Studio: international art (59.1913)

Modern Tendencies in Japanese Sculpture

“praying for help”

BY KITAMURA SHIKAI

tendency. People of the West have often ex-
pressed their wonder why our artists, so skilful
in drawing other creatures, are poor in drawing
dogs and horses. The truth is that our dogs
and horses are not so well developed as their
congeners in the West. Dr. Ladd, of Yale
University, remarked during his lecture tour
in Japan a few years ago that until he had
actually seen the horses in the field through the
train window he was not able to appreciate the
drawing of horses in our landscape paintings;
somehow they had always appeared to him like a
species of rat. But, having actually seen them in
their proper setting as a Japanese artist would see
them, he was satisfied with the correctness of the
drawings of Japanese horses, which a Russian
officer once described in his report as “ a species
of half-wild animal strongly resembling the horse.”
Of course, nothing is further from the wish

of the writer than to offer this explanation as an
apology for the shockingly ugly, bare figures, mostly
of females, which are frequently met with nowadays
in our sculpture and oil-paintings. The artists
who produce them reveal by their work their
ignorance of the true spirit of art in dealing with
such subjects and the lack of thorough understand-
ing of the noble and spiritual quality in the nude
revealed by the Western masters whom they profess
to follow. What the writer wishes to convey is
that our artists are struggling against this par-
ticular disadvantage, amongst other difficulties, aud
that this hinders in a way the progress towards the
harmonisation of Eastern and Western ideals and
methods.

Our present sculptors are now beginning to
realise the fundamental truth in the science of
modelling which Constant first taught Rodin : never
to see the form in length, but always in thickness
when carving; never to consider a surface except
as the extremity of a volume. Such was the
principle by which our masters also were guided.
Yet, judging from their exhibited works, our con-
temporary sculptors have not yet grasped the
secret of movement in their work. Action is rarely
expressed. Further, they seem to lack something
deep and noble with which the works of Rodin
are inspired. They do not stir us to higher motives
by their work. They have not yet come to value
“the impulse of our conscience towards the Infinite,
towards eternity, towards unlimited knowledge and
love—promises perhaps illusory, but which in this
life give wings to our thoughts.” All men, of
whatever history, creed, ideals, or nationality, when
they come to probe the vital questions of life, stand
on the same ground and close to each other. In
their relation to the Infinite and Eternal they
come nearest to understanding each other. Unless
it be in the struggle towards the solution of those
problems and in their sincere attitude towards the
sacred relation, they cannot possibly hope to
understand the fundamental differences of the East
and the West, and thus achieve the perfect harmoni-
sation of the two. Harada Jiro.

The National Art-Collections Fund has pre-
sented to the Victoria and Albert Museum two
Chinese marble statues of unusual importance.
These are life-sized figures of Corean mandarins in
ceremonial dress carrying a casket and scroll on
elaborately carved bases; they appear to have
formed part of a series of memorial statues on
each side of the road to a tomb in North China,
and are probably by a sculptor of the Ming period.

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