International studio (48.1913)

Some Recent Books

SOME RECENT BOOKS
I Epochs of Chinese and Japanese
Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic
Design. By Ernest Francisco Fenol-
losa, formerly Professor of Philosophy in the Im-
perial University of Tokio, Commissioner of Fine
Arts for Japan, etc. With 184 full-page illustra-
tions in colors and black-and-white. Two vol-
umes. 4to. Pages 204 and 212. (New York:
Frederick A. Stokes Company.) $10.00 net.
The purpose of this book is to contribute first-
hand material toward a
real history of East Asi-
atic art in an interesting
way that may appeal not
only to scholars, but to
art collectors, general
readers on Oriental top-
ics and travelers in Asia.
Its treatment of the sub-
ject is novel in several re-
spects. Heretofore most
books on Japanese Art
have dealt rather with
the technique of indus-
tries than with the es-
thetic motive in schools
of design, thus producing
a false classification by
materials instead of by
creative periods. This
book conceives of the art
of each epoch as a pecu-
liar beauty of line, spac-
ing and color which could
have been produced at no
other time, and which
permeates all the indus-
try of its day. This painting and sculpture, in-
stead of being relegated to separate subordinate
chapters, are shown to have created at each epoch
a great national school of design that underlay the
whole round of the industrial arts.
Again, the writer endeavors to break down the
old fallacy of regarding Chinese civilization as
standing for thousands of years at a dead level,
by openly exhibiting the special environing culture
and the special structural beauties which have
rendered the art of each period unique.
The treatment of Chinese and Japanese art
together, as of a single esthetic movement, is a
third innovation. It is shown that not only were
they, as wholes, almost as closely inter-related as

Greek art and Roman, but that the ever-varying
phases interlock into a sort of mosaic pattern, or,
rather, unfold in a single dramatic movement.
Mr. Fenollosa has had unique opportunities for
the study of Far Eastern art. These opportuni-
ties came in a most interesting transitional period.
The strongholds of the great feudal lords, or
“Daimyo,” were being broken up and their ances-
tral treasures scattered. In Boston he had
studied art as a philosopher, and had also at-
tempted the practice of it. In Japan he was
looked upon as an antiquarian, an authority, and
before many years was
appointed a Japanese
commissioner for re-
search, administration
and art education.
The Heritage of Hi-
roshige: A Glimpse of
Japanese Landscape Art.
By Dora Amsden, with
the assistance of John
Stewart Happer. Illus-
trated with prints from
the Happer Collection.
8vo. (San Francisco:
Paul Elder & Co.) $2.25
net.
Hiroshige has been
termed the greatest in-
terpreter of nature in all
her moods, and through
his master art his mes-
sage appeals directly to
the Occident as to the
Orient. No translation
is needed to appreciate
his beautiful color prints,
for he here speaks a universal tongue. In Mrs.
Amsden’s charming volume there is a general sur-
vey of Japanese art which deals successively with
its earliest expressions, the emergence of the rival
schools of Tosa and Kano, and with the influence
that led to color printing. This is followed by a
consideration of the work of the great master,
Hiroshige, and (with the collaboration of Mr. J. S.
Happer, the well-known English connoisseur and
collector of Japanese prints) by the presentation of
an interesting contribution to our knowledge con-
cerning one of the most distinctive artists of
Japan—namely, the seal-dating of the Hiroshige
prints by cycle-ciphers discovered by Mr. Happer
and confirmed by the connoisseurs.


‘'Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art,” F. A. Stokes & Co.
THE WATERFALL OF YORO BY HOKUSAI

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