, and sold in retail. In the International Exhibition of Paris in 1878, the "Japanese court " again presented a matchless collection of perfect workman ship and design in every variety of material. In textile fabrics, such as silks, gauzes, crapes, and embroidery ; in bronzes, cloisonnes, champleve, repousse, inlaid and damascened work ; in art-pottery, faience, and porcelain ; and in lacquer and carved wood and ivory, there was a bewildering variety ; but only one opinion prevailed as to the palm of superiority due to them. The inferiority of most of the articles of the same class exhibited in the adjoining "Chinese court," which from its close proxi mity provoked while it afforded every facility for a close com parison, was very market. If other test of excellence were needed, it is amply supplied by the flattery of imitation ; though the mis chief of merely copying Japanese art work, without any knowledge of the history, religion, popular legends, or the artistic tastes which inspire the workman in Japan, is obvious in the vulgarized repro ductions and the incongruous combinations now so common. They may be Japanesque, but they are certainly not Japanese in spirit, feeling, or execution. Defects arc exaggerated, and excel lences are lost sight of altogether. Before proceeding with a general survey of the most characteristic Ar features of Japanese art, it may be useful for purposes of reference Ht< to give a list of English works that have appeared in recent years tui on this subject. Mr John Leighton in the spring of 1863 was the first to draw public attention to the collection of Japanese objects in the exhibition of 1862 and their artistic merit, by a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, which was afterwards printed. Dr C. Dresser, in his Art of Decorative Design, published his opinion that Japan could supply the world with the most beautiful domestic