DOI Heft:
No. 385 (April 1925)
DOI Artikel:Komai, Gonnoské: Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton's water-colours of Japan
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21402#0197
SIR H. HUGHES-STANTON'S WATER-COLOURS OF JAPAN
L......' ■
us and I could peer down the abyss and
discern a mass of bright consuming fire,
naming and burning with unceasing vio-
lence, vomiting the black and yellow
sulphurous fumes at the right-hand side
of the seething bottom. 0 a 0
The morning air of about half-past
four was so chill and cold that we could
not help shivering all the while in our
soaking clothes. At last, piercing through
mist and cloud, the glorious morning sun
revealed his countenance on the far eastern
horizon. All the mists and white clouds
were beneath our feet; and I wondered if
I had suddenly been driven to an un-
inhabited island surrounded with a broad,
endless ocean. And amidst this mighty
sea of clouds, I could recognise, though
very faintly, celebrated mountains such
as Fuji, Tsukuba and their companions.
I have chosen to preface my remarks
on Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton's water-
colours of Japan (recently shown at the
Fine Art Society's Galleries) with this
account because hitherto Japan has been
" MOUNT FUJI, NEAR GOTEMBA "
WATER-COLOUR BY SIR H.
HUGHES-STANTON, R.A., P.R.W.S.
represented too much as a Garden of
Eden, filled with beautiful flowers and
wonderful birds—a land of exquisite
netsuke, inro, tsuba, colour-prints, nobk
and dignified temples and shrines. How-
ever, we should not lose sight of the
sterner aspects of Nippon's beauty—her
active volcanos, including the great Aso,
whose crater is the largest in the world,
and might have given Dante fresh scenes
for his Inferno—her stormy and perilous
seas swept by destructive typhoons or
tremendous tidal waves. Indeed, to form
a true picture of the environment of our
ancient Samurai race these elements of
its experience and of its aesthetic feeling
must be kept in mind. Also the terrible
earthquake drill, imposed upon man,
woman and child in Japan by harsh
Mother-Nature, who thus forces us t©
live dangerously. 0000
The main Islands of Japan are through-
out richly diversified with hills and
mountains, rivers and vales, rapids and
cataracts, waterfalls and springs. How
191
L......' ■
us and I could peer down the abyss and
discern a mass of bright consuming fire,
naming and burning with unceasing vio-
lence, vomiting the black and yellow
sulphurous fumes at the right-hand side
of the seething bottom. 0 a 0
The morning air of about half-past
four was so chill and cold that we could
not help shivering all the while in our
soaking clothes. At last, piercing through
mist and cloud, the glorious morning sun
revealed his countenance on the far eastern
horizon. All the mists and white clouds
were beneath our feet; and I wondered if
I had suddenly been driven to an un-
inhabited island surrounded with a broad,
endless ocean. And amidst this mighty
sea of clouds, I could recognise, though
very faintly, celebrated mountains such
as Fuji, Tsukuba and their companions.
I have chosen to preface my remarks
on Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton's water-
colours of Japan (recently shown at the
Fine Art Society's Galleries) with this
account because hitherto Japan has been
" MOUNT FUJI, NEAR GOTEMBA "
WATER-COLOUR BY SIR H.
HUGHES-STANTON, R.A., P.R.W.S.
represented too much as a Garden of
Eden, filled with beautiful flowers and
wonderful birds—a land of exquisite
netsuke, inro, tsuba, colour-prints, nobk
and dignified temples and shrines. How-
ever, we should not lose sight of the
sterner aspects of Nippon's beauty—her
active volcanos, including the great Aso,
whose crater is the largest in the world,
and might have given Dante fresh scenes
for his Inferno—her stormy and perilous
seas swept by destructive typhoons or
tremendous tidal waves. Indeed, to form
a true picture of the environment of our
ancient Samurai race these elements of
its experience and of its aesthetic feeling
must be kept in mind. Also the terrible
earthquake drill, imposed upon man,
woman and child in Japan by harsh
Mother-Nature, who thus forces us t©
live dangerously. 0000
The main Islands of Japan are through-
out richly diversified with hills and
mountains, rivers and vales, rapids and
cataracts, waterfalls and springs. How
191