Studio: international art (52.1911)

Japanese Ornamental Basket Work

and, at the same time,
it is very light, two in-
valuable qualities in port-
able articles; further, the
twigs of which it is com-
posed will grow on other-
wise worthless land and
practically in a wild state.
Willows, rushes, grasses,
.straw, palm stem and leaf,
rattan cane, wistaria, ivy,
bamboo, and other plant
substances, woven in a
vast variety of ways, are
the materials of which it
is composed, and which
are quite distinct from
timber. It therefore will

i . fig. 2.—japanese basket*seli.ers

be seen to constitute a
separate art in itself, and

when we proceed to examine the range of objects beautiful forms which keeps it in the background,
for which it is suited, it will be recognised how A basket is merely a basket, but paint the same
important it in reality is. Briefly, there is scarcely design on a piece of vellum and it acquires instant
an article of domestic furniture, large or small, that importance as a work of " creative imagination."
it cannot be fashioned into, from the casing of the In the first place it is essentially a special art, its
tiniest porcelain dish to tables and chairs. It can technique is totally distinct from every other, and
be used in the construction of vehicles large and its design, for the most part, is evolved from its
small, as well as for innumerable receptacles in use technique and is not imported from elsewhere, as
everywhere. And when we add the possibilities with most other arts, and as a consequence of this
it offers of evolving beautiful design, it appears its design is mostly spontaneous, we may almost
somewhat strange that basket work should be so say subconscious, the patterns of many of them
overlooked as an art. As an art it has attracted but having been evolved in the first place by accident
little notice, and is altogether a negligible quantity. in all probability rather than intention, and by per-
But, perhaps, it is this very facility for producing sons wholly unfamiliar with drawing or any other

branch of art. Many of
the native specimens, ex-
cellent as they are artis-
tically, are not made as
works of art at all, but
are objects of utility, such
as fish baskets or sieves,
and the worker merely
introduced the artistic
element as the work pro-
ceeded. This form of
design is by far its most
living one, and basket
work being all "manual,"
the ease with which varia-
tions are possible is very
evident. At the same
time, somehow or other,
only too much of the

fig. i.—Japanese basket-weavers at work European work has a

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