Studio: international art (3.1894)

Studies by Japanese Artists

to any one who has access to a collection of draw- of Japan if they could be induced to make the

ings by Japanese artists to ask himself to what period of their highest excellence a starting-point

does all this labour tend ? In examining the for the creation of a truly national school; but it

studies by Leonardo da Vinci or Albrecht Diirer, cannot be too much insisted on that the attempt

we are initiated into some of the methods of work to engraft the art of one nation upon that of

pursued by those great masters, and our admiration another, opposed to it in tradition and habits of

for the qualities that they display is enhanced by thought, is a dangerous experiment. A process of

the consciousness that they are subservient to natural selection has left to each people a method

higher ends, and that we recognise in them the of interpreting nature in harmony with the culture

materials to be selected and elaborated in their they have attained to, and reflecting their history

finished works, many of which have been handed and institutions. The works of each are valuable

STUDIES OF A NIGHT HERON (NYCTICORAX GRISIUS) REDUCED

down to us. It happened that concurrently with
the exhibitions of studies and sketches by the old
masters at Burlington House and at the Grosvenor
Gallery, a series of Chinese and Japanese drawings
was collected together at the Burlington Fine Arts
Club, in which some striking analogies might be
traced with the former works, and as the collection
at the Burlington Club also included many finished
compositions, an opportunity was afforded of ob-
serving the uses which the preliminary studies
subserve in carrying out the design of the painter;
but here it must be confessed that the resemblance
ceases, and we are confronted with the limitations
of Japanese art.

A great future might be in store for the artists

in proportion as they mark the spirit of the age and
country that produced them. As I have already
said, the series of Japanese drawings, of which the
present reproductions form a part, illustrates a
period anterior to the influx of European ideas.
As an evidence of direct study from Nature they
are instructive, as showing the value of purely
naturalistic work unrestrained by the conventions
of decorative design. The feathers which ap-
pear on the study above, as in several others of the
series not reproduced here, are some of them
sketched, and others veritable feathers from the
bird itself, neatly mounted on the same sheet as
the drawings, evidently as memoranda for the
artist on future occasions. Frank Dillon.

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