International studio (60.1916/1917)

Studio-Talk

Imperial Household Museum, the Tokyo School
of Fine Arts, the Academy of Music, and the old
Buddhistic temples which have survived the feudal
system of Japan.
The Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai (Art Association of
Japan) has a building of its own in the same park,
and recently held its fifty-fourth bi-annual exhibi-
tion there, which, being the spring exhibition, was
restricted mainly to applied art. But there were
some good examples of wood sculpture. Mori-
Hosei showed his masterly technique in his latest
work called The Gathering of Seven Sages on
Kozan, a set of four groups in wood, illustrating a
Chinese classic story of an historic gathering of
famous old sages at the mountain recess of Haku-
rakuten, a great Chinese poet, and the same artist’s
Ougungi has been much admired. Yoshida-Homei
showed a group in wood of a boy carelessly mounted
on a wild bull. Maeda-Shoun’s Listening to a
Master Musician—the figure of an old man listen-
ing to the music of his sweet remembrances—,
Matsuo-Choshun’s Saint Nichiren, Yamamoto-
Zuiun’s Parting of the Stars, Kato-Keiun’s Out in
the Field, and Twittering Birds by Nakatani-Ganko,

“ OUGUNGI” WOOD SCULPTURE BY MORI-HOSEI


were also interesting examples of wood sculpture.
Among the exhibits in metal work there were
excellent examples of chasing and inlay of gold,
silver and other metals on shibu-ichi by Kagawa-
Katsuhiro and also by Okazaki-Sessei. Asahi-
Gyokuzan showed marvellous skill in inlaying
naturally coloured wood, gold, mother-of-pearl and
coral on soft kiri (Paulownia) wood in a design of
red and white plums, and a bird on a gingko tree.
Fine ceramic work was exhibited by Seifu-Yohei,
Yabu-Meizan, Miyagawa-Kozan, and Miura-Chiku-
sen. Embroidered screens by Iida-Shinhichi and by
Nishimura-Sobei attracted considerable attention.

At this exhibition considerable space was de-
voted to an interesting collection of work by Prince
Fumi, an aristocratic connoisseur who followed the
Sekishu style of cha-no-yu. The collection consisted
of paintings, sho (chirography), and accessories for
the cha-no-yu, commonly known as the tea cere-
mony though in fact it is an institution or “ a cult
founded upon the adoration of the beautiful among
the sordid facts of every-day existence.” There
were many things which seemed to betray the
acme of cha-no-yu, which is inseparable from the
Zen philosophy. In this connection attention may
be called to two kakemono found in the collection,
one of which had a san. San is either a poem
or words generally written either on the side or
on the upper part of the kakemono to supple-
ment or emphasize the sentiments expressed by
the drawing or to comment on it. The artist who
paints the picture may himself add a san to his
picture or get a poet to write one on it. The san
in this case was written by the prince and I took
it to mean :
A heavy snow, and no footprints to mark the path.
Even so our thoughts may vanish with no trace behind.
These words in thirty-one syllables were written
in an artistic hand in two vertical lines on the
right-hand side of the kakemono near the edge,
leaving more than two-thirds of the paper blank.
At the first glance, the kakemono seemed un-
finished. But the two lines explained it—the
blank space, apparently neglected, was intended
to be filled in by the imagination of the spectator.
The other kakemono had for a san a hokku, an
abbreviated form of a poem in seventeen syllables,
which may roughly be translated—
All white,
But black is the Daruma
On snowy morn.
(It is customary for Japanese children to mould
with snow a conventionalised form of Daruma, the
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