Studio: international art (25.1902)

The Nippon Bijitsu-in

rather than the thing itself that the Japanese artist
aims to express.

So in Hashimoto Gaho's snow-scene : here is the
very spirit of the snow, soft and white, over the
great mountain. Before this picture one really
breathes the keen, pure air of December snows.
The painting so strong, so exquisitely simple, only
a few touches on the silk, only a few masterful
strokes of gray. This wonderful old man of sixty-
seven, who has worked incessantly from boyhood,
feels that with each new picture he is learning new
secrets from nature, "Yes," said Mr. Okakura,
the President of the Bijitsu-in, who was also enjoy-
ing this wonderful picture—"yes, each picture of
Gaho's is a new creation, evolving according to
laws of its own. A picture must be criticised within
itself; it is not fair to judge it by others, not even
by others of the same master. Japanese art had
fallen into mannerisms, but with Gaho the true fire
is burning as brightly as ever. And you see we
Japanese love more to go to nature for our pleasure
and refreshment; to nature in landscape and birds
and flowers rather than to nature in man; for,
though birds and flowers have their sufferings, we
do not know them, we only know their joy, and it
refreshes and soothes us. So, instead of always
painting man, we go to the birds and flowers."

And so we walked on and on, coming to a big
black crow perched on a pole all covered with
snow, by Baisan; some exquisite white lotus, by
Makagima Reisen—the beautiful blossoms, glowing
in the pale golden light, had struggled up far from
the mud of the lake ; Tlie Great Chinese Wall, by
Yokoyama Taikam—a wall the arms of the world
could not shatter ; The Gentle Deer, by Yamamoto
Spinkyo; The Genghis Khan, by Kimamura Busan
—two wee sparrows under a great banana leaf, a
tiger crouching on the ledge of a cliff, an owl
fluttering, balancing on a scraggy branch, some fish
as only the Japanese can paint them, and moun-
tains aflame with maples. In their landscapes the
Japanese rarely fill out the canvas with colour and
line as we foreigners do, but delight in a few sug-
gestive tones and touches. How these artists love
the mists and moonlights ! and they paint them so
exquisitely, so tenderly. And what vigour, what
force they put into the lash and crash of storm and
battle !

The two gold screens by Shimamura Kanzan
were a revelation—7he Fox and the Sour Grapes
and The Crow with the Peacock's Feathers (from
^Esop). It was yEsop's own fox longing for those
luscious grapes, the great clusters, the great leaves,
wonderful in colour on the gold, so simple, so

strong, so big in design. I know of no modern
screens equal to these. Though we can only see
the head of the fox, we feel the whole fox, so great
is this power of suggestion, for the Japanese artist
leaves the circle incomplete, making the spectator
a fellow artist, working together to perfect the
poetical whole. "Suggestion," said Mr. Okakura,
" suggestion is the nearest shadow of infinity."
And again looking at the gold screens, he con-
tinued, "The tendency of the revival of old art is
the tendency to meaningless purism or insipid
classicism; but we find in a young man like
Kanzan an artist who can revel in colour and

"CROW IN THE SNOW" BY OKADA BAISAN

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