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Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY
1980
THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
THE ABC OF COLLECTING
OLD ENGLISH POTTERY
By J. F. BLACKER
Illustrated with about 400 line and half-tone illustrations. In large
crown &vo.
Pall Mall Gazette:" Mr. Blacker is to be congratulated on the

production of a thoroughly good, trustworthy, and informing hand-
book, and one that every collector will find not only desirable, but
necessary."
Truth : " Mr. Blacker is a chatty and interesting, as well as a
thoroughly instructive, guide for th^would-be collector of pottery,
and the book is copiously illustrated."
Daily Telegraph: "We congratulate Mr. Blacker and his
publisher upon enriching the library of the humblest enthusiast
with a book of great erudition and even greater artistic charm."
THE ABC OF COLLECTING

OLD ENGLISH CHINA
By J. F. BLACKER
Profusely illustrated with line and half-tone illustrations. In large
crown &V0.
Pall Mall Gazette:" For the beginner there could be no surer

guide than Mr. Blacker's book."
Dally Express: "Mr. Blacker shows what to look for, how to
know it, what to avoid, and gives a vast amount of information that
could only have come to him in the course of years of wide experi-
ence."
Liverpool Courier:" Mr. Blacker's book is really an A B C
easily understood even by the uninitiated, and an absolute joy to
the collector."
THE ABC ABOUT

COLLECTING
By SIR JAMES YOXALL, M.P.
Fully illustrated with line and half-tone illustrations. In large
crown Svff. znd Edition.
" Written
Evening Standard : clearly and explainingly, out of
personal knowledge, experience, and research. Every page of this
charming book is an inspiration to the collector."
OutlOOk: "A book which should prove of great service to the
hunter of curio bargains. The beginner cannot well have a better
guide."
FOURTEEN YEARS OF DIPLO-

MATIC LIFE IN JAPAN
Stray Leaves from the Diary of
BARONESS ALBERT D'ANETHAN
With an Introduction by His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador to
the Court of St. James.
Fully illustrated with photogravure and half-tone illustrations
printed on art paper.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

THE
A B C OF JAPANESE
ART
BY
J. F. BLACKER
Author of "The ABC of Collecting Old English Pottery." "The ABC
of Collecting Old English China," i" Chain on Oriental IChina," Etc., Etc.
WITH FORTY-NINE HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS, PRINTED ON

ART PAPER. AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATION IN THE TEXT
THE COPP, CLARK CO., LIMITED

TORONTO
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND V1NEY, LD.
LONDON AND AYLESBURY,
ENGLAND.
A/
PREFACE
art, it must be confessed, has not received, as
yet, that appreciation which its merits deserve, which
JAPANESE its infinite variety warrants, and which its age justifies.
Compared with old Chinese porcelain, for instance, its present

valueis low. That porcelain has advanced so much in
price during these last years that fine specimens can be
acquired only by the rich, and it still pursues its rising course
freefrom any signs of finality. The Japanese themselves
have until recently devoted much of their attention to Chinese
art ;
now they
are exerting every effort to restore to the
fatherland the works of their old masters and craftsmen.
Full well they recognise that such fine antiques are worth
buying full eagerly they seek after them, if peradventure
;
they may secure prizes such as lacquer signed Korin or

Kwansai amongst other treasures which will become familiar
to you as you read this book.
It seems therefore that the collector should seize present
opportunities, before the times of high prices shall come.

There can be no doubt in the mind of any one who has con-
sidered the subject, that the upward tendency has commenced
already. From the ever-growing circle of art-lovers, from
the experts and from the beginners, a truer estimation of the
arts of Japan is due and can be no longer delayed.
The success which has attended the issue of my books on
pottery and porcelain English and Chinese has induced me
to add this as a companion volume in the ABC series. The
accumulated material was first considered in connection with
two volumes, but in order to maintain uniformity in price
5
6 PREFACE
and size it was decided to rearrange the matter and to
publish it in one volume.
Much valuable assistance has been rendered to me by
many, to whom my thanks are sincerely tendered. Especially
to Mr. J. S. Happer they are due for his services in connection
with colour-prints, on which he is a recognised authority.
His researches regarding Hiroshige are embodied in the chapter
relating to that artist his generous gift of rare books upon
;
the subject deserves my warm recognition. The frontispiece

and other illustrations came from him whilst others were
;
kindly lent by Mr. Owen, of Darnell's, Wigmore Street, W.

Some of the illustrations were kindly supplied
by Mr.
Edgar Gorer, of Bond Street, W.
carved ivory
; and kimonos,
lacquer cabinets, and vases in silver, shakudo, and shibuichi ;
and amongst the other okimonos, netsukes, and lacquer are

some which appeared years ago in the Art Journal, illustrating
the articles so ably written by Mr. Marcus Huish, to whom
much of my inclination to Oriental art is due, and to whom
I owe suitable acknowledgment which I must also present
;
to Sotheby's for the unlimited use of illustrated catalogues,

accompanied by descriptions which have never been sur-
passed. These can be studied in the Appendix Sale Prices.
Lastly, my thanks are due to the Controller of His Majesty's
Stationery Office for giving me permission to utilise the
marks, signatures, and illustrations in two of the art hand-
"
books of the Victoria and Albert Museum, viz. Japanese
" "
Colour Prints and Japanse Pottery," from which I de-
rived much assistance. The specimens of pottery and por-
celain illustrated may be seen at the Museum, which is a
treasure-house beyond compare.
J. F. BLACKER.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION II
II. THE ART OF JAPAN 23
III. THE EARLY SCHOOLS AND PAINTERS ... 38
IV. THE GREAT PAINTERS OF THE LATER CENTURIES .

58
V. BRONZES . < . . . . .
.85
VI. CARVED WORK IN IVORY AND WOOD. NETSUKES . Ill
VII. LACQUER . i . .. . . .
134
VIII. THE MASTERS IN LACQUER ^

,._ ^ ; . . 150
IX. THE ART OF LACQUERING . , . .

163
X. ARMOUR AND ARMS .

;
.
. -. . . * 183
XI. WOVEN SILKS, EMBROIDERIES, AND TAPESTRIES . 2O6
xii. WOMEN'S FASHIONS AND MEN'S ARMOUR . . 219
XIII. THE HOMES, THE TEA CEREMONIES, AND THE
TEMPLES . . . . . . 228
XIV. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN . . . . .

249
7
8 CONTENTS
CHAPTER
XV. AKAHADA TO AWAJI WARE :
AKAHADA, ARITA,
HIZEN, OR IMARI (KAKIYEMON), AWATA (KINKO-
ZAN), AWAJI 267
xvi. BANKO (GOZAYEMON) TO IMADO WARE : BANKO
(YUSETSU), BIZEN, HIRATO, IMADO . . . 277
XVII. KENZAN TO KYOTO WARE : KENZAN, KISHIU,
KUTANI, KYOTO (DOHACHl), KYOTO (YEIRAKU) . 288
XVIII. MINATO TO RAKU WARE :

MINATO, NABESHIMA,
NINSEI, OKI, RAKU , . . . . 301
XIX. SANDA TO YATSU-SHIRO WARE : SANDA, SAT-
SUMA, SETO, SOMA, TOYO-URA, TOZAN, YATSU-

'
SHIRO . . . . . .
310
XX. JAPANESE COLOUR- PRINTS . . . .

325
XXI. ARTISTS AND THEIR COLOURS .... 336
XXII. THE ARTISTS OF THE UKIYO-YE . . .

348
XXIII. MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS . . .

357
XXIV. HOKUSAI 369
XXV. HIROSHIGE. ARTISTS' SIGNATURES ON PRINTS,
ETC 379
XXVI. SOMETHING ABOUT JAPANESE HISTORY . .

407
APPENDIX I SALE PRICES . . . .421
INDEX ,
.
457
LIST OF HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS
MEMORIAL PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER HIROSHIGE , Frontispiece
PAGfc
SOME BUDDHIST DIVINITIES . . . . . . Ip
THE BATTLE OF ICHINOTANI, BY SHUNTEI / * .,

27
THE CELEBRATED SOLDIER, IGANO-KAMI, IN COMPLETE ARMOUR .
47
A FAMOUS WARRIOR, KAJIWARA GENTA . . . . . .
55
SCENES PAINTED BY HOYEN. SHIJO SCHOOL . .,. . . 61
DOGS PAINTED BY OKIO . . . , . > .

65
THREE LANDSCAPES BY HOKUSAI . . .: . . 71
TWO PRINTS WHICH SOLD FOR HIGH PRICES . .

,
.
-
, 77
SEASCAPES BY GAKUTEI, HOKKEI, AND HOKUJIU . . . 81
KORO AND DRAGON, IN BRONZE *< . ,;.' '. . .-. , 91

LARGE CLOISONNE* ENAMEL INCENSE-BURNER . . . .
97
TWO SILVER VASES WITH FINE DECORATION * ^' . .
103
KORO IN SHAKUDO AND VASE IN SHIBUICHI ,
-
:
i . .
IO7
FIGURES IN CARVED WOOD AND LACQUER , . .
..-113
LARGE CARVED-WOOD CABINET . , . ,
rf * ? . * 119
OKIMONOS, ALCOVE ORNAMENTS, CARVED IN IVORY . . , 123

TWO WARRIORS FIGHTING. OKIMONOS IN IVORY .,- . .^4 \2J
NETSUKE"S CARVED IN IVORY . . , . . . .129
LACQUER BOXES, RAISED GOLD DECORATION . . .
.139
FINE SPECIMENS OF LACQUER BOXES AND A TREASURE-CART .
143
PAGODA IN GOLD LAC . . . . , . . .151
L\RGE CABINET IN LACQUER, DECORATED AND INLAID .
.157
MINIATURE CABINET IN GOLD LAC, INLAID WITH IVORY .
.167
io LIST OF HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MINIATURE CABINET, TWO VIEWS, CLOSED AND OPEN .
.173
LARGE CABINET IN LACQUER, WITH PANELS INLAID . .
.179
TSUBA AND OTHER SWORD BELONGINGS . . . . .187
SWORDS AND SOME ORNAMENTS . . . . . .195
TSUBAS, SWORD GUARDS . . . . . . . 2OI
FANS IN USE, A FAN BOX, AND A FAN PAINTER . . '.; I . I .

223
THREE EXAMPLES OF PICTURES IN TRIPTYCH . . .
>
.
237
TEA BOWLS . . . . . . . . . .251
FIRE VESSELS, BRAZIERS, WATER- JARS, AND KOROS . . .
269
TEAPOT, TEA-JARS, AND A DISH . . . . . .

283
SAKE SAUCER, YEIRAKU WARE ; AND A DISH, KUTANI WARE . 29!
FLOWER VASES . . . . . . . i .
303
CUPS, DISHES, VASES, AND A CANDLESTICK . . . .

3! I
'
POTTERY FIGURES . . . . . . .
'
.- .
317
;
CLOISONNE" ENAMEL . . . .
- -.'' * .' .
321
PRINTS AFTER HARUNOBU AND KIYONAGA ^

. . . .' .
33!
PRINTS AFTER UTAMARO, SHUNCHO, KUNISADA, AND MASONOBU 339
PRINTS AFTER KORIUSAI, GOSHICHI, YEISHI, AND TOYONOBU .
345
HOSSO-YE PRINTS AFTER SHIGINOBU, TERUNOBU, AND TOSHINOBU 351
HACHIRAKAKI PRINTS AFTER VARIOUS PAINTERS . .

-359
THE GAME OF BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK, BY TOYOKUNI .
365
VIEWING THE PLUM-BLOSSOM, BY TOYOKUNI . . .
.371
IN COMPLETE ATTIRE, BY KUNISHIGE, AND A GEISHA, BY YEISEN 377
A YOSHIWARA BEAUTY, BY YOSHICHIKA
A YOSHIWARA BEAUTY, BY YOSHITORA
.....
..... 383
389
THE
ABC OF JAPANESE ART
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
T T 7 HEN each of the arts of Japan richly deserves a volume
VV to itself, and when great works have been devoted
to some, it be altogether out of place to issue this
will not
cheap book which deals with these arts, a book which the
author believes will be eminently useful to the collector of the
treasures of Old Japan. Please think of it like that. It does
not profess to be an exhaustive work, too many subjects are
considered to make that possible, but in some ways, which
will be discovered by the reader, the book is unique, especially
in the marks supplied, which have the utmost value. Those
who buy solely and rightly for the artistic qualities and merit
of every object, and those who buy for profit, again rightly,
may receive some guidance from the sale-prices.

venture to state that the cult of Japanese art is only just
I
at itscommencement. Look at the facts. Before Nippon
was opened to the world that is, within the lifetime of an
ordinary man its art was self-contained, except for the few
incursions made upon it by the Portuguese, and more effec-
tively and later by the Dutch. During hundreds of years,
in the intervals of civil war, the artisan-artists and the aristo-
cratic painters were alike engaged in producing the finest works
that human
ingenuity could employ as means to express
worship and loyalty and a very natural desire to please.
To please whom ? The gods and the rulers of men.
12 THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
Looking back in history, we find the feudal system in
England and France placing the lives of the serfs at the dis-
posal of the feudal over-lords. Something similar prevailed

in Japan, but the similarity was involved. The Emperor,
to whom Banzai, and again Banzai, was placed in a peculiar
"
position for long, long centuries. From being Lord over
" " "
all he became Lord of the Worship ; those to whom he
had delegated power usurped the
Imperial functions, and by creating
a feudal system secured a warlike
following, which in the coming
years spent its powers in striving
for mastery, agreeing only on one
common basis the seclusion of the
Emperor, who, however, now and
again visited offenders with all the
powers of an avenging monarch.
Still, it was not until 1868 that
the real power was once more safely
in the hands of the Emperor,
wholly and safely. So from the
Middle Ages to that time the
Shoguns held the reins of military
government, and their over-lords,
appointed under conditions of
military service, became local
AN EMPEROR, chieftains and Daimios. All these
patronised the arts.
Just when Richard I. proceeded on the Third Crusade,
Yoritomo became the supreme Shogun, his clan, the Minamotos,
succeeding in the struggle, gave peace to the land for a time,
and with that peace the arts flourished. But though each
Shogun and each Daimio gave to the armourer and the sword-
maker his vassals, by the way his protection and counten-
ance, there occurred fearful struggles for the Shogunate, in
which the professional soldiers, the samurai, were closely
concerned. I will show how in a short time.
In 1392, just about four years after the border raid we
14 THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
know as Chevy Chase, the Ashikaga family became supreme,
and the country, smiling once more in the sun of peace, put
forth fruits which are
garnered as belonging to
the Ashikaga period
(1335-1573). The dif-
ference between 1335 and
1392 is accounted for by
the reign of the family
over the North before
acquiring the whole
power on the defeat of
the Southern dynasty.
From this time on-
wards, though troubles
came and went, the arts,
by upward grades, were
reaching on to excellence,
a career, interrupted by
further strife, but settled
in 1603, when lyeyasu
became the Shogun as the
first of the
Tokugawa
rulers, just in thesame
year when James VI. of
Scotland became King of
England as James I. The
art of Japan subjected
to the influence of China,
of the imported religion,
Buddhism, and, perhaps,
ever so little, to the
Dutch, steadily pursued
A DAIMIO ON HORSEBACK. AFTER
TOSA MITSUNOBU.
its way towards inde-
pendence, towards a
native art which displayed all the imagination innate in the
people. Now and then individual Daimios rebelled or quar-
relled, so that the only issue was the harahiri, which left the re-
INTRODUCTION J-5
tainers, the fighting samurai, reduced to the condition of

ronins, masterless men, who often avenged their chief with
all their power and followed him along the course marked by
harakiri. This was a favoured subject in art. During the
that is till 1867, painting and all other
Tokugawa period,
arts excelled to such a de-
gree as to astonish us who
have no conception of work
carried on regardless of the
time spent upon it.
For the moment, in Eng-
land, the collection of
various branches of Japan-
ese art is comparatively
easy, except with regard to
the finest qualities, which
are very expensive even in
Japan, though examples
which have reached this
country in various ways
may be bought sometimes
very cheaply. When de-
mands abound, forgeries
abound, and in them is the
danger for the collector, for
the beginner especially.
When I visit some of the
shops in London and see
colour-prints, I note the re-
productions, not where they
are honestly sold as such,
A SAMURAI BOWMAN.
but where they pretend to
be old. They are very modern, but, with the intention to
deceive, how closely they resemble the originals
!
Hence the beginner must move slowly, until he knows,

and knows that he knows. Now where would you like to
buy ? I know. You would like to stroll round the shops
and pick up bargains. Very nice, too. Is it possible?
Yes. Sometimes by luck a fickle jade oftener by sound
judgment, which has to be striven after. Why
not try the
sale-rooms ? That, too, is a good plan if you restrict your-
self. How can you expect to buy against the trade ?
" " "
Then," you may reply, I shall never buy Oh, yes !
you will in time. Do you really want to learn some-

thing about the art, and the prices paid for examples of it ?
Go to the sale-rooms when the examples are on view. Study
the catalogues, which often abound with expert information
furnished by men whose business it is to make catalogues
that shall defy the criticism of the expert buyers. Then see
what prices are paid at the sales and note them.
This something like the plan upon which this book is
is
written. Information is spread before you, not enough to

satiate, but enough, I hope, to make you wish for more,
and sale-prices are given where possible, as in colour-prints
and lacquer.
But something will have to be done by you before you
make a collection. You must decide which special object
or objects shall be your aim.
. In the wide world of Japanese art there is room for a
miscellaneous collection, more room than in any other sub-
ject which I know, and the sections of this book deal with
articles which harmonise with each other, which were in-
tended for that purpose, and which have never been inter-
fered with by foreign influences except in modern times.
All, therefore, is quaint, artistic, and harmonious, but none
agree with our Western notions, which for this purpose we
must be prepared to discard, for the closer we can get into
touch with the spirit of that wonderful people, the more will
be our advantages and our successes.
In this relation a close study of the religions of the East,
their mythology, and their tenets, will be invaluable. In
Shinto, or, as it is called, Shintoism, you will find the source
of patriotism founded upon great deeds done in the long
ago, ever preserved from oblivion as a lasting monument of
great traditions, ever treasured as living inspiration from
great ancestors. And you must notice that symbols of the
Emperor, the Shogun, and the Daimios show not the in-
dividual, but the power which protected the art upon which
such signs are displayed amidst the ornament which seems
designed to enshrine them.
Even greater power was exerted over art by Buddhism,
which, in the early centuries, brought Chinese civilisation
MONJU. SHOKAKU NO SHAKA.

THE BUDDHA TEACHING.
BRONZE STATUES.
in its train, and began the work from which all Japanese art
is an evolution. Here again is a religion which, though
modified by many main covers the same ground
sects, in the
as Chinese Buddhism. Gods and goddesses and a multitude
of spirits of good and evil, many of them possessing individual
symbols, make their appearance in all forms of art ; nothing
seems exempt from their presence. Painters have drawn
them, sword-makers have cut them upon the tsubas or sword-
guards, potters have modelled them ; they are carved in
DAI-NITI-NIORAI. YAKUSHI NIORAI. KWANNON. KONGO-SATT*A.
DAI-NITI-NIORAI. FUKO-DJO-DJU-NIORAI. ASHIDU-NIORAI. HOSHO-NIORAI
SOME BUDDHIST DIVINITIES.

INTRODUCTION 21
ivory or in pieces of wood, and they are cast into

immense
giant figures of bronze. This shows the necessity for knowing
all that is possible about the religions of Japan, of which
more will be said in the next chapter.
There is much besides. Nowhere do we find such noble
expression of dignity ; such penetration and force in the
expression of feeling ; pathos, passion, fun ; such extra-
ordinary realism in the representation of animals, birds, and
flowers. The Japanese workman, the artisan, the artist,
drew and made things as they saw them. We may not
easily grasp their mode of painting, but in modelling they
make the object like life itself.
I have said nothing in commendation of collecting as a

pursuit. Call it the pursuit of pleasure, and you will not be
wrong. Call it the pursuit of profit, and again you will be
quite right. One thing can be safely promised to those who
are worried by too much work, and indeed to all who enter
the world of collecting :
" You shall store all your baggage of worries.

You shall feel perfect peace in this realm,
You shall sail with old friends on fair waters,
With joy and delight at the helm."
Though many of the beautiful exhibits of the Japanese

Government at the White City in 1910 were magnificent,
though they displayed wonderful taste and an astonishing
dexterity of execution, they seemed to me to lack that touch
of poetic imagination, that play of fancy, which infused the
soul of Old Japan. The modern art in its best form is good,
nay, it is excellent but I fear that the art that knew no time
;
is gone for ever. My regret may well take the words of a

west-country poet :
"
Oh ye have lost,
Mountains, and moors, and meads, the radiant throngs
That dwelt in your green solitudes, and filled
The air, the fields, with beauty and with joy
Intense with a rich mystery that awed
;
The mind, and flung around a thousand hearths

Divinest tales, that through the enchanted year
Found passionate listeners The very streams
!
Brightened with visitings of these so sweet

Ethereal creatures They were seen to rise
!
From the charmed waters, which still brighter grew

As the pomp passed to land, until the eye
Scarce bore the unearthly glory. Where they trod
Young flowers, but not of this world's growth, arose,
And fragrance as of amaranthine bowers
Floated upon the breeze. And mortal eyes
Looked on then* revels all the luscious night ;
And, unreproved, upon their ravishing forms

Gazed wistfully, as in the dance they moved,
Voluptuous to the thrilling touch of harp
"
Elysian 1
N. T. CARRINGTON.
CHAPTER II
THE ART OF JAPAN

arts of a people are its ideas embodied, its mental
THE conditions expressed, in concrete form. Centuries
before the opening of the various ports of Nippon to inter-
course and trade with Europe, the Japanese had cultivated
their arts to such a position that they fell only slightly below
the Chinese in their great Ming period. Both peoples were
inspired by Buddhism as a motif, as a means by which larger
ideas found expression in beautiful art. The priests were
the earliest painters and teachers, and though the religious
influence weakened as time went on, it had an enduring effect,
called Chinese or Buddhist, it was the
and, whether it is
ground from which sprang the various schools, eventually to

drift very far apart from their original forms. The Yamato,
the Tosa, the Sesshu, the Kano, the Popular, the Shijo or
realistic, the Ukiyo-ye, and the Gan-Ku schools only marked
stages in the journey, new ideas were followed by develop-
ments in the mode of expression, and we may hope that the
new conditions affecting the great Emperor of Japan and his
people may yet bear new and noble fruit.
If the character of the past spirit of Japanese art could be
compressed into phrases, those phrases would read some-

thing as follows the spirit to learn and to profit by teaching ;
:
the spirit to hold central principles tenaciously, and to develop

them along independent and national lines ; the spirit of
sincerity in expression, of scorn for shams, and of trust in
truth.
Whether the coming of the Japanese to conquer and drive
back the ancient Ainu people, whose descendants still live,
23
or whether a previous race, the Koro-pok-guru, was the
absolute primitive, whether invasions took place from Malay
Mongolia, and Korea, are not questions which concern the
scope of this book as much as what were the religions which
made the art of the people whose position with regard to
invasion from the mainland is curiously analogous to that
of our own country.
When, in the sixth century, the Mikado appointed Shoguns
THE BEAUTIFUL CARVED-WOOD DOOR KNOWN AS THE YOMEI-MON OR HIGURASHI-

MON OF THE TEMPLE AT NIKKO, SO CALLED BECAUSE A WHOLE DAY COULD BE
SPENT IN EXAMINING IT. THE MODEL WAS SHOWN AT THE JAPAN-BRITISH
EXHIBITION IN IQIO.
to act as military commanders, Buddhism had found its way

from Korea across the sea to Nippon. Here are two in-
fluences which cannot be disregarded in their relation to the
birth and growth of all that made for the advancement of
art. Shinto was a naturalist religion with one command-
"
ment, a positive assertion, Thou shalt obey the Mikado*'."
THE ART OF JAPAN 25
Its ceremonials were conducted by the Mikado, or in the
provinces by his officials, who were the priests during the
usurpation of the Shogunate. Shintoists were no wor-
shippers of images ; (Amaterasu) and the Kamis
the sun
(powerful, invisible, pure spirits) were adored, and the Emperor
(Mikado), the direct descendant of Amaterasu, being, there-
fore, the direct descendant of the gods, held all power, both
spiritual and temporal ; he governed by divine right, yet his
power was usurped.
The introduction of Buddhism effected something of a
"
revolution in the old Way of the Gods.'* It revolutionised
the forms even of that cult, but it did more it gave to its
own ceremonies a pomp which was novel, attractive, and
picturesque. Facility of absorption, facility of assimilation,
and quick growth, and later,
facility of division gave, at first,
the last was responsible for the number of Buddhist sects
six chief and thirty-six of minor importance all using cere-
monial worship, with innumerable idols, amongst which were
the Kamis absorbed from Shintoism. The oldest picture
existing in Japan represents the first Buddhist missionary
to that country, and it dates from the commencement of the
eighth century. Further, the priests, trained in the monas-
teries, devoted themselves to painting as a work of piety,
and they devoted themselves also to teaching, not necessarily
the art of painting, but all the higher branches of a learned
education. In every nation the older professions, except
arms and agriculture, were cradled in religion.
Yet there was another power growing up which eventually
controlled much of the production of the artist. The feudal
system caused a certain emulation between the princes, the
rich patrons, and that emulation was all in favour of progress.
On the one side may be discerned the authority of the Emperor,
who, deprived of his temporal power, confined himself almost
entirely to the concerns of religion on the other, the Shogun,
;
the hereditary head of the governing, fighting class. If one

had followers, the priests, the other led the Daimios. Hence
the school of Tosa at Kyoto, the ancient Imperial academy,
the official school, was destined to meet the rivalry of another
the Kano school, the school of the Shoguns,
official school,
the aristocratic school, always opposed to the realism of
popular developments, to the art which is so distinctively
Japanese. Literature had
long held sway over art ;
as a source of inspiration it
was second only to religion.
Then the arts were the
means of expression by
which cultivated minds
represented thoughts in un-
mistakable forms, always,
however, according to rules,
which gradually hardened
into mere formulae.
The time came when a
counteracting agency as-
serted itself with a boldness
that overcame all
opposi-
tion ; nature-study and its
embodiment had been long-
suffering, enduring all
things, and that which is

of all the hardest, slighting
neglect. It had expressed
nature in her moods, but
this did not satisfy the
high classical aspirations of

the priestly and literary
classes it now began to
=
appeal to the ordinary
THE PAGODA OF THE TEMPLE AT NIKl tO deVOte ltS
and
tion to the incidents
scenes of the daily life. The history of painting will show
with what force, with what success, that appeal was made,
and though the Western world can never thoroughly grasp
the devotion of the native collector to the works from the
old academies, works in all materials as well as paintings,
27
THE ART OF JAPAN 29
at least has realised that from the reign of Genroku (1688-

it
art is worthy of attention, and the
1704) onwards, Japanese
enthusiast will protest that such a weak statement is very
far from the mark he will asseverate that it is worthy of a
life-long study, a life-
long devotion.
Of the paintings it
"
may be' said that if
the style be not dis-
tinguished by marked
originality of inspira-
tion, it is characterised
at least by other quali-
ties of the first order :
force and neatness of
conception, clear defi-

nition of forms, so-
briety of composition
and just sentiment of
decorative effect, rare
knowledge of design,
decision, and supple-
ness in the stroke of
the brush, fine taste
in the selection of
vivid clear colours,
and also in their har-
monious combination.
It is the style of a
healthy and fertile
art wnicn also ais- AFTER NISHIMURA SHIGENAGA. SAIGGIO HOSHI
tinguishes the bronzes, VIEWING FUJIYAMA ;
HE WAS A FUJIWARA
NOBLE WHO BECAME A POET AND GAVE UP
the carvings in wood
,
HIS RANK.
and ivory, the arms
and armour, especially the sword, the other beautiful metal-
work, and all the worlds of lacquer, embroidery, and colour-
prints, not omitting the porcelain and pottery."
Some subjects are exceedingly popular with artists, out-
THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
side the religious and social ones, or even the historical. The
landscapes exhibit one of these subjects, the great mountain
Fujiyama, or Fujisan, an extinct volcano towering to the
height of more than 12,000
feet in the south of the main
island, Honshiu. It is said to
be sacred to the
Japanese.
Whether it sacred or not
is
may be open to doubt, but

" "
viewing the mountain was
a pastime or was it a devo-
tion ? which had great attrac-
tion for philosophers as well
as for ordinary visitors, and
artists revelled in its lofty
grandeur, its snow-capped cone
and varying aspect, now stand-
ing out in a clear sky, now
hidden in mist at its base, or
with a cloud-mantle covering
up its head. Other subjects
for the wood-carver and metal-
worker were furnished by the
mythology, the temples of
Buddha contained large statues
in wood and bronze, the art-
craftsmen devoted themselves
to classical forms of gods and
goddesses, and found ample
scope for their labours in
their number, and in the vary-
DJO-ON-QUE-SHA. AMIDA. GILT-
WOOD, I5TH CENTURY. ing value attached to them by
the different sects.
In the East, as in the West, religious worshippers were
divided into sects. Buddhism, as I have said, had always
displayed a facility for assimilating the native gods existing
at its advent, and in Japan its pantheon was increased by
the inclusion of idols of the principal Kamis, the gods col-
lectively of the firstand second dynasties and their reputed
descendants, the Mikados, in addition to many deified heroes.
Hence the Way of the Kami, the Way of the Gods, the Shinto
religion, was grafted on to Buddhism, and images of Shinto
gods appeared in Buddhist, but never in Shinto, temples,
which were simple buildings constructed of natural wood
without paintings or ornaments, in a plain style of architec-
ture. The sanctuary, closed by a white veil which nobody
dared to lift, was furnished with a table or altar in white
wood upon which were placed a polished metal mirror, symbol
of creation ;
a gohei consisting of paper streamers on a stick,
y
symbol of purity and a sword, in memory of the god Susanovo

;
no Mikoto, brother of Amaterasu, the first celestial sovereign

of the country, who delivered it from a devouring dragon..
Teaching, preaching, singing, and dancing occupied the time
and attention of the priests.
Buddhism had, on the contrary, its elaborate ritual, but
the idols which were most adored varied according to the
sects, of which the six principal were Tendai, Hokke-su,
Zen-su, Singon, Sin-su, and Djods-su. The chief gods were
Dhyani-Buddha Amida, the Amitabha of Tibet and the
;
Dhyani-Bodhisattva Kwannon (Avalokitesvara) yet Shaka-

;
muni was scarcely inferior to them, and the two sects of

the Singon and Tendai gave the highest rank to Dai Niti
Niorai (Vairocana), another Dhyani-Buddha. The images
of these and other gods were cast in bronze or carved in
wood sometimes they were of immense size, as will be seen
;
in the bronze Buddha described elsewhere, amongst the

bronzes, but most of those which I have seen have been
wonderful specimens of wood-carving, varying from giant
statues to quite small statuettes, sometimes painted and
gilt, sometimes in natural wood. The Japanese ascribe this
art to the ancient sculptures of Ganhara to the second phase
of Buddhist development in Tibet for their religion was of
the form called Buddhism of the North, and, like that of
China, belonged to the school of Mahayana, the outcome of
a council held at Djalandhara about the middle of the first
century of our era. The books of this school were written
THE ART OF JAPAN 33
in sanserif, those of the earlier Hinayana school were in

pali.
Volumes could be written regarding the mythology of this
religion, the saints and gods, the genii and demons, and in
years to come it may become more familiar to us. Whether
we regard the hold it had over millions of people, or merely
look upon it as a matter of philosophic study, we cannot help
being impressed with the beauty and dignity of the magnifi-
cent Buddhas of contemplation, the Dhyani-Buddhas, the
types of the faith, and as such they never were human, they,
in fact, inspired, protected, and sustained the human Buddhas
(Manusi- Buddhas). Of course the purity of every form of
religion has been degraded by its followers, yet amongst those
who drink from the unpolluted source there remains much
of the truth, though the expression of that truth varies with
age, changes with environment, and is modified by fluctuating
influences.
The six sects of Japan had formerly a rival sect, Rio-bu
in which Shinto and Buddhism were mixed, but in 1881 an
Imperial decree suppressed this in order to restore to Shinto
all its purity. One cannot at the same time drink from
two sources. And Buddhism in Japan, with its different
sects, now appears to be losing ground. Yet the philosophic
doubter must love these old images, the trophies of a glorious
past largely free from religious strife, if we except the massacre
of the Christians.
How closely some of them resemble others ! Here are three
of the Niorai, who differ from each other only in the position
of the hands, the right hand especially. These gestures,
the mudras, have a language, a signification, of their own.
The right hand raised implies teaching ; extended down-
wards palm outwards, perfection of conduct resting palm ;
downwards on the thigh, bearing witness and clasping the

;
index finger of theleft hand is the habitual attitude of the
Buddha, supreme and eternal. How each sits or stands

upon a pedestal made of the petals of the lotus, Buddha's
sacred flower, the nelumbium speciosum Sometimes the
!
thalamus supporting the divinity is doubled, the second

being reversed. It must be noted that there is much of real
dignity in these figures, and
the classical art in all its
forms shares that dignity
which typical of one side
is
of the nation's character.

Another side is revealed
when we see the seven gods
of good fortune, painted in
pictures, carved in wood, or
moulded in pottery. Hotei,
for example, the merry, fat
god, the children's playmate
and friend, may be shown
pulled along by the children
in a game, or with his
friends, the other gods, en-
joying the pleasures of the
table. The humour of a
situation strikes the artist,
and as these gods do not
partake in the sanctity of
serious worship they are
easily adapted to a funny
episode or position, and if
smiles mean anything, they
enjoy it.
Although these seven, as
gods of happiness, have no
prominent position in the
temples, and although they
receive but little adoration,
their kindly aspect appeals
to the popular imagination,
and in nearly every home
WOODEN STATUE OF
they are conspicuous on the
GODDESS OF MERCY AND GRACE.
floor _which & here raised
of the toko-noma, a recess partly altar, partly picture-
THE Afct Of JAPAK 35
gallery, at one end of the main room. The position which

they hold as the lares, after the manner of the Etruscans
and Romans, does not at all interfere with the broad,
humorous treatment which they receive at the hands of
painters, potters, and carvers a treatment oftentimes per-
fectly ludicrous.
Their origin has been traced back to the days of the Shogun
Yemitsu, and the story is told that they were the outcome
of a dream. Yemitsu, like Pharaoh, awoke one morning
to be as accurate as the chronicle, on the first day of the
THE SEVEN GODS OF GOOD FORTUNE. IMARI WARE.
year 1624 and, like Pharaoh, his spirit was troubled. Until
"
Joseph came there was none that could interpret Pharaoh's
dream," and only a famous courtier of the Shogun, the wise
Dai Oino Kami could persuade his master that the seven
monsters who had frightened him were none other than the
disguised gods, the seven gods of happiness or good fortune,
paying him a visit at the advent of a New Year. His clever-
ness convinced Yemitsu, and the more easily because he had
his list ready, borrowed from the divinities of the three
Buddhism, and Taoism, though, as we

religions, Shintoism,
know, Shintoism forbade images. Yet a Shinto origin must
be assigned to Yebis or Yebisu, god of the fishers and of
commerce, and above all, of the daily food. Taoism furnished
Jurojin, god of longevity, round-headed, smiling, sometimes
accompanied by a deer or stork, and Fukurokuju, god of
wisdom, having a remarkable sugar-loaf head. From Budd-
hism he borrowed Bishamon, god of the North, and made him
god of war Daikoku, god of riches, with money or rice-bag
;
and a miner's hammer Hotei, the

; fat-bellied, smiling god of
contentment and gaiety, protector of children ;
and Benten,
goddess of beauty. All of these gods except Yebisu were of
Chinese derivation, their origin is lost in myths, but many
of them may be found in the priceless porcelain statuettes
of the Ming period.
But these Chinese statuettes are, above all, dignified, though
in the paintings, even of the early centuries, the rishi are
often represented as merry boys or youths, by Chinese artists.
The rishi, or Taoist sages the eight immortals are repre-
sented in Japan by these seven gods of good fortune and ;
many other fabulous personages, animals, trees, and flowers

are common to both countries. The dragon, which in China
bears five claws to represent the Imperial family, has in Japan
but three. The kirin or kylin y the lion or dog of Buddha,
the ho-ho bird or feng huang, may show variations, but the
symbolical meaning is the same, just as it is in the trees
and flowers, where the pine and plum-blossom speak of im-
mortality and rejuvenescence. The emblems are strongly in
evidence in art borrowed from China, whilst in purely native
work they are nearly disregarded.
Hence it is that, in painting, the soul of the art of Japan,
such subjects as relate to the religions are far more numerous
than those which deal with nature. Scenes from the life of
Buddha and his followers are more often met with than
landscapes, and these in their turn exceed pictures of animals,
birds, and flowers in number. For nearly the whole of the
first fifteen centuries the natural plant and animal life re-
ceived but little attention from the Tosa school, but their
attraction could not be resisted, and amongst other subjects
it, at the last, reigned supreme.
THE ART OF JAPAN 37
Now painting and colour-prints are so closely allied that
for practical purposes they may be taken as one, with a
limitation. The other branches of Japanese art are by no
means independent of painting, for just as colour-print
designs were drawn by the artists and executed by the arti-
ficer, so in lacquer, in metal- work, in textiles, and embroideries,
and all else, the patterns were furnished by the artists to
highly skilled artisans.
Which introduces a speculation. Who were these artisans ?
At present the artist appears to receive all the credit for the
work for which he supplied the designs, for the exquisite
gold lacquer designed by Koetsu, Korin, Kwansai, Zeishin,
Toyo, and others, leaves no sign of identification from the
hand of the craftsman. " Unwept, unhonour'd, and un-
sung," they have passed away into the silence, and yet they
speak to us now, if only to declare how faithfully they strove
to interpret the minds of the masters, if only to teach how
infinite pains reach onwards to perfection. And the limitation
between painting and colour-prints was imposed by the
engraver and the printer.
CHAPTER III
THE EARLY SCHOOLS AND PAINTERS

T)AINTING in Japan developed under Chinese inspira-
L tion, in which the religions of Buddhism and Taoism
were closely involved. During the early centuries of our
era Chinese art was closely imitated, but by its side began the
evolution of the Yamato style of native painting. From
this arose the Tosa school, which for several centuries produced
religious works for the temples, and other pictures, such as
incidents in the lives of the saints, in the history of the Court
and of the country, and in the internecine wars. But after
a long interval another school arose, the Kano school, which
drew fresh inspiration from the artists of the Chinese paintings
of the Sung period, and, though the subjects of the paintings
in the two schools were generally of the same class, the
treatment by the Kano artists told the tale of the source
from which they sprang. The later Ganku, Torii, Shijo, and
other schools indicate departures from the traditions of Tosa
and Kano which will form part of this section. The most
important of the recent developments gave to Japan the art
of the Ukiyo-ye school which aimed at depicting life and
the world as it was.
In the British Museum there are Japanese paintings of
the thirteenth century, and these can be there compared
with the earlier works of Chinese painters of the eighth
century, of whom Wu Tao Tze was the most famous. In
the Japan- British Exhibition native pictures of the ninth
century, notably one of a divinity, Kongorikiku, by Kobo
Daishi, revealed the Chinese influence which always had a
tendency towards the traditional and conventional, so that
38
A JAPANESE BUDDHIST PRIEST IN HIS CEREMONIAL ROBES.
39
the other schools, breaking the traditions, set up their own
standards, which became so characteristic as to be recognised
at a glance by the expert.
The were largely the academies of the
classical schools
priests,but we shall find that other artists held honourable

positions in the Courts of the Shoguns, who chose them because
THE BIRTH OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA IN THE WOODS OF LUMBINI MAYA, HIS

;
MOTHER, ATTENDED BY INDRA, BRAHMA, AND THE NAGAS.

From an old painting.
the priests were subjected to the authority of the Emperor,

the spiritual head of the nation. We shall see that
the emulation of the painters in the two schools led to
excellence in each, for, the styles being different, it only
remained for the artist to display his highest ability in
THE EARLY SCHOOLS AND PAINTERS 41
executing his designs. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind

that this rivalry had no existence in the early centuries, and
that, through the civil wars, painting, and indeed all art, was
neglected. During the intervals of peace, the painters pur-
sued their avocation, decorating the temple walls, or drawing
on paper such subjects as could be mounted upon a biyobu,
a kakemono, a makimono, or a large scroll.
Biyobus were screens, and upon these were displayed the
on permanent exhibition, though some screens
largest pictures
could be folded up and put away. The names kakemonos
and makimqnps are used here to indicate the two forms of
pictures vertical and horizontal. Later, when applied to
colour-prints, the kakemono has a regular size. With simple
equipment of paper, brush- pencils, Japanese ink, and a limited
number or colours, the artists of the early centuries painted
pictures which were usually mounted on paper or brocade
furnished with a roller on which they could be rolled up.
Very old paintings in water or body colour are exceedingly
rare they are conserved as precious treasures.
;
I have seen
examples ascribed to Kose-no-Kanaoka, the painter-poet of the

Imperial Court in the ninth century, and by his grandson Rose
Hirotaka, but most of the painters before Nobuzane (1177-
1265) are unknown, though the paintings are undoubtedly
ancient. Difficulties of identification always surround the
birth of an art where the work is neither signed nor dated.
Even China, which claims for painting an antiquity preceding
the Christian era by at least three centuries, can show but few
works anterior to Ku K'ai-chih about A.D. 364-405. Little
illumination has come from the dark ages, only we can mark
the advance of Buddhism, and note the consequent progress
in art.
It is said that the Japanese Emperor Kijo, after having
travelled all through China, founded, in mo,
a school
in his own
country, whose principles were honoured and
accepted as late as the seventeenth century. It was then
the Augustan era of the Sung dynasty in China, when,
from 960 to 1280, Chinese art gradually developed those
characteristics which it still for the most part retains. The
only famous painter whom I can trace during the twelfth
century is Nobuzane, a member of the great Fujiwara family,
"
whose picture Sambo Kojin, the Spiritual God of the Three
"
Treasures is in the British Museum and that is only attri-
;
buted to him. Probably owing to the Emperor's visit more

attention was paid in the Tosa school to the teachings of her
neighbour, though the Yamato school, from which Tosa arose,
still existed, and indeed in every age there were independents
who attached themselves to no party, but did their work as
they pleased, without reference to accepted methods. Some
such works have reached our own times, though by far the
best of the ancient paintings have been allowed to leave
their country only under exceptional conditions for purposes
of exhibition, as at the White City, and these have been
Buddhist pictures decidedly of the Tosa school.
Further, it is expressly stated that the Tosa school founded
in the ninth century owed nothing to the influence of China.
Apart from religious subjects, it occupied a special position
in art embodying the taste of the Court at Kyoto. Quails
and peacocks, cocks and hens, cherry and other branches in
flower, were painted as time went on with the extreme care
and patience of a miniature, even with an excessive detail.
Such pictures found a place in the albums, whilst on the large
scrolls historical scenes and Court fetes were depicted, or
Daimios with their samurai in gorgeous ceremonial costumes.
The Tosa painters afterwards lost much of their prestige to
the artists of the later Kano school, whose studies included
a wider scope, where landscapes played an important part,
and where Chinese subjects were devotedly imitated. Whilst
the paintings of the former were distinguished by the elegance
and precision of its design, the latter was noted for its breadth,
power, and freedom, but many years elapsed before the great
Chodensu initiated the reforms which led to the foundation
of this school of Kano.
The Shogun Yoritomo, founder of the hereditary Shogunate
in 1192, creator of the city of Kamakura, which he made his
capital, extended his patronage to the arts, which flourished

exceedingly, and became settled in the main principles. A
I. EMPEROR'S BLAZON AND MIKADO FAMILY BLAZON.
3. BLAZON OF THE TOKUGAWA SHOGUNS BETWEEN MALLOW FLOWERS.
3. SATSUMA AND BIZEN FAMILY BLAZONS.
4. H1RATO FAMILY BLAZONS.
43
peace followed during the succession of his two sons to that
high office, then more civil war. In the Middle Ages the
Fujiwara clan usurped Imperial authority, and military affairs
were entrusted to the two clans of Minamoto and Taira.
These aimed at national power, so, during the struggle which
terminated with the victory of Yoritomo, art was neglected.
The extinction of the hereditary clan of the Minamotos in
1219 brought further trouble indeed a family of humble origin
;
the Hojos grasped the supreme power, and ruled with

resistless authority. Though many Shoguns succeeded each
other, they were either minors connected with the royal family,
or rulers easily governed by the Ho jo Regents, until the
Emperor Go-Daigo issued from his retirement as Mikado,
and not only destroyed the power and arrogant tyranny of
the Hojos, but also overthrew their city, the Kamakura,
which Yoritomo had made his capital. The two Imperial
dynasties of the North and South, after a short peace, came
into collision, a fierce contest lasted for fifty-six years, and
was only closed in 1392 by the victory of the North, and by
the peace which followed the establishment of Yoshimitsu
as theShogun of the Ashikaga family. Peace led to inter-
communication with the continent, and to the general pro-
motion of the arts of peace.
Under the Shogun of this family, which marks a period in
art the Ashikaga period many painters appeared, some
of whom have left works which may be seen at the British
Museum. Whenthe Shoguns encouraged the artists, the
Daimios, who became
feudal princes, followed their example.
Copying the Chinese models, at the best a delusive habit,
gave way to another style in which powers of invention and
composition were allied to skilful execution. Chodensu, it is
true, presented his conceptions of Kings of Hell, and of Arhats
and other Buddhist divinities, but there was a foreshadowing
of a representative impressionist manner which, commencing
in the silvery tones of ink sketches of landscapes, birds, and
flowers, foundits interpretation in Sesshu.
Chodensu, or Myocho, known too as Mincho, was an im-

pressionist notwithstanding his subjects. He lived from 1352
1. KAGA, NAGATO, AND KATO KYOMASA BLAZONS.
2. SEN-DAI (TWO) AND MAEDA BLAZONS.
3. HIGO (TWO) BLAZONS AND SOMA PRANCING HORSE.
4. HABESHIMA OR HIZBN (TWO) AND THE SOMA BLAZONS.
to 1431, and painted the celebrated " Death of Sakia " for the
Tofukuji Temple at Kyoto, a work which has been copied
frequently. His new departure included a new method of
colouring, as well as a broader style of painting. One of his
pictures sent from the same temple was exhibited at the
White City. The difference between the old distemper
colours mixed with water-glue used by Kanaoka and the
Ko-se* school, and the thick water-colour body employed by
Chodensu, made for the progress culminating in the persons
of the Kanos Masanobu, and Motonobu.
Josetsu, pupil of Chodensu, a Chinese by birth, worked
from 1394 to 1427. His paintings are little known, but
Shubun, his distinguished pupil, a landscape from whose brush
was exhibited at the White City by the Marquis Kaoru Inoue
was the master of Oguri Sotan, who worked about 1450 in
landscape and figure painting. These two, Shubun and
Oguri Sotan, trained Kano Masanobu, the founder of the
Kano school. Saomi, a fellow student with Shubun, became
the favourite painter of the Shogun Yoshimasa and he was
a celebrated cha-jin a master of the tea and flower ceremonies,
y
and an author of the standard work on the cha-no-yu,

the tea ceremony. The official connection between the
Shoguns and the Kano school probably had its origin here.
Looking onwards from this period we can associate the
Tosa school with the Emperor and his lords, the Kuge. The
latter school was on the way to decline, although Tosa Mit-
sunobu accomplished great things. But it will be well to
consider the artists of this century of the Ashikaga period in
greater detail, because in the middle of the next century, the
sixteenth, Japan was exposed to further internal turmoil and
fierce strife, which again obstructed the progress of the fine
arts.
Though the Tosa school had a long and illustrious existence

before Chodensu *s work laid the foundations of the Kano
revival, and though about a hundred years elapsed before
Kano Masanobu actually opened the school, comparatively
few painters made a reputation in that interval. I have
mentioned Shubun, whose best work in landscape was painted
THE CELEBRATED SOLDIER, IGANOKAMI, IN COMPLETE ARMOUR, USING HIS
SWORD WITH ONE HAND.
47
about 1400, and his pupil
Oguri Sotan, also a land-
scape painter, who reached
his highest level fifty years
later. Sesshu, another land-
scape has been men-
artist,
tioned, and be noticed
will
later, but I hasten to Kano

Masanobu, the contem-
porary of Tosa Mitsunobu,
though he was but one
amongst several masters who
followed Chodensu's lead.
They were mostly Buddhist
priests, who often practised
mural painting in the
temples as well.
Kano Masanobu was not
represented in the Japanese
paintings shown at the
British Museum, but at the
White City there were two
"
works by him Angling
on the wintry lake " and
"
Chou Mao-hsu, a Chinese
"
sage It was in the studios
of Shubun and Oguri Sotan
that Masanobu improved his
talent, which had been fos-
tered in his home, just as
he himself encouraged the
ability which he saw in
his son Motonobu (1476-
J 559)- Tne father's works
are very rare, even in
SOME LUCKY CHARACTERS AND SYMBOLS.
Japan, where they are
Kotobaki Felicity.
valued for their powerful Fuku = Happiness.
Swastika = Good fortune.
dark colours, firm, strong Tori, or Tori-i Favour of th gods.
49
contours, and noble simplicity, which is especially notable in
the figures.
Kano Motonobu married the daughter of Tosa Mitsunobu
(1434-1525), the chief of the Tosa school, who painted subjects
illustrating history and battle scenes, such as those which
took place in the early Hogen and Heiji eras. By this marriage
the Kanos shared with the Tosas the celebrity attached to
this art. The " Sinico- Japanese Encyclopaedia " thus speaks
"
of him He was the prince of Chinese and Japanese painters,
:
almost a god in his power. He was often named Kohogen.

His works reached China during the Ming dynasty, and his
glory spread in all that Empire." We in Europe can scarcely
appreciate the full force of his genius ; his flowers, birds, and
landscapes, as shown at the British Museum and in the Japan-
British Exhibition, were altogether admirable, and a painting
of Shoriken the Chinese rishi Chung-li K'uan, the great
leader, crossing the waters on a sword was a wonderful
work. Monsieur L. Gonse thus criticises four kakemonos :
"
Japanese art has produced nothing that I know stronger
and more delicate than these. One of them represented a
landscape with fugitive lines, a Corot bathed in light and
transparence. The perspective is admirable, and the most
exacting eye would find no fault in it the succession and
;
gradation of the planes reach an extraordinary delicacy,

obtained by means of great simplicity. If Motonobu ignored
the scientific laws of perspective, it is well to recognise before
such perfect work that his empiricism is worth all our theories."
Mr. William Anderson, writing about his manner of painting,
"
said Even to unfamiliar eyes, the vigour of the design and
:
the complete mastery of the pencil which he has displayed

in the rendering of landscapes and figures produce an im-
pression truly extraordinary."

Without possessing the delightful colour of the Tosa school
as developed by Mitsunobu, whose talent he admired, Moto-
nobu showed a harmony and warmth of tone in his paintings
which contrast with the monochromes of his own school.
In his dull reds, quiet blues, and powerful violets he has
never been surpassed, whilst his touch displays the energy
and decision of the finest writing, which in Japan was done

with the brush-pencil and not with the pen, with the brush
held vertically over the surface. This method gave extra-
ordinary flexibility to the strokes, which were heavy or thin,
flat or wavy or broken, but always clean, strong, denned,
admirable, and indeed so distinctive as to furnish the clue

to the identification of the work of the master, compared
with which the weakness of the copyist cannot deceive the
connoisseur who studies the paintings at the British Museum
or elsewhere.
Motonobu preferred to paint landscapes, and even more the
deities familiar to the Buddhists, such as the seven gods of
happiness and prosperity especially Hotei, the good-tempered,
,
fat,half-naked god of gaiety, the protector of the children.

The Kano school it was which made these benevolent pro-
and popular wisdom and fertility, good
tectors so attractive ;
luck, beauty and war, were objects worthy of success through

the power of such divinities, who in course of time, however,
were treated grotesquely as subjects for humour, or even
ridicule. From this period this school pursued two styles of
painting, one guantai, that is rocky, indicating a powerful,
rude method, with angular forms well marked in Chinese
fashion the other, riutai or flowing, in which the soft, flowing
;
lines vanished smoothly in undulations. The latter was the

native style in the making.
Some writers emphasise the influence of Persia on the art
of Japan, and labour to trace this influence through the
medium of the Portuguese, who traded from Macao to the
Persian Gulf; and such investigations and speculations are
always helpful, often highly interesting at present I cannot
say they are convincing.
Sesshu (1420-1506) lived in the time of the elder Kano.
He was of neither school, and though he, in the second half
of the ijfteenth century, attained the front rank as a painter,
he was a Buddhist priest, distinguished among the learned
men of his day, who retired to end his days in the temple of
Unkokuji in the province of Souo. Having learnt the elements
of painting in the atelier of Josetsu, he soon became so noted
for the vigour and originality of his black-and-white designs,
as to attract the attention of the Emperor of China, who
invited him to undertake the decoration of a palace. Sesshu
went to China, and surprised and delighted the Emperor by
an exhibition of his skill. The Emperor wanted to see him
sketch, so Sesshu plunged a broom into the ink, and with this
curious brush painted such a wonderful dragon that his reputa-
tion was at once established. If he became influenced by
Chinese principles in painting, in his turn he revealed some-
thing of Japan, its scenery and its people, and on his return
he left in the palace a wonderful scene representing the
loved mountain Fujiyama.
When he died in 1506 his work was carefully preserved ;
some specimens of it have reached Europe. They show that
Sesshu excelled in figure painting, and that his flowers, birds,
and landscapes were equal to those of Kano. They too
became classical, and the wonderful attitudes of the divinities,
their fierce or kindly expressions, the graceful crane flying
over the surface of the water, or resting amongst the lotus
lilies, all these and more are borrowed by modern painters
from the old Sesshu, who, avoiding the reds and greens, with a
single stroke, drew his designs, in which the neuter, light and
rich brown tones, and a deep black were applied with great
rapidity. Amongst his pupils were Sesson, who was noted

for his moonlight effects, and Shugetsu, his companion to
China, another Buddhist priest, scarcely less famous than his

master, with him in the temple, in painting, in foreign travel,
and again in the temple. Shugetsu died in 1520. Another
pupil of Sesshu founded the school called by his master's
name. This was Togan, a landscape painter, who worked
about 1600. His full name was Unkoku Togan, and his
paintings are even rarer than those of his master, yet they are
not so highly appreciated. A landscape by him was on view
in the Japanese section of retrospective paintings and draw-
ings at the White City in 1910.

Amongst the celebrated masters of the fifteenth century,
Saga Jasoku is given high rank by the historians of Japan,
and a Chinese landscape from his brush in the British Museum,

a scroll painting with a continuous composition, temporarily

re-divided into the original strips of which it was composed,
"
reveals the freshness, vigour and terseness of the adopted
Chinese manner by one of the most powerful and celebrated
masters of the revival." The quotation is from the guide
to the Exhibition at the Museum, which is well worthy of the
serious attention of the student of Japanese painting, especi-
ally when the old masters of the Chinese renaissance can be
compared with, and their influence traced upon, the develop-
ment in Japan which ultimately led to the assimilation of
the Chinese style with native character, a task performed
A VISIT OF CEREMONY.
From a painting, i6th century.
with more or less distinction by successive masters of the

Kano school.
In the sixteenth century the name of Sesson stands out in
emulation with Kano Motonobu. Many of his works have
been shown in England. He was a disciple of Sesshu. Five
pictures by him were shown at the White City a landscape,
roses and herons, Lipo a Chinese poet looking at a waterfall,
willow-treesand herons, and a group of monkeys. Others
are shown in the British
Museum, several landscapes, including
"Sunset over a fishing village," which, "with seven others,
form a traditional series of landscape subjects, the famous
views or scenes originally associated with the scenery of
Lake Tung-Ting in China, and afterwards transferred to the
scenery of the Japanese Lake Biwa." This note from the
guide is noteworthy in view of the prominence given by
the painters from this time onwards to scenes from this lake
which was situated amongst the mountains not a great distance
from Kyoto.
In maintaining the comparison between the Tosa and
Kano schools, we note that the former shows decadence in
this century, and the latter maintains its advance, borrowing
from its rival the glory of colour for which it had been cele-
brated. Motonobu's son Shoyei, his brother Utanosuke,
and grandson Yeitoku sustained the high reputation of the
his
Kano work was assisted very materially by
family, but their
other distinguished masters of the Kano school Sanraku
and Takanobu. The fusion to which I referred was com-
pleted, and by the advent of the Tokugawa Shogunate early
in the seventeenth century an hereditary authority sprang
into existence, which lasted till 1867, and exerted a beneficial
effectupon art in general, and upon the fortunes of the Kano
school in particular.
Between the Ashikaga period and that of Tokugawa the
supreme control of affairs rested for a time in the hands of an
extraordinary man of obscure origin, who became paramount
in Nippon, and even in Korea. This was Hideyoshi, who has
been described as viceroy and general. The Ashikaga period
lasted from 1335 to 1573, and the next thirty years have been
comprised into a period termed the Momoyama period, which
was distinguished by the glories of the magnificent castle of
Momoyama, where Hideyoshi held his court. The artists
who were eminent during these years were Kano Eitoku, who
died in 1590, Kaiboka Yusho in 1615, Unkoku Togan, to
whom reference has been made, and Hasegawa Tohaku,
deceased in 1610. What share these men took in painting
the wonderful great screens with decoration upon a gold
ground is not clear, but they were the typical productions
of the second stage in the Kano art, in which Kano
Sanraku displayed his skill as a painter of battle scenes,
:
A FAMOUS WARRIOR, KAJIWARA GENTA, WIELDING HIS SWORD WITH TWO HANDS.
55
and Sesson was probably still living, though of this I am

not sure.
Still, Sanraku, the son-in-law and pupil of Eitoku, and his
master, Eitoku himself, appear to be the most distinguished

artists of the Momoyama period, and as they were both
Kanos, the official between that school and the

relation
Shogun was in all probability maintained. Hence there is a
reasonable assumption that the gorgeous decorative com-
positions of this period were the work of these artists. Eitoku
died thirteen years before its end, but Sanraku lived until
1635, when the Tokugawa family was firmly established
in the Shogunate, through the victories of lyeyasu, who, after
the battle of Sekigahara, in 1600, settled the differences be-
tween the lords of the east and the west, became Shogun in
1603, and entirely overthrew the adherents of Hideyoshi's
infant son Hideyori in 1615, after the siege and fall of the
Castle of Osaka. lyeyasu's descendants, the Tokugawas,
remained the de facto rulers of Japan for fifteen generations.
In 1867 the fifteenth Shogun, Yoshinobu (Keiki) resigned his
position to the Emperor, owing to internal troubles, and to
his inability to adjust the complications resulting from external
relations with other nations. As patrons of art the Toku-
gawas deserve the highest praise ; their fostering care and
their splendid example were not lost upon the Daimios, for
they, too, learnt to love art and aided its progress.

CHAPTER IV
THE GREAT PAINTERS OF THE

LATER CENTURIES
Kano school at Yedo (Tokyo) was distinguished
THEby the advent of three sons of Takanobu Tannyu,
Naonobu,and Yasunobu who not only maintained the prestige
of the school, but also won places amongst the great masters.
Tannyu, born in 1601, after the early death of his father,
became a pupil of Kano Kohi. His home training and his
study at the school resulted in great success. When his works,
his landscapes, birds, and animals, became known, he grew
famous, and the collectors of Japan contend for the slightest
productions of his brush. The large paintings in the temples,
a panel with four lions in black at Nikko, and the ceiling of
the chief gate of the same building, painted with two dragons,
also in black, are highly esteemed. His smaller works express
his talent no less, a landscape in the moonlight, with two
persons dreaming on the terrace of a house ; the happy
meeting of two friends, a well-known Chinese subject ; a
man riding on a donkey through the snow, such as these are
much valued. Even slighter subjects a bird sketched in
half a dozen strokes, a crane flying over a rice-field, in a few
more are appreciated as showing his mastery over form.
J
There are many copies of Tannyu s works in Europe, which
lack the facile touch of the master, and some of them vary the
details to give a greater impression of truth.
Tannyu was a picture expert, well versed in old masters,

their styles, signatures, and seals, and he was a collector too,
"
whose collection furnished the materials for a book, The
Tannyu Ringwa," which was published in the eighteenth
58
GREAT PAINTERS OF THE LATER CENTURIES 59
century by a society of amateurs, as a guide to the study of

painting before 1600.
Naonobu, also named Kadzuma, was six years younger
than Tannyu, from whom he acquired the though his
art,
style is different, being marked by an absolute freedom and
boldness of design combined with charming delicacy. The
other brother, Yasunobu, born in 1622, became noted as a
landscape painter, whose celebrated pupil Sotatsu left the
Kano school, and afterwards excelled in the Tosa style, adopt-
ing a new medium for his paintings, a mixture of gold-dust
and black ink, which was perfected by the great Korin.
There was one studio, a branch of the Kano school, founded
in Kyoto by Sanruku, the Court painter of the Shogun Sama,
which preserved and practised Chinese principles. Under
the master Sansetsu, who died in 1661, two famous artists
were trained Shokwado, also named Shojo, a priest of Nara,
and Mitsuoki. Shokwado's impressionist paintings showed
an independent style, which received such appreciation that,
in 1804, they were reproduced in two volumes with illustra-
tions from his paintings, and published at Tokyo.
The Tosa school in the seventeenth century emerged from
its comparative obscurity under Mitsuoki, one of the most
illustriousmasters of that time, who created a distinctive
system, a style at once decorative, refined, and elegant, where
the flowers, the birds, and the landscapes assumed soft and
delicate forms inspired with grace and beauty. His exquisite
designs became the ideals of the lacquerers of Kyoto in the
next century. In purity of line, ingenuity of design, and
excellence of execution the pencil of the miniaturist com-
bined tones which were bright without hardness, with touches
of gold forming aharmony of colour as rare as it was lovely.
It was no wonder that the Emperor, the nobles, and the rich
families of Kyoto collected and preserved his books. Mit-
suoki, who was born in 1616 and lived till 1691, received, as we
have seen, his early training in the atelier of Sansetsu, where
Shojo was also a pupil.
It was at Tosa that Iwasa Matabel learnt from Mitsuoki
the art of painting the subjects which were popular amongst
6o THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
the aristocracy, the designs such as his master excelled in
painting, the pictures which were suitable to express the
dignity of the princes, to reveal the face of nature in the
approved form, and to reproduce mythical god and beast in
classic pose. Now
under the Tokugawa came the oppor-
tunity for what we should term
genre painting of scenes from
familiar life in town and country, of the manners and costumes
of the common people the vulgar school arose under Mat abei.
During the period 1624-43 his popularity was at its height
as the inventor of the style termed Ukiyo-ye, that is the
painting of contemporary life, and therefore he was a realist,
whose men in their usual dress, peasants and people of the
lower classes, satisfied the instincts of the people, whilst they
were decried by the higher classes. In one respect, however,
Matabe'i had a lasting influence on Japanese art, an influence
which may be traced in almost any of the colour-prints which
are at present receiving so much attention, specially perhaps
in England, France, and America. Hokusai, Harunobu,
Utamaro, and many others show how the paintings by Matabeii
of the courtesans, the yoshiwara yukwaku, exerted a power
sufficient to affect much of the later art ; their luxury, their
dress, and their manners played a considerable role in the
public of Japan, and they were educated too.

life It is not
perhaps too much to say that to occidental minds this genre

appears to be the expression of the painting and colour-printing
of Japan, whilst in reality it only forms a small, very small,
section of it. The popular school differed it was its office
to differ from the Tosa school, which was of the Court,
official.
In that school portraiture was limited to the learned, to the

famous, to the dignitaries ; other paintings depicted battles or
scenes from history or ceremonies of the Court. But the
popular school expressed the life of the people, the spirit of
Nippon; free from outside and foreign influence,it was Japanese

art which developed into Ukiyo-ye art.
Hishikawa Moronobu of Kyoto, who worked from 1659 to
the first fourteen years of the eighteenth century, was the
real founder of the popular school known as the school of
-
m
Utagawa, which practised Ukiyo-ye art. He studied under

MatabeT, and is considered as the ablest representative of this
style of art. Being in his younger days an embroiderer, as a
great artist he was distinguished for the sumptuous yet
picturesque designs which he furnished to the manufacturers
of silk. Many of his works are to be found in the illustrated
books which could be bought for a few shillings a few years
since. He was the pioneer of the colour-print.
Another artist, Iccho, founder at Yedo (Tokyo) of a school
the school of Hanabusa lived from 1651 to 1724, and
adopted a realism which gave full play to the native humour
and fancy, which is not the least attractive side of the Japanese
character. His works are in eager demand. No one has
rendered with greater fidelity the unaffected simplicity of the
peasants, their good humour, the joyful diversions ;
no one
has jested so freely with the jolly gods of happiness, or poked
such gentle fun at the Buddhist divinities. His swift sketches
and gay colours have been welcomed by the modern artist,
be he worker in wood or metal painters and decorators have
;
copied his designs, and his influence over Hokusai was con-
siderable, but Hiroshige owed him much more.
There was one artist of the Tosa school who, later than
Mitsuoki being, in fact, born nine years after that great
master died was destined to maintain its reputation I refer;
to Mitsuyoshi, who, at the age of seventeen, had obtained an

honorific title, and later was appointed keeper of the painting
academy of the Emperor. The delicacy of the work of
Mitsuoki has been noticed. Mitsuyoshi followed in his foot-
steps, and produced paintings of extreme fineness with one
marked and distinctive design resembling the miniature
enamel painting on the Chinese egg-shell porcelain of Yung-
ching (1722-35), the subject being quails. In these and
kindred subjects this painter acquired nearly perfect execu-
tion,and the school afterwards taught by his son devoted
birds and flowers, following his designs, and in the
itself to
mechanical process of mere copying losing that inspiration
which had for so many ages influenced and elevated its
career.
The Shogun Yemitsu, third ruler of the Tokugawa dynasty,
was a magnificent patron of the arts. Whilst he regulated
his relations with the European traders, and arranged that
the Dutch should trade from the little island of Decima, he
built grand temples, and encouraged painting and lacquering
amongst all the other arts. The lacquer produced during
his reign, especially that having gold in relief, was truly re-
markable. Koetsu, the famous lacquerer, was a pupil of the
Tosa school, and he himself founded a school from which in
due course a distinguished pupil came, the celebrated Korin.
Koetsu was painter, teacher, lacquerer, and more, he was cited
as an expert in antique swords, and in calligraphy. I know
of no other name which has received the last distinction in a
country where calligraphy was one of the elegant accomplish-
ments. His appearance will again be made in the chapter
on lacquer, which will emphasise his delicate painting.
If the Tosa school in the first part of the seventeenth
century boasted of Koetsu, the Kano school had a pupil, the

son of Naonobu, who was nearly as famous, Tsunenobu,
the painter of chrysanthemums, whose chief work in one of the
temples of Kyoto was a gallery painted on two sides with
giant flowers in relief, and as high as a man. His flowers and
birds, peacocks with displayed tails, cranes in wintry snow,
and landscapes would favourably compare with any of the
other masters, and, further, they were in many respects equal,
in some superior, to the landscapes of the Western world.
Still in the same family and the same school we find two sons
of Tsunenobu who became distinguished Minenobu and
Tshikanobu but biographical details of them are lacking,
;
except that the former died in 1708. During the same

century there lived the great potter Ninsei, who, with Korin
the lacquerer, Kenzan, another potter, and others, must be
classified amongst the painters because they were artists of
renown the mere application of their art to lacquer or to
;
their position as artists in the wider

pottery scarcely affects
sense. Ninsei of Kyoto was a painter with an original style,
a contemporary and friend of Tannyu, ap^ of his pupil
Yeishin.
i?
DOGS. PAINTED BY OKIO.
65
For the same reason a double reference must be made to

the painters not all of them, but the chief who in the later
schools of Torii and Okumura brought to excellence the
process of colour-printing, and adapted their Ukiyo-ye designs
to block engraving and to the progressive stages which, com-
mencing at first with plain black, hand- tinted with red, added
the primary colours one by one and then a whole gamut
of secondary tones by superposition rather than previous
mixing, until the Japanese colour-print has scored an im-
mense success because of its real merit.
From the middle of the seventeenth century to early in
the eighteenth, was a period in many respects remarkable,
for lacquer and metal-working as well as for painting ; the
level of excellence was won and maintained, both under the
Emperor Genroku, who governed the country from 1688 to 1704,

and onwards, when Nippon and Holland were in full com-
mercial The porcelain of Hizen, "the old
intercourse.
Japan," was exported in immense quantities, and the wealth
that poured into the country excited activity in many direc-
tions. Since the Yeyas had been displaced by the Tokugawas
in the Shogunate the prosperity of Yedo (Tokyo) had in-
creased, and Kyoto had correspondingly decreased in impor-
tance, supplanted by a rival who had perhaps less of attrac-
tion, but more of life. Old traditions and refined elegance,
severe good taste and aristocratic surroundings, yielded to the
actual activity of commercialism.
Korin, born at Kyoto in 1661, entered the Tosa school, and
studied also in the atelier for lacquerers founded by Koetsu.
He left for Yedo whilst quite young, and though he returned
to his native city in 1716, it was only just before his death,
which took place in that year. Korin's style of painting was
founded upon the sketches of Shokwado and the paintings of
Sotatsu rather than any others, but he soon evolved a style
of his own which became, during the eighteenth century,
the foundation of the school of Korin. Biyobus and kake-
monos and small sketches for albums were painted by him.
TSome of the biyobus were large screens with a decoration of \
^chrysanthemums upon a gold ground, the white flowers being>

Xln relief. But words fail to describe the beauty of it the
bending stems with their burden of white flowers, others
standing erect, but not less gracefully, upon an opalescent
ground of gold which seemed the only fit surface for such
flowers. Fit for admiration, worthy of study, possessing a
distinction, original, personal, impressionist !
^
But the impression is confined to the casual glance ex- ;
amination reveals surprising execution, light and smooth

effects from a brush charged with colour in the hands of a
master. Then the designs are all his own, a little curious
and surprising at first, like all painting outside the conven-
tions, then attracting and holding, finally absorbing the
attention and exciting to almost a higher degree than any
other painter that interest in and appreciation of Japanese art
which are scarcely enjoyed by the most refined collector until
some probationary period has been passed in acquiring the
powers of analysis and synthesis, the science of form, and
the combinations of decoration which Japan, which Korin,
reveals. The Western world is quickly learning.
Korin's lacquer attains a high value in his own country.
In the proper place it is dealt with more at length. It is only
necessary to remark that the same full brush is used on the
lacquer designs with equal or higher skill. Kenzan, the most
celebrated potter in Japan after Ninsei, was the younger
brother of Korin, whose methods he copied. I have read that
Korin was the younger brother of Kenzan ; the former was
born in 1661, the latter in 1663. The lacquer of the former,
and the pottery of the latter, both of them painters -This
!
appears strange to us, because aptitude is usually expressed

by our artists in one direction with the Japanese, painting
;
appears to have been the main stem from which branches

spread in other directions, giving to the whole a general unity
which I have remarked in no other nation's work.
Ritsuo, also a distinguished painter, was a rival of Korin in
that form of decoration in which incrustations were employed
on the lacquer, a process of striking ingenuity, strange indeed
to Europeans, but of the highest interest and value to his
fellow countrymen, amongst whom there is a greater demand
for this lacquer than for another unusual product from the
same hands, that is, pottery in figures and other pieces, painted
and lacquered. Ritsuo died in 1747, with the reputation of

one of the great artists of Japan.
It is quite probable that the relation of these artists to
lacquer was confined to drawing the designs for it, with pos-
sibly some supervision over the work of the craftsmen. So
far as I can gather and I make the statement with all sub-
mission the artificers were and are uneducated working men
possessed of great manual skill. One writer stated that his
head workman, a highly skilled artisan over fifty years of
age, hardly knew the name of a single article he used.
t(
As painters, TCoftt.su .flforin. aad others gave some time aad
teaching specially to designs for lacquer, and these designs
were executed by men trained to the work of lacquering!" It
has, however, become a fashion to ascribe the actual lacquer
to the designer, that I noted particularly the lacquer at the
"
White City, where I found in many cases Design by Korin,"
" "
Design by Koetsu," Design by Kwansai," and other artists,
which indicates that the Japanese themselves regard the
design by the painter at its proper value. These remarks are
interposed in this place because Koetsu and Korin appear
amongst the famous masters whose ordinary painting of
pictures was accompanied by a special art of design for
lacquer and other objects upon which their signatures
appear as the designers. Of the actual handicraft they
might have been as ignorant as the designers of colour-prints
were of engraving. But after this digression we will return
to the painters.
The glories of the reign of the great Chinese Emperor Kang-
he led a Japanese writer of the eighteenth century to remark :
"
Our painting is the flower, that of China is the fruit in its
maturity." Evidently something of this was in the mind of

the governing Shogun, still a Tokugawa, when he invited a
Chinese named Namping to reside at Nagasaki in 1720, where
his school met with great success. One great writer says that
Namping's manner was that of the good painters of the
Yung-ching period. This cannot be correct, for Yung-ching
began to reign in 1722. However, the new master, whose
paintings reached Europe, carried by the Dutch, was regarded
there as the representative painter of the Japanese school,
whereas he appears to have repeated the usual Chinese land-
scapes with finely drawn outlines and figures, and the birds
and flowers with brilliant colours.
Some of the pupils of Namping have acquired a great
name Yushi, who popularised his master's style, and Sho-
siseiki ofYedo, the latter being classed amongst the most
distinguished men of his time. He lived to 1774. The end
of the eighteenth century was signalised by the advent of so
many artists that it is impossible to name them all the chief
;
masters only will be quoted.

The Kano school gave one more master to fame. We have
seen the Tosa school lose itself in the painting of mere pretti-
ness, in flowers such as the chrysanthemum, peony, camelia,
and all the wealth of prunus and cherry blossom which a
smiling, fertile land can produce, and now Yosen and his son
;
Issen appear as representatives of the Kano. Yosen died

in 1808, but not before he had placed his name upon the roll
of honour the last of the great Kano. As a landscape
painter working in water-colours, his talent has been duly
recognised. Like some of our English water-colourists, he
used only a grey ground washed with soft tints, which
were almost neutral in those subjects for which he was
famous, such as a peasant mounted on an ox returning home-
wards on a dreary, cold winter's day. The mist which covers
the distant plain is creeping over the foreground, over the
rice-fields inundated with water, over the hedges of bamboo ;
the struggling moon-beams scarcely penetrate the watery

veil of vapour the wind scarcely bends the branches of the
;
weeping willow. Yosen was a poet-painter whose dainty

drawing showed, not linear perspective, the greatest ability
if
in rendering distance,which secured very nearly the same

results. The Shogun conferred upon him the title of Hohin,
and when he passed away, at the age of fifty-six, the Kano
school,whose fortunes we have followed, ceased to exercise
the power which had so long operated for the promotion of
71
the best success of art. Still, both of these old classical schools
have continued their existence to our own times.
Gekkei, better known as Goshin, was a member of the
Katsumura family, which we shall meet again in Shunsho.
"
His master was Buson, painter and poet, apparently also an
absent-minded beggar/' who one day, wishing to admire the
beautiful effect of the moonlight, made a hole in the thatched
roof of his house by means of a lighted candle, and started a
fire which burnt down a whole district in Kyoto. Buson 's
works are rare and highly valued because of their poetical
sentiment. Goshin, born in 1641, was a deep student of the
cider masters of the three preceding centuries, and the results
of his studies were seen in the foundation of an independent
school the modern school of Shijo which was entirely
Japanese, borrowing nothing from China, and distinguished
from the Yedo school by its extreme elegance, its harmonious
colouring, and artistic composition, as well as its perfect finish.
Okio, whose school was of equal importance to that of Goshin,
and had made so great a reputation that
slightly anterior,
"
Goshin wished to become his pupil. I can be your friend,"
"
responded Okio, but not your master. Of Okie's teaching
more will be said.
Goshin had influenced by his school, and even more by his
manner, a number of artists of remarkable talent, whose
paintings mark the last of the culminating points of the
expansion of art in Nippon, when for half a century its supre-
macy remained undisputed.
The was founded by Torii, a pupil of Goshin.
Torii school
He was an eminent artist, in whose works were exhibited all
the qualities of powerful expression and exactitude of design
combined with wonderful dexterity and sweet harmony
of soft colour. For instance, his pictures of deer and of
tigers leave one in doubt whether the painting of the skin,
the superb movement of the animal, or the finish of such
ieatures as the eye, deserves most admiration where all is
refined and full of grace. See Kiyonobu, pages 354-5.
There is no doubt that, to the European not fully familiar
with native feeling as expressed by the Japanese, the manner
of Goshin makes an appeal which, at least at the beginning,
is more attractive than that of any other painter, though
a host of artists possessed at this period the power of
expres-
sion by strokes of the brush, instinct with life, charming
with colour, breathing with harmony. These masters are
worthy of recognition indeed, in their own country the
cultured classes collect their works with ardour; but it
is to Goshin, whose other name was Yensan, and, also,

to Okio, that this progress was made, and also, in some
measure, to the further crystallisation which was yet to
come.
Okio, born at Kyoto, lived from 1732 to 1795. He was one
of the most distinguished exponents of the modern school,
by by his teaching, helping to form
his paintings as well as
the new which threw aside many of the old formal rules
style
and perfected its methods by direct inspiration from nature-
study. The elegance of design in brushwork of exquisite
delicacy and power is no less wonderful than the mastery of
colour. Okio had two distinct manners. The first was the
outcome of his study of the old masters, and upon this much
of his reputation was founded. He was an arduous student,
who began painting as the decorator of a theatre ; the pupil,
afterwards, of Nimping, he learnt the traditions of the
Chinese academic system and, before settling down, made a
journey across Japan, which spread his name to the most
distant places. The second manner was that modern one of
which we have spoken. He loved to paint the birds, flowers,
and fishes. His landscapes were no less delightful, finished
with the precision of a miniature and yet there was another
;
Okio, in a third manner a bold one, large and flexible, but

very uncommon. All his pictures are rare and dear, the
kakemonos excessively so.
Ippo of Kyoto was a pupil of Okio, who, though showing
less charming work and less power of invention, manifested
much more energy and freedom in design. He painted in
Japanese ink, obtaining the most satisfying effects with a
minimum of effort, using the simplest means to depict nature
in all her ways, realising sentiment and poetic inspiration
as an impressionist. With a few vigorous touches he would

paint a stork sleeping amongst the branches of a great old
pine, or a house on a mountain side under the snow,
with
the smoke from the chimney fading away in the winter sky.
What does the eye require more than this ? Nothing the
effect is there !
Sosen was a celebrated animal painter, who died in 1821,

at the age of seventy-four. Mori was his family name, and
by this he was known until Sosen was added, and towards
the end of his life Sosen alone was used, though he had other
"
names Morikata and Shikuga. Sosen means the monkey
"
saint and indicates the direction of his studies from nature.
that he acquired little by little the manners, move-
It is said
ments, almost the natural appearance, of the monkeys, which

he studied in the forests near Osaka for months at a time,
living upon roots and fruits. Never has any artist painted
these animals with the spirit and knowledge shown by Sosen,
they are vibrating with animation not the monkeys only,
but the deer and the tigers, and even the rats.
Subjects such as two rats dragging a shell, a deer browsing
amongst the flowering plants, a tiger at his toilet or stalking
his prey, are rendered with a fidelity which no painter in the
world has excelled. But, like all of the artists whose works
are renowned, and therefore in demand, monkeys and other
animals have in their thousands claimed to be the creatures of
Sosen. His works are rare and the qualities of the master so
marked in them as to be above imitation. There is always a
difference between the work done by the hand with the
guidance of the brain, and that done with the guidance only of
"
the eye. Never take two strokes where one will do," might
have been his motto, so certain are his contours, so severe his
designs in black as a rule. English, American, and Japanese,
these three peoples pay large prices for the genuine paintings
by the sennin des singes.
Passing onwards to the end of the eighteenth century, we
shall consider the popular school and its exponents ; but first
a few of the many artists who were not of that school remain
to be briefly noted, amongst whom is Tani Buncho of Yedo
(Tokyo), whose style was formed on studying the works of
Sesshu and Tannyu. He became the painter in ordinary to
a Tokugawa prince, Sayasou, the protector of art at this
period, and, moreover, he directed the publication of the
" "
History of Art," the immense Shoko Jisshu." He died in
1841, three years after the celebrated Gan-Ku passed away.
Gan-Ku was a noted painter of animals, birds, and flowers,
who died in 1838.
The masters of the impressionist school Shokwado,Sotatsu,
and Korin another distinguished painter to follow in their
left
steps, and finally to share their fame. This was Hoitsu, who
in his own country is considered as expressing in a supreme
degree the conception of art purely Japanese, although nothing

is more opposed to European conventional ideas. His
original designs in the softest and most delicate water-colours
evince certain qualities which, drawn from a close contact with
nature, idealise the scenes they depict. They may repel at
first,but when knowledge opens the gate of understanding
scoffers have jeered at originality
their attraction is irresistible
;
from the beginning, and will continue for all time, but the
attitude of the receptive student is that of a seeker after
truth. Hoitsu passed away in 1828, but not before he had
rendered a great service to the art world by the publication
of several volumes of Korin 's designs for the decoration of
lacquer, the supervision of which he himself undertook.
Some of his work at the White City, such as spring and autumn
showed evidences of wonderful skill.
flowers,
At the end of the eighteenth century the followers of the
Ukiyo-ye art, painters of scenes from ordinary common life,
became prominent. Iwasa Matabei, the first master of this
style from the end of the sixteenth century to the middle
of the seventeenth, laid the foundations upon which Hishi-
kawa Moronobu (1638-1714) carried on extended operations,
aided by the introduction of printing from engraved wood-
blocks. The early prints were printed in black, afterwards
in colour. From this time onwards nearly all of the artists
of this school are associated with colour-prints. In some
instances the painter's reputation culminates in a mechanical
TWO-SHEET PICTURES.
HIROSHIGE. YEISEN.
SAitu HASHI (MONKEY BRIDGE). NI MAI TATE (MOONLIGHT GORGE).
Print sold for From the Print sold for 84 in April 1909. From the
91 in June 1909.
collection of Mr. Happer now in the possession of
Collection;
J. S. Happer.
Otto Fehling, Esq.
77
had no share, being a designer only, whose

process in which he
signature adorned the print.
Some had more than one signature. Hokusai, the
artists
marvellous old painter whose history and work are so attrac-
"
tive, had many. In these pages," said a friend to me the
"
other day, is nothing but Hokusai, his works, and his signa-
tures." I came to the conclusion that he had sufficient matter

for an important monograph, and that it could be treated
in no other way.
In this section I shall touch lightly upon a few of the artists
of the Ukiyo-ye school, if that expresses its art better than
system or Really their work was genre painting, with

style.
landscape and portrait painting in some instances. Judging,
as you will be able to, from the sale-prices, amongst the most
popular artistswas Suzuki Harunobu (1718-70), whose
bold, graceful contours are accompanied by delightful colour
schemes. The designs of Kiyonobu are full of energy and
nobility of style ; those of Chosun distinguished by delicacy
and power.
Sukenobu, who was a prolific artist, delighted in the tea-
houses of Yedo (Tokyo), and painted the courtesans of the
Yoshiwara quarter, where those houses were situated. Upon
kakemono, album, and screen he depicted beauties viewing
chrysanthemums, cherry blossoms and, all those things which
the artists of his time vied with each other in painting. But
we leave the individual for the moment, and come to the
schools, the families, or studios which produced painters.

The school of Katsugawa is credited with a number of
print -designers of great ability, and two or three painters of
the first rank. It is easy to remember that the pupil whom
his master wished to distinguish received a part of his name.
Katsugawa Shunsho (1726-92) had many pupils thus

favoured; Shun-ko and Shun-ei may be mentioned. The
one exception in Shunman of Kubo. A similar method ap-
plied to the Torii school gives Kiyo as the prefix, though
Kiyochita of Kobayashi and Kondo Kiyoharu are exceptions.
Shunsho though a refined and able painter devoted much
lime and attention to designs for coloured prints which were
8o THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
engraved. These prints for a short time were the monopoly of
this school ; all those selections of scenes from the
theatre, or
from the sumptuous homes, of magnificent landscapes, of figures
of actors and courtesans came from the Katsugawa school.
In colouring sober at first, shaded with full dull tones of red
and green, brown violet and black, they were, little by little,
enriched with the tints of the palette until they approached
all
excess. Every print had, from the commencement of the
process, lines, contours, and colours reproduced from the
original work in the school where the latter was drawn. It
follows, therefore, that an active establishment would find

scope for many artists, and at Katsugawa not a few became
famous. Shunsho lived from 1724 to 1792, and upon him rests
most of the glory of the great school which, however, was not
without rivals, nor was he free from the close emulation of his
pupils, Shunjo, Shunzan, Shun-ei, and others, painters and
colourists, designers for prints.
Those of his contemporaries Toyoharu, Yeishi, Kiyonaga,
for instance whoequalled or excelled him by the superior
charm of colour or of life, by the grace and elegance of their
design, failed to compete with his style, which was of extra-
ordinary strength. Toyoharu was particularly appreciated
in Japan, where collectors still treasure specimens from his
brush, such as pictures on silk miniatures painted with

numerous small figures grouped with much taste and with
technical perfection, coloured with strong reds, warm greens,
,
and soft violets, producing effects which are most attractive.

The artists of the Ukiyo-ye school were painters, but most
of them devoted themselves to the work of designing subjects
for colour-prints. That section will contain further informa-
tion about them, and it will deal with the sale-prices of their
works. May I here point out two things which appear to have
been overlooked first, that the artist's work was confined
:
to supplying the design, he had nothing to do with the colour-

printing I am not sure that he revised the proof prints ;
second, that the engraver and printer were skilled artisans,

whose names are never taken into consideration, although the
publishers often affixed their seals to the artist's work. It is
GAKUTEI, SIGNED GOKAKU.
HOKKEI.
HOKUJIU (SHOTEl).
8l
true that a few names of engravers come to us from the colour-

printers of the Osaka school, together with those of a few
printers. Yet, considering that in the West the engraver
of a print is all-important, it seems curious that no notice was
taken of him in the East, and that his credit is lost in that
of the painter that is, the print-designer.
This introduces the subject of colour-prints, in which much
further information is given about the painters of the Ukiyo-
ye school and their designs, which will be considered in a later
chapter.
The last hundred years have modified the art of Japan, and
though the artist's power of invention compares favourably
with that manifested by the Chinese, it is impossible to
foresee the direction in which it will trend. The history of
the past shows how great has been the nation's individuality
both in motives and treatment, and an attempt has been
made in this section of painting to show that the relation
between it and the kindred arts is largely responsible for the
unity displayed.
Generally, we may review Japanese painting under several
headings, such as drawing, colouring, composition, light and
shade, and perspective, but we must remember that the East is
East and that canons of art applicable to the East are not
accepted by the West. First then, the drawing, purity of out-
line,and certainty of touch are indispensable, details purely
a matter of taste, but over-crowding is not excusable. In
these respects the masters of Japan excel, though we may
regard single lines as poor means of expressing so many quali-
ties. The composition concentres the attention upon a few
objects, to which the remainder of the picture is purely sub-
ordinate, and the colouring is unusually soft and harmonious,
though flat. Light and shade are absent on most paintings
;
where they are used in half-tones the idea is to express the

image of some person upon a screen. Perspective is usually
absent that is, linear perspective, which treats some point in
the picture as a converging focus for parallel lines. It is
evident that sizes, in a landscape for example, can only be
represented by comparisons with some object or objects of
5
known magnitude. Hence distance is rendered by a relative
diminution of size, and in this the Japanese excel.
The early and classical schools illustrated the literature of
the nation writing was an elegant accomplishment, and
;
painting was akin to it. The poets of the period wrote their
verses and often with the same brush drew the picture of the
scene that inspired them, or they drew a picture, and in a
poem upon the same sheet they described it. Painting only in
the later times became a special profession constant mention
;
is made of painters who were engaged in other art work in
which literature held a pre-eminent position. In Western art

the number of cultured artists who have sought inspiration
from literature is limited ; nature has amongst them its most
devoted disciples. I wonder how many eminent painters
would endorse Ruskin's opinion :
"
The study of Literature, as such, is quite useless to an
artist but the knowledge of history and the affectionate
;
and faithful study of noble books is essential as to greatness

of character, so to dignity of Art. But, to goodness of art
at all, a sympathy with your fellow creatures and a love of
nature, which will often compel you to forgo all other effort,
are indispensable if you find a joy in the fields which pre-
vents you from reading, it is better than all the books."
CHAPTER V
BRONZES
which lives is embodied in the old bronzes of
art
THE Japan. These contrast vividly with those of Occidental
lands, but resemble those of China closely, those of India
and of Tibet not so closely, except in the images, where the
influence of Buddhism affected those countries. Two pro-
cesses, the modelling and the casting, each presented their
special points of difficulty, but on examining the finished
result it is noticeable that if the artist made difficulties by
intricate designs, the casting removed them ; it is seldom
indeed that a fault can be traced, seldom that any after-
correction can be seen. The Chinese worked in bronze at a
period long anterior to its advent into Japan, for Shintoism

had no place in its worship for images ; but when Buddhism
and Taoism brought gods and goddesses, fabulous animals
and demons, in their train, they brought in all probability
the artists who could make them in bronze, which, unlike
porcelain in China, was free from the restrictions of an exclusive
Imperial patronage.
As in the West so in the East, a multitude of objects were
made in bronze for the use of the temple and of the home.
Amongst them we find vases and koros of all sizes, jardinieres,
temple lanterns and candlesticks, animal groups and figures,
many of them designed as incense-burners, figures of gods,
temple mirrors and bells, tea and water pots, boxes of all
ornaments of many kinds, chimeras, dragons,
sizes, salvers,
beakers, masks, fans, kiseru, midzuire, students' brush-pots,

hibachi, door-fastenings (hikite), hand-mirrors, charcoal-
braziers, okimonos, and other objects.
85
The extent to which the Japanese carried the art of working
in bronze is not the least remarkable feature of an industry
whose products spread to every nook and corner of the Empire.
From the list of them just given it will be seen that the temples
absorbed large numbers of statues, bells, and other objects
used in ceremonial worship, fine examples of which may be
seen in the Victoria and Albert Mu-
seum. The bells were inscribed with
prayers or sayings which, when the
bells were sounded, were sent out
through the air as the very utterances
of the religion itself. The statues, the
embodiment of that religion, were often
of great size. One at the Museum is
a representative of a Boddhisattva, a
being whose final reincarnation only
was requisite before the attainment of
the highest state, the Nirvana. The
calm attitude of perfect repose, the
inscrutable smile, the traditional posi-
tion of the hands, are indicative of
qualities and powers necessary to that
end. It is of great size, 10 feet 8
inches in height and 6 feet 6 inches in
width at the base, cast hollow, and
having a small door at the back, large
PRICKET CANDLESTICK enough to admit a man. With the ex-
IN BRONZE. ception of the head and base, which
were cast separately, the figure is in
one piece, and the metal is never very thick. Indeed, it

shows all the signs of age, being a figure of great interest ;
also it deserves mention for its workmanship.
the largest in the
Compared with the colossal bronze,
world, in the temple of the great Buddha at Nara, the English
bronze is a mere pigmy in size. Its height is 50 feet, cir-
cumference 96 feet. The face measures 8 feet 6 inches from
are 4 feet in length, the thumb 3 feet
top to bottom, the eyes
in circumference It was cast in several pieces.
!
In A.D. 745
it was brought to Nara, where eight years later a temple,
the Temple Daiboutsu (of the great Buddha) was built to
receive it.
The pose of the statuethe same as that already spoken

is
of, Buddhas and Boddhisattvas.

the habitual attitude of the
Seated upon a flower symbolising the lotus, lost in absolute
contemplation, they resemble each other so closely that the
single name Buddha is often applied to the class, which really
consists of three divisions, the Buddha supreme, Dai-Niti-
BRONZE JARDINIERE WITH IMITATION BAMBOO DECORATION.
Niorai being the first. Next to him, and surrounding him in

the Mandara or complete assembly of the gods, are eight
other Buddhas, human beings deified, personifying the
qualities or virtues of Dai-Niti. These won their places by
the exercise of constant self-sacrifice and charity, and by the
acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. Ever then they stand
as emanations of the Buddha eternal, emanations of the first
degree, the most powerful and the most perfect.
Four of them take precedence of the others, and these four
are Ashikou, the faith ; Ho-sho, perfection of conduct ;
Amida, worshipped in China as Amitabha, teaching and guid-
OLD JAPANESE BRONZE GOKEI MONJU BOSATSU (MAJUSRl) SEATED
ON A LION, SUPPORTED UPON A LOTUS FLOWER, ON THE BUDS OF
WHICH ARE ATTENDANTS.
ing; Foukou-djo-djou, active charity and love to others.
Four Boddhisattvas Kon-go-s'att'a, Kon-go-go, Kon-go-hon,
and Kon-go-ho rank next. In Buddhist sectarianism other
ranks are given.
Another group contains other Boddhisattvas, whose pen-
ultimate existence was devoted to leading men onwards to
goodness and virtue by good counsels, good examples, ex-
hortations, science, and eloquence. Among these, Hannia
represents the law, Mirokou the future Buddha, Kwannon
INCENSE-BURNER IN RED BRONZE ENCRUSTED WITH GOLD, IN THE FORM

OF A MANDARIN DUCK.
charity and divine grace, Mondju knowledge, and Fugen

the supreme intelligence.
Amongst the retrospective sculpture brought to the White
City for exhibition in 1910 were bronze images of Buddha
and Kwannon, some of which were lent by the Imperial
Household, but the weight of such large objects prevented
a representative display. They represented the benign influ-
ence of religion. In fact, neither in wood nor bronze were
there any of the fearful representations of the gods. They
were not sent. Buddha and Kwannon !
Religion and love I
KORO OR INCENSE-BURNER, BRONZE, BEARING
THE SHOGUN'S BADGE.
DRAGON IN BRONZE, BY MIOCHIN.
91
BRONZES 93
The influence of other agents or should it be other influences

of the same agent ? dealt with fear, fear of death and future
punishment. Five personages represent the transformation

of the Buddhas into demons or genii who had power to inflict
severe punishments in this life and after. The chief of these
demons or genii, tembou or mio-ho, were Foudo mio-ho, the
incarnation of Dai-Niti ; Gosanze, representing Foukou-djo-
djou ; Dai-Itokou, mounted on a bull, the incarnation of
Amida ; Kon-go-ya-sha of Ashikou ; and Goun-dari of Ho-
sho. From this conception it will be gathered that the
demons were neither the enemies nor the opponents of Buddha,
rather were they auxiliaries working through different channels
and instruments for the salvation of mankind.
Other statues or statuettes included the four guardians of the
cardinal points with their distinctive coloration :
Bishamon,
the North, in blue ; Koo-mokou, the South, in red ; Dji-kokou,
the West, in green and Soo-tcho, the East, in flesh-colour.
;
In all of these figures the position of the hands indicates the

work that is being carried on, each gesture showing an act ;
so meditation is designed by the folded hands in the lap, often
wrapped in the robe, the right hand raised indicates teaching,

"
and there are many other " mudras or mystical positions
which, though not familiar, have an attraction for the student.
Shintoism is a naturalist religion addressing itself chiefly
to the sun under the name of Amaterasu, the magnificent
daughter of Izan-gi and Izanami, from whom the Emperors
of Japan claim descent. A world of mythical story revolves
around those early beings, stories which the children learn
at their mother's knee, inspirations which permeated the old
life of Japan, even when the Shoguns usurped the rights of the
Emperors, and which are the basis of Japan's power to-day ;
but and this must be insisted upon Shintoism had no place

for idols the only bronzes used in the ceremonial worship
:
appear to have been a polished mirror, symbol of the creation ;

the sun rising over the waves torii, models of the temple-
;
gates, furnished with lanterns incense-burners

;
and bells. ;
Having indicated that Buddhism and its worship, its deities

and demons, its temple utensils of all kinds, from lanterns in
the gardens to the koros or incense-burners, exerted great
influence on the bronze-work of Japan, it is only necessary to
state that in the early ages the examples of such work executed
for the laity are rare.Even the pots and pans appear to have
gravitated towards the temples, to be preserved amongst the
treasures, to be used in the ceremonies, to be admired and
kept with the same care which was
bestowed upon those collected into the
treasure-house of the Mikado at Nara.
The Mikado was the Emperor in forced
retirement. He was the head of the
religious life, nay he was a religion !
The most famous names of the

eighteenth Seimin, Toun,
century,
Teijio, Keisai,Jiouguiokou, Somin,
Seifou, Tokousai, and Nakoushi, have
received better appreciation in the
market than the classical productions
of earlier times, probably because col-
lectors have not yet realised their
qualities the excellence of the de-
signingand the casting, the skill of
hammer, burin, and chisel, the beautiful
patina, varied with the alloys.
so
Natural
chemical processes or long
burial in the ground affect these patinse
forming the crust of decomposing
metal, a rust which may be veined with
tints of red, malachite green, and tur-
BRONZE PRICKET
CANDLESTICK. quoise, a crystalline coating which,
though a valuable test of age and
authenticity, may be counterfeited. But by scraping the
surface with a knife, or by boiling the object in water, the
fraud may be discovered, being generally only wax
easily
artificially coloured, varying, it may be, in hardness. Probably
the chemist could secure a rust by chemical action, but
the process does not appear successful at present.
The artist whose name stands first is Seimin, who excelled
A TEMPLE LANTERN IN BRONZE. SIMILAR LANTERNS IN
FIVE-COLOUR LACQUER ARE VALUED HIGHLY.
95
in modelling the tortoise, and who has long received the
devoted attention of the fraudulent copyist. Yet the fraud
is less than nothing to the work of the master, whose reptiles
it has been said that such
are so life-like that perfection could
only be obtained by moulding from the living animal but the
;
Japanese, until recently, practised moulding but little, and,

moreover, Seimin has fixed in wax with thumb, burin, and
chisel, so many groupings and attitudes, such movements and
such life that moulding could never secure only the skill and
;
sureness of hand and eye, only the genius of a master had the
power to embody in bronze such faithful imitations, of course
GROUP OF TORTOISES IN BRONZE, BY SEIMIN.
with nature as a guide, as the original pattern. The vases

and the koros by this artist are highly valued, but his tortoises
have earned him the curious title, "the Michael- Angelo of
tortoises."
Another artist, Toun, a celebrated painter of the Kano school
"
who lived from 1625 to 1694, has received the name of the
creator of soft bronze," which was capable of decoration in
open-work. Thus, in decorating such an object as an incense-
burner or koro it would be exceedingly difficult, though not im-
possible, to leave such narrow spaces as would convert high
relief into open-work, and at the same time it would be
comparatively easy to carve in soft bronze the requisite open-

work. For the incense-burner enfolded in the contortions of
LARGE CLOISONNE ENAMEL KORO OR INCENSE-BURNER. JAPANESE COPIED
FROM A PEKIN SPECIMEN.
97
BRONZES 99
a dragon as decoration, the head with open jaws, the three-
clawed feet, and the adherent folds of the body, the cire perdue
process of casting would suffice, and for the open-work folds
the carving would be just the same as if the material were
wood. The soft bronze would facilitate the process, nothing
more the Japanese carved and pierced the hard stones
; !
Soft bronze was carved !
The patina, the curious and interesting green rust adhering

to old bronzes, the cerugo nobilihs, is no less distinctive in the
INCENSE-BURNER IN BRONZE IN THE FORM OF A GOOSE. I7TH CENTURY.
early work of Japan than in that of Europe. The con-

noisseur revels in the patine, which, like the slow change of tone
in china and pictures, can only be copied with the poorest
results. The old bronzes of Japan of archaic form have a
patina which be easily distinguished from that of the
may
seventeenth-century work, but such fine distinctions are
difficult of explanation in the absence of the object-lesson.
It may, however, be noted that the bronzes of the latter period
have three qualities which may be applied as tests first,
:
there is the severe style ; second, the strong, sober, and

restrained execution and lastly, the patina which is a dull
;
black un peu mate.

patine noire
Although the eighteenth-century and later bronzes have a
merit which cannot be denied, the seventeenth
century was
BRONZE INCENSE-BURNER IN THE FORM OF A QUAIL. l8TH CENTURY.
the golden age of bronze, when, under the third feudal prince of
Tokugawa, the great renaissance furnished Buddhism with
sacred utensils of all kinds, of the purest designs, in sober har-
mony, executed with a decision and elegance without equal.
The bronze -workers did more, for, although it is said that in
the modelling of the feet and hands the artists of Nippon
BRONZES 101
failed somewhatin their treatment of the human figure, this

fault cannot be ascribed to the representations of animals,
which may be placed in a class alone, above that of any other
people, a class which in Japan includes all living animals,
and many mythical ones, covered with the black patina, and
sometimes, too, decorated with gold in delicate and effective
touches.
During the eighteenth century the forms of the bronzes
JAPANESE BLACKSMITHS, AFTER HOKUSAI.
acquired new expression, in fact the effort to secure life-

like expression was responsible for the breaking down of the
classical, severe style which had preceded the epoque in
which wax-modelling the ceroplastic art and the process
of casting, cire perdue, alike testified to the absolute skill
and control of the metal-worker, whose alloys of copper and
tin varied according to the use for which the article was
designed. The style now became more florid, though at first
this quality was restrained, and the interpretation of animals
especially aimed only to give the illusion of life. Examples

when Japan reached its maximum of production,
of this period,
are far more numerous than those of the earlier centuries, and
indeed after the revolution of 1868, when commerce became
free with Europe, the demand was equal to the supply, and
prices accordingly were good though again I must note that

;
the Japanese art in bronze shares the temporary neglect, for

the moment, which has been exhibited in its other branches.
"
There is no worker in metal comparable to the Japanese,"
is an opinion we may not entirely accept ; but when the varieties
in size, from the largest giant figure to the smallest netsuke",

are considered in connection with the varieties in form, when
the certainty of the processes of modelling in wax and casting
in clay are compared with the slight necessity for engraving
and carving to complete those processes, and when we re-
member that the processes employed are and were similar
to those used elsewhere, the conclusion is clear that the
conscientious artistic Japanese of the old times suffer nothing
by comparisons. So much cannot be said for the work of
modern times.
The simplest old bronzes are the torii, small models
of temple-gates which are placed at some distance from the
temple itself. The sun was compared to a flying bird, and the
torii formed a perch on which he could rest. This was a
Shinto ornament. Buddhism had an elaborate ritual, and
the temple vessels were numerous sacrificial wine vases
and wine jars of large size, libation cups and wine vessels,
some of which were on wheels so as to move easily over the
altar, sacrificial crocks with covers for meat offerings, some
of which had three legs resembling those of an ox, koros or
incense-burners in many forms. Every temple had a bronze
gong, which was struck with a wooden mallet to call the
shippers to the frequent services.
The finest bronzes and the most beautiful carvings are
in the temples, as well as the most extraordinary masks, which
were used in the religious ceremonies, and these were not
only in metal, but in wood and lacquer. I do not propose
to devote much space to masks, although they have for the
Japanese great interest and attraction owing to another use,
103
BRONZES 105
not religious but theatrical, to which they were put in the

roles of men or of women. Whereas the masks of the divinities,
of the genii and the devils, were conventionally coloured
with black, red, green, or gold, the actors' masks were imita-
MASK IN WOOD, BY D^ME-JIOMAN.
tions of the human face,

sometimes ornamented with eyebrows
and beard The eyes, mouth, and nostrils were
in real hair.
pierced. The robes of the actor hid the cords by which the
mask was attached. You will have noted the use of the
word actor. All of the performers in the theatre were men
6
who played women's parts a curious custom which prevailed
in Europe for a long period. Exceptions were only occasion-
ally permitted to the regular practice of men as actors, but in
these later times the custom had fallen into desuetude ; and
such, too, has been the fate of the masks, only the use of these
ceased at the end of the seventeenth century, when the
models served as copies for the carver of netsukes.
The majority of the old masks were made of wood lac-
quered or painted, and the process reached its climax at the
beginning of the same century when D&ne'-Jioman demon-
strated his power as a master of expression, giving to the
mask wonderful force in revelations of hatred and amusement,
most horrible, in faces the most charming.
in grimaces the
Here the Daimio shows a pale and languid countenance ;
there the young smiles sweetly happy analogy, the

girl
flower of the prunus smiles or the old poetess Komati, who
;
died in misery and starvation in the midst of a swamp after

having enjoyed a career as the most beautiful, most envied
woman of Japan, displays to our eyes her hideous mummified
skeleton face.
One can easily imagine how suitable and how striking these
masks were, when an actor in costume, aided by distance
and the illusion of the scene, by gesture and the movement
of the players, personified some well-known celebrity, whose
face was familiar to the people as a national inheritance.
It is scarcely a wonder that these masks were prized by their
owners, were wrapped in fukusas or squares of rich stuffs

similar to those which enveloped the present which was sent
to a friend, or the letter enclosed in a small lacquer box. The
fukusa, however, was returned to thesender. Here, again,
may be noted how
the refinement of the Japanese extended
to the smallest details ; the fukusa around the mask was in
harmony with it and with the lacquer box in which it was
placed, even with the silk bag which contained the box. In
fact, themost precious specimens of old silk are to be found
in these envelopes,which were used for all treasures. They
were not exposed in the rooms, in the Western style, but kept
wrapped up and stowed away in the many drawers of the
107
BRONZES 109
main room, or in a special go-down built for the purpose, to

be produced at ceremonial functions or exhibited one at a time
to favoured guests. Other pieces of these valuable old silks
were used in the scabbards of swords, and in the frames of the
kakemonos, which again were stored in a special cupboard,
and shown two or three at a time, when occasion required, or
changed when necessary, to suit season or ceremony.
The chapter on bronze would be incomplete without some
mention of the elegant vases, etc., which were made of gold
bronze or shakudo, and silver bronze or shibuichi. Decorated
with gold lac, with mother-of-pearl, etc., inlaid with finely
wrought silver and enamel, these vases are lovely, though they
cannot claim great antiquity. They deserve the appreciation
which is lavished upon them.
Shakudo is an alloy of bronze and gold, and shibuichi an
alloy of bronze and silver ; in both the proportion of the
precious metal varies according to the effect which the metal-
worker wishes to produce. The shakudo has a peculiar
quality by pickling and boiling, it acquires a rich coat or
patina of beautiful deep bluish violet, which takes an exquisite
polish. The shibuichi assumes a remarkable silver grey
tone. The gold alloy consists of about 95 per cent copper,
i J to 4 of gold, i to ij of silver, and traces of lead, iron, and
arsenic. It possesses the curious quality of recovering its
patina when worn out ;
if it is handled, the moisture of the
hands and the atmospheric oxidation bring the colour back.

The silver alloy contains from 50 to 70 per cent of copper,
from 30 to 50 of silver, with traces of other metals. Shibuichi
means one-fourth, so the amount of silver may be set down
as a quarter of the whole alloy.
These two metals were essentially adapted for incrustation
or for inlaying. Nothing looks richer than shakudo associ-
ated with relief designs in gold, silver, mother-of-pearl, or with
enamels. Some of this decoration was applied by firing in
the enamel-kiln, some was soldered, but the main part of the
decoration was performed without the aid of fire by means
of the burin and hammer. The incrustation was set in
reserves cut out, having the edges slightly re-entering, so that
no THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
it could be fixed and held by hammering, just as the panes
are held in leaded windows ; the other effects were produced
by the graving-tool, and by the polisher. The workmanship
isusually so fine that the joinings cannot be seen, even with
the aid of a magnifying-glass.
From the variation in the alloys various tones of colour
were derived. The shakudo has a range of golden greens,
STAND, IN CARVED SILVER.
yellows,and reds of which the Japanese made wonderful use ;
no nation has ever treated the patina so effectively. The

pickling process was either hot or cold, and the pickle itself
consisted largely of verdigris and copper in water or in vinegar,
to which, for some patina, nitre, common salt, and sulphur
were added. Mokume, or wood grain, was also produced by
an ingenious process. Thin sheets of metal were soldered
together in layers of different colour, and conical holes or
trenchlike cuts were made to remove some portions of the
mass, which was then hammered until the holes disappeared,
and were replaced by irregular bands or veins producing
the effect of wood-graining.
CHAPTER VI
CARVED WORK IN IVORY AND WOOD.

NETSUKES
policy which Japan followed for so many centuries
THE of closing her ports to intruders and, in later years, to
all but the Dutch, would have been fatal to her art industries
if her supplies of minerals at home had been less than sufficient.
Fortunately, they were so abundant as to meet all needs :
gold was plentiful as silver, and no more valuable ; lead, tin,

antimony, abounded alloys were common. The
;
value of the
precious metals had one effect upon the metal-work which
had anciently been applied, even to articles of daily use, an
effect which has led to their destruction they have been
melted down.
Fortunately, carved work in wood and ivory has escaped
this evil fate, and in this branch of art the Japanese sculptor
he a carver ? was superior to the Chinese, though
or, is
in hard stones jade, agate, etc., he remained inferior. The
dignity and the grace of the Chinese have an added quality in
Nippon it has vitality. That is its great charm to-day. The
;
expression dignity and reserve where necessary terror, ;
even horror, in evil genii beauty in Kwannon and Benten,

;
divinities and types, fun in gods, men, and animals is beyond
any art of any other people. All this applies to the class we
shall now consider the netsukes.
If you ever the Musee Guimet at Paris, you will be
visit
vividly impressed with the pervading influence of religion

over art, especially in the early ages. This is true of all art
everywhere. And it applies with great force to Japan, where,
in 1614, a law was made by Hidetada that every house should
in
set up the image of some deity. The idol-makers were kept
busy, and the quality of their work reached a high level.
When the demand
naturally ceased, and
when every house had
miniature god, most
its
of the craftsmen who
had revelled in un-
wonted activity found
themselves out of occu-
pation. It was then
that they turned their
attention to the piece of
wood or ivory which,
slipped through the belt,
held the tobacco case
and pouch or the medi-
cine case safely sus-
pended. Tobacco was
at that time a new
luxury, but one destined
to fold in its embrace
the nation, men and
women. So from the
simple lump of wood or
ivory grew the netsuke",
which was an ornament
through which the cords
or chains of the pouches,
etc., were fastened for
the purpose of suspen-
sion at the belt. It
WOODEN STATUE OF BISHAMON, is perhaps just neces-
THE GOD OF RICHES.
sary to put stress on
this, because some people persist in giving the name netsuke"
to any small carved figure. If the attachment can be tied
through pierced work in such small figures, they may be, but
ifthere are two special holes for the purpose, they are,
CARVED WORK IN IVORY AND WOOD 115
netsuke"s. Then moment it will be noticed that, as an

in a
article of of daily use, the netsuke" or toggle, made
adornment
to keep the ends of the suspensory cords from slipping
through the belt, would naturally be free from awkward
corners or points which would
catch in the dress or break off.
Scarcely any single Japanese
object has excited keener interest
amongst collectors of Oriental
curios than these precious net-
suk6s, which are getting very
scarce, especially the old ones
which can be identified by the
marks of rubbing, not only where
the cord has passed through the
holes, but the results of the
frictioncaused by constant use.
The oldest are the wood ones,
and these are most valued, as the
wood, generally the core of the
cherry-tree, acquires a rich, warm
brown tone, which is one of its
chief charms. I have three be-
fore meof wonderful workman-
ship and expression. One is an
old monkey, whose four paws
hold a flattened fruit, whilst he
bends forward in the attitude of
sleep. Another shows a small CARVED FIGURE IN WOOD THE
DEVIL AS A BUDDHIST MONK.
monkey mounted on its mother's I7TH CENTURY.
back, with paw outstretched for
the nut which she holds tightly in her two fore-paws. The
expectant expression of the open-mouthed little one is in
marked contrast to the indifference of its mother. In both,
the hair on the skin and all the other details are remarkable.
The third is a curious man who has just taken a rat from a
trap, and its execution is no less extraordinary the animal,
though tiny, is life-like.
n6 THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
The have made netsukes of all materials and of all
artists
"
forms. have two others in white porcelain of
I Daruma
in contemplation/' but they are much more valuable when
carved in jade, onyx, or crystal. Ivory was one of those
OKIMONO IN IRON, INLAID.
substances which were imported; walrus tusks, and those

of the boar, and smaller teeth of animals were used, but it
was not before the eighteenth century that elephants' tusks
in any quantity were imported, and these were used chiefly for
okimonos alcove ornaments 'figures which, being small, evi-
NETSUKE'S.
THE FLYJ8Y TOMIHARU THE MICE BY IKKUAN THE COCK BY MASANAO
; ; ;
THE BIRDS, ENCRUSTED IN SILVER, BY KORINJ THE STRAW-CLAD PEASANT

CROUCHING, ON THE LOOK-OUT, BY MIWA I.
117
n8 THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
dently are not netsukes, or, large, come in a different class.
It may be well to warn young collectors, those who are begin-
ning to take an interest in ivory carvings, that both netsukes

and okimonos are produced even now in immense numbers ;
that they are rubbed and coloured to give an appearance of
VASE CARVED IN WOOD, BY MINKOKU.
age ; that they imitate the old forms, which were seldom or
never duplicated by the old carvers, whose designs were
original, and as varied as
are the figures in the old gargoyles
and hinged misereres in our cathedrals.
In the old ivory carvings the Japanese employed the very
best ivory, having that rich milky tone which time gives as a
kind of patina, a soft yellow which the eye easily learns to
LARGE CARVED -WOOD CABINET CONTAINING VASES, AN OKIMONO,
AND A BIYOBU (SCREEN).
119
distinguish from the coffee-stained reproduction which a rub

will often remove. At the same time it is not well to
assume that ivory figures up to the height of six inches
all
are netsuke"s.The evidences will be found wrought in the

material by use. If some of the quaint unsigned figures
show that they have been used by suspended cords, the
THE BEARERS OF THE BELL IN CARVED WOOD. I7TH CENTURY.
corresponding parts on the opposite side must show evidences

of rubbing, unless, as rarely happened, they were unused.
The pipe was a necessary adjunct of the daily life ; a small
bowl, a long stem, meant a short smoke, but put no limit to
its frequency in fact I have seen a Japanese picture of a
woman smoking in bed ! The collector will perforce be com-
pelled to rely upon his own judgment in the collection of
netsukes, and again the watchword, caution, must be linked
with another handle all you can. In no branch of curios is
the necessity for handling more obvious than in this, where
the best book cannot indicate the points which demonstrate
age as effectively as can the careful inspection of genuine old
pieces and comparison be-
tween them and others.
Look for colour, look for
signs of wear, look for
careful yet bold design and
execution, and at the be-
ginning limit yourself to
the price you are prepared
to pay for the lessons which
experience only can teach.
But do not expect to enter
this arena in the hope of
beating the skilled prac-

titioner, unless by a careful
preparation you are fully
equipped for the contest.
After a certain point you
will rely upon your own
judgment.
Turning to the history
of netsuk6s and their
makers, Mr. Anderson's re-
marks form a fitting in-
"
troduction :The designs
of the netsuke-carvers em-
CARVED WOOD STATUE OF BUDDHA.
brace the whole range of
Japanese motives, and the artist tells his story with the
utmost lucidity. Nothing is safe from his humour, except,
perhaps, the official powers that be, of whom the Japanese
citizen has a salutary dread. Religion, history, folk-lore,
for his
novels, incidents of daily life, all provide material
and his subjects are mostly treated in a comic or even
tools,
vein. The aroused from his nine
flippant pious Dharma,
OKIMONOS, ALCOVE ORNAMENTS, CARVED IN IVORY.
123
years* motionless contemplation by the attentions of an

obtrusive rat who ventures to nibble the saintly ear, is made
to assume an expression suggestive of the strongest equivalent
for swearing, of which we may suppose a good Buddhist to be
capable. The Thunder God is seen extracting the storm-
cloud from the basket that gives it stowage-room in idle
days of sunshine. An inquisitive bird has unwarily inserted
his long beak between the valves of a giant clam whose gaping
shell had invited the incautious search after the unknown,
and now, with straining thighs and flapping wings, struggles
vainly to regain his liberty. An expectant domestic party
surround a fish-kettle, while the head of the family triumph-
antly extracts a carp of tempting proportions, but the averted
heads, disgusted faces, and finger-tweaked noses of the
hungry group eloquently proclaim the central idea of Bud-
dhism the impermanency of all things and the vanity of
human wishes. Such examples might be multiplied without
end." Netsukes, okimonos, and masks !
The use of masks was largely discontinued at the end of the

seventeenth century, and the image-making consequent upon
the enforcement of the law of 1614 had run its course. Mask-
makers and image-makers found a new outlet for their in-
dustry in the netsuk6, which furnished full scope for their
talents and developed into a special and separate craft in the
eighteenth century. D6me-Jioman and the other mask-
makers appear to have had some success in this new branch
of art, though he excelled, as we have seen, in his representa-
tions of the human face, and indeed he has furnished examples
" "
Masks for No dance
' '
for the artists of the present day.
were on view at the Japan-British Exhibition in lacquer-
work. But the Japanese were catholic in their tastes regard-
ing the precious netsukes, and made them in many forms
from various materials, so that they may be found signed by
Korin the painter-lacquerer, by Ritsuo, another celebrated
painter, and by others. So, should you find a signed netsuke,
it be well, if the signature does not appear in the
will list
given, to turn to the other lists of painters, lacquerers, and

even potters.
Shunzan, at Nara, the city of temples, was one of the most
famous of the netsuke-carvers about 1800. He worked in
wood, for this material preceded and excelled the carvings in
ivory. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century
Miwa I., also at Nara, executed the most original designs of
SAKE BOTTLE CARVED FROM A BAMBOO ROOT. I7TH CENTURY.
figures and animals in miniature, endowing them with

dramatic expression, influencing his contemporaries to an
extraordinary degree by his masterly skill. Netsukes in wood
by his hand are valuable, more so than those by his successors
Miwa II. and Miwa III., whom we must regard as the makers
of someof the earliest netsuke"s in ivory, and though there
were other schools at Yedo and Kyoto, scarcely less successful,
the pupils of the Miwas, such as Gamboun and Ikko, acquired
127
129
great reputations for the extraordinary fineness and quality

of their handiwork, which forms such a contrast to the modern
productions made for the outside market. The fine carving
isof itself a test, because the old master, with loving touch,
spent days and weeks in perfecting the design which was the
creature of his brain. We are indeed far from knowing much
abcut these older artists, but the signatures of many of them
have been traced, and in time these will be a sure basis of
classification.
The netsuk6 was created from almost any object upon which
the eye of the artist dwelt ; the gods and the philosophers,
scenes of history and of the comical side of life, were present to
the imagination, and therefore treated more in accord with ack-
nowledged conventions ; but in the flower and the plant, the
bird, insect, and reptile, what the eye saw, the willing, skilful
fingers translated and glorified with a patience passing belief,
with no regard for time or money, with a success which
astonishes us still. Six months, a year, what did that matter ?
the work would be finished in due time, for there was no
shirking, only a devoted perseverance !
Many of the difficulties in securing satisfactory lists of

these men come from their position and environment. Shel-
tered under the protection of some feudal prince, having no
personal needs, no ambitions, the craftsman won his way
steadily through life, content with little if only his master were
pleased. Other arts such as embroidery, sword-making, and
decoration, and lacquering, tell nothing about the men who
did the work, from the same reason they were merged in
their clan. Throughout whichever side we examine, we find
the number of independent artists, men who lifted themselves
out of their class, who travelled and founded schools, who made
themselves famous, is only a very small minority.
We may go further and say that the greatest part of our
information has been obtained regarding those men who
almost always signed their names upon their work, and
sometimes dated it by marking the nengo in which it was
completed. Then comparison is unnecessary. When an
occasional signature occurs, comparison becomes essential.
Hence has been determined the speciality of a few artists.
Itshimin was noted for his ruminants, Tadatoshi for snails,
Ikkuan for mice, Masanao for fowls, Masatami for rabbits, and
so on. The later netsuke-makers adopted another principle.
They copied one celebrated work all the time and did nothing
else, or they borrowed designs from the prints of Hokusai and
others. Now the Japanese have no use for such articles, yet
the manufacture goes merrily on mechanical methods,
still ;
added to ready sales at market prices, have reduced yet

another art of Old Japan to a state which is worse than
POUCH ORNAMENT.
extinction, because it is a flaunting degradation of work

which embodied much of that culture and spirit which, in
time of sore need, stood the nation's test and triumphed.
On the opposite page are the signatures of the chief sculptors
and carvers, commencing with the mask-maker whose works
have been noticed :
(i) (2) Shunzan, (3) Miwa,
Deme'-Jioman,
(4) Bokusai, (5) Gamboun,
Hidemasa, (7) Iccho, (8) Jugioku,
(6)
(9) Kwaigioku, (10) Masafusa, (n) Masanao, (12) Masatoshi,
(13) Minkoku, (14) Riomin, (15) Riukei, (16) Tadatoshi,

(17) Tomiharu, (18) Tomotada. These were of the early
period before 1810. Then follow (19) Homin, Ikkuan,
(20)
(21) Itshimin, (22) Ittan, (23) Masahiro, (24) Masatami,
(25) Noboyuki, (26) Norisane", and (27) Shibayama, the
founder of the school bearing his name.
at
/#
Z3
SIGNATURES ON CARVINGS.
133
CHAPTER VII
LACQUER
almost universal favour with which collectors
THE regard old Japanese lacquer is a testimony to its
singular beauty, its never-ending individuality, and the
genius of the artist-craftsman superior to all others. In
the specimens which I have examined, no two have been
alike in design, and the variety in decoration is accompanied
by variety in form ; there are many classes of wares decorated
with lacquer, so that no collection can be complete it can
only be representative. Every piece is singular in some
respect in the decoration it may be, or in the workmanship.
The mere enumeration of the classes of articles enforces the
fact that the ingenious Japanese loved his work, and employed
it on the decoration of
everything possible. Lacquer was a
passion ;
and though the native collector of pottery and
porcelain is with rough, sketchy, but effective design,
satisfied
in^ lacquer he demands elegant forms and rich decoration,
though some collectors still prefer the older, simpler forms

and styles. Each taste can be satisfied choice ranges over a
;
wide field.
The most famous lacquer made included inros (pill-boxes)
of various shapes ; sudzuri-bako (paint-boxes) ; large oblong
.and round clothes presses and chests^ many bearing crests
(mon) and covered with antique brocade ; other chests and
boxes of all imaginable shapes ;
small tables for incense-
burners, dinner-tables (zen), sake-tables ; travelling -trunks
(hasamibako) ; book-coffers (oi) ; dinner-sets, sake-sets,
smoking-sets ; tobacco-boxes, (tobakobon) ; palanquins
(norimonos) ; clothes-horses (iko) ; writing and toilet sets ;
LACQUER 135
dinner and sake dishes ;

sake-bottles ;
sake dish-stands ;
water-
pots incense-boxes, round and go games ; pictures, easels ;
;
hair combs and pins ; neck-rests boxes to hold tea-services

;
(chadansu), tea trays, chests, and urns ; fans ;

footbaths ;
hats ; braziers (hibachi) kogai letter-boxes ;

; ;
bowls with
covers (hira), sugar-bowls, little boxes for fumigating (ko-
bako), rouge-boxes, kake-boxes ; mirror-stands, sword-racks
JAPANESE SWEETMEAT-BOX ON WHEELS, IN RED LACQUER.
(katanakake) ;
horses' saddles, stirrups, etc. ;
brush jars and
cases ; water-bottles, cabinets, 6tageres, vases,
tea-pots,
koros, figures, tobacco-cases (tabakoire), tea-caddies (chaire),
tea-bowls (chawan), charcoal-boxes, cake-boxes, pipe-cases
(kiseruire), boxes for writings and papers, dinner-chests
(bentobako), book-chests (bunko), fruit-dishes (takatsuki),
screens, sliding doors, and a multitude of other objects which
furnish and decorate the home, of which this list is an in-
ventory which simply, had to appear somewhere and many of
;
the objects can be easily identified in the pictures which deal

with the social life of the country.
The viscid sap of the lacquer-tree of Japan, a slender
branched member of the cashew family, botanically named
rhus vernicifera, is known as kiurushi or crude lacquer. Later
a full account of the varieties of mixtures into which this
LACQUER BOX. QTH CENTURY.
crude sap enters is followed by the various modes of lacquer-
ing. But first we will go into the forest, and see the tappers
at work with knives, making horizontal incisions upon selected
trees, from which the sap exudes so slowly that they can pass
from tree to tree collecting it into wooden dishes by the aid of
shells or small scoops. Then, after the day's work is finished,
the day's tribute paid by thetrees is poured into a larger
vessel, and stirred with aspoon to aid the evaporation of

superfluous water. Day by day the work goes on, but the
busiest time, when the best quality of lacquer is gathered,
1 OUIS XV. SECRETAIRE, INLAID WITH SLABS OF BLACK AND GOLD LACQUER,
MOUNTED IN ORMOLU BY GOUTHIERE. SOLD FROM THE HAMILTON PALACE
COLLECTION FOR 9,45O.
137
lastsfrom the end of July to the middle of September. Not
an inspiring occupation at the best, and rendered less pleasant
by the blistering power of the raw sap, which makes it neces-
sary for the tapper to wear a long glove to protect hand and
arm.
Then to the merchant the harvest is garnered, and he sup-
plies the artist who, with this natural varnish as a basis, pro-
ceeds to perform miracles, by processes of almost endless
variety, supplying sumptuous robes to plain articles and
converting them thereby into objects of the greatest beauty.
I should imagine that the preliminary processes before the
application of the decoration would have the same relation

to the decorator as the preparation of a canvas would to the
painter. Yet I do not know. In those olden days, if there
was a watchword, it was, " Thorough," and just as the old
painters prepared their own canvases very often, so too the
old lacquerers may have made the skeleton of the work,
covered it with its preparatory coatings, smoothing each
perfectly, and finally bestowed upon it the marvellous decora-
tion which seems to defy the action of time, which, indeed,
under the influence of the atmosphere, attains a softer beauty,
just as a bronze gets a patina. The artists of Europe, especi-
ally Huygens in Holland and Martin in France, met with
some success as imitators of the Oriental processes, or rather
results, and to the latter was granted a monopoly for twenty
years from 1744 to make lacquered work, which was known
as Vernis-Martin as, in fact, a varnish which he discovered.
In our illustrations are some magnificent examples of furni-
ture where slabs of black and gold lacquer were effectively
employed XVI. period. But we must return to
in the Louis
Japanese art, where time brought changes, especially after

1868.
The hasty later work from the time which followed, when
Japan opened her ports to western trade, was the natural
reply to European and American demand. Forcing the
pace spoiled the ware quicker methods, the result of com-
;
mercialism, destroyed the old manufacture by robbing it of

its solidity, its coalescence. It was therefore not surprising
LACQUER BOXES, RAISED GOLD LACQUER DECORATION.
139
LACQUER 141
that when, after a year's submersion in the wreck of the

" "
Nile near Yokohama, in 1874, the cases containing lacquer
sent by the Japanese Government to the Vienna Exhibition
were opened, the old lacquer was perfect, the modern com-
pletely destroyed. The test applied was a searching one,
the severest possible, and nobly did the old masters meet it,
whilst the modern artists of Kyoto and Tokyo failed utterly.
m
.....
MIRROR-BOX IN GOLD LACQUER, INCRUSTED WITH MOTHER-OF-PEARL.

I3TH CENTURY.
Lacquer dating back to the middle of the seventeenth century is

as sound to-day as it was then ; modern lacquer cannot stand
the damp.
Amongst collectors in the East, black lacquer is most highly
appreciated, but outside China and Japan this fine mirror

black is onlynow receiving some measure of attention the ;
plain gold and decorated gold grounds have been far more
favoured. As, later, the processes will be described, I need
only note a few points to be recapitulated after the mysteries
of Nashiji, Togi-dashi, Hira-makiye, and
Taka-makiye have
been exposed. Gold applied to lacquer may be in powder,
in foil, or grain, all of which vary in size and
quality fine
powder, coarse powder, pure gold, alloyed gold, and so on.
About twenty-two operations are necessary to prepare the
ground for the gold ornament, and also for making the best
red and other coloured lacquers. These generally follow
what is called the Honji (real basis) method for the best ware,
and consist of a series of smoothing processes, preceding the
first application of the lacquer, and following each application
when the coating has become perfectly dry. The kind of

lacquer for each coat varies, but their order follows a fixed
rule, in which hardening the wooden basis stands first in
order. Hardening in the muro (damp press), smoothing
with whetstones or with charcoal, covering with silk or
cotton-cloth, painting with lacquer, and upon the lacquer
ground building up the design in gold raised work, or bringing
itout by polishing such, in short, are the stages which mark
the progress of a piece of fine ware onwards to completion.
And, last of all, the final gloss, an exceedingly brilliant polish,
given to the last coating by the fingers with the aid of deer's
horn ashes and a little oil, accomplishes the task ; the artist
can now regard the perfection of his painstaking labour, a
labour of love.
Nothing limited the early lacquerer. Beside the use of
gold in its various forms, incrustations of mother-of-pearl
(laque burgautee), of ivory, and the metals, demanded skill in
designing, harmonising, and, above all, affixing these materials
in their couch of lacquer, forming a mosaic where each morsel
of ornament in nice adjustment, polished or dull, was, in the
hands of the master, an integral part of the design. And
the difficulty was great, the process was long, I will not say
tedious, but the result more than justified the means. This
kind of work is sometimes termed inlaid lacquer, and there
isanother kind which requires a few words that is, aventurine
lacquer.
If you look into a box or inro, you will find that the inside
143
LACQUER 145
islacquered as well as the outside. Generally the decoration

appears like particles of gold in a transparent bed of reddish-
brown hue, resembling the hard semi-precious gold-stone
variety of quartz aventurine. This is only a special method
(Nashiji) of using tiny particles of gold-foil, but I mention it
here to emphasise the careful finish which marks all of the
old work, in which interior decoration was added wherever
possible.
After the black and gold come the iron-red and vermilion
lacquers. They are preferred by some collectors to all others
LACQUER BOX WITH BLAZON OF THE MIKADO, BY SHUNSHO.

DAIMIO LACQUER.
because they are so brilliant. It is said that no vegetable

colours can be used, and that this accounts for the few colours
in lacquer- ware the artists never appear to be able to pro-
;
duce white, purple, or any of the more delicate shades. In

the iron-red, the colouring matter is ochre or red peroxide
of iron, which differs from the colour in the vermilion, where
cinnabar is applied in the coating. Shu (vermilion) is used
alone, or with gold-dust for shading. As a ground the red
may be treated by methods similar to those adopted upon
black in the schemes of decoration.
One name occurs frequently amongst collectors, that is
Daimio lacquer, indicating a class in which the blazon of the
Emperor, or the Shogun, or of the feudal princes, is a feature
of the The kiku-mon, the sixteen -petalled
decoration.
chrysanthemum, was the Imperial badge, and the kiri-mon,
the three leaves and spikes of the paulownia, the family badge.
The Tokugawa Shoguns adopted a design of three flowers in
a. trefoil.
Many others may be seen in the marks of pottery,
but in lacquer-work they formed a part of the actual decora-
tion, and probably indicated the prince for whom the article
was made. In the Muse"e Guimet at Paris is a treasure-
chest in brown lacquer, decorated with the blazons of the
269 great Daimios who were in the service of the Shogun
Yeyoshi, 1838-53.
Do you desire more information on the preparation and
application of Japanese lacquer ? And do you wish to see
for yourself the tools which were used by the artists in
their work ? You should visit the Museum in the Royal
Botanic Gardens at Kew, where there is a very complete
and unique exhibit illustrating the whole process. From
the stems of the lacquer-tree (rhus vernicifera), with incisions
made by the knife, which is also shown, you can trace the
gum until it reposes in its setting, a dead gold ground with
raised gold ornament, showing the application of kuma, that
is, shading lacquer. Tokyo and Kyoto lacquer- ware Naga, !
Wajima and Nambu, Aidzu and Tsugaru, all partaking in

an art in which their craftsmen excelled. The tools, the
spatulae, the brushes, are only ordinary; the results from
them are marvellous.
Here are liquid lacs, Yoshino urushi, Jo-tane urushi, Jo-
chiu urushi, and the colours used in and with them, benigara,
red oxide of iron, sei-shitsu, green, shu, vermilion, and others.
There is a fine, but incomplete, panel, left unfinished in order
to show how the process was carried out the branch of a
:
fir-tree and a
creeper, one part in raised lacquer, with or
without gold, the other a dull outline on the polished black
ground. Gold, veined, burnished, and shaded, may excite
admiration for its brilliancy when in company with black,
and red, and green, no less remarkable; gold in clouded
grounds, in waves, and trees, upon black as its only decora-
tion, or upon red, even upon plain wood or metal; gold
LACQUER 147
particles or flakes in many of the grounds, which are shown

together in a frame.
Togi-dashi work, hira-makiye, and taka-makiye, in elabor-
ate designs, stand side by side with guri and tsiu shu in
carved red lac, or tsiu koku, carved black. In one case are
specimen boards showing designs on red lac, of gold, and
"
the so-called rose," which should be ro-se } decoration under
a transparent glaze, and boxes illustrating various modes of
applying kiri-kane, awo-
gai, and hirame orna-
ment, in various stages
of progress. In another
are the burnt clay, the
camellia charcoal, the
cloths in hemp and silk,
and all the materials
necessary to give form
and strength to the ob-
ject, to provide for its
decoration, and to en-

sure its perfection. The
drying-press, a small
cupboard with sliding
doors in front, faces a
case containing about
fifty different examples
of methods of lacquering
a single object, a scab-
JAPANESE PIPE-CASE AND TOBACCO-BOX
bard.
IN LACQUER.
At Kew you can
realise something of the lacquerer's task in copying a master's
design. The article must be perfectly shaped and seasoned,
the design must be traced and built up, and clearness must
ever be maintained, so that a magnifying-glass will reveal the
smallest details, as if they were cut in a block of metal, and
in the gold lacquer in addition, the deep, warm, melting
tones of gold, free from coppery and false reflection, must
be developed.
The processes, inany one method, in the fabrication of a
single object seem nearly endless. What must be the skill
of the artist who, without repeating a design, brings his
individuality, his taste, and his invention, to such a list of
articles as I have given early in the chapter ? The old
lacquerers are gone all the mixtures which
; they tried, all
the substances which they employed, all the colouring which
gave such wonderful effects, are nearly gone too. Their works
vanishing, some into the destruction which never restores
BOWL-BOX IN GREEN LACQUER, TNCRUSTED AND DECORATED WITH

SILVER ON A BLACK LACQUER GROUND, AND WITH CHRYSANTHEMUMS
IN GOLD LACQUER.
some into private collections to be no more seen, the time has

come when the gold lacquers in green and red and yellow,
separate or merging into one another, the lacquers of bronze,
of tin, lead, iron, and silver, the green and red lacquers,
and, above all, as some think, the beautiful red lacquer,
with its powerful and yet delicate harmonies, must be gathered
into the museums before the hand of the millionaire closes
over them.
Another class of lacquer deserves attention the lacquer
incrusted with mother-of-pearl, ivory, plaques of metal,
nuggets, etc., or with grains or spangles of gold in mosaic,
LACQUER 149
stippled or seeded, either regularly or as if by chance. When

the grains of gold are very numerous, when they crowd
together in forms resembling the crystallisation of sugar-
candy, or when they appear like rock-crystal charged with
particles of mica, the lacquer takes the name of the hard
semi- precious gold-stone or aventurine. This quality of
lacquer plays an important part in the process, being used
to decorate the bottom and the interior of boxes ; yet when
employed in the design itself, as a ground for gold lacquer in
the whole piece gains in distinction and in value.
relief,
Amongst the incrusted lacquer, the first place would be given

to the inlaying of nuggets in a regular pattern, such as a
mosaic, because such work presented the greatest difficulty, and
was only undertaken by notable craftsmen who had to fit each
morsel of gold into its resting-place, to polish, and to match
it with all the others, and at the same time to maintain the
beauty of the lacquer. No work required more time, more

patience, and more skill, but the result justified the labour.
Lacquer in such a mosaic was the supreme work of the master !
The black mirror lacquer and the gold lacquers were wonder-
ful, but this was almost sensational.
After the black and the gold come the iron-red and the
vermilion lacquers, which were shortly noted above. They
are more sumptuous, more brilliant.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MASTERS IN LACQUER

art of lacquering one of the oldest industries of
is
THEJapan its origin is lost with other arts in the early

centuries of our era ;
but there is no doubt that, like them,
it came across the seas from China and Korea, f
Indeed, the
technique of the two countries differs but little ^.though the
Japanese have <mt stripped all competitors, their superiority
is incontestable.) Two boxes
preserved in the treasury of
the great temple of Nara date back to the seventh century,
and form the earliest known examples. In the year 880
red and gold lacquer were referred to by the philosopher
Shihei ;
in the tenth century praises are bestowed upon them
by Minamoto No louin, who, however, gives no names ; and

late in the same century a celebrated woman-writer, Mura-
saki Shikibu, describes a new kind of lacquer incrusted
with mother-of-pearl the inner layer of the haliotis shell.
This last kind the lacquer with mother-of-pearl incrusta-
tions is known to us under its French name as laque bur-
gautte. Other early specimens in the same temple of Todaiji
in Nara, and many which were shown at the Japan-British
Exhibition, reveal the wonderful qualities of old lacquer

which has been in existence more than a thousand years.
All of these were in one colour, or in gold, but we scarcely
need to dwell upon them, even to praise their form and
colour, because they are of the greatest rarity.
After the tenth century, for a long period only one school
maintained a high reputation the Kamakura school,
which produced excellent work during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. Then came a renaissance at Kyoto
150
A PAGODA IN GOLD LAC, DECORATED WITH BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND
MYTHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS.
THE MASTERS IN LACQUER 153
corresponding to that which took'place in China. Yoshimasa,

a Shogun of the house of Ashikaga, took a personal interest
in lacquer, which, under his protection, became equal to all
except the very best of the earlier products, and in some

respects even excelled them by the adoption of original
methods in which the inlaying of gold and silver nuggets in
mosaics, the incrustations of metal, the application of decora-
ETUIS IN LACQUER.
tion in relief, and the introduction of grounds of silver and

of vermilion played important parts. The fifteenth century
was distinguished by the overpowering influence of China,
which brought increased freshness and vigour to the Kano
school, whilst at the same time depressing the opposing
school of Tosa. So the lacquer of the Yoshimasa period
bears the impress of the Kano painters, and it is highly
valued for its ornament and for its solidity, although the
mosaics of gold are not perfectly smooth, nor has the polish-
ing by the whetstone entirely removed the roughness of the
wrinkled grounds on which the grains of gold project. These
points are important in determining the age of lacquer in
the absence of signatures, which appear with Koetsu in the
sixteenth century. The insetting of the gold
grains, polished
as each was, proved to be a task requiring the utmost skill
of the artist, who had not alone to set them in their bed of
lacquer, but to build it up around them by successive layers

which fixed them there in the requisite design, so that they
were immovable without breaking up the body of the lacquer.
The tiniest pliers or pincers were the tools used for the in-
LACQUER INRO, BY KOETSU.
setting. Then, again, it was not until the seventeenth

century that the ground of gold in spangles of foil, diapered
in various patterns, reached its full perfection, giving com-
plete smoothness to the touch, and to the eye an indescrib-
able beauty. In the next century this process, magnificent
though it was and costly, was almost entirely abandoned.
No artist's name reaches us before the sixteenth century,
when, near its close, Koetsu, a famous painter, devoted
himself to the art of lacquering with signal success. We
shall notice that many painters adopted a similar course,
which was not surprising when we consider that the ability
to design was as necessary in lacquering as it was in painting.
In the latter the facility of the artist, the boldness and

strength of each stroke of the brush, was in vivid contrast
to the eminent capacity for taking pains, the slow and care-
fulelaboration in the former. Koetsu, the painter, became
one of the first of the artists in lacquer, embodying in that
work some of the qualities the style and the grace of his
painting, excelling in those pieces, especially, which had
designs in relief in gold, the taka-makiye, a process which is
described later in this section on lacquer. Not only so, but

his influence, hismethods, in fact his school, became the
inspiration of many of the fine artists who succeeded him.
Shunsho, another celebrated painter, founded the Yedo
school in the eighteenth century a school of painters and
designers for colour-prints, which had great success. Yet
the master gave to lacquer his personal preference, relinquish-
ing altogether the colour-print designing to competitors,
who were numerous and eminent. In the sections on paint-
ing and colour-prints, further noticeis given to this artist.
Here we may note that, having been summoned from

Kyoto by the Shogun, he soon rivalled, in his lacquer-work,
the efforts of the Koetsu school by his bolder decoration
and his greater freedom in method, and attained such success
that the higher prices were paid for specimens from his
hand the Japanese valued them highly for their refinement
;
and elegance, and successive Shoguns afforded to the school

such effective protection and support that lacquer was ex-
tended to the decoration, not only of the utensils of the
temple and home, but to the columns and doors of those
buildings, and to every object suitable for such decoration.
In considering the friendly rivalry between these two
schools, we have been carried further forward than was
necessary from the chronological development, so we will
go back to Yosai or Yose"i, who imported from China the
carved red lacquer which can scarcely be differentiated into
old and new, but is judged, like the Chinese, according to the
depth of the cinnabar coating, the bright tone of the red,
the fine polish and solidity of the piece itself, and, therefore,
by its weight, the heaviest being the best. Yosai of Naga-
8
saki has so identified himself with the fine, red lacquer that,
in Japan, he is regarded as its inventor, his full, fatty work
being distinguished by much originality, although it differs

considerably from the so-called red Pekin lacquer, famous
under the Yuan dynasty of the Chinese.
usual in reference to Japanese art to quote the various
It is
periods,which I have given elsewhere, which correspond

somewhat to the Chinese dynasties, especially under the
LACQUER BOX, DESIGNED BY KORIN.
laterShogun families. The Nara period, from A.D. 709 to 784,

and the Heian, from 794 to noo, may be disregarded for all
practical purposes as far as lacquer is concerned. The third
period was named the Kamakura, from the first capital of
the Shoguns in the province of Sagami. The period extended
from the date last given, noo, to 1335, when the Ashikagas
became the Shoguns; and the Ashikaga period extended
to 1573, when the Momoyana period, for thirty years, marked
the rule of the Shogun Hideyoshi. Lastly, from 1603 to
1868, the Tokugawa family ruled at Yedo, and the period
bore their name. The Emperor always resided at Kyoto.
A LARGE CABINET IN LACQUER, DECORATED WITH FANS, ALSO IN LACQUER,
. AND INLAID WITH BIRDS AND FLOWERS.
Daring the Shogunate of Genroku, some years on either

side of 1700 appear two great
to be exact, 1688 to 1704
most original and
masters in lacquer who rank amongst the
eminent designers of that country.
Korin, the great painter, was one of these who revolu-
tionised the art of lacquering, which had hitherto submitted
to the influence of the Tosa school of Kyoto. He studied
this school at first with the lacquerers
of the master, Koetsu, but when he
came to Yedo he extended his studies
to other artists' works, with the result
that he, as a noted master, set up his
own school, which excelled in its
lacquer- work, so that the Japanese col-
lector of the present day sets great
store by the precious specimens from
Korin, especially when signed by him ;
they bear evidence to his independent

style, and to the vigour of an active
imagination. His brother, the potter,
Kenzan, also a painter, acted with suc-
cess in the same direction, against the
conventional Tosa decoration, a style
which was adopted from the Chinese.
Kenzan and Korin broke down this
foreign influence, substituting original
1
and purely Japanese designs."" Korin,
as a painter scarcely apppated to *k p
f
INRO IN SILVER LAC-
QUER, BY RITSUO.
people of this country--theJruejQyrs
of were his devoted followers.
art But in lacquer he
" "
fore ed admiration from all. Even to-day Korin 's gold
is a standard, a little dull, but so even, so warm and pulsating,
so like solid gold, with a peculiar distinction of its own.

Working with a full brush, he secured fine, broad effects,
whilst his incrustations of mother-of-pearl laque burgautee
silver, lead, and tin,yielded effects which he brought to per-
fection; he made them notes in a delightful harmony.
The scope of the lacquerer was so great, his operations
i6o THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
covered so many articles, that Korin's work may be found
upon various objects, such as a netsuke of shakudo in gold
with incrustation, having a circular veined frame, and a
central panel with birds perched upon a branch ; an encrier
decorated with gold lacquer in relief ; a cabinet with gold
lacquer trees and flowers on one part, and quaint, but beauti-
L
fully executed, figures on others; and so on. Indeed, there
appear to be no limits to the
exercise of his talent, and I
can only advise those collec-
tors who have already been
attracted by the beauty of
this particular ware to give
special attention to the ac-
,
quisition of examples of the
art of this master, as well as
of the otherswhose signatures
or names appear in the list.
And will you please note that
the signature may, and often
does, contain words other than
the name, which is, however,
its essential part, and further,
the same want of care is often
evidenced by the Japanese
artists in their signatures upon
their works, as is shown by
INRO IN GOLD LACQUER, INCRUSTED some distinguished men of our
WITH MOTHER-OF-PEARL, BY
HANZAN.
own times. The name Korin,
given amongst the lacquerers,
is followed by his signature upon the list. By examining
both you my
will see point.
The art of Korin cannot be called a renaissance it was
an emancipation from the Tosa traditions. As I have re-

marked in the section on painting, all of the great decorators
were painters. The nengo of the celebrated Genroku marked
an epoch in Japanese art which, in metal working and carving,
was no less distinguished than in lacquer. Greater activity
in intercourse with China and Holland gave an impetus to

this art amongstothers. As early as 1630, dated examples
or pieces with inscriptions by which the date may be fixed
were made by the Japanese for the Dutch.
Ritsuo was the second of these masters. He lived for a
long time at Yedo, where he excelled in the art of incrusta-
tion ;lacquering, with him, was a means to an end. His
works are so completely Japanese, so original in execution,
and yet so perfect, that they may be soon recognised, even
by the uninitiated. His ingenuity was displayed over a
Wm
RED LACQUER DECORATED WITH GOLD, BY KWANSAI.
multitude of forms, ranging from magnificent panels to ob-

jects of slight importance, and he beautified everything he
touched. One method of incrustation he made peculiarly
his own, creating wonders by working with lacquer and
ceramics, pottery and lacquer porcelain, too. We have
noted, not only the individuality of the worker, the individu-
ality of thework is not less striking, never repeated, always
interesting, compelling admiration by conquering difficulties,
and by a colour scheme which leaves nothing to be desired.
His favoured pupil, Hanzan, to whom he accorded the second
right to use his seal, was skilful in incrustation, emulating
his master, and he also had a reputation for gold lacquer.
Koma Kwansai of Yedo school of Koma was an artist
celebrated at the end of the seventeenth century and the be-
ginning of the eighteenth for the perfection of his aventurines,
in which he stands unrivalled, though also excellent in laque
frottee, and in relief upon a vermilion ground. Master in the
front rank, teacher of the first order, he taught his pupils
so well that, through the eighteenth century, they too, in
many cases, became famous.
Kadjikava, also of Yedo, had an atelier whose origin dated
back to the end of the seventeenth century, and whose
reputation was equal to that of Koma. The speciality of
this school was its inros, which, like all of the works produced,
were irreproachable in execution. We have said something
of aventurine ; and the aventurine interiors of Kadjikava,
with great stars, rich and vibrating, were very much appre-
ciated by connoisseurs. The schools of the families of Kiyo-
kava and of Shiomi have acquired an equal reputation.
We give the names of other noted lacquerers, Toyo, Kwan-
shio, Toshihide, Yoyusai, and Ze'ishin, amongst many masters
who worked before or about the beginning of the nineteenth
century the last, Zeishin, appears also to have been the last
;
who thought, and embodied their thoughts in original

of those
work later artists have been content to copy the old masters.
;
Each period of lacquer-work has some special quality, and,

as in all art, the passage of ages, the ripening of opinions,
the truer judgments which are formed with increased know-
ledge, these all have been applied to the ancient lacquer,
which issues from these severe tests with such eclat that no
collector need fear depreciation of value and more, Japan
will soon desire to buy it back.
CHAPTER IX
THE ART OF LACQUERING
are several modes of making gold lacquer, of
THERE
which the chief are given. Togi-dashi (bringing out
by polishing). The article having been subjected to the
twenty-two first processes is then treated as follows The
:
picture to be transferred to the article is drawn on thin paper,

to which a coating of size, made of glue and alum, has been
applied that known as Mino-gami is best. The reverse is
rubbed smooth with a polished shell or pebble, and the
outline very lightly traced in lacquer previously roasted
over live charcoal to prevent its drying with a fine brush
made of rat's hair. The paper is then laid, with the lacquer
side downwards, on the article to be decorated, and is gently
rubbed with a whalebone spatula wherever there is any
tracing, and on removing the paper the impress may very
faintly be perceived. To bring it out plainly it is rubbed
over very lightly with a piece of cotton-wool charged with
powdered white whetstone or tin, which adheres to the
lacquer. Japanese paper being peculiarly tough, upwards
of twenty impressions can be taken off from one tracing, and
when that is no longer possible, from the lacquer having
become used up, it only requires a fresh tracing over the

same paper to reproduce the design ad infinitum. This
tracing does not dry owing to the lacquer used for the pur-
pose having been partially roasted, as previously mentioned,
and it can be wiped off at any time.
The next process is to trace out the veinings of the leaves,
or such lines to which, in the finished picture, it is desired
163
to give the most prominence, and these lines are powdered
over with gold-dust through a quill. The qualities called
Mijin, Koma-kame-mijin, and Aragoku, are generally used ;
either finer or coarser qualities cannot be used. The article
is then set to dry for twenty-four hours in the damp press.
The outline is now drawn carefully with a rat's-hair brush

over the original tracing-line with a mixture of black and
branch lacquer called Rd-se. The whole is then filled in
LACQUER BOX, BY NAGAHIDE, SHUNSHO SCHOOL.
with Rd-se, applied with a grounding brush of hare's hair.

Gold dust of a slightly coarser quality than Mijin is scattered
over the lacquered portion, and the article is set to dry for
twenty-four hours. Another thin coating of Rd-se lacquer
is again given to the gold-powder portions, and the article
is set to dry for twelve hours. Next, a coat of Ro (black

varnish) is applied over the whole surface of the article,
which is set to dry for at least three days. It is then
roughly ground down with Magnolia charcoal, the surface
LOUIS XVI. CABINET OF EBONY, INLAID WITH SLABS OF BLACK AND GOLD
LACQUER, MOUNTED IN ORMOLU BY GOUTHIERE. THE CENTRAL PANEL,
ORNAMENTED WITH "A SACRIFICE TO CUPID," HAS A SLAB OF LACQUER ON
EACH SIDE. SQLD FOR 5,460 FROM THE HAMILTON PALACE COLLECTION.
165
dust being constantly wiped off with a damp cloth, till the
pattern begins to appear faintly. Another coating of Ro
lacquer is then given, and the article set to dry for thirty-
six hours. It is again ground down with Magnolia charcoal,
as before this time till the pattern comes out well. The
ensuing processes are the same as for black lacquer. In
making Togi-dashi on hard woods, transparent lacquer is
used instead of Ro.
Hira-makiye (flat gold lacquer). A tracing is applied to
the surface of the thoroughly finished article, as in Togi-
dashi ; the outline is carefully painted over with a fine brush
BOX FOR FANS, DECORATED IN GOLD LACQUER.
of rat's hair, and then filled in with a grounding brush of

hare's hair, using Shitamaki lacquer (branch lacquer and red
oxide of iron). Over this surface gold-dust, of the quality
called Aragoku being generally used, is scattered with a
horse-hair brush (Kebo) till the lacquer will not absorb any
more. The then set to dry for twenty-four hours.

article is
A thin coating is next applied over the gold, of transparent
or Yoshino lacquer, and set to dry for twenty-four hours at
least. It is then most carefully smoothed with Camellia
charcoal, and finally polished off with Tono-ko, and a little

oil on the point of the finger, till the ornamental portion
attains a fine polish. The veining of the leaves, and the
painting of stamens, etc., of flowers, or such other

A MINIATURE CABINET IN GOLD LAC, INLAID WITH IVORY,
MOTHER-OF-PEARL, ETC., FITTED WITH COMPARTMENTS. IT
IS SUPPORTED ON A GOLD LAC STAND. HEIGHT 2 FT. I IN.
I6 7
THE ART OF LACQUERING 169
is now done with a fine rat's-hair brush charged with Ke-uchi
lacquer, over which fine gold-dust (Goku-mijiri) is scattered
from a horse-hair brush, as before, and the article set to dry
for twelve hours. Some Yoshino lacquer is then applied to
a piece of cotton-wool, and rubbed over the whole surface of
the box or other article, and wiped off again with soft paper.
GOLD LACQUER ON BLACK. A ROUND BOX WITH FOUR

COMPARTMENTS AND COVER
It is set to dry for twelve hours, after which it is polished off

with deer's-horn ashes and a trifle of oil. When very high-
class work is desired, Yoshino lacquer, to which a little water
has been added, is applied, and polished off a second time,
and a very brilliant surface is attained.
" "
More ordinary flat gold lacquer differs in the manu-
facture as follows : The tracing is accomplished in the same
manner, but Shitamaki-nobe lacquer (branch lacquer, red
oxide of iron and camphor) is used for filling in the ground
of the pattern with a brush of hare's hair. The article is
then set out to dry in the press for ten to twenty minutes,
during which time the lacquer has begun to harden, and less
gold will adhere. Then gold-dust (Goku-mijiri) is applied
with cotton-wool, thinly, and the article is set to dry for
twenty-four hours. The whole surface is then smeared over
with Yoshino-nobe lacquer (Yoshino lacquer and camphor)
on a piece of cotton-wool, and wiped off again with soft paper.
The reason is that it is less trouble to smear over the whole
surface thinly, and it is, moreover, not necessary to give a
thick coat of lacquer to the decorated part, as the gold-dust
has been very thinly applied. It is set to dry for twelve
hours, and ground smooth with Camellia charcoal, and polished
with powdered whetstone and oil on the point of the finger.
The fine lines are then drawn with a rat's- hair brush charged
with Shitamaki lacquer, and sprinkled with gold-dust (Goku-
mtjin) from a brush (Kebo), and the article set to dry for
twelve hours. The whole is again smeared with Yoshino-
nobe lacquer, and carefully wiped off again with paper, and
set to dry for twelve hours. It is then polished with powdered
whetstone and oil on the point of the finger, and a second
application of Yoshino-nobe lacquer with a little water, wiped
off with soft paper, set to dry for twelve hours, and finally
polished off with deer's-horn ashes and oil on the finger,

which finishes the operation. This quality is far inferior to
that which was first described under this heading.
Should any dark spots or lines be required, such as birds'
eyes, human hair, etc., or other shading, this is done last of
all with Kuma "bear" lacquer, Jo-hana, and lampblack.
The more common kinds of flat gold lacquer are treated by
other less intricate processes, which here I need not describe,
as such articles have but little interest or value to the collector.
Amongst the most valuable products of this art is the
interesting Taka-makiye (raised gold lacquer). In this
process the ground may be either black or coloured lacquer,
Nashiji (pear basis of gold-dust), or the plain wood. The
outlines of the pattern are transferred upon the article as

described in Togi-dashi. These are then painted over with
Shitamaki lacquer, and this is covered with powdered Camellia
If the outside is to be
charcoal. higher than the inside,
a broad margin is painted, and covered with the charcoal-
dust, leaving the centre untouched, and vice versa if the
;
centre is to be higher, a faint line only is painted outside, and

the inside is given a thickish
coating, which sprinkled with
is
the charcoal-dust, and the article

set to dry for twelve hours.
When taken out of the press, it
iswell brushed, to get rid of any

loose charcoal-powder, and it is
also washed, using a brush made
of human hair (Hake), to clean
out all the crevices, and bring
out all the lines, etc. Some
Yoshino-nobe (branch lacquer
with camphor) is now rubbed on
with a piece of cotton- wool, and
carefully wiped off with soft
paper, and the article set to dry
for twelve hours. The raised
parts are next carefully ground
smooth with a piece of Mag-
nolia charcoal, and a second coat
of Yoshino-nobe, or of branch
lacquer, is applied as before, and
LACQUER BOX IN THE FORM OF A
dried. A
thorough drying is BIlirAt OR LUTE, RAISED GOLD.
indispensable after each painting.

If a well- raised pattern is required, one, two, or even three
coats of Sabi (branch lacquer and Tono-ko) are applied, the
outside edges being painted with a brush of deer's hair (Menso),
and the inside lacquer applied with a small Sabi spatula,
the article being set to dry between each application, for
twelve hours. For coarser work it is then ground smooth
with a white whetstone, and for finer work with a yellow
whetstone. Over this some " branch " lacquer mixed with
camphor, is rubbed with cotton-wool, and wiped off with
soft paper, and the article set to dry for twelve hours.
If thepattern is not to be very high, the operations described
in the lastparagraph are omitted. A coating of Taka-maki
lacquer is next applied, the outside edges being carefully
drawn with a rat's-hair brush, and the article set to dry
for thirty-six to forty-eight hours. When taken out of the
LACQUER BENTO-BAKO. l8xH CENTURY.
press, the surface is ground smooth with Magnolia

charcoal,
and then partly polished with powdered Camellia charcoal,
on a cotton cloth. A little oil is now rubbed on, and a further
polishing takes place with powdered whetstone on a cloth.
Next, "branch" lacquer is rubbed over the raised parts
with cotton-wool, and wiped off with soft paper, and the
article set to dry for twelve hours. It is next polished with
deer's-horn ashes, and a little rape-seed, or sesamum-oil
applied on the point of the finger. Up to this point the
formation of the raised pattern, whether mountains, waves,
trees, men, birds, or animals, has been gradually completed.
If small squares of gold- foil (Kiri kane), or of coloured shell,
etc., are used in producing the pattern, they are now applied,
one by one, on the point of a bamboo stick (Hirame fude)
A MINIATURE CABINET (TWO VIEWS, CLOSED AND OPEN) SHOWING
RAISED GOLD LAC ON BLACK.
173
the spot where they are to be affixed having been smeared

with a little Ro-se
lacquer, to make them adhere. When all
that is required has been affixed, a piece of soft absorbent,
or blotting-paper, is spread over the freshly done parts, and
pressed very carefully with the finger to get rid of as much
Ro-se lacquer as possible. The article is set to dry for twelve
hours, and then the portion covered by the gold-foil is gently
polished with a little Camellia charcoal, on the point of the
finger, to get rid of the remaining Ro-se lacquer. Shell
patterns and the coarser kinds of gold-dust are applied in the
same manner. The finer kinds of gold-dust are applied next,
over a coat of Shitamaki lacquer, and the article set to dry
for twelve hours. The remaining processes polishing, drying,
etc. are the same as in the best " flat gold " lacquer.
For making raised lacquer patterns on plain wood, the
whole surface is covered with tin-foil, stuck on with rice-
paste, to keep the wood quite clean, and then the part where
the pattern is to come is cut out. In making all high-class
lacquer, the edges of every article are pasted over with
tin-foil, to prevent rubbing or injury by the workman, and
each portion as it is finished is similarly treated.
There are innumerable modifications of the processes
sketched above, yet nearly every piece of good lacquer
exhibits either Nashiji, Togi-dashi, Hira-makiye, or Taka-
makiye processes, generally in combination.
In making raised lacquer on inferior articles, the methods

are nearly the same, but the work is less carefully executed ;
the gold is poor in quality and quantity, or it is displaced by
silver or tin. In the cheapest kinds, burnt tin-dust is used,
instead of charcoal, over the first coat of Shitamaki. This is
burnished bright, and over it a thin coat of lacquer and
gold-dust is applied. At first it looks well, but loses its colour
in a year or two. By using tin-powder the same height is
acquired in one coat that would necessitate at least three
coats of lacquer and charcoal-dust. This kind of tin-powder
work is only used for cheap articles for foreign export, and
is of quite modern origin.
One of the most
interesting processes and one of the
most artistic lacquering on metal. Iron, copper, brass,
is
or silver may receive lacquer decoration. The metal is

smoothed and polished, and then given a coating of " crude
" "
lacquer or black lacquer." This is burnt on the metal,
over a charcoal fire, till all smoke has escaped. The fire
requires careful regulation, it must not be fierce, and the
metal must not be allowed to get red-hot, or the lacquer
burns to ashes. When the lacquer has been burnt quite
hard, it is rubbed smooth with Lager strcemia charcoal, and these
operations are repeated three or four times till a good founda-
tion of lacquer has been obtained. Then the processes follow
exactly the order of the other lacquers, which have been
described, except that the lacquer is burnt dry over the fire
instead of drying in the press, though, after the first three
or four coats have been burnt on, the press may be used
for the remainder. Burnt lacquer is quite hard and very
durable.
In winter, or when any article is required in a hurry, a
charcoal fire is put into the press, with a pan of hot water on
the fire. The steam helps to dry the lacquer in an hour or
two, instead of the ordinary twenty-four hours; but the
pieces so treated are never very hard, never very strong, and
" "
the black lacquer soon turns a rusty brown. Therefore
this method is only used for poor work.
Nashiji (pear basis). This process is intermediate between

plain and ornamented lacquer. Till the opening of Japan
to foreign trade, this style of decoration was in the hands
of the workers in gold lacquer, but now all Nashiji on articles
intended for exportation is applied by workers in plain
lacquer. The best Nashiji, the best Togi-dashi, the best
Honji, have the first twenty-two processes alike. Then in
the Nashiji a coating of Ro-se is applied, and the gold-dust is
sprinkled over this surface by means of bamboo tubes, accord-
ing to the fineness required. The drying follows for forty-
eight hours in the press,and next a coat of pure transparent
lacquer is
applied. This visits the press for three or four
days, when the article is roughly ground with Magnolia

177
charcoal,and then coated with the same transparent lacquer.
Forty-eight hours' drying follows, and more grinding with
Magnolia charcoal, till a perfectly smooth surface is obtained.
Transparent lacquer then applied with a piece of cotton-
is
wool, and wiped again with soft paper. After twenty-

off
four hours' drying the article is polished with a mixture of
Tono-ko and Camellia charcoal and a little oil. Next a coating
of Yoshino lacquer is given, and wiped off with paper. Twelve
hours' drying is followed by polishing with deer's-horn ashes
and oil, repeated three times to finish the process. Silver
is treated similarly. Again, for cheap qualities, tin-dust is
used, and a coating of Kanoji (whiting and glue) forms the
ground.
Of necessity the information given in this chapter is highly
technical, and perhaps not of the greatest interest to the
ordinary reader; but I believe the collector of lacquer will
value it, because it is uncommon, and because it deals with
gold lacquer, etc., in such detail as to enable us to realise
that the finished product, which may lie before us, actually
passed through the processes here described.
In the Aidzu district the light colours yellow, green, etc.
are produced in the greatest perfection. In Tokyo the
colours are inferior and darker. In Aidzu no after-polishing
takes place with coloured lacquers. The lacquer is applied
like paint. Tokyo is best for black lacquer, and high-class
red, etc., such as receive the after-polishing. Kyoto black
lacquer shows a reddish-brown tinge. These two cities, with
Osaka, Kaga, Tsugani, Wakasa, Nagova, Suruga, Shidzuoka,
and a very few isolated places, practise the processes of
smoothing with charcoal, and afterwards polishing by hand.
These processes require infinite care; a constant devotion
is accepted as a matter of course.
The tools and materials used in the manufacture of gold

lacquer include a number of rat's-hair brushes, others made
of hare's-hair, deer's-hair, human hair, and horse-hair, in
various sizes, brush-cleaners, brush-rests, spatulae for mixing
the materials, etc., in addition to the general outfit of the
ordinary craftsman. The Tsutsu (a quill from the wing of
A LARGE CABINET IN LACQUER, WITH PANELS INLAID WITH MOTHER-OF-PEARL, ETC.
UPON A CARVED-WOOD STAND. A REMARKABLE SPECIMEN.
179
a swan or crane), over one end of which is stretched a piece

of silk gauze, is filled with gold-dust by a Saji (spoon), and
the dust is dusted and scattered upon the prepared surface.
The gold and silver dust varies in the size of its particles
and in its purity. There are twelve qualities of each, differing
in fineness. In addition there is an extra large kind used for
ground-work, called Hira-me (flat-eye). The coarsest filings
SIGNATURES ON LACQUER.
(i)Koetsu. (2) Shunsho. (3) Yosei. (4) Korin. (5) Ritsuo.

(6) Kwansai. (7) Kadjikava. (8) Koma Kyuhaku. (9) Kiyokawa.
do) Toyo. (ii) Kwanshio. (12) Toshihide. (13) Yoyusai.
(14) Zeishin. (15) Ritsuo's seal mark.
of pure gold or silver are rolled out flat on an iron plate,

and there are eight kinds of Hira-me. Next comes the
Nashiji, resembling the skin of a pear. This, in pure gold-
Koban or Koban-kin ; Jiki-ban,and Nam-ban, alloys, each
to
containing ten parts of gold, and from two-and six-tenths
three-and-six-tenths of silver, as well as in pure silver (Gin),
has seven qualities of fineness.
In describing so minutely the work of lacquering, it is
necessary to insist on the facts that the actual lacquerer was
a skilled artisan, and that the design for the piece, whatever
itmight be, was furnished by an artist, sometimes a famous
painter. The signatures that appear are often those of
the designers whose names are attached to paintings of
recognised merit. So that in lacquer, as in other branches
of Japanese art, the actual executant is unknown, though
scarcely less than the designer does he deserve a niche in

the temple of fame.
The signatures of the chief designers whose names appear
on lacquer are given in the list on page 181. Other names,
beside these, will be found amongst the painters.
CHAPTER X
ARMOUR AND ARMS
glorious panoply of war contributes a world of
THE articles connected with the life of the soldier with
the Samurai, whose prominent position in the Japanese
world led them to devote extreme attention to personal
adornment, for even when not fighting, they were fighters,
with as much pride in their equipment as we should expect
in a superior caste, the military who did no work. Really
the history of arms and armour only commences with Yori-
tomo, the founder of the hereditary Shogunate, and an
illustration shows what a formidable person the fully armed
soldier appeared. The wearing of the sword, " The soul of
the Samurai/' was a privilege, and when under the Ashikagas,
in the sixteenth century, two swords became obligatory,
Daimios and Samurai alike strove after the best work of the
best makers ; yet swords, with their accessories, were but a
part of the necessary outfit of certain ranks corresponding
to our ancient knights armed cap-a-pie.
There were suits of armour comprising helmets, head-
pieces, breastplates, arm and leg coverings, epaulettes,
masks, and gauntlets, in addition to the mail. Lances of
different kinds, pikes, halberds, swords, and their accessories,
which I shall describe presently ; daggers, bows, arrows, and
quivers ;masks, saddles, bridles, and stirrups ; battle-fans,

standards, flags, drums, shell trumpets (horageii), sword-
rests, all these, and more, formed the equipment of the
warriors of old, in addition to the later guns, pistols, powder-
flasks, etc. Evidently such a list could receive no adequate
treatment in a book like this; even the ever-ready sword
183
i8 4 THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
would require a volume, for Japan suffered from internal
troubles, personal quarrels grew into family feuds, differences
were settled by death, where honour or even
etiquette was
concerned personal disgrace, whether due to loss of favour
;
A SAMURAI STANDARD-BEARER IN COMPLETE ARMOUR. BADGE ON STANDARD

AND ARMOUR OF THE FEUDAL PRINCE OF SEN-DAI.
or to a sin of commission, was expiated by the

harakiri,
and, above all, personal ornament illustrated better than
anything else the rank and the individuality of the bearer.
Upon a single sword large sums were expended, to show
the taste of the soldier, who would suffer hunger rather than
ARMOUR AND ARMS 185
forego an emblem worthy of his rank on a scabbard, which

varied with the occasion, so for full-dress it was lacquered
in black with a tinge of red and green. Generally, fine swords
have a scabbard covered, not with shark's skin, but with the
HEAD-PIECE IN IRON. l6TH CENTURY.
palate of the shark's mouth. The scabbard was only one

item in the sword's furniture. Upon the minor adornments,
'
the collector has already cast covetous eyes, relegating to

one side the blade I think, only for the moment, for the
Japanese sword-blade has no rival. In view of the fact
that few come to Europe^ we will
pass pn. to consider what
pieces, beside the blade, make the sword, and here we have
a ground fertile in interest, with examples which are both
numerous and striking, some of them valuable, many designed
by famous artists.
The sword-guard (tsuba) is a flat, round, or oval piece of
metal pierced with an aperture for the blade, and with others
SWORD-GUARD IN IRON, PIERCED. I5TH CENTURY.
for the heads oftwo implements the kodzuka and the kogai.
We what magnificent decoration was applied to
shall see
them; but first it will be best to take these and the other
parts and explain them. The illustrations will help the
explanation.
The kodzuka was a knife, or small dagger, whose sheath
was placed on one side of the sword; whilst the kogai was
a kind of skewer, on the other, the use of which is not clearly
defined, though it is said that it was thrust into the dead
KACHIRA. KODZUKA.
FUCHI.
TSUBA.
SWORD BELONGINGS.
I8 7
ARMOUR AND ARMS 189
body of a slain opponent as a mark of personal prowess.

Both kodzuka and kogai were ornamented, generally quite
as elaborately as the tsuba, which alone left the scabbard
when the sword was drawn.
The small ornaments placed on either side of the hilt were
the menukis (tiny plaques of metal), which helped to give a
iirmer grip. The wakizashi, or short sword, which was about
SWORD-GUARD IN IRON, WITH DRAGON-FLIES IN INTAGLIO, BY UMETADA.
a foot and a half long, had menukis for the same reason, as
well as for decoration. It was expedient to get a strong
gn.sp on the scabbard when the sword was drawn for hara-
kiri. Then quite at the top of the hilt was an oval metal cap,
the kachira, and at the bottom of it, resting on the tsuba a t
oval ring also of metal, the fuchi. A cord passing through

flat
two eyes at the sides secures the kachira } and the blade fixed
in the hilt passes through both fuchi and tsuba. The com-
bination fuchikachira is frequently used, because both pieces
were usually made and decorated by the same artist, whose
name may frequently be found on the kachira.
The art of Japan, in all its branches, appears to move
along parallel lines of progress. When in the early centuries
painting advanced in style and execution, metal chasing
advanced too. From the period anterior to the end of the
fourteenth century, strength rather than ornament met the
needs of a people who were always fighting. The blacksmith
made the tsuba, and hammered out its ornament in the forge
with such designs as skill and opportunity permitted, and
probably every feudal prince maintained his own staff of
armourers, sword-cutlers, with other artists, for damascening
and chasing, and yet others to make and decorate the auxi-
liary parts, the tsubas, etc. Huish's classification appears
to be the best of those that I have seen, as it takes into con-
sideration that constant element, the schools, though, in
early days, these metal-workers were, no doubt, soldiers, and
not of the Samurai class just the ordinary fighters, who, in
their times of peace, prepared for war, who developed certain
skill which brought them into notice, who attained promotion
to the service of the Shogun, and who eventually founded
their schools. The difficulty is to trace the pupils of these
masters, which is shown by the adoption of one of the masters'

names. Possibly, later investigators will trace the historical
connections, as in the case of the schools of print-designing.
And heremay I interpolate one remark bearing upon the
relation between the artists who worked in bronze and iron
figures, and those who made armour and weapons. It will
be found that many of these masters worked in both branches.
Proof of this will be found in the Myochin bronzes.
The Myochin family were armourers dating back to
the twelfth century in a continuous record, which reached
onwards to the eighteenth. Even now sword-guards made
by them in earlier centuries may be found, and all are of
iron, which was the only metal they used. M. Gonse remarks :
"
L'ceuvre la plus remarquable a tous egards qui soit venue
en Europe et Tune des plus importantes qu'ait produites
cette famille d'artistes est 1'aigle en fer martele, de grandeur
ARMOUR AND ARMS 191
naturelle, qui se trouve an Kensington Museum de Londres.

II est pose sur un rocher, les ailes deployees, les plumes
herissees, et comme pret a s'elancer sur proie. Toutes les
plumes sont separês et articulees les unes sur les autres.

Cette oeuvre de fer est pleine de fierte et de caractere.
Comme dimculte vaincue on n'en "pourrait citer une plus
surprenante." It is signed with the Myochin signature.
You should see this eagle.
Passing onwards through the fifteenth century, we note that
SWORD-GUARD, CRAY-FISH, IN IRON DECORATED WITH GOLD BY KINAI.
succeeding Shoguns were protectors of the sword-makers,

of whom one name is prominent, the Goto family, founded by
Goto Yujo, who received the latter name from the Shogun
Yoshimasa Yujo, in recognition of the excellence of his
work. He lived from 1440 to 1512, and in 1603 the family
removed to Yedo with the Shogun Iy6yasu, Viceroy and
General, where their descendants worked up to the last
century. Again, the early products were iron, hard-tempered
iron, but such as permitted but little ornament. The later
work was far more delicate, especially the nanakoji on shakudo.
The gold ground was punched with tiny dots, forming a
surface resembling a fish-roe, hence its name.
I am inclined to the opinion that the artist named Shinkodo
should be Shingoto, but I am not sure, though Shinkodo was
one of the great masters of note in the sixteenth century,
Kinai and Nobuiye shared with Um6tada the premier position,
and all of them signed their works. The process of inlaying,
which had been in operation for some time, now reached a
SWORD-GUARD WITH DRAGONS AFFRONTJzS IN SHIBUICH1, BY
high level. Red and yellow bronze were employed with

fine effect,and the solidity of the tsubas became varied by
pierced work, which resembled casting in bronze really it ;
was fretwork in metal. This style of sword-guard was more

for ornament than use, but the troublous times had passed,
and with the close of this century opened a long era of peace,
which lasted for some two hundred and fifty years. That
guard, which had to resist a blow from a two-handed sword,
2 feet long, wielded by a strong man, now advanced into the
ARMOUR AND ARMS 193
dignity of a cherished ornament, which in common with

the other ornaments received the lavish care of the worker,
the artist in metal. Nobuiye excelled in inlaying, Kinai in
piercing, Ume*tada in chasing and engraving; his signature
is easy to remember as the first, that is the top, character is a
flower, the prunus.
One test can be applied to the old iron tsubas, a test of
sonority. The name of Ume'tada is associated with this,
SWORD-GUARD, SERPENTS INTERLACED, IN SHAKUDO, BY NAGAYUKI.
because his guards, made of iron, ring with the sound of a

crystal bell when struck, owing to the density and homo-
geneity of the metal acquired under the hammer before being
chased. It certainly was not an easy task to cut in a metal,
often harder than steel, such wonderful engravings and
reliefs, especially as we know that no other tools were used
than the point, burin, graver, and mallet. The quality of
the sound then, clear and high, is, as a general rule, the test
of age, though the necessity for a good eye and some ex-
perience must be modifying factors, for the deliberate, scru-
pulous devotion of the artist of the seventeenth century
yielded to the more hasty processes of the eighteenth, in the
early part of which the iron sword still held sway. No
sound-test can be applied where the iron is inlaid, or in any
way soldered with cloisons, and these became much more
frequent.
The Chinese, who were the great artists in cloisons their
cloisonne enamel to wit rarely tried cloisons for such enamel
upon iron, a process in which the Japanese were masters,
inserting the delicate walls of gold with such skill that the
enamels appear like precious stones set in the dull metal.
Amongst many artists whose names appear in the list of
signatures, mention must be made of Somin, not in the hope
that you may acquire a sword-guard by this master, but
because of his reputed skill in chasing silver in the manner of
Umetada, the iron-worker. Somin's works are very rare.
Huish gives him as the founder of the school of Yokoya, but
in the absence of information this must be taken with reserve.
From the beginning of the eighteenth century sword-
mountings in shakudo and shibuichi and other soft alloys
give further evidence that, as a weapon, the sword was for
parade, a thing of beauty. Freed from the hammered iron, as
a necessary working base, the metal-workers ran riot not that
they transgressed the limits of simplicity and good taste,
for the brilliant metals were used sparingly to heighten the
general effect in definite relation to the design as a whole.
It was a century later, when sword-furniture was made for
sale as such, rather than for adjustment to the sword blade
and sheath, that the work lost its dignity and acquired an
elaborate over-decorated style, which was still worse as we
come nearer to our own times. The hammered iron gave
place to cast-iron, though it was still used sometimes as
the ground for the ornament. The variety of combinations
towards the end of the eighteenth century and at the
beginning of the nineteenth was astonishing, and this was
not confined to sword-furniture, but extended to a variety
of other articles.
Three able artists at Kyoto at this period obtained great
195
ARMOUR AND ARMS 197
success by their work in yellow bronze. The guards were

decorated with flowers or with animals in high relief, or
carved in the metal. One of them, Toshinaga, delighted in
bird-subjects, especially the crane ; another, Mitsuoki, was an
incomparable engraver ; the third, Mitsuhiro, chose the scenes
of evening, the moon shining, rabbits playing on the grass,
or cranes sleeping amongst the reeds. But where so many
masters were employing their talents in the decoration of
SWORD-GUARD IN HAMMERED IRON INLAID WITH SILVER, BY YUSAN.
accessories of the sword, itappears useless to individualise

thorn, except by a list which is only imperfect because of
the lack of agreement amongst the English and French

authorities.
What has been hitherto written regarding the tsuba applies
with equal force to the kodzuka and kdgai. The handle of
the kodzuka is never a bit inferior to the other parts of the
mounting sometimes it is superior, often the whole of the
mounts are done by the same hand, and the same signa-
ture is engraved upon them as
upon the highly decorated
face of the tsuba, that is the face towards the hilt. The
fuchikachira and the menukis are equally worthy of notice.
The latter, which are metal ornaments applied to the hilt
or scabbard, have been treated by the Japanese somewhat
differently, for some artists, whose names appear on the
netsuke"s, did not disdain to carve these tiny objects in solid
gold or silver. All through the various branches of the
metal-worker's art there is a close connection which was
noted when the Myochin family was under consideration.
The carver of netsuks made and engraved the fuchikachira
and the menukis, and so on, as, too, they made the okimono, the
statuettes for alcove ornament, though these in metal have
not the usual grace of those carved in wood or ivory. Other
articles in metal were used upon the same alcove, or platform,
as objects necessary for the family worship rishi or Taoist
immortals, dragons, shishi (lions), candlesticks, koros, vases
for flowers, gongs, and bells. If in the home the Japanese
collector had artistic treasures, they were not exposed about
the house for ornament, but kept in a separate store or
godown that is, when they exceeded the accommodation
furnished by the cupboard. There might be an incense-
burner and a vase or two in metal, a fire-stand or holder
(hibachi), kettles, and a few other domestic utensils, and
such objects for personal use as pipes (kiseru), inkstands
(yatate), etc., also in metal.
The classwhich includes masks, spears, swords, and hel-
mets the metal-work of Japan yielded to none in its
decoration, in the beauty and delicacy of its engraving and
chasing ; in the fineness and fixity of its damascening ; in
the projection of the designs sculptured or worked in relief,
giving the light and shade which were required ; and in that
form of ornamental incrustation of gold and silver upon the
steel or iron ground, in which damascening was a necessary
preliminary, so that the ornament might be fixed rigidly

in the narrow, long, line-like channels, before undergoing
further processes of decoration-chasing, engraving, or carving.
ARMOUR AND ARMS 199
There are many methods of ornamenting metal. I can-

not do better than adopt with due acknowledgment Mr.
Audsley's classification, as set out in his fine book, "The
"
Arts of Japan :
"
Kebori, or fine hair-line chasing, where lines are chiselled
out of varying depth and thickness, and effect is produced
by the light and shade on their sides, any burr being cut off.
HEAD-PIECE BY NAGATSANE MASANORI. I7TH CENTURY.
It is this style which is the most affected by the Japanese,

especially when the engraver succeedsin imitating success-
fully the strokes of the painter's brush in the design which

lie is copying.
" In
hira-zogan (hira, flat zogan, inlaying), or damascening,
;
all lines are equal in depth, but their bottoms are widened,
so as to receive and retain the gold or silver wire which is
beaten into them. This and kebori are often used together.
"
Kata-kiri-bori is where designs are cut in relief from
10
'
portions of the metal raised for the purpose ;

this is un-
matched in the entire range of ornamental metal- work in
Art.' Here no advantage is obtained by other coloured
metals, but light and shade only have to be relied upon.
This literally sculptured work is almost entirely produced
by a cold chisel and hammer, and in old work it is usually
left untouched and unpolished.
"Lastly, there is the mixture of many processes, called

kata-kiri-bori-zogan y or figured, sculptured, and encrusted
metal chasing, or painting on metal, an achievement pecu-
liarly Japanese. An alloy capable of taking a dark patina
is used as the basis ; much of the design consists of pierced
work, and the remainder is in relief, encrusted and dama-

scened.
"The background of Japanese metal-work is often as
remarkable as any part of it. The artist seldom omits to
treat it in a way which adds to the decoration, and to his
labour. He does not hesitate to attempt a misty twilight
or night effect, an imitation of wood or leather, and it is
needless to say he succeeds. One thing only he usually
avoids, and that is the bright polish which Western nations
esteem so highly. Glitter and garishness are not in his line."
It will be evident that the kata-kiri-bori-zogan processes,
excessively difficult upon a ground of tough iron or hard

steel, would be much easier upon a soft alloy, such as shakudo,
which is composed of base metal and gold, or shibuichi, com-
posed of a similar metal and silver ; hence these are often
used for purely ornamental incrustation or inlaying, and I
have seen some vases which have been marvels of the art of
incrustation, where mother-of-pearl and various stones
jade, malachite, coloured rock-crystal, lapis lazuli, etc.
with fine ivory, have been combined in a bouquet of flowers
eminently pleasing and astonishing. Was the metal-worker
also a glyptic artist, or did he call to his aid some lapidary ?
We do not know, but the production is so admirable that
only master-hands could have accomplished the work.
Shakudo and shibuichi need further description, which will
be found in the chapter on bronze.
TSUBAS, SWORD GUARDS.
201
ARMOUR AND ARMS 203
Amongst the interesting exhibits of the Japanese Govern-

ment at the White City, the retrospective section of works
in metal was as attractive as it was uncommon. There
were several suits of armour, including one of hammered
iron by Myochin Munesuke. Several helmets with their
haramaki or horns were included in these. Myochin Sosatsu
was represented by a muneate, a defensive breastplate in
A SAMURAI WAITING FOR NEWS, WITH HIS SWORD EVER READY.
hammered iron, and by a fragment of kote } armour for the

arms. Face-guards, worked by Horai Munenaga and Myo-
chin Yoshimichi, were as interesting as the suneate, armour
for the legs. Several pairs of iron stirrups, with gold and
silver inlaid, displayed the skill of the metal-worker in artistic
work, whilst the simpler iron arrow-heads told of the village

blacksmith.
The beautiful decorative or dress swords, ornamented in
various styles, were lent by princes and nobles. I said
various styles, because each would require a long description
shio-no-yama-no-tachi, for instance. These swords differed
from those of the samurai. They were magnificent examples
of art reserved for the Daimios, though the long and short
swords, the well-known samurai swords, were scarcely less
excellent. One of them was embellished with an engraving
on iron of a thousand monkeys. Few of these appeared to
have any signature. In fact, I only found one set signed.
That was a long and short sword by Toshikage.
"
Then as to accessories, the swords' belongings," there
were hundreds. One exhibitor sent a collection of four
hundred and fifty. Tsubas were shown in nearly endless
variety, some of them ornamented with cloisonne. Two
my
pieces of historical interest attracted attention. One was
a short sword, said to have been used by the Taiko, that is
the Shogun, Hideyoshi, who sprang from humble birth to the
rank of Viceroy and General, and became paramount in Japan
and Korea in the sixteenth century. The other was a nail-
cover, decorated with cloisonne, used in Hideysohi's splendid
and luxurious castle of Momoyama, which gave its name to
the Momoyama period of Japanese painting, 1573-1603,
when the Kano school flourished.
Amongst other objects were a few dirks, which I mention
because some dirk ornaments were signed by Hirata Hiko-
shiro, who died in 1646 exquisite metal-work, to which
scant justice has been done, brilliant art from the hands of
eminent masters, with whom must be ever associated the
name of Myochin.
The chief metal-workers' signatures here given are :
(i) Myochin, (2) Sanemori, (3) Kinai, (4) Shinkodo, (5)

Nobuiy, (6) Um6tada, (7) Somin, (8) Toshinaga, (9) Mitsu-
hiro, (10) Konkuan, (n) Yeijiu, (12) Shindzui, (13) Riuo,
(14) Mitsuoki, (15) Kadzunori, (16) Takuti, (17) Harunari,
(18) Kuniharo, (19) Masanori, (20) Nagatsune*, (21) Tomoyo-
shi, (22) Fussamasa, (23) Yoshitsugu, (24) Teikan, (25) Seidzui,
(26) Johi, (27) Haruakira, (28) Noboyoshi, (29) Yatsushika,
(30) Natsuo.
>
&
* /f.
->
a
f ^
**. 2f. 28: ty to.
SIGNATURES ON METAL-WORK, ARMS, AND ARMOUR.
205
CHAPTER XI
WOVEN SILKS, EMBROIDERIES, AND
TAPESTRIES
is the process by which fibres are converted
WEAVING
into fabrics by means of the loom, and in Japan
the textile art has been, for centuries, one of its glorious
industries, which is just what would be expected in a land
where the people always had a passion for sumptuous robes,
and where the material, the raw siJk, was abundant and
excellent. The records show that both silk and the art of
weaving came from China, but, again, the date of its first
importation is uncertain, just as in the other arts introduced
either directly from China, or indirectly through Korea. In

the year A.D. 238, the Chinese Emperor Ming Ti, of the Wei
dynasty, presented five rolls of brocade, with dragons woven
upon a crimson ground, to the reigning Empress of Japan,
who sent an embassy to the Chinese Court in that year. In
the mediaeval age, when the Fujiwara, a sept or clan, usurped
the Imperial authority, and the military affairs of the country
were entrusted to the two septs of Minamoto and Taira,
when the local chieftains gradually assumed the title of
Daimios, it was the fashion to wear Chinese brocades and
embroideries.During the fierce struggles in which the
Minamotos and Tairas, having secured a firm hold upon the
soldiery, fought one against the other for the mastery, all
art suffered ; but when Yoritomo, chief of the Minamotos,
grasped the supreme authority, and became the Shogun in
1192, peace came, and with it the new birth of the arts ; the
development of the textiles led to the establishment of many
looms at Kyoto, which in the thirteenth century had a flourish-
206
WOVEN SILKS, EMBROIDERIES, TAPESTRIES 207
ing industry, renowned for silks, fragments of which are

preserved with the most religious care.
The loom consisted essentially of two rollers, between
which was stretched the warp, consisting of a large number
of vertical threads. Suspended from the top of the loom
ROBE OF A DAIMIO IN FLAME-COLOUR BROCADE.
were two frames or headles, which could be raised by means

of a treadle.One of these headles, connected with the alter-
nate threads of the warp, raised them, whilst the other
headle raised all the other threads. By means of a shuttle,
containing a bobbin of thread, one thread was thrown through
the warp when all the odd-numbered threads were raised,
and this was thrown back again when all the even-numbered
threads were raised. By thread after thread the weft grew,
that is, as each cross-thread fastened together the vertical
threads of the warp, passing under one and over the next,
returning with similar effect. The threads of the weft were
driven together by a batten, shuttle and batten being worked
by hand, the headles by a foot-treadle. Thus the simple
web grew. But in weaving brocades the process was com-
plicated, and the number of headles increased according to
the design which had to be reproduced. The skill of the
painter-designer had to be invoked for the designs, which
included an immense number of patterns upon grounds of
cloth of gold or colour, of damask or gauze.
The most complicated loom, that used for weaving flowered
brocades, was worked by two persons, the weaver seated
below, and his assistant above. He threw the shuttles and
changed the threads she for the assistant was generally a
;
woman worked the headles, and helped where necessary in

changing or knotting the threads.
The silk-worm, a native of China, comes from the eggs
produced by a moth (bombyx mori), and it looks like a cater-
pillar, which
it is, yet a caterpillar of marvellous
capacity,
changing, in a process of digestion, the leaves of the white
mulberry into a gelatinous thread, which becomes silk by
exposure to the air. From the spinneret, projection of the
silk continues until the caterpillar assumes its pupa state as
a chrysalis, quiescent in its shroud, the cocoon, a silken web
which nature intended for its protection. Then, in the East,
in due season the first step of the manufacture of the silk
fabric was taken, in securing the raw material.
" The scent of cocoons

boiling fills the street,
The women in each house, in busy bands,
With smiling faces gather round the stove.
And rub together their steam-scalded hands ;
They throw the bright cocoons into the basin,

And wind out silk in long unbroken skein ;
When evening comes they've earned a moment's rest,
To chat with friends outside in the walled lane."
Afterwards came the spinning, whereby the raw silk acquired
the substance of a thread, fine or coarse, according to its
intended use. I imagine that the first efforts to secure a
thread were confined to simple twisting by the fingers, but
the first weaver must have had great difficulties with thread
made in this way. The distaff and spindle must have been
contemporary with the earliest attempts to make textures
for dress, simple coverings for the body. Solomon, the
"
great proverbialist, wrote in praise of the good wife She :
layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the
"
distaff." She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her
clothing and purple." " She maketh fine linen,
is silk and
selleth it and delivereth girdles unto the merchant."
;
The
process of making the silk-thread might have been this, yet,
considering that the silk was wound
a fine thread, it
off in
appears more probable that the necessary thickness and

strength were obtained by a simple spinning-wheel which
could twist any numbers of threads of raw silk into one.
The old Grecian myth of the Three Fates represented them
as spinning the thread of human destiny, and, indeed, the
whole subject of spinning possesses much interest, from the
old spindle, a wooden pin a few inches in length having a
neck or hook at the small upper end, by which to fasten the
thread, and a weight of some sort at the lower end to make
it hang properly, to the elaborate satinwood spinning-wheel
of the eighteenth century. Then the machinery for spinning,

too !But the Orientals, Chinese and Japanese alike, used
only the hand-loom for weaving.
The embroidered robes worn by the aristocracy of Japan
were magnificent. The Emperor, the Empress, the Shogun,
the royal Princes, the Daimios, the Court ladies, and society,
right down to the Geisha girls, the Yoshiwara beauties, and
even the degraded joro class, all had stated costumes. Sump-
tuary laws and restrictions bound all classes, and though
under the feudal system the robes of the men were more
splendid than those of the women, in the seventeenth century,
and later, the women's dress increased in brilliancy, but
always robes were distinctive of rank. They were woven,
2IO THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
for the highest classes, entirely of silk, diapered, interwoven,
and perhaps embroidered in gold or silver. The word
diaper came from Constantinople, and the word damask from
Damascus, but both are applied to certain classes of Japanese
fabrics. I said that gold and silver were interwoven in the
loom, and the early process consisted in covering the threads
COURT ROBE OF THE HOGO. I4TH CENTURY.
of silk with long narrow strips of foil ;

and
later, fine gold
silver wirewere used in the same way. The kimonos were
decorated with woven designs, sometimes regular, even
geometric in pattern, sometimes with the blazons of the
feudal princes, with palmettes or sprays of flowers upon a
plain or ornamented and coloured ground.
During the fourteenth century the decoration was severe

to simplicity, but from the fifteenth century onwards, the
style became more florid, arabesques and branches of large
flowers were in favour, but all of these bore evidences of the
influence of Chinese art. However, in the sixteenth century,
the freedom from foreign influence became as marked in the
textile art as it was in all of the others beautiful coloured
;
and ornamented grounds carried decoration which was purely

Japanese arms of the Emperor, of the Shogun, and of the
feudal Princes, for the nobles flowers and diapers of all
;
kinds, for their ladies. Yet the seventeenth century was

noted for greater display. All the arts, under the protection
of the Tokugawa Shoguns, enjoyed the blessings of peace.
Kano Tannyu and his brother Naonobu, Kano Tsunenobu
and Sotatsu, Kano Toun and Kano Yasunobu, revelled in
the painting after their own style the Kano school and
they were designers, too ; but the Tosa school, with Tosa
Mitsunari and Tosa Mitsuoki, rivalled its great opponent.
The action of the patrons, the elevation of the art of these
schools reacted upon the textile art, though Ogata Korin
confined his attention to lacquer, and the pioneers of the
Ukiyo-ye school, Matabei and Hishikawa Moronobu, were
more concerned in developing the principles and unfolding
the beauties of scenes from daily life, as their exclusive
province.
The
next, the eighteenth, century gave full play to the
genius of the popular school, except that they had no in-
fluence at the Court of the Emperor or of the Shogun, both
of whom were devoted to their own schools, the classic Tosa
and Kano. Kano Yousen, amongst others, furnished designs
for robes, as did Sukenobu, Goshin, Toyokuni, and Hokusai,
inside the limit stated. In studying the contemporary
pictures of this age it is impossible to overestimate the fancy,
the richness, and even the elegance shown in the costumes
of the women, in which the kimonos and the obis vie each
with the other in the display of elaborate design and brilliant
colouring.
It should be recorded that silk was the stuff most used in
China for ages, when the Western world used wool and flax
and cotton, though these were mixed with gold and silver
thread, and all of them were dyed so that coloured cotton,
linen, and wool were embroidered and ornamented with
other designs. It was during the dark ages that the Emperor
Justinian, 485-565, by a successful stratagem, and by the
aid of two pilgrim monks, secured silk-worms from China,
which they had hidden in their bamboo staffs, and brought
A FUKUSA WITH A DESIGN OF CARP IN THE WAVES.
to Byzantium. From that event dated the silk manufac-

ture of Europe, before which time silk had been imported
"
from China, at the current rate of exchange, a pound of
gold for a pound of silk."
Both China and Japan exported silks to Europe by the
Company ships of Portugal, Holland, and England, and

amongst them were costumes of all kinds such as are dear
to the heart of the collector, though fine antique robes, etc.,
are rare. Costumes of extraordinary beauty were worn by

the Kuge, Daimios, actors, and No dancers, and by the
courtiers. Magnificent kimonos, obis, priests' cloaks (koroma),
kamishimo, hirao, etc., were made in silk, satin, and brocade.
Embroidered silk covers included a whole series of those
fukusas, or covers wrapped around offerings, in gold brocade,
tapestry, and embroidery of unique and beautiful designs ;
then there were velvet and silk pictures in embroidered

panels, kakemonos of stamped velvet, and even silk, em-
broidery, and gold and silver brocade, made in rolls measuring
about 20 yards long. The Kuge was a Court noble, a lord
having high rank, but no land or power, a follower of the
Emperor, and therefore opposed to, and by, the Daimio,
who served the Shogun.
The actor's robes were ornamented with pictures, and
just now I noted the influence of the artists of the Ukiyo-ye
school, which was displayed, in a striking, but somewhat
coarser form, upon the designs for the theatre, which had to
be seen from a distance by the audience. Landscapes and
rivers, animals of all sorts, fishes and shell-fish, gigantic
spiders, ducks swimming in a stream, flights of birds, and
clouds of insects, sunsets, ice and snow scenes, and all the
flowers of Nippon, were displayed in fantastic, capricious,
but impressive colouring, which was designed for effect.
These garments were often made in cotton or other cheap
material, covered with a figured pattern, and similar cheap
kimonos and obis, designed by artists such as Kunisada were
worn by the women of the Yoshiwara. Cotton robes were,
of course, worn by the working people, and these were gener-
ally of a neuter tone, having none of the character which the
later artistsgave to the garments of the tall, graceful figures
so constantly represented in the Ukiyo-ye paintings and
colour-prints. On the one side are these cheap, but striking
dresses on the other are those which are more elegant, more
;
rare, and very costly the ancient Court dresses, the hiraos,
hanging belts, the famous No drama robes, the long-sleeved,
fine old kimonos, and the fukusas.
In no single object is the art of the weaver and embroiderer
more delightfully shown than in the fukusas, the squares of
brocade, more or less richly ornamented according to the

rank of the owner, which have a special use already indicated
"
by the words covers wrapped around offerings." When a
man wished to make a present it was carefully enveloped in
a fukusa, and forwarded by a messenger, who carried also
A FUKUSA WITH A DESIGN SHOWING THE SUN SETTING

BEHIND A PINE FOREST.
a letter in a small lacquer box. The fukusa was returned to

the sender as an acknowledgment of the receipt of the pre-
sent. This has been said elsewhere, but the repetition will
do no harm. In the old Chinese pictures the present wrapped
in its fukusa be often noticed, and in the hands of many
may
of the old porcelain figures they form a problem unless you
know that the present is enclosed in the fukusa. Really,

this fukusa is a silk picture,with wonderful gradations of
colour embroidered upon a gold ground, it may be, or a
coloured one. But, although I can give some specimens of
the designs, these do not even suggest the colouring, the
realism of the birds and the flowers, the reflections of light
upon their surfaces, the shining of the scales of the carp in
ENGLISH TEXTILE DESIGN FROM THE JAPANESE. LATE

IQTH CENTURY.
the water, work of the weaver a textile fabric with all the
detail of an embroidery done by an artist upon a frame or a
tambour. Some day these fukusas will be justly esteemed,
not only for the essentially Japanese design so delicately,
so skilfully, executed, but for their charming coloured grounds,
which display the rarest tints, for which I have no names.
Rose and shades of green, yellow, dead-leaf, cream-white,
silver-grey, are only indications of a list that could be copied
from an encyclopaedia ; but I must leave them to the imagi-
nation.
The finest of these works date from the eighteenth century,
but the later nineteenth-century examples are often admir-
able. They resemble the Chinese K'o ssu pictures made of
woven silk. Some say they are intended for the decoration
of the reception-room, but no provision is made for hanging
EMBROIDERED FUKUSA, A CRANE FLYING ABOVE A PINE

UPON WHICH MANY BIRDS ARE PERCHING.
them, and in Japan the furniture was scanty the general

attitude of kneeling or sitting upon the floor made large
tables unnecessary. They were not hung upon the walls,
nor laid upon the tables, but they might have been shown
in the biyobus, the screens having two, three, or more folds.
But why speculate ? They are fttkusas which deserve to
rank with the Gobelins tapestry. Under the guidance of
Louis XIII., the Royal factory commenced its career at

La Savonnerie; under Louis XIV. it was removed to the
place consecrated by time, where the famous dyers
named
Gobelins had exercised their profession.
Japanese tapestry must be added to brocade and em-
broidery, and this, in its method of careful and artistic treat-
ment, approaches the very
stitch, le point, of
veritable
Gobelins. Tapestry is a sort
of link between weaving and
embroidery though wrought
;
in a loom, and upon a warp

stretched out along its frame,
it has no woof thrown across
those vertical threads by a

shuttle or any such thing,
but the weft is done with
many short threads, all var-
iously coloured, and put in
by a needle or knotted with
the fingers. It is not em-
broidery, though so very like
it; embroidery is worked in
a frame, upon a web, having
both warp and woof ; tapestry
is worked upon a series of
closely set fine strings. When

did theJapanese begin to
make tapestry ? This is a
TAPESTRY PANEL WITH A GOLD
question which is the more GROUND.
difficult to answer because
the Japanese say that their tapestry had a Chinese origin.
We know that the Chinese borrowed the art from Western
Asia, where the designs, even now, show no Chinese influence.
Tapestry in Japan made at Kyoto, towards the end of the
sixteenth century, was exceedingly restricted in its output,
but the pieces that are known are marked with the native
decoration, with no sign of outside influence. It is possible
II
that the Portuguese merchants, about 1540, may have
brought some specimens of European tapestry, or the Dutch
later. In any case, whilst the Japanese specimens are
entirely delicate and charming in their colouring, they are
almost as uncommon as carpets, and these can scarcely vie
with the famous silk carpets of Persia, India, and Turkey,
or even with those of Yarkand and Manchuria, which pro-
duced the best Chinese carpets.
I may note that amongst the fabrics in the retrospective
section of the Japan-British Exhibition there was not one

piece of tapestry, which shows how rare it was.
All of these wonderful textile fabrics must be prized for
their intrinsic beauty. They owe much to the designer,
whose signature only rarely appears upon this kind of work.
The craftsmen belonged to the artisan class, and just as
their brothers in the other arts displayed the highest skill,
so these, working on a pittance, wrought marvels in weav-
ing, embroidery, and tapestry, which will endure as silent
memorials of manual dexterity beyond compare, of patience
beyond belief, andof devotion as singular as it was altogether
admirable. A purely utilitarian age offers small compensa-
tion for the lost arts which reached perfection when men
hastened slowly.
CHAPTER XII
WOMEN'S FASHIONS AND MEN'S ARMOUR

you have opportunities to handle and study colour-
IF prints, to compare one artist's work with another's,
you will provide most interesting object-lessons for yourself.

Let us take one by comparing the prints of Harunobu (1703-
1770) and Toyonobu (1710-1785) on the one hand, with
those of Utamaro (1754-1806) and Toyokuni (1774-1835)
on the other. We will confine our attention to one subject,
the lady in the picture. The four artists resembled each
other, and painters resembled them in some respects.
all figure
Their celebrated beauties are seemingly alike in the face ; the

later artists gave no added charm by putting what we should
call expressions of love, hate, or fear upon the universally
oval faces, which show two slits, wide apart, for eyes, " the
almond eyes," two black curves high up on the forehead,
not eyebrows really they had been shaved off but imitation
eyebrows, a long nose, which, however, is slightly more
aquiline in the early pictures, and tiny lips, again with a
slight difference inform but, as I said, apparently alike,
;
even to the form of the face. In their robes some differences

appear, which should be studied they cannot be explained
;
except by saying that the set or fit at the neck is different,

early robes being closer.
Now we find differences much more marked if we compare
the arrangement of the hair. The early coiffure shows a
frame which curves from the ears backwards in CO form, and
the front arranged in three ondules on each side of the
is
brow. The arrangement has a frame with two wings,

later
between which the hair pulled from the forehead passes in
219
a band under a comb or fillet, and the back hair appears
flat
likea chignon on a pad or frame. Such a difference might

have marked a change of fashion, as it does a period of time.
Something more is said about the hair a little later in this
chapter. A glance at this difference will distinguish between
Harunobu and his contemporaries, and Utamaro and those
who lived about when he
Again, Harunobu approached
did.
the classic Chinese style women, full of charm, have
his
somewhat short, rounded figures; Utamaro, Toyokuni, and
others reveal a different type tall women, full of grace and
abandon less severity, less purity, but more delicacy in
;
design, exquisite lines, and skilful composition. Harunobu's

colour-prints are highly appreciated by collectors, and the
best of Utamaro's are almost as costly. But we will now
leave comparisons, and the suggestions they offer, to con-
sider more closely the woman and her adornment, and the
man and his work, the woman at home, the soldier and his
Daimio.
Before describing the actual dress of the women, I am
using two opinions to correct some errors which have accom-
panied the adoption of the kimono as a woman's gown in
England, and France especially.
Mr. Ponting, in his book, has criticised the western Woman's
use of the kimono, as follows :
"
No womanhood is more misunderstood,
class of Japanese
by foreigners, than the geisha. The geisha has no prototype
in Europe she is unique a purely Japanese creation. To
;
mention the name geisha amongst English people unversed

in matters is to cause uneasy looks and suggestive
Japanese
smiles. Why the geisha should be so misapprehended is
difficult to tell. I have often wondered, too, why it is that
when European ladies wear Japanese clothes, or array them-
Japanese geishas,' they invariably make the most

'
selves as
glaring errors wear elaborately embroidered kimonos, stick
many long pins in their hair, tie their sashes in front, and, in
short, make themselves resemble neither geishas nor ladies,
but public women of the yoshiwara. Neither Japanese ladies
nor geisha wear embroidered kimonos ; they never wear a
WOMEN'S FASHIONS AND MEN'S ARMOUR 221
halo of long pins in their hair, nor do they tie their sashes in
front. These things are the badges of prostitution."
A clever Japanese actress visiting England in 1910, Mrs.
Hanako, has also criticised the Englishwoman's use of the
same garment.
"
In a strange country, or a country new to me," she said,
"
should not, perhaps, be surprised at surprises. But
I
there is one thing in particular that I cannot help expressing
my astonishment with. In my Continental travels, and in
my stay in England, I have observed that ladies have a fancy
for wearing our kimono as a dressing-gown I wonder what
!
they would say if they went over to Japan and found some
of my
countrywomen leaving their morning bath, or taking
meal of the day, in English ball-dresses or after-
their first
noon gowns I think they would say, or at least get the
!
impression, that the Japanese ladies were quite mad !
"
And if English and French ladies must wear the kimono
"
for a dressing-gown," continued the Japanese actress, why
don't they have it made to fasten as we fasten it ? It should
lap over from left to right, not, as is the case with your women-
folk, from right to left. When a Japanese lady walks, her
draperies must fall from left to right. The ladies of Europe
do not know this. If they delight to wear the dress of Japan
they should delight to wear it properly, or there is neither

sense nor compliment in the fashion. If they do not know
how the kimono ought to be made, surely your manufac-
turers might be expected to have some knowledge of the
dress.
"
In Japan, the older a woman gets, the smaller are made
the sleeves of her kimono. I have not noticed any small
sleeves on the kimonos worn by English ladies, however old
they have been! But Japanese ladies are proud of their
age ; they never want to shorten it by a single month."
The fact is that English admiration of Japanese fashions
is not accompanied by such knowledge as would make those
fashions properly applicable. A lady in Japan had her

stipulated dress which no other class could use. But in
copying the kimonos and the obis, which are pictured upon
a colour-print, the easiest mistake in the world is to believe
that fine feathers make fine birds. The gorgeous robes of
Yoshiwara beauties, as they are called, simply advertise their
connection with institutions under state control and medical
supervision which were frequented by many painters of
the Ukiyo-ye school, whose standard of morals cannot be
properly judged by outsiders holding divergent views of
morality.
In dress, variations of material and fashion marked rank
and wealth for men and women, but in these modern days
such distinctions are passing, if they have not all gone. The
chief, sometimes the only, robe is the kimono, so well-known
in the West, resembling our dressing-gown in opening down
the front and leaving the neck exposed. Around the waist
a sash (obi) is worn, which may be elaborate in a certain
class of ladies' dresses, of which it forms the chief ornament,
being wound round the body and tied behind, or in front,

in a large butterfly bow with long streamers. The wide
sleeves of the kimono form the receptacles for paper-handker-
chiefs and trifles of all kinds, and the train of the ceremonial
dress of the ladies may be some feet in length. The material
varies with the season, in those classes which can afford
heavy silk for winter instead of the usual cotton but all ;
classes in the cold season wear pantaloons and stockings.

The head-dress of the women is an elaborate coiffure which
necessitates the hard pillow to avoid disorder ; if it is a work
of art to dress the hair in the modern fashion in the West ,
the Yoshiwara beauty must devote a large part of each day

to secure the perfect shape, which is maintained by a large
rounded comb in front, and by a number of long pins, all
serving to secure the hair on the frame which forms the
foundation for its conventional shape. Indoors the comb
and some of the pins can be removed, and the hair tied with
a ribbon fillet. It may be mentioned that these combs and
pins have often a high value because of the fine workmanship
which distinguishes the lacquer, the ivory, etc., of which
they are made.
Head-coverings are not usually worn a kind of paper
223
square cap is used to prevent the wind from interfering with

locks that might stray if exposed to its force, and the mush-
room rice-straw hat for rainy weather, in which case a hood
or handkerchief Western shape may be wrapped round the
head under the umbrella. Clogs, or pattens, of Kiri wood,
held fastby a strap over the foot round the big toe, are fre-
quently shown in scenes of storm and rain, but the common
footwear is a waraji or sandal of rice-straw which must be
removed on entering a house, though it may be only a shop.
Rice for food, rice-straw for hats, rain-coats, and sandals,
rice in sake for strong drink so much does the ordinary
peasant in his blue cotton kimono , and his wife in a similar
dress, with a red obi, owe the rice-plant. The tilling of the
rice occupies a considerable share in the world of Japanese
art, and though the aroma arising

in the processes is disagree-
able, the farmer takes no small pleasure in viewing the rice-

and still more in a plentiful harvest.
fields,
Fans played an important part in the daily life of the
Japanese, serving a multiplicity of purposes. The farmer

winnowed his corn with a fan, and the smith blew his fire.
The general directed his soldiers with a fan, and they used
them sometimes as weapons, or shields, which bore the
blazon of the feudal prince, which was repeated on the
mushroom-shaped helmets and upon the backs of the armour.
The standard of lyeyasu at the siege of Osaka in 1615 was
a fan.
Emperor and Empress, Shogun and Daimio, Kuge, Samurai,
all classes carried fans not always in evidence, sometimes
reposing in the pocket-sleeve of the kimono or robe. Great
painters decorated them for their patrons. Before me lies
a print, by Kiyomitsu and Kiyosune, of a painter painting
a fan, a folding paper-fan, which in its inception was Japanese ;
the round-leaf and fiddle-shape fans came from China through

Korea.
How vast was the difference between the common fans
used in hot weather, or in cold when the fire in the hibachi
needed attention, and the fans of ceremony Upon the
!
ivory-tinted paper surface of these were displayed the paintings

of artists such as Korin,Kenzan, Kano Masanobu, Motonobu,
and others, in scenes historical or poetical,
perhaps with
portraits of the heroes of the past. Fans were regulated by
laws they differed according to social position. The philo-
;
sopher carried a sober fan of plain material, mounted on

delicate ribs of cedar or pine, uncoloured. The geisha in
her graceful rhythmic posturing, made full play with a showy
fan with rich gold or vermilion ground decorated with a
bold design of flowers or birds, a profuse fluttering, like a
butterfly settling upon a flower. Then she presented the
fan to the friend she most admired. What a contrast to its
ceremonial use by the priests and the No dancers !
The use of the fan in every-day life was peculiarly charming.

When a gentleman visited another, he made his first salutation
on his knees, with his fan on the floor in front of him. Then
he placed his present upon the half-opened fan, having first
ceremoniously wrapped it up and tied it with emblematical
threads. Holding the fan forward, he presented it to his
host or hostess, who took the offering.
In the illustration, fans of various forms are shown, and a
girl with a box containing fans which could be attached to
the mounts. Many of the folding- fans could in this way be
utilised upon the same mount, and varied according to the
season or the ceremony, and so on, through numerous pretty
but declining customs, which were singularly appropriate
to the genius of the Japanese.
The display of dress by the womankind of Japan, with
kimonos and obis of brilliant pattern, or in softer tones of
embroidered silk, paled before the war panoply of the Samurai
headed by the Daimios, the feudal princes whose large
revenues supported palaces and armies, whose ceremonies,
so often depicted, whose almost royal progresses and reciprocal
visits, and whose patronage of the arts, alike caused them to
be regarded by their followers with a loyalty that death
itself could not conquer, by their artists with a devotion
which found constant outlet in works worthy of high praise.
The artistwas often a noble, but a poor one, and the patronage
of a prince was to him very good, for it meant life and some
honour, congenial work that might, perhaps, attract the great

Shogun himself. When the Shogun, after the civil wars
of the tenth and eleventh centuries, practically became the
supreme ruler, many noble families lost their possessions
with their power, and the ruling class, the military, attached
to itself the civil power from 1192 to 1868.
From this aggrandisement sprang the soldiers, the fighting
men, the Samurai who did no other work. They were
ready to fight and ready to die, but they could not engage
in business ; they gloried in their armour, helmet, and coat
of mail, they gloried in the privilege of wearing two swords,
they were, in fact, magnificent fellows, but very idle. During
long centuries taxation supported them and their masters
the Daimios and if the latter sustained large companies
of bow-men and spear-men, banner-bearers, and a few horse-
men, they also did what was better, they encouraged the
literature and art of the country and spurred them on. The
great art progress under the Ashikagas and under the Toku-
gawas showed the effect of the protection of the Shoguns,
if we except the period covered by the nengo of the
whilst,
Emperor Genroku (1688-1704), there appear but few of the
Emperors whose influence was distinctly exerted in favour
of that progress.Yet all the time the active principle in the
Mikado was only dormant the awakening came in 1867 ;
henceforth the Shogun disappeared, though the Princes of

the Tokugawa family became leaders of the Peers.
For the swords and helmets of the soldiers how many
devoted craftsmen hammered at the forge until the bright
blade, the splendid helmet, and the curious armour grew
under their hands ? how many more damascened the blade
and its accessories, incrusted and inlaid the helmet, and
produced an accoutrement which, though cumbrous, was

in active service at a period much later than our Middle
Ages, as late, in fact, as about 1853, when foreigners were

allowed to trade with Japan ? Even in 1860 the Japanese
percussion light muskets were so badly made that, on trying
"
the locks, Sir Hope Grant found that many of them would
1 '
scarcely go off.
CHAPTER XIII
THE HOMES, THE TEA CEREMONIES, AND

THE TEMPLES
houses built by the Japanese appear to be more or
THE less flimsy structures,and quite unsubstantial from
our point of view, but the earthquakes which trouble them
are responsible for this. Built of wood and resting upon
foundations of unhewn stone, they are particularly liable to
destruction by fire ; and the use of oil-lamps for candles has
considerably increased this danger. The worst side faces

the street ; the other opens upon a garden whose size is largely
dependent upon its position. The walls, usually untouched,
as they came from the hands of the carpenter, are permanent
on two sides the others are formed of shutters, or movable
;
partitions, which, facing the outside (shoji), are covered with

white paper. Two or more stories may be built, and a balcony
or engawa may give a wider outlook upon the world around.
No chimney deforms the roof, which is either tiled, shingled,
or thatched.
Inside, the rooms are divided by movable partitions, so
as to accommodate a certain number of regulation mats,
6 feet by 3 feet, which cover the floor. The rooms are oblong
in shape, and have norecesses, except the chief room, which
has two the toko-noma, where the kakemonos are displayed,
just two or three at a time, being removed to a cupboard at
the side, from which others are taken in turn, according to
the season or the ceremony. The other recess, raised, like the
first above the floor-level, is the chigai-dana, in the top of
which are numerous drawers and shelves, having below a

cupboard for the bedding. Upon the platform of the toko-
228
S29
noma is the altar, upon which are vases with flowers, incense-
burner, a figure of the household god, etc. These are clearly
shown in the illustration of a Japanese marriage.
Access is given to the rooms above by means of steps which
can be scarcely dignified by the name of a staircase. The
upper rooms have movable partitions, too, so that when
they are removed they form a kind of gallery to the main
room. These inner screens are of thicker paper, often decor-
ated with paintings, but on the verandah (engawa), wooden
screens called amado are placed at night and in the rainy
season. Beside the main, or guest-room, a special and
separated chamber is usually set aside for the tea ceremony,
and this, like the go-down, which is a storehouse for valuables,
may be a pavilion in the garden. In this matter and in
the general equipment of the house and its contents, of the
garden and its floral decoration, much depends upon the
wealth and inclination of the householder, though in these
latter days the ceremonies have Jost much of their eclat,
and they will soon be altogether discontinued.
Tea came from China early in the ninth century, and six
centuries later, under the influence of the Shogun Yosimasa,
rules were adopted to regulate the observance of the cha-no-yu,
or tea ceremony, which had a great influence on Japanese
art, because the members who formed the highest circles, the
chajins, were the cognoscenti who criticised both artist and
author, judging them according to certain standards which were
fixed and only liable to slow change as time went on. We
find that the Tosa school, the great Imperial academy, from
the severity of the religious and classical style, only degenerated
to the painting of flowers and birds about the beginning of
the eighteenth century, and that the great Shogunal school
of Kano always maintained its military and historical classica 1
style,notwithstanding the popularity of the more modern

and independent painters. It was the authority of the
cha-no-yu circle, or club or association, which maintained
such standards over so long a period, not alone over painting,
but the other fine arts.
A description of this ancient ceremonial will introduce
THE HOMES, TEA CEREMONIES, AND TEMPLES 231
many which were of the rarest and most valuable

articles
kind. Their owners delighted to trace the origin, age, and
history of these utensils a single tea-bowl, old, and from a
noted pottery, would be worth hundreds of pounds, and
CARVED FIGURE OF A CHAJIN, IN WOOD.
before the last act in the ceremony, when the host washed
the utensils, the bowl, from which all drank in rotation,
made a special journey round the circle, so that each one
could admire it. The guests forming the circle, an exclusive
one, assembled either in the morning early, at four to six, or in
the evening at six o'clock if in summer, in the garden strewn
;
with fir-branches, and retained their shoes if in winter, in

:
the house, and discarded them The strictest rules of etiquette

.
marked every stage in the proceedings, from the

entrance,
where the host knelt to receive the guests, who crawled into
the room before him, to the conclusion.
After seeing them seated in a semi-circle he gave the
formal salutation, and brought in a basket (sumi-tori) con-
taining the prescribed pieces of charcoal, a brush (mitsu-ba)
made of three feathers, a pair of tongs (hibashi), the stand for
the kettle (kama-shiki) , iron handles for it, too, a lacquer
box containing incense (kobako), and some paper following ;
these, a vessel with ashes (hai-ki), and its spoon. Then he

made up the fire and burned incense to overcome the fumes
of the charcoal pastilles in winter, chips from the santalum
album or sandal-wood-tree in summer. Meanwhile the
incense-box was, by permission, passed from hand to hand
for examination. The tea-bowl, we have noticed, was a rare
one the kobako, beyond price, disputed with it the place of
;
honour. After it had been returned by the last guest to

his host, the first act closed, everybody withdrew.
The second part commenced with eating, and, as it was a
rule that nothing should be left, the guests carried off, wrapped
up in paper, any fragments that remained. The utensils used

in this part of the ceremony were as follows :
1. An iron kettle (kama) with a

copper or iron lid, resting
on a stand (kama-shiki).
2. A table or stand (daisu), of mulberry wood, two feet
high.
3. Two tea-jars (chaire) containing the fine powdered tea,
and enclosed in bags of brocade.
4. A vessel containing fresh water (mizu-sachi) , which is
placed under the daisu.

5. A
tea-bowl of porcelain or earthenware (chawan, or,
when of large size, temmoku), simple in form, but remarkable
for its antiquity or historical associations.
Besides these, there are a bamboo whisk (chaseu) a silk ;
cloth (fukusa), usually purple, for wiping the utensils ; a

233
spoon (chashaka), to take the tea out of the chaire and a;
water ladle (shaku). All these objects were brought in singly

by the host in their prescribed order.
After solemn salutations and obeisances the utensils were
wiped and some of the powdered tea was placed in the tea-
bowl, hot water poured on it, and the whole vigorously stirred
with the whisk until it looked like thin spinach ; a boy then
carried the bowl to the chief guest, from whom it passed
round the party to the last, who returned it empty to the boy.
Amongst those treasures connected with this tea ceremony,
the chawan and chaire supply some of the masterpieces of
the potters of Japan, the gifts of princes, not purchasable
in the market. These pieces have received but little apprecia-
tion from the Western world, but at home they have always
been highly treasured and carefully preserved by their proud
possessors in brocade bags of extreme antiquity and beauty.
Clothed in this tunic, the tea-bowl, or jar, was securely enclosed
in a separate box, only to be produced on special feasts, always
to be handled with reverent care.
The burning of incense, whether in connection with the
tea ceremony, the incense game a popular amusement in
polite circles or for other purposes, also brought into use
certain utensils often fashioned in pottery by the best makers.
Scent-boxes (kogo), in which little tablets of incense were
kept, braziers (koro), in which they were burned, and clove
boilers (choji-buro), vessels in which cloves were boiled to
give an aromatic odour to a room, are the forms usually met

with ;
and these often present such ingenuity of idea in their
construction and decoration as to render them scarcely, if
at all, inferior in interest to the tea- jars and tea-bowls. And
it must be remembered that very few treasures were exposed
to view in the home, two or three kakemonos, a hachirakaki
or two, gave all the pictorial embellishment, the other articles,
vases, makemonos, kakemonos, lacquer and bronze, were
carefully packed away in the chigai-dana, a cupboard under
which the bedding was stowed.
The celebrated Hideyoshi, viceroy and general, whose
magnificent castle of Momoyama gave its name to a period
in the history of the Kano school of painting, before he died
at the age of over three-score years, had appointed an officer
named Kikiu to revise the regulations of the tea ceremony,
and, subject to what I have said earlier in this chapter, the
revised code still applies to the different methods of carrying
out the ceremony, which, like religion, had its sects, of whom
the chief were the Senke", Enshu, Matsu-o, Yabu-no-uchi, and
Orib6. These used powdered tea stirred with a whisk in
boiling water, and drank it strong and thick from one bowl ;
VIEWING THE CHERRY-BLOSSOM. A PICNIC PARTY.
but the less ceremonious drinkers of weak tea, Usa-cha y had

each for himself a separate brew in a common bowl which was
washed before use.
The same vice-regal commander- in-chief, or Sei Tai Shogun,
Hideyoshi, greatly encouraged the manufacture of tea-bowls
(chawan), especially those made by a Korean named Chojiro,
at Juraku in Kyoto, about A.D. 1566. Ameya, Chojiro's
father, a potter, settled there, and to his son the Shogun
gave a gold seal having the engraved character Raku, meaning
"
enjoyment," which was impressed upon the coarse yellow
12
ware covered with a gritty glaze and made entirely by hand.
Raku tea-bowls were held in high favour by the cha-jin.
Further reference will be found to this family in its relation
to pottery, but there were other reasons for the popularity
of such tea-bowls in addition to their artistic appearance.
The tea -drinkers had to hold and pass the bowl, the irre-
gularities of its surface were helpful in obtaining a firm grasp ;

they liked their tea hot, the thickness of the clay kept it
hot without hurting their fingers, and so on. The Victoria
and Albert Museum possesses a number of tea-bowls, some
of them by great potters, but the special point to which I
wish to draw attention is that the tea ceremony was appar-
ently the great social function, which influenced the art of
the country for good, as, indeed, it affected the moral, for
three subjects were banned, three subjects, indeed, that
could be often with advantage spared from our own social
circles politics, scandal, and flattery !
"
Like Tennyson's " Lotus-eaters, one thinks of the guests
of the cha-no-yu :
"
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land ;far off a mountain-top,
A silent pinnacle of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd and dew'd with showery drop."
Though this social life was a ceremonial, more or less solemn,

the religious ceremonies of the Buddhist temples were grander.
I must say something about the temples.
The architecture of Japan, one of its most distinctive and
important arts, deserves much fuller treatment than can be
given here Those who studied the models of the old buildings
.
exhibited at the White City must have admired the triumphs

of the carpenter, for wood is almost exclusively used for all
buildings, ranging from the humblest to the grandest temples ;
and houses, theatres and palaces, have no other support than

pillars of wood, wonderfully decorated in the temples and
palaces. The beams supported by the pillars are in those
buildings carved with marvellous skill after designs furnished
by the great artists. This you have already seen.
TOYOKUNI. A TRIPTYCH.
VISIT OF A NOBLE LADY, BY TOYOKUNI. A TRIPTYCH.
**..',
YEISHI. A TRIPTYCH.
237
Some of the temples form an immense assemblage of

pavilions and pagodas accessory to the main temple, and
in the courts, where many stone or even bronze lanterns are
found, there are cisterns or wells covered with elaborate

roofs supported on pillars, whilst outside, at the entrance
of the avenues leading to the temple, are the tori, or
gateways, composed of two beams inclining upwards, and
supporting a transverse horizontal beam curved upwards at
the ends.
Uponthe temple doors carved panels and friezes of extra-
ordinary beauty display the richest fancy the roofs, orna-
;
mented with and with borders of wood covered

ridge-tiles
with tiles in pottery or bronze, rest upon beams where the
projecting timber- work is a veritable maze of joints and
mouldings whilst inside the building the ceiling is as remark-
;
able as an evidence of the carpenters' skill. The fir-trees

which covered the mountains of Japan furnished the material
for the building upon their colossal forms the old artisans
;
worked their will, and from the far-off ages their master-
pieces have lasted to the present day. The models referred
to above represented temples, pavilions, and pagodas, dating
from the seventh century onwards.
Elsewhere a distinction is drawn between the Shinto and
Buddhist worship. In the temple-construction the difference
between the two religions is evident at a glance, for the
Buddhist temple is as elaborate as its ritual, and the Shinto
temple as simple as its worship. The miya indicates the
precincts enclosing the plain, straight-roofed, wood-tiled Shinto
temple, and the word tera is applied to what we might term
the enclosure, occupied by gardens and numerous buildings
allied to the chief temple though not necessarily joined to it.
I read the other day that the pupils of a Japanese school
thought nothing of going a hundred or a hundred and fifty
miles to see the famous mountain, Fujiyama, and that they
slept at night in the Buddhist temples, which seemed rather
an unusual use for a temple.
It was at Nara, the old capital of Nippon, that the temple
of Horuji was built in the seventh century, and in that
city remain many temples of more recent times, such as the
Toshodai-ji of the twelfth century, and the Todai-ji of the
same period. Then come some of the temples of Kyoto,
where amongst the temple buildings may be found the
Kinkaku, or Golden Pavilion, built for a Shogun's villa;
the Hiunkaku, one of the buildings of the Taiko's palace at
Momoyama and the gateway of Daitoku-ji temple, which
;
was brought from the same palace. The temples and palaces
were elaborate.
The graceful pagodas, several stages high, are amongst the
most distinctive of the Buddhist buildings. Though they
resemble the Chinese pagodas in form, some of them are in
red lacquer, and when seen on a background of emerald green
foliage softened by the mist, they form very striking and
beautiful elements in the landscape.
Other buildings are much more simple, even the theatres
resemble the ordinary houses, always in natural wood of a
neuter tone, in contrast to the Buddhist temples painted in
vermilion and ornamented with carvings which are often
coloured. The homes of the rich and poor are built on the
same plan, the roof being the chief part. This in the
country may be of straw or bamboo in the town it is of
;
tiles.
Square joists are set up in the earth at a certain distance

from each other, and about three feet inside these a second
rank of joists. The space between forms the verandah, or
engawa, which usually surrounds the house. Between the
joists in the second rank the sashes are fitted and covered
with paper. These run in grooves, and by similar means
the interior of the home may be divided into chambers.
The wood. They are built on piles,
bridges, too, are of
square joists again, driven into the soil beneath the water.
The framework is covered with planks and the sides protected
with rails. Sometimes they are extremely long.
The ceremonial arrangement of flowers, so frequently used
in all branches of Japanese art, had a religious origin dating
back to its introduction in the sixth century by the Buddhist
priests. Having regard to the extravagant praise bestowed
" "
upon the flowers of Japan and the viewing as a favourite
pastime of its people, the last part of this chapter contains
a criticism written at Kyoto in 1910 by an English visitor
who believed that the panegyrics had been overdone. Mean-
A PRINCESS VIEWING THE PLUM-PLOSSOM, AFTER YOSAI.
while, let us consider those scenes which painters and poets

have so ardently, so repeatedly, depicted.
Before the winter snows have altogether vanished, the
groves and avenues of plum-trees, planted in rural spots
not far from the madding cities, are thronged with admiring
crowds, who flock to view the pretty red and greenish- white
blossoms, the emblems of the coming spring :
" Lo! in the middle of the wood

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud."
There are as yet no leaves, and, soon for a short space, the
" "
paths are covered with pearly- white clouds of fallen
leaves the petals of the primus. The next tree that flowers,
the cherry, gives the signal for a short holiday cherry-
blossom is the popular national flower and fetes and merry-
makings rule the pleasant days. Other minor flower festivals
greet the wistaria, growing on other trees or trained upon
trellis-work overhead, the peony, which often grows to the
height of a tree, the many-coloured iris, the sacred lotus,
maintaining its pristine purity amid surrounding mud, and
in the autumn, the chrysanthemum emblem of imperial
power one of the crests of the Emperor. It forms the
chief attraction at the annual garden-party at his palace in
"
Tokyo, when the merits of each flower are discussed, Sky
at Dawn," "Moon's Halo," "Golden Dew," "Beacon Light,"
and many more with equally suggestive names.
A floral wealth ever changing is included in the decoration
of houses and temples according to rules which avoid some
flowers whilst using others. Vigorous growths with firm,
young branches mark the coming of age; red and white flowers,
but none of a drooping character, are used for weddings red
for the man, white for the woman. And so for other cele-
brations: farewell, old-age, and death, at the shrine, the
sick-bed, and, above all, at two functions the cha-no-yu,
or tea ceremony, and the flower reception.
By the cha-jin, or masters of this ceremony, who were the
arbiters of taste in the middle ages and after, the refined
and indeed subtle flower-groupings were based on laws of
composition. The literati, whose active service was finished,
devoted themselves to the execution of these laws, which
were perfectly arbitrary in their injunctions and prohibitions.
It will be found that the earlier systems of arrangement
43
allowed a greater crowding, a more miscellaneous choice, and
a characteristic formality which disappears in the later
period. It follows, then, that no painter or designer could
illustrate a composition later than their own time, and this
fact should be borne in mind.
The quaint forms and curious decoration of the vases,
flower-holders, and baskets for flowers may be seen in stone
and metal and pottery. The Chinese made precious vases
in jade and other hard stones the Japanese employed a
;
greater variety of material, and devoted themselves more to

form and design. Some flower-holders are specially adapted
for the display of water-plants, so as to expose a free space
of water. These are used in the warm season, when the
sight of cool water is of itself refreshing. Sometimes stems
of bamboo, of simple or fanciful form, are employed, without
any outer covering, and they are associated for use in the
home with quaint pieces of wood and bark, or even dried
gourds.
Emblems in trees, emblems in flowers The fir, the
!
" "
bamboo, and the plum are the three friends combined
to form an emblem of longevity as in China. The lotus
lily, upon whose broad thalamus the benign Buddha, seated,
softly smiles upon the world, is his emblem. The Imperial

badge, the chrysanthemum, was the Shinto emblem of the
" "
way of the gods," as opposed to the way of the Buddha."
Then there are the fabulous animals. The dragon (no)
rises amidst the clouds or from the sea with three claws
extended, instead of the five upon the Imperial dragon of
China. The Chinese feng huang becomes the ho-ho bird of
Japan, the phoenix, which in both countries is the emblem
of the Empress. The kirin, which, like the Chinese kilin,
represents a near approach to the unicorn, having the body
and hoofs of a deer, the tail of an ox, and a horn on its fore-
head, has a companion beast, the shishi (lion), called also the
dog of Buddha, shows curling tufts of hair round the neck
and on the limbs. The kame ) the sacred tortoise, emblem of
longevity, having a broad, hairy tail, and being sometimes
represented with three legs, is another of the mythical animals
immortalised in Oriental art. Yet these do not dim the
fame of the Japanese as disciples of nature-study. Perhaps
VIEWING THE CHERRY-BLOSSOM.
the flowers and the birds are better rendered than the animals,
yet the latter have a mythology of their own curious tales
;
are told of the foxes, which enter like evil spirits into possession
of the forms of beautiful women, with intention to lead men
on the wrong path, until some calm stream shows a reflection
VIEWING THE CHRYSANTHEMUM.
of their real nature, and the victims escape. Weare learning
something of Japanese myths, and long for more.

I set out below some criticisms, the first, written by a
traveller in. Japan, whose name was not given^ but whose
special article appeared in the Daily Chronicle, in June,

1910. His opinions differ from those which are usually
current, but it is always advantageous to see all round a
subject.
A LADY SEATED IN A NORIMONO UNDER THE CHERRY-BLOSSOM, PREPARING

TO SMOKE.
AFTER SUZUKI HARUNOBU.
"There is, save the temples and two or three palaces,

little external Japanese architecture worth detailed mention
the earthquakes and fires are partly responsible. The
existent and nascent efforts at new style are commonplace
French in character. The village scheme of structures is
drab and unimpressive. Most of the houses are built of
wood on the same pattern, as a rule, two storeyed, with roof
of thatch, tile, or galvanised iron. There is little note of
colour. Of the interiors it has been said that even the
humblest endeavours to create its corner of Paradise. This
is quite true, but while there is much attractiveness in detail,
there is little variety in general design. Nearly all Japanese

interiors have the same main scheme of construction and
ornamentation. I know it is a prevalent idea that Japan is
more or less a perennial feast of colour. It is nothing of the
kind. It has its flower seasons, but the cherry blossom only
lasts ten days at the most, and may be over in a third of the
period while the famous wistaria is only in its prime for a

;
fortnight at the outside. As to the other flowers, such as

the lotus and even the chrysanthemum, many countries can,
nowadays, make very fair comparison. The leafage is, it
isquite true, picturesque in autumn, but the tints are as
good in most other countries. India is incomparably richer
and wealthier in gorgeous colours. The birds and butterflies
are much brighter in the tropics, and the dress, particularly
of the is infinitely more picturesque in other sun
women,
countries, notably Burma. Indeed, the unrestrained eulogist
of the Mousme and Geisha has much to answer for."
Mr. Ponting (" In Lotus Land Japan ") describes a scene
:
" "
in more appreciative vein, a viewing in the temple park
" "
of Nara, The Heart of Old Japan :
"
Giant wistaria vines have crept to the very utmost
branches of the trees, and in May the tall cedars themselves
seem to burst forth into clusters of drooping purple blooms.
Through many an opening in the glorious arches overhead
the sun throws long shafts of light which touch the pendant
blossoms, and then, glancing downwards, melt moss and
gravel into golden pools, or, searching out some spot on the
brilliant lacquer, make it glow with ruddy fire as the great
orb himself glows at daybreak."
CHAPTER XIV
POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
seldom that the art of the potter, and still less of
is it
SO the Japanese potter, is sung by an occidental poet, that

"
I shall be forgiven if I quote Longfellow in Ke*ramos."
" Cradled and rocked in
Eastern seas,
The islands of the Japanese
Beneath me lie ; o'er lake and plain
The stork, the heron, and the crane
Through the clear realms of azure drift,
And on the hillside I can see
The villages of Imari,
Whose thronged and flaming workshops lift
Their twisted columns of smoke on high,
Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie,
With sunshine streaming through each rift,
And broken arches of blue sky.
" All the
bright flowers that fill the land,
Ripple of waves on rock or sand,
The snow on Fusiyama's cone.
The midnight heaven so thickly sown
With constellations of bright stars,
The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make
A whisper by each stream and lake,
The saffron dawn, the sunset red,
Are painted on those lovely jars ;
Again the skylark sings, again

The stork, the heron, and the crane
Float through the azure overhead,
The counterfeit and counterpart
Of Nature reproduced in Art."
The ceramic products of Old Japan are amongst its
249
most precious art, which has been held in such great
esteem that the enterprise of the European market has
largely failed to attract it from the Japanese experts,
though, singularly enough, skilful forgeries of old work, or
the dregs of the factories, or the poor wares specially made
for exportation, have a ready sale because they are cheap.
Yet they have no more relation to the finer specimens than
a common piece from a celebrated factory in England would
have to its costliest examples. The first place in the
making
ARCHAIC POTTERY RESEMBLING THAT OF THE HAN DYNASTY IN CHINA.
and decorating is easily taken by China, and

of porcelain
with regard to pottery. The Japanese
this is Japan's position
are the potters without rivals. Therefore it is to the pottery,
rather than to the porcelain, that attention must be directed
to discover the genius of the people whose picturesque con-
ception, call it fancy if you will, delighted in quaint forms
and in coloured enamels.
In both pottery and porcelain a multitude of objects were
produced vases, koros, dishes, tea- and water-kettles,
:
chaire, chawan, chatsubo, bowls, rouge and incense-boxes,

TEA BOWLS.
1. OTO WARE. IDSUMO. ASAKURA, RAKU WARE.
2. HAGI. ASAHI. SETO-SUKE.
3. KENZAN. 1
KARATSU. OKI.
4. ASH BOWL, YANAGAWA. GEMPIN. ASH BOWL, MINATO.
251
POTTERY AND PORCELAIN 253
sake-kettles, bottles and cups, figures and groups, figures of

animals, lanterns, hibachi, candlesticks, yatate sake
and
tea-sets, jars, scent-bottles (toyiburo), midzuire, cake-boxes,
sake-pots, ash-pots, teapots, teapoys (midzusachi), and many
more.
"
The " old Japan taste of our forefathers, the plates, jars,
and vases of Imari or Arita, in blue and white, or blue, red,
and gold, were of quite secondary importance in Japan,
which valued none of this so-called old Hizen. On the other
hand, tons of Satsuma ware reach England every year, yet
how few have seen a genuine specimen The national
!
products, the fine old pottery, not Satsuma alone, but Kyoto,
Bizen, and the special wares of celebrated potters, Nomura
Ninsei, Ogata Shinsho called Kenzan, Zengoro Hozen or
Yeiraku, and others, these are loved in Japan.
The tea ceremony (cha-no-yu) had an influence upon the
potter's art, but it was a conservative not progressive in-
fluence the leaders (the cha-jiri) delighted in old things, as
;
they followed old ways, but their utensils were simple, and
such as did not admit of an exuberance of artistic imagination.
Some slight repetition will not be amiss, it will be helpful.
The most important objects required were tea-jars (chaire),
in which powdered tea was kept, and tea-bowls (chawari),
in which it was mixed with hot water, and from which it
was drunk. Some of the most interesting not the most
florid work of the artist-potters was displayed upon such
pieces, which were highly treasured as the gifts of princes
to favoured friends, being preserved in brocade bags, and
carefully packed in small boxes, always handled with the
most loving care.
The burning of incense was another function which brought
into service certain utensils, fashioned in pottery by the
master-makers under the supervision of the princes, their
employers, who were the patrons of the potteries, and erected
many of the kilns, as will be seen later. Incense was used
in connection with the tea ceremony, and in the incense
game practised in the highest circles. Scent-boxes (kogo),

in which little tablets of incense were kept, small covered
vases on three or four feet with perforated covers
(koro), in
which these tablets were burned, and clove boilers
(choji-
buro) to scent the room when the water in them was boiled,
were objects of nearly as much value as the tea utensils.
The flowers of Japan are
more fully treated else-
where, but the flower- vases

for ceremonial bouquets
were of the most delightful
forms, upon which the de-
coration was applied so as
to contrast with, not to
rival, the beauty of the
floral arrangement. In a
recess of the living-room
(tokonoma) or suspended
from the ceiling or from a
post the flowers brightened
the daily life, but they were
far more extensively used
for ceremonies. In mar-
riages, for instance, there
was always the shimadai, a
stand on which pine, bam-
boo, plum, were displayed
with figures of the crane
and tortoise, emblematic of
virtue, happiness, and long
life.
Before treating of the

various potteries, which
were shortly described in
BOUQUET-HOLDER, UDZUME, BY OGATA
SHINSHO (KENZAN). my "Chats on Oriental
China," the pottery and
the porcelain may be compared in a few sentences. Suitable
clays for pottery were found in many parts of Japan, and
the famous makers with few, very few, exceptions used it
as the vehicle for expressing their genius, with no other tools
than the hands or modelling tools bamboo spatulae. The

finger and marks may frequently be traced, and in many
tool
old pieces certain parts were left free from the enamel coating,
exposing the baked clay on the bottom part, outside the
;
bo wls and jars made

for the tea ceremony,
this was usual. The
Raku tea-bowls were
fashioned of clay
which was soft and
tender, specially suited
as a poor conductor of
heat for the purpose
of holding in both
hands whilst drinking
the hot tea, and spe-
cially suited, too, be-
cause of the agreeable
touch to the lips. The
last point is often in-
sisted upon and re-
marked in Japanese
descriptions, but the
foreign collector has
only just begun to
show equal apprecia-
tion of these.
The pottery of Nip-
pon is referred by
Japanese historians to
a period about 660 B.C.,
FIGURE OF A " NO
" DANCER IN
POTTERY,
when one Oosiu-tsumi PAINTED AND LACQUERED BY RITSUO.
made pots. Of course,
doubt, in the absence of evidence, is cast upon this state-
ment. It appears more likely that the common, fire-dried
pot was made in many parts of the world, during very
remote times, and that the first potters actually working
in Japan came from
Korea, about the beginning of the Chris-
13
THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
tian era. Further, the Chinese influence spread to Japan
with the advent of Buddhism, about A.D. 550. Yet the
government report ascribes the invention of the potter's
wheel to a priest of Idzumi, nearly two hundred years later.
The wheel was invented long before by the Chinese, so that,
too, was imported. We next reach more definite state-
ments, which commence the actual history upon which the
authorities are agreed.
Gorodayu Shonsui, about 1510, travelled to China to learn
the secrets of the manufacture at Foochou, or was it in the
province of Fuchien or at the factory of Ching-te-chen ?
I will not labour the point, but we know that at Foochou
Chinese lacquer was made at a very early date, and we also

know that the province of Fuchien was the home of the
Chinese potter, outside Ching-te-chen. Be this as it may,
Shonsui remained in exile for some years, and returned with
the knowledge necessary the method and practice of mixing
pastes, of painting in blue under the glaze, and of firing in
the grand feu. The village which arose around his first kiln
was Arita, in the province of Hizen, whose nearest seaport was
Imari, hence we have the three names Arita, Hizen, and Imari
describing the same ware, which was, at first, more or less
feeble imitations of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, though
later the decoration was applied enamels over the glaze.
in
We see that the two influences of Korea and China resulted
in two products pottery from Korea, porcelain from China.
Just as the Hizen factory was established by Gorodayu

Shonsui, so from the earliest ages potteries were founded by
Koreans. In various districts, near sources of suitable clays,
under the protection of the feudal princes, kilns were built
on Korean models. There was one at Karatsu, in Hizen,
at the end of the seventh century another, the Raku factory,
;
at Kyoto, about the middle of the sixteenth century a third

;
at Seto, at the end of that century; and, somewhat later still,

one at Hagi. The Koreans made no porcelain, and the finest
that
pottery resulting from their work was, undoubtedly,
made for the Prince of Satsuma, cream-coloured or pale
yellow ware, with a finely crackled glaze.
We now proceed with the chief factories in alphabetical
order, but before doing that, a few words regarding Japanese

writing and the marks of date will be useful, especially for
reference.
In considering Japanese names and marks, I may note
that the only safe guidance is to invoke the language itself,
which may not in the future be quite impossible, or as an
alternative the services of a Japanese. Failing those, the
wisest plan is to learn the chief marks, and acquire ability
to recognise them at a glance. In Nippon several styles of
writing are in use, either Chinese or derived from the Chinese.
Of the former, the seal, or chuan, and the common kiai shu
characters are most often seen, especially upon pottery
and porcelain. The katakana, a syllabic writing of forty-
eight characters derived from portions of Chinese words,
rarely occurs but the hirokana, an abbreviated and running
;
form also of forty-eight characters, from the same source,

is more common, resembling very nearly to the unpractised
eye the Chinese tsaou shu, grass text.

In the matter of date marks, Japan follows China in the
adoption of an identical cycle of sixty years, and in the use
of a special title for each reign, called in Chinese nien hao
and in Japanese nengo. For the last two dynasties there
have been but few changes in any one Emperor's nien hao
in China ; on the contrary, in Japan one Emperor has on
frequent occasions taken more than one nengo, which rather
distinguishes a period than a reign. Little reliance can be
placed on any date marks, for you may be sure that no speci-
mens are more ancient than the dates on them.
Two methods of measuring time, one arbitrary, from any
special event marked by a nengo, one a cycle of sixty years,
are accompanied by a third. This is a period of twelve
years, each of which is distinguished by an animal, always
in the same order as follows dragon, serpent, horse, sheep,
:
monkey, cock, dog, wild boar, rat, ox, tiger, and hare. The
year 1688, which leads the table of the nengos following, was
the dragon year. Sometimes the artist in his picture would
insert the animal of the year in which it was painted, in such
a manner as to show he meant it for a date, and when that
date is accompanied by the nengo, the exact year can be
ascertained, otherwise the animal is of little service for that
purpose.
There is scarcely anything which looks more puzzling
than the Japanese letters, or more properly ideographs
that is to those who have not learned them. It takes an
intelligent Japanese about seven years to learn them all,
which is not surprising, considering they reach nearly thirty
thousand. Only seventy appear to be needed in everyday
life.
PERIODS OF JAPANESE HISTORY FROM GENROKU
Genroku
Hoyei .
Shotoku
Kioho .
Gembun
Kwampo
Enkio .
Kwanyen
the gilded delft of Cornelius Keyser, Jacobus Pynaker, and

Adrian Pynaker, whilst the designs of this old Japanese
porcelain was copied at most of the early porcelain works of
Europe.
A prunus tree and two quails, the sacred, hairy-tailed
tortoise, the phcenix, a stork or two, and now and then a
woman in court-dress what collector has not seen these
designs on Dresden, where the imitations were very close,
on Chelsea bearing the raised anchor mark, on Bow, St.
Cloud, and other early factories, Japan patterns on Wor-
cester, Derby, and what not ? The West owes a deep debt
to the East !
MARKS ON JAPANESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN

In order to help as much as may be the collector of
Japanese pottery and porcelain, numerous marks are given
in the lists which may assist in identifying the ware. The
first two lists follow the alphabetical order of the chapters,
and the other two comprise a great many makers' names
and factory names.
When you consider the conditions under which pottery
was made, you will see that it is not yet possible to gather
even the names of all of the old potters, because, in addition
to the private kilns of many feudal princes, other kilns,
many in number, were in operation in the country, producing
largely, it is true, utensils for domestic use, but not limiting
their output to those. Often, indeed, they made the tea-
bowls and jars which now are highly appreciated in Japan.
Then, again, although the ordinary class of potters, the
village workers, carried on their trade in the same place
from generation to generation, it was otherwise with many
of those who were great potters Ninsei, for example. About
the middle of the seventeenth century he established kilns
at different places near Kyoto for instance, at Awata, Woro,
;
Kinkozan, which gave its name to the potter Kinkozan, and

Seikanji. From these, other factories arose at Gojosaka,
Kiyomidsu, and Iwakurazan. His name was subsequently
26o THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART
given to the wares, but pieces marked Ninsei were made by
his descendants and imitated by other potters.
These remarks apply almost equally to the Raku ware, made
by Chojiro, and stamped with the seal character Raku
at first
(happiness), which gave its name to the pottery. The Raku

system was extended to Ohi,that is Ohi-machi,to Tokyo, Osaka,
Nagoya, and elsewhere. Certainly the descendants of Chojiro
used the Raku seal through eleven generations. Hence that
seal mark is not evidence of age. Further, the blue-and-
white Chinese porcelain was copied in Japan at many factories.
The Japanese potters never attained to the brilliant blue
under the glaze, which was one of the glories of the Kang-he
period of China, 1662-1722 ; the finest cobalt decoration of
the Hizen factories, the beauty of the Hirato and Nabeshima
blue, these had a different character. It is only by study
and experience that the collector will acquire the ability to
identify old ware, and to separate these blues, for example,
independently of the mark, which is only to be relied upon
when it corroborates the evidence of paste and glaze.
I have not traced any systematic marking for any long
space of time, except in the Chojiro family, and the marks

of date upon Japanese ware are few, though it was quite
common for the potters or painters to inscribe their names
or the place of manufacture upon their productions. These
marks are found stamped in the paste or impressed with a
seal, generally leaving the letters in relief, not always.
Otherwise the inscription was made with the point of a bamboo
spatula in the wet paste.
The Japanese rarely employed devices as marks, except
when they copied Chinese designs. The Buddhist symbol,
the swastika, or fylfot, one of the oldest emblems in the world,
the badge of one of the feudal princes, is sometimes found.
And amongst a few others are a leaf outlined with gold, two
varieties of curved leafy branches, and a five-leaved flower.
The blazons, or arms, given amongst the marks show some
of the feudal princes, or Daimios, who had those private
kilns, which were a distinct feature in Japanese ceramics.
Since the abolition of the feudal system in 1868, the mere
MARKS OF POTTERS OR POTTERIES - 1.
I, AKAHADA; 2, 3, ARITA ; 4, ASAHI ; 5, 6, 7, BANKO; 8, 9, BIZEN 10, FUJINA

;
II, IMADO; 12, KAGA; 13, KARATSU; 13*, KENZAN 14, KINZOZAN 15, KISHIU
; ;
l6, 17, KIYOMIDZU l8, KUTANI J ; ig, MINATO 20, 21, NINSEI.
;
/J
MARKS OF POTTERS OR POTTERIES - II.
i, 2, OKI ; 3, 4, 5, 6, RAKU ; 7, 8, 9, SOMA ; 10, TOYO-URA n, TOZAN 12, YATSU-

; ;
SHIRO; 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, YEIRAKU; l8, 19, 20, SEAL CHARACTERS FOR GOLD,
PROSPERITY, FELICITY, (KIN, ROKU, KA).
26l
manufacturer has arisen, whose aim is to make profit. The
Daimios no longer emulate each other in producing the
finest ware for the love of it and for the pleasure of presenting
it to their friends, even sometimes to their faithful samurai.
The samurai as a class are gone. These samurai were formerly

the gentlemen-at-arms of the Daimios, or clan princes, and
when the right of keeping private armies was abolished at
the Revolution, there were thousands of them thrown on the
country to live in poverty from want of suitable employment.
Following the Alphabetical Lists is this Third List of Marks

on Japanese Pottery or Porcelain, which will be of Value
for Reference.
(i) Made in the period Genki, 1570-73." (2) " Made at

"
Otokoyama in Southern Kii, in the first year of Kayei," 1848.

(3)
"
Made at Seto in Great Japan " Seto is in the province
;
"
of Owari. (4) Made by Sampo at the Zoshun Hall." (5)
" "
Made at Himeji." (6) Made by Hansuke in Great Japan."
"
(7) Enlightenment and civilisation," on porcelain coated
"
with cloisonne* enamel. (8) Made in the period Taimix,"
a copied Chinese mark of the Ming period. (9) "Made in
the period Semmio," another copied Chinese mark of Hsuan
"
Te, Ming period. (10) Made at the Togioku house or estab-
lishment." (n) Akahada yama, another Akahada mark,
followed by the seal of the artist Bokuhaku. (12) Horaku,
"
profuse enjoyment," the name of a maker or a ware, stamped
in an oval with letters in relief. (13) Seinei, a maker's name,
stamped in a gourd-shaped panel on Raku ware, usually
"
accompanied by the Raku stamp. (14) Made by Jezan,"
"
stamped on rough red ware with a sugary glaze. (15) Made
"
by Kozan of Makuzu this is
: the mark of the fabric at
Ota near Yokohama, established after the opening of the
port to European trade to make imitations of Satsuma ware ;
Kozan, a potter from Kiyomidsu near Kyoto, who resided at
Makuzu-gahara, here made many pieces of that kind. (16)
"
Made at Goraku house," stamped in a circle with characters
in relief on ware sometimes attributed to Akahada. (17)
"
Original Minato ware of Kichiyemon (of) Sakai, Senshiu,"
I ?i *
MARKS OF POTTERS OR POTTERIES III.
another mark of this factory, one is given in the alphabetical
list, and Minato ware shortly described in the text.

is (18)
Kagura, the name of a maker or a fabric.
Further Marks on Japanese Pottery or Porcelain. Fottrth List.

"
(i) Made in the period Yempo," 1673-81 ; a Nabeshima
mark. (2) Made in the period Bunkwa, 1804-18 ; a Hizen
"
mark. (3) Made by Toyen in the Meiji period/' 1868, to our
own times ; a mark on blue-and-white. (4) A copied Chinese
mark of the Ming period. (5) "Made at the Fuji kiln of
Makuzu." (6) "Made by Kozan at the Makuzu kiln,"
which was near Kyoto. (7) "Made by Giyokusei of the
Fukushun house." (8) " Made by Gosuke at the To-giyoku
"
house." (9) Koto, East side of lake "i.e. of Lake Biwa.
"
(10) Made by the honourable Gorodayu Shonsui " this ;
"
is improbable as a mark of the old potter, (n) Made in
"
imitation of my ancestor Gorodayu Shonsui a Hizen
;
modern mark on blue-and-white. (12) Made by Hokuhan

at the Kyoto house." (13) Made by Kosai of Great Japan.
"
(14) Mi-kuni, Three kingdoms " name of a place. (15)
;
"
Made by Kiyen." (16) " Hizen pottery," in Chinese
characters, probably made by Kizo of Nembokuan. (17)
Sanhan, a maker's name. (18) Kwabo, a maker's name;
Bizen ware. (19) Ki, part of a maker's name, in Katakana
character, made at the Takatori factory. (20) Sei, a maker's
name. (21) Kwanriyo, a maker's name. (22) Maiko, name
of a place near Kobi. (23) Yuko, a maker's name. (24)
"
Asahi, another mark of the factory it means
; morning
light," and is said to indicate the colour of the ware. (25)
Kitei, the name of a firm of potters who also made porcelain.
(26) Rokubei, a maker's name. (27) Tami, part of a maker's
name, used on green-glazed earthenware. (28) Minpei, a
maker's name on yellow-glazed Awaji ware, not unlike Awata.
(29) Rissai, a maker's name, probably an Awaji pottery.
(30) "Banko of Japan," on Banko ware, made by Datei.
(31) Itusai, a maker's name, on ware like Akahada ware.
(32) Riyozen, a maker's name. (33) Shiosai, probably a
maker's name. (34) Bunki, a maker's name, sometimes used
with the Raku stamp. (35) Shuntei, a maker's name. (36)
Shungetsu, a maker's name. (37) Masaki, a maker's name,
Kyoto ware. (38) Bokuko, a maker's name. (39) Oike, the
m
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MARKS OF POTTERS OR POTTERIES IV.
265
name of a street in Kioto. (40) Two stamped marks
Taihei :
above, meaning peace Hozan,

;
a maker's name, below ;
Awata ware. (41) Makusu, a place near Kyoto. (42) Seishi,

a maker's name. (43) Akashi, a place in the province of
Harima. (44) Inuyama, name of a factory in the village of
Inakimura in Owari province. (45) Nikko, the name of a place
near Tokyo, famous for its temple. (46) Shuzan, a maker's
name. (47) Sobai tei, "the Sobai house." (48) Zen, part
of a name, like Zengoro, used by a maker. (49) Hozan, a
maker's name, painted on pottery coated with red lacquer
at Kyoto. (50) Kikko, a maker of Raku ware, modern.
(51) Jusan ken, "The Jusan house." (52) Another Kikko
mark. (53) Kwankei, a maker's name. (54) Horaku, the
name of a fabric or ware made by Toyosuke, and coated with
lacquer at the town of Nagoya, in Owari.
CHAPTER XV
AKAHADA WARE TO AWAJI WARE
A KAH AD A ware was made at Koriyama, in the county
Ji\. of Soishimo, province of Yamato, now the Nara Ken,
or Prefecture, famous for the old city with the temples, Nara.
With the Kondo or main temple of Horuji the celebrated
;
Chu-mon the gateway to the inner enclosure of the temple

of Horyu-ji the east pagoda of Yakushi-ji, the temple of
;
Todaiji,and many other famous buildings, it was a marvel.

The Akahada ware dates back from the middle of the
seventeenth century. The factory, like so many others, was
under the protection of the feudal prince of the province,
whose orders were carried out. The making of vessels for
the tea ceremony (cha-no-yu) occupied the early years of the
pottery. Such was the furnace (furo), or cylindrical fire-
vessel (hi-ire), usually having three legs, or feet, in buff ware
covered with a thickish white glaze, or pale-brown ware with
a dark-brown glaze. Of the same clay were the water-vases
(midzu-sashi), the tea-jars (chaire), the tea-bowls (chawari)
numerous examples of which are shown in the illustrations,
rudely made on purpose varied in shape, some shallow, some
cylindrical, but all designed with edges smooth to the lips ;
ash-pans (hai-ki) unglazed; shallow saucers, with incurved
edges ; water-jars (midzu-ire), and other vessels, for the Koi-
cha or the Usu-cha forms of ceremonial tea-drinking.
In addition to these and accompanying them was the
incense burning. The vases (korcs) had the most varied
forms, as vases usually supported by feet, and there were
figures of men, animals, and birds, usually with perforations
267
in the covers. Upon the inside of these koros a fine white
ash was spread, which supported the lighted charcoal and the
incense, which was contained in an incense-box (kogo) . The
incense game was a favourite pastime in the olden days ;
forfeits were paid for failing to guess the name of the perfume
which was burnt.
At Akahada the old ware was inscribed with the name by
means of a bamboo point, used upon the wet clay, not stamped.
Later the mark was stamped in a curved, heart-shaped panel,
used as a seal, with the letters in relief. Two pieces at the
Victoria and Albert Museum have this mark. One is a
cylindrical fire-vessel, on three small feet of buff ware, having
a crackled, whitish glaze, and the other is an incense-box, in
the form of the god of contentment, the children's friend,
Hotei.
Arita, Hizen, or Imari Ware :

Kakiyemon
Arita, a village in the province of Hizen, now the Nagasaki
Ken, was one of the early homes of the Koreans, the potters
brought from their own country by princes of Japan. Ri-
sanpei, about the end of the sixteenth century, was first settled
at Taku by Prince Nabeshima. Gorodayu Shonsui soon used
the materials he had secured in China, and the Arita factory
was decaying when Ri-sanpei, removing from Taku, found
good feldspathic rock in a valley near Arita, with the
long- wanted white clay (shiro tsuchi). Here, then, were the
two substances necessary for the making of porcelain the
kaolin and petuntze of the Chinese, china clay and china rock.
From them was made the old Imari ware, which included
not only that of Arita and its branch kilns, but the wares of
Okawiji, Shira-ishi, Shida, Koshida, Yoshida, and Matsugaya.
There were other kilns in Hizen of which the oldest was
Karatsu, which seems to have been established in the seventh
century. Ko-Karatsu, old Karatsu, ware is very rare. The
firstproductions of pottery were followed by stoneware,
which about A.D. 1600 was rudely painted with scrolls, after
the Korean manner. Imitations of old Korean ware, called
I. FIRE VESSEL, FUJINA. FIRE-POT, SHINO. FIRE VESSEL, AKAHADA.
2. BRA.ZIER,KENZAN. FURNACE, SOMA. BRAZIER, IMADO.
3. WATER-JAR, DOHACHI. BIZEN. TAKATORI.
4. KORO, KO-CHIUSA. SANDA. OKAWAJI.
269
AKAHADA TO AWAJI WARE 271
Oku-korai, were also made about this time, especially tea-

bowls (chawan), of a reddish-brown colour covered with drab,
pinkish-drab, or yellowish-brown glaze. The later ware,
following the Chiu-ko-Karatsu, the middle old Karatsu of
the period A.D. 1600-54, is known as Karatsu yaki.
The works of Arita, now the most important centre of the
porcelain trade, were founded shortly after those of Karatsu.
Ri-sinpei seems to have made a defective kind of porcelain,
but he got no farther than did Shonsui with regard to decora -
BLUE-AND-WHITE PORCELAIN BOX ATTRIBUTED TO SHONSUI.
tion. Both painted in blue under the glaze, and whilst the
latter sometimes used the seal character Fuku (happiness)
as a mark, it is doubtful whether pieces were ever signed with
his name. Neither of them understood the process of enamel
painting. Having been fashioned, their ware was baked to

the biscuit state and painted with blue, then glazed and
burnt at the temperature of the grand feu. The necessity
for firing enamels in a muffle kiln, after the colours and
gilding had been applied over the glaze, had, no doubt, been
appreciated, but neither of them knew how to do it; the
Koreans suffered from the same lack of
knowledge. The
honour of making this great addition to the decorative re-
sources of Japanese potters was reserved to Higashi-shima
Tokuzayemon, who in 1648 went to Nagasaki with the
object of visiting China, but, receiving the necessary informa-
tion from the captain of a trading
junk, to whom he had
explained the purpose of his intended visit, he returned to
Arita, and began the new method of decorating with enamel
PAPER-WEIGHT IN IMARI OR HLZEN PORCELAIN.
colours, imitating, probably, rather the earlier Ming ware of

Ch'eng Hua than the later of Wan Li, who began to reign
in 1573. The imitative results were not satisfactory, the
enamels lacked that brilliancy which alone made them
acceptable, but soon the native instincts prevailed over the
desire to follow a copy of diapers and archaic designs.
Kakiyemon, who worked with Tokuzayemon, is sometimes
credited with the introduction of decoration by means of
verifiable enamels relieved with gold ; but what he really did

was to develop a native style of the type known as chrys-
anthemo-pceonienne with chrysanthemums and peonies in
blue, red, and gold a lilac blue, a lustreless red, and a some-
what dead gold. This old Imari became essentially an article
of commerce with the Dutch, who settled at Deshima in 1641,
about four years after the Portuguese had been expelled,
and from seven to ten of their ships entered the harbour of
Nagasaki annually. The Dutch at Delft set themselves
to imitate the Imari decoration in its general character.
But another type, created by Kakiyemon, was more remark-
able for its delicacy); its ornament was simple almost to
severity. Upon a paste of fine white porcelain, covered
with a soft yet brilliant glaze, no less fine, medallions of
flowers were painted in red, blue, and grass-green, so that each
little picture was surrounded by a wide frame of white
having no decoration. The colours were few, the subjects

many the dragon, the ho-ho bird, the bamboo, the plum or
;
prunus, landscapes, and various diaper designs are common.

From specimens of this type the factories of Meissen and
Chantilly, amongst others, copied their earliest designs, which
have therefore evidence of Kakiyemon 's influence not of the
old Japan ware still copied and exported to please the taste
of those who like the violet and the red with gold in strong
tones, and with an intense blue under the glaze, not the
Chinese blue of the famous Kang-he blue-and-white, but a
"Mohammedan blue," resembling theHsuan Te blue of the
early part of the fifteenth century. The best Japanese blue
belonged to another factory.
Asahi Ware
The pottery of Asahi has some additional interest, because
it is made
in the centre of the tea-growing district of
Japan,
at Uji, in the province of Yamashiro in the Kyoto Ken.
There in the tea-gardens, under "the hot sun of May,"
crowds of women and wearing kimonos and tall sun-
girls,
bonnets, gather the leaves of the shrub which has been
14
cultivated in Japan for centuries as a native plant of that
country. The Japanese say native, but it was an exotic
from China.
The pottery has been in existence from the Shoho period
(1644-47). Whether the name Asahi ware is derived from
its colour or from the mountain to the east of Uji is a matter
of opinion. The colour is said to resemble the morning light.

As a matter of fact, it is a grey ware, covered with a greenish-
grey glaze, belonging to the Yaki class. The word Yaki
occurs frequently in this section. Asahi Yaki, like all the
other ware called Yaki, is pottery sometimes termed Yaki-
mono. The crackled wares are Hibi Yaki ; the celadons,
whether native or Chinese, belong to the Seiji class, and
stoneware is Shaki.
Asahi was famous from the commencement for making
vessels in which the ground tea was stored, but it also pro-
duced those objects which have been described as being
related to the tea ceremony. So famous were these vessels,
that a noted chajin, leader of the ceremony, no less a man
than Kobori Masakatsu, son of Kobori Totomi-no-Kami, the
founder of one branch of these ceremonies, encouraged the
potter by honouring him with a seal for marking his ware.
The presentation of a seal for this purpose was a distinct
recognition of merit. The tenth Zengoro received a gold

seal from the Prince of Kii in 1827, and a silver seal inscribed
Yeiraku.
At the present time the factory produces tea- jars, vases,
etc., of every description. Close by, at Tawara, is another
factory, founded at about the same time, whose speciality
was teapots. As a rule, the tea was ground, and hot water
poured upon it in the "bowl from which it was drunk; but
teapots of several forms were in use. One form had a pannier
handle like a kettle, from the spout over the cover to the
back, where the second form, like those we use, has its handle.
The third form has a hollow handle and the spout at a right
angle to it towards the left.
Though these are called teapots, many of them were used
with small cups for sake" drinking.
Awata faience : Kinkozan

The Awata kilns were established about 1620, and an
artist, Kuzayemon, tried to copy the work of Ninsei, using

black and other colours for decoration, and also using coloured
enamels. Ninsei visited the factory and worked there and
made many fine specimens, although he was hindered very
much by the inferior quality of the materials at his disposal ;
the paste was poor, and so was the glaze. The early body of
the Awata-yaki was close and hard the glaze, though lustrous,
;
had a greyish white, semi-lucid appearance, quite different

from the usual fine glaze of the Japanese pottery. The crackle
was curious, showing the edges, which are not palpable in fine
crackle. It was uniform and fairly small. The obvious
remedy was soon found, the decoration was lavishly applied,
and it became extravagant.
Kinkozan, a workman-artist, like Ninsei, set about the
work of improving the ware, and succeeded so well that he,
again like Ninsei. takes his place amongst the master potters.
The glaze, too, was perfected, and its lustrous, creamy tone
formed a suitable ground for coloured enamel decoration.
Amongst these, grass-green and deep blue were chief, but
red was also used, and gold is nearly always associated with
the colours upon the soft glaze, for these colours were applied
over the glaze. Purple, yellow, and silver occur but rarely.
Kinkozan 's work commenced early in the eighteenth century.
Some specimens of Awata faience Awata-yaki are
marked Awa-ta, but this mark is more uncommon than the
name Kinkozan, and most are not marked, so that it is very
difficult to identify old Awata, except by four rules, which
may be applied with some measure of success to all of the

wares of Kyoto, of which this is a suburb the paste, that is,
:
the body where there is no glaze, is close and hard, the glaze
is lustrous, the crackle fine and uniform, and the enamel
decoration is clear, brilliant, and carefully applied. The
last remark, "carefully applied," may read better "artistic-
ally applied," for the old artists took time for their work ;
the modern ones are in haste, and haste speaks. At the
same time, in noting these tests, due regard should be given
to the difference between Kinkozan's improvements at Awata
and the early ware, in the making and decorating of which
Ninsei was for a short time engaged. The type created by
Kinkozan may be described as a homogeneous, very close-
grained, almost black body or biscuit serving as a ground
for ornament in sharp relief and for regular designs in enamels,
amongst which the deep blue was prominent, accompanied

by grass-green, yellow, and white.
Awaji Ware
BOWL FOR TEA (CHAWAN), BYMINPEI. AWAJI WARE, LIKE AWATA WARE.
THE FACTORY STILL EXISTING DATES FROM ABOUT 1830.
CHAPTER XVI
BANKO WARE (GOZAYEMON) TO IMADO'
WARE
OZAYEMON, a merchant of Kuwana, came under the
\Jf influence of the cha-no-yu ethics, and was inspired
with a desire to make objects, such as those used in the
ceremonies. He was a wealthy amateur, whose influence
obtained admission to the Kyoto potteries, and whose wealth
enabled him to obtain the best materials for his experiments,
which were largely limited to copying, during his first period,
the Raku ware, of which something more will be said, and
even the Korean ware. His progress was marked in his
work of Ninsei and the bold designs
imitations of the delicate
of Kenzan, so that when the Shogun lyenari, about 1785,
sent him a commission, the results were so satisfactory that
he was summoned to Yedo (Kyoto). Here he pursued his
labours under the patronage of the nobles the Shogun himself
;
visited his factory, and admired the results which Gozayemon
produced.
The natural effects were to create a demand for his works
and to spur him to further which carried him on to
efforts,
imitate the Chinese models, which under Kang-he had
reached the highest excellence in the famille verte, and under
Yung-ching and Keen-lung equal superiority in the famille
rose. Side by side with the magnificent wares, Japanese
ceramics in polychromatic decoration were plainly inferior.
The Shogun, so itsaid, sent to the Imperial factory at
is
Ching-te-chen, asking for the recipes and for a supply of

materials, and when both had been procured, Gozayemon
277
entered upon the second period of his work, the imitation oi
the Chinese, in which his success was soon remarkable but ;
the pieces he imitated do not appear to be of the finest they

could be scarcely distinguished from the enamel pieces of
Wan-li (1573-1620). He also copied Delft ware, and, indeed,
he seemed to have a genius for imitating all kinds of pottery
and porcelain.
His greatness was not founded on these imitations, except
as far as they evolved his own style a purely Japanese one
of brilliant glazes and tasteful floral ornament. Many of his
pieces were marked Banko, meaning everlasting, and others
Fuyeki, changeless, but the seal Banko was also used by
Yusetsu, under circumstances which are related in a note
regarding that potter. Gozayemon returned to Kuwana, in
the province ofjse, where he died in 1800. His comparatively
scanty output was absorbed by Japanese collectors, so that
they have escaped the copyist. He took no pupils, and
though one of his relatives endeavoured to trade upon the
mark, the Banko seal, he obtained only a modified success
during the utilisation of the materials which Gozayemon had
accumulated, and which were soon exhausted. Whilst he
lived, none but the favoured few could obtain examples of
his art, and when he died, but for an accident his secrets
would have passed away too.
Banko, or Ise Banko, Ware : Yusetsu
Thirty years after Gozayemon 's death, his precious formula

for the making of enamel colours fell into the hands of a
dealer in curiosities, pottery, lacquer, etc., whose son, Mori
Yusetsu, had gained some distinction by making the Raku
pottery and another kind which was finished off with the
finger and thumb before firing, so that the impression of the
skin was left upon the surface. He too lived at Kuwana, in
Ise" province, and, after acquiring the recipe, he bought the
Banko stamp from the grandson of Gozayemon, and pro-
ceeded to imitate the work of the Ise merchant and potter,
BANKO (GOZAYEMON) TO IMADO WARE 279
so through his copies that work became much more familiar
than it otherwise would have been to the ordinary buyer.
And perceiving that some of the Chinese modellers applied
the moulds to the interior of certain pieces, he adopted that
method and added a novelty to Japanese pottery. Under
such a method the inside would be sharp and clean, but it
appears doubtful whether the fingers could secure an equally
sharp impression on the outside. The Kyoto artist, Mokubei,
had also copied the Chinese, fashioning his clay in the mould,
and I cannot think that, if Yusetsu had to use from six to
twelve longitudinal sections, he would have adopted any
other plan than that of building up the piece from the strips
of clay in the usual way with the moulding outside. How-
ever, I can only give my opinion on the statement, that his
modelling was always done from the inside.
Yusetsu's Banko ware was finely modelled, in spite of the
opinion given, and the designs from his school, which ranks
as a modern one, have been much appreciated for their
artistic excellence, which was combined with skilful potting.
Storks and dragons, etc., moulded in high relief, and clever
arabesques, in coloured slip or liquid clay on rich grounds
of green or red, were notable amongst much good work.
All the pottery of the Gozayemon type is interesting, even
as imitation. The pieces stamped Yusetsu are, of course,
distinct, marking acomplete change in the character of Banko
ware. The variety which is most desirable is a finely crackled
faience of a cream tint, decorated with blue under the glaze,
and above it with numerous diaper designs, upon which are
reserved panels containing landscapes or mythical subjects.
Next in merit as an artist to Yusetsu was his younger brother,
Yuyeki, who also worked at the factory, which is still in
existence.
Bizen Stoneware
In the sixteenth century Hideyoshi, a potter at Imbe,
succeeded in imitating the red ware of China, generally
known by the name boccaro ware, which was also copied by
2 8o THE A B C OF JAPANESE ART
Bottcher, at Meissen, and by Dwight and Elers in England.
The valuable pieces of this old Bizen ware were stamped
with a crescent or with a cherry blossom.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century improvements
displaced the old brick-like pottery, which had three varieties,
glazed, unglazed, and marbled. Two new pastes were found :
the Ao-Bizen, a slate-coloured or brown clay, a very fine,

hard stoneware, whose choice specimens of deities, mytho-
logical figures, birds, fishes, and animals, are ranked with the
best works of plastic art in Japan and, a little later, a red
;
clay,having a texture of equal quality. This red paste, when

glazed, shows bronze-like tones, closely resembling the metal
sentoku the golden bronze. Before me is a good specimen
of this early Bizen, a figure of Hotei, the
god of contentment,
standing on a wind-bag with a pierced hole. His round
face, with jovial smile, his rotund, uncovered body, draped
over the shoulders and below the waist, illustrates a type of
native art which has a great attraction for collectors of
Japanese figures ; the colour is delightful, the metallic sheen
astonishing, and the bell-like ring most unusual.
It is scarcely possible to praise too highly the skill, the
individuality, and the of these fine, old, salt-glaze
effect
figures. I say salt-glaze, though there is no proof that salt-
glazing, as understood in England, was so practised in Japan ;

the thinness and closeness, the thorough incorporation of
the glaze with the paste, and the general appearance of the
ware set it apart in a class similar to that of salt-glaze. Rarer
than either the slate-colour or the red is the white Bizen
ware, which has a similar dense paste, strongly baked. It
is said that the ware was left for days, or even weeks, in the
kiln with the object of securing the entire fusing and in-
corporation of glaze with paste.

The modern ware has a soft glaze and quite a dull ring ;
none of those qualities which characterise the old products are
seen in the paste. The degeneracy is even more marked than
in some of the other modern wares, which have a certain
charm but the red clay figures of the seven gods and the
;
poor imitations of the mythological monsters are only

interesting because of the histories attached to them they

show nothing of the potter's craft in comparison with the
Ko-Bizen, that is, Old Bizen, which gave way, about A.D. 1580,
to Bizen-Yaki, the later work. The old red ware, covered
with a thin glaze, is really a stoneware, resembling in texture
the brown stoneware, also slightly glazed. Their unusual
qualities render them easily recognisable.
Fujina Ware
This was made at the private kiln of the Prince of Fumai,
in the village of Matsuy6, province of Idsumo, and it has
similar qualities to the Idsumo Yaki, being manufactured
from a soft, tough clay, which, when fired, gave various shades
of dull red, grey, drab, pale, and dark buff. Then glazes of
various colours were applied, such as sage-green, sea-green,
white, buff, brown, brownish-red, and yellow. These were
decorated with streaks of other colours, with flowers, etc.,
in white slip or painted and gilt. The Idsumo ware proper
the old ware, which Fujina was not had the same character
as the Hagi ware, varying from a pale brown to chocolate
in colour, coveredwith a crackled glaze. When, early in the
seventeenth century, a Korean potter named Rikei came to
Japan, he settled at Hagi, and adopted the name of Korai
Saiyemon. His ware, like others from Korea, has a triangular
space cut out of the raised edge at the bottom.
The Fujina ware resembled Idsumo, and Idsumo was like
Hagi, though the last is sometimes known by the potter's
name. The later work at Fujina, owing to the influence of
Kobori Masakatsu, imitated Satsuma, and this is still manu-
factured.
Hirato or Hirado White Porcelain or Decorated

in Blue
Though the old white Hirado porcelain is highly esteemed,

itwas never able to reach the wonderful softness of the old
blanc de Chine, the white porcelain made at Tehua, in the
province of Fuchien ; to which a reference has been already
made. That had a paste of smooth texture resembling ivory,
upon which the rich, thick glaze lies, as if it were part and
parcel of the paste itself, so closely is it blended. The Hirato
"
factory at Mikawa-uchi-yama, the hill between three rivers,"
was founded by another Korean, about 1600, who made
pottery, decorating it with blue under the glaze. The dis-
covery of Ri-sanpei at Arita, by which material for making
porcelain was placed at the disposal of the neighbouring
potters, affected this factory, whose other name was Mikochi,
but he retained the secret of the enamels, so that here the
only decoration applied was blue under the glaze. The work
declined, the factory was closed, until in 1740, Matsura, the
chief of Hirato, an island near Hizen, started it again under
conditions which recall the early days of the Meissen factory ;
the workmen were forbidden to sell or give their productions

without special permission. The supervision was strict, the
products were not for sale; Matsura made presents to his
friends, or to the Court of the Tokugawa at Yedo.
Brinkley held the opinion that the old Hirato porcelain
showed the highest degree of excellence and perfection to
which the ceramist ever attained. Without altogether
accepting this judgment, which is too sweeping, I may say
that some of the Hirato which I have seen is very wonderful,
the blue the colour mainly employed being exquisitely
soft and clear, seeming to float in the milk-white glaze. Then,
too, what a choice, a variety, and an excellence of forms !
Incense burners (koros) as vases, pigeons, ducks, and other

birds, figures of gods, goddesses, animals, and birds modelled
with great skill, worthy to figure in the choicest collections.
The long period extending from 1740 to 1830 produced the
fine porcelain called Hirato yaki, which had a very fine paste
equal to the Chinese, whiter and purer than the Imari yaki
or the Nabeshima yaki. This purity was attained by the
most careful attention to the preparation and refinement of
the materials used for paste and glaze, so that, on the one
hand, it is free from the grit so common in Imari ware, and,
on the other, it closely resembles in granulation the porcelain
of China. But the blue-and- white is best in combination.
I. TEAPOT, SATSUMA WARE.
2. TEA-JAR, TAMBA WARE. TEA-JAR, ZEZE WARE.

3. DISH, SHONSUI WARE.
283
Amongst the finest productions of this factory were large

plates or tables, some feet in diameter, called sometsuke, painted
with Chinese boys playing under a palm-tree. These were
specially made for the prince, and, as in the case of other
private factories, sales were prohibited. Sometimes, however,
a piece may be bought. Its value depends upon the number
of boys, three, five, or seven, the last being most valuable.
The smaller dishes, of saucer shape, may have similar boys
chasing butterflies under the tree, but their value is very
small, relatively, though the age, about 1770, and the colour
of the beautiful greyish blue under the glaze are the same.
Other products consisted of cylindrical flower vases, orna-
mented with bands of medallions, containing symbols, and
cf ornaments or okimonos in the forms of men and animals.
These old porcelain pieces were made at Mikawaji, the full
name of which was cited above.
It may be necessary to remark that, though some old ware,
ornamented in relief and in slip, is rare, there are factories
still at work in the district. Notably, an egg-shell china was
made about 1837, which, though at first white, was more
recently enamelled in various colours. At the Victoria and
Albert Museum there are a few old and some modern specimens.
The contrast between them is striking. In the old ware the
blue is incomparable in the modern, painting in enamel
;
colours and gilding are used with ornament in relief, such as

the sho chiku bai, fir, prunus, and bamboo trees, the three
friends ;two keeping green and flourishing throughout the

winter, and the prunus, the Taoist emblem of immortality,
throwing out spikes of flowers from its leafless stalks up to
extreme old age. Or again, a conventional lion amongst
waves and clouds may be accompanied by ho-ho birds or
phoenixes on a gold ground.
No mistake is likely to occur on the part of the collector
if he fixes his mind upon the blue a note follows on Nabes-
;
hima blue, but this even is not so fine. Mr. W. G. Gulland,

whose gifts to the above museum will be remembered, pre-
sented some fine specimens of Japanese ware to the Brighton
Museum, and amongst them are a few examples of the famous
Hirato blue, which are full To the ordinary
of interest.
collector I would say, " If
you get a piece of fine quality,
hold it." And note that in the old porcelain if another
colour was used with the blue, that colour was brown.
Only within the last few years have the Japanese owners
been induced to sell, and the skilled collectors who used to
exploit Japan have been withdrawn. Little arrives here
now but modern imitations, which are not quite white, but
greenish, and they are not perfectly potted. I saw a short
time since a fine figure of an eagle perched on a rock it
;
might have been modelled in the finest bronze, so perfect

was it, and on the white ground the lovely soft clear blue
decoration was applied and covered with a glaze of the finest
quality. Some pieces have other decoration of delicate
pictures etched in the clay before firing, and I think in this
Hirato easily takes the first place. It is surprising that
through all the operations of potting, firing, and glazing this

finely executed ornament remained uninjured, bearing in
mind that much of it was also in relief.
European potters modelled many of their pieces from old
Hirato ware Plymouth and Worcester and Bow copied the
;
raised shells and seaweed Dresden no less imitated the figures,

;
and copied, too, the birds and flowers in relief and openwork.
American and European collectors have quite a passion for
Hirato blue-and-white, more so than for the rarer polychromes
and even these are very rare ; but old Hirato is also highly
valued by the rich Japanese !
Imado Ware
This ware was one of the few made in Tokyo, which had
only a number of small kilns producing inferior pottery for
domestic use and roofing-tiles, except in the Imado-machi
district, where attempts were made about the middle
of the
nineteenth century to make mottled ware by mixing clays
of different colours, red and black, white and black, and so
on. The name of the maker, Gosaburo, was applied to the
ware as a seal-mark impressed.
Tokyo does not appear to have been favourably situated

making of either pottery, faience, or porcelain not-
for the ;
withstanding its position as the capital of Japan, with a

population of over a million and a half, the absence of suitable
clays appears to have presented obstacles which have not
yet been overcome, though Kozawa Benshi, a modern potter,
has long been engaged in making Raku ware, and more
recently in modelling figures in terra-cotta, using only the
bamboo spatulse and knives which resembled those made by
a Kyoto potter named Miura Kenya, who settled in Tokyo.
The pottery record of Tokyo for collecting purpose may be
disregarded by those who require antiquities.
CHAPTER XVII
KENZAN WARE TO KYOTO WARE YEIRAKU :
SANSEI, commonly called Kenzan, was born in

OGATA
1663 and lived till
1743. He was trained to be a
painter, like elder brother, Korin.
his Korin eventually
devoted himself to lacquer, and Kenzan to pottery ; in each
case the art education received opened the road to eminence,
and it is notable because such instances are quite uncommon.
Kenzan took a further step which had great influence on his
career he went to various potteries and mastered the tech-
nical work, the manipulation of clays and glazes, so that his
equipment was complete his use of the brush gave the finish-
;
ing touches to the pottery he made. Very quickly he proved

a perfect exponent of the teachings of Japanese art, combining
great boldness of design with an original style, producing
fine decorations, which, in the native taste, were only meant
to convey limited impressions a branch of prunus or cherry
blossom, birds in the bamboos, perched on a bramble over
a flower, or flying over a rice-field. Such conceptions distin-
guished the work of the early painters, and were entirely
suitable to the limited space at the disposal of the potter.
Kenzan preferred to paint his designs in Shibu-ye and
Ai-ye, black, russet-brown, and blue his decoration in Kin-
;
ye, coloured enamels and gold was no less effective.

His best work is found on Awata ware having the usual
poor glaze of its early period ; yet even that could not dis-
guise the master's hand, and to prevent all errors he marked
"
his pieces with his name, Kenzan." But his name is not
reserved to one factory; even the coarse clay of Shigariki,
with a gritty body inferior to that of Awata, ornamented
288
KENZAN TO KYOTO WARE 289
with his bold sketches, became a thing of beauty. Later,

he went to Yedo, now called Tokyo, and, though there the
materials were only suitable for the application of coloured
glazes, he founded the kiln of Imado in that city and was
successful in a new style brilliant glazes upon a poor clay
beauty of a different order, an evolution in colour.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a Kenzan
JAR FOR RICE-POWDER, BY KENZAN.
bowl whose decoration is typical snow-laden pines expressed

with severe simplicity, with such masterly handling, that
nothing more could be added without destroying its effect.
Genuine examples by the oldest Kenzan are very rare and
valuable. His son and grandson copied his style with much
success, and they also used his mark the inferiority of the
;
work and the nature of the body supply the needful tests.
Bold impressionist sketches, coarse body, and extraordinary
freedom in the application of massed colour, distinguished by
the presence of a brilliant emerald green in rich harmony
with the other enamels these qualities are not difficult to
recognise on any piece which has the family mark.
Kishiu Ware
Although history records the establishment of kilns two
hundred years ago by the Prince of Kii at Wakayama, now
the name of the ken or prefecture then known as the province
of Kii, no particulars reach us until the first years of the
nineteenth century. No pottery that can be identified has
been found, and the earliest specimen of porcelain at the
Victoria and Albert Museum is dated about 1800. It has
the mark given in the list. For the improvements wrought
by Zengoro Hozen reference should be made to Yeiraku ware.
Although the old ware is so ill-defined, the modern, moulded
in raised outline with enamel grounds of purple, yellow, and
blue, is not uncommon.
Kiyomidzu Ware
In order to follow the list of marks a few words on the
Kiyomidzu factories will emphasise the importance of Kyoto
as a pottery centre. Ninsei, the great potter, erected kilns
here and elsewhere, but his chief work will always be associated
with Kyoto. The Awata district of the city, or perhaps, more
correctly, the Kinkozan, gave renown to another potter,
Kinkozan Sobei, and amongst those potters in the Seikanji
district who worked in the factory of Kiyomidzu no name is
more distinguished than Takahasi Dohachi, whose career is
"
set out under the heading Kyoto 'Dohachi/'
Before, however, his advent occurred, the Kiyomidzu kilns
at Seikanji had produced some fine pottery, which was marked
at first with the word Seikanji in an oval, and later with the
name Dohachi, both of which are given. The former occurs
upon a buff-ware incense-burner of globular form, standing
SAKE SAUCER. YEIRAKU WARE.
DISH. KUTANI WARE.

2QI
on three small with a crackled cream-coloured

feet covered
ground with
painted in green a diaper of hexagons, and
having two heart-shaped panels containing a dragon and a
lion. The second is marked, stamped upon a square cup of
yellowish ware covered with a grey glaze and roughly painted
in black. The first piece was made about 1800 the second ;
about 1830.
The Kiyomidzu factories flourish another Takahashi
Dohachi holds his place amongst other descendants of. the
eld potters, such as the second Wake Kitei. They produce
the same patterns as their fathers copied from the old Arita
v/are the Sometsuke blue under the glaze, but they have
learnt the art of applying coloured enamels in the decoration,
and some of them have adopted the word Kiyomidzu as their
first name.
Kutani Porcelain
If you look at the map of Japan, you will find the province
of Kaga on the west, separated from Kyoto by a lofty range
of mountains. Here, at the village of Kutani-mura, probably
a few years before 1660, the feudal Prince of Taichoji built a
kiln where tea- jars and water- vessels of common ware were
made until 1665, when his son, Toshiaki, sent Goto Saijiro
to Arita, to learn the methods of making porcelain; when
he returned, the Kutani yaki underwent a complete change.
The paste at first was only clay, and not good enough to
make pottery free from faults. Indeed, the defective body
of these early pieces could not be hidden by lustrous glazes
or rich enamels, therefore clay was imported from Imari;
but this was sometimes mixed with the local refractory
material, and often neither sufficed, so that white biscuit
ware from other factories was bought and decorated at
Kutani. Hence, it is rather upon the style of the decoration
and the quality of the enamels that attention must be devoted
in order to be certain of identification, though some pieces
have marks which, with the other characteristics, are un-
deniable.
15
294 THE ABC OF JAPANESE ART ;
During the last forty years of the seventeenth century, and

about as many years following in the eighteenth century, the
wares produced were of two distinct kinds, of which one, the
Ao kutani, derives its name from a green (ao) glaze of wonderful
brilliancy and depth. A
large dish lies before me, the sloping
rim of which has a ground of dark aubergine enclosing panels
DISH, PAINTED BY MORIKAGE*, IN KUTANI PORCELAIN.
with white frames containing alternate yellow and green

grounds, the former covering a scale pattern, the latter a
swastika trellis; on the fall of the dish is a border of aubergine,
covering a Greek-key design. This encloses the central large
round panel, decorated with a wonderful three-clawed dragon,
with dark aubergine mane and scaled body, in shades of
green, amongst clouds in aubergine and shades of green.
This decoration lies upon a seeded, yellow ground. The back

of the dish, covered with an iridescent green glaze, over
vermicular scrolls in black, encloses the yellow base, covering
a stoneware, in the centre of which is placed the mark known
as the open- window mark, in black under green glaze. This
may be accepted as indicating the special features of the
Ao kutani. The green is scarcely less fine than the finest
Chinese the yellow and aubergine, lustrous and full-toned,
;
are enamels painted over designs traced in aubergine and

black upon the biscuit.
The other class resembled the Imari, with one difference
which is distinctive there is no blue employed under the
glaze in combination with coloured enamels over the glaze.
Otherwise the colours were similar but the enamels, which
;
include a soft Prussian blue, were finer, and the red, soft,
subdued, and full-toned, varied from rich Indian red to
russet-brown.
The designs were those of an artist, the noted Kuzumi
Morikage, who painted simple but effective scenes from
nature, differing altogether from the masses of brilliant
blossoms so notable in Imari ware. It is well to note that
the work of Morikag6 remained as the standard of Kutani
decoration, though conventional diapers, scrolls, and medal-
lions, enclosing symbols, may decorate many of the finest
examples to the exclusion of figure subjects, with the one
exception of the Chinese karako, children at play. Modern
Kutani, like modern Satsuma, is ornamented with peacocks,
chrysanthemums, and peonies, saints and lange lijsen or

graceful damsels, and many other subjects.
Bearing in mind that the paste furnishes no safe guide
when Kutani blue-and-white is under consideration, it is
evident that a judgment must be made on the tone of the
blue and the nature of the glaze. The latter has a peculiar
softness, the blue is poor inferior to Chinese and the best
;
Hizen, totally different from the delicate blue of Hirato, it is

an inferior colour, and will never, I think, be valuable. But
the coloured pieces, notwithstanding what has been said of
the paste, have so much of distinction in their enamels, and
in their style of decoration, that they stand alone, and the
more so because of the beauty of the soft glaze.
By comparison, it may well be said that Ming blue-and-
white is old ; so it is, but the pale grey-blue of the fifteenth
century pales in interest and value before that of the sixteenth,
which itself is only a herald of the triumphs of the reign of
Kang-he, a specimen,"^ specimen, of which, at the sale of the

Louis Huth collection, realised 5,900 guineas. When Japanese
blue-and-white porcelain becomes the vogue, large sums will
be secured for fine specimens of Hirato and Nabeshima ware,
and then Japanese collectors may be tempted to sell. Till
then, the princes, the nobility, and the rich collectors, who
have secured the finest productions of these private and
renowned factories, will rejoice in their rarity, and in the high
prices which they have already reached, as much as in their
beauty, which has a richness qui pent lutter avec celui des
pierreries elles-memes.
The earliest examples at the Victoria and Albert Museum
of old Kutani porcelain are a shallow bowl (hachi) and a
square dish (sara), both painted in yellow, green, and purple,
and both made about 1620. They are marked with a seal
character, Fuku (happiness), known as the open- window mark.
Other specimens, two saucer dishes (sara) and a similar cake-
box (kwasi-ire), are one hundred and fifty years later, and
two pairs of flower- vases only date back to 1875.
It is evident again that genuine Kutani ware may be
modern, but the only modern products which may excite
the interest of the collector are those made under the direction
of Zengoro Hozen, who, about 1840, settled at Kutani and
taught the style of ornament known as Kinrante, of which
something more is said under "Yeiraku Ware." It will
suffice here to notice that he was the twelfth generation
from the great potter Yeiraku in direct descent.
The peculiarity of this Yeiraku Kinrante consisted in its
imitation of brocade patterns for the grounds, which were
diapered in lozenges, mosaics, broken sticks, and patterned
with the Greek-key, with trellis-work, with scrolls, stars,
Nishikite* ware, which resembles Arita
flowers, or scales.
ware, has similar brocade diapers. It will be seen that this

Kinrante* ware resembled the Ao kutani already described,
onlyit was much later.
The work of Kuzumi Morikage lost its influence with time ;
the factory, for about twenty years before the nineteenth

century commenced, produced scarcely any good work, and,
although efforts were made by a potter named Yoshidaya,
about 1804 to 1812, and by a porcelain painter, one Shozo,
it was not until the advent of Zengoro that is, Yeiraku
that real progress was made. Now, in the district, there are
several kilns not in the Kutani village itself , because that is
high up in the mountains, but nearer the place where the
clay found, Kutani-mura. Some ware made from imported

is
clay is perfectly white and transparent, but the genuine old

Kutani ware was made from the clay found close by, and it
has a uniform, rather dark-red tone, differing from the greyish-
white, which was made also from clay brought from else-
where.
The later products are, in decoration, noted for red grounds
and rich gilding, gold grounds and painting in red. They
have little resemblance either to the old enamelled Japanese
patterns, or to the imitations of Chinese porcelain, which
were made about 1750-70, just before the close of the Meiwa
period.
Kutani appears to have lost the patronage of the feudal
Prince of Taichoji, for we read that the Prince of Kaga and
the Shogun Tsunayoshi gave some encouragement to the
potters, which, however, was not sufficient, for nearly all of
the finest old work dates back to the century preceding 1770,
and it is scarcely necessary to remark that this has the greatest
value.
Kyoto Dohachi
About the time when Zengoro Hozen was adding to his
laurels at Kyoto, another noted potter was also making a
wreath. Dohachi (Takahasi), about 1825, commenced his
career, and soon exhibited such technical skill that some of
his glazes rivalled those which Ninsei had discovered, and
some of his designs were as graceful as the best of the Japanese
work. The most coveted glaze is an unusual dull white,
with a tinge of pink, which appears to have been reproduced
from a Korean model, which was called the gohon or " pattern
ware," the tinge of pink being sometimes broken by flecks
or spots in the glaze.
In 1830 Dohachi's reputation was established, and his
sphere of action was enlarged he became a teacher of the
potters in various factories, a position which nearly all
the great masters had assumed. Dohachi accomplished the
fusion of the Korean and Japanese style of decoration, which
had been an idea in the Taiko's mind two hundred and fifty
years before, when he had imported a quantity of Korean
pottery for copying. In his old age the artist-potter took
the name of Ninami, with which he marked some of his wares,
though, in general, Dohachi was used for that purpose.
Amongst the modern potters, Kyoto boasts of Kiyomidzu
Rokubei, Seyfou, Taizan, and Tanzan; Tokyo, of Inouye;
Osaka, of Ma isan and Yokohama, of Makuzu. Rokubei painted
;
landscapes resembling those of Tannyii, who painted the

wares made by his family long ago; he preserved the old
style. Seyfou was a master of coloured glazes violets and
aubergines, corals and cobalt blues. Makuzu for some time
flooded the market with the mock Satsuma, which is both a
snare and a sham. He, too, had extraordinary skill in glazes,
and did better work on ancient lines later. Maizan's modern
Satsuma was noted for the fine paintings of flowers, butterflies,
and figures, which will be treasured as time goes on.
Some modern Japanese productions, such as vases and
other objects incrusted with cloisonne" enamel, are fine,
curious and interesting. The porcelain, to which the cloisons
or metallic filets were fixed, was fired first, then the enamel
colours as glassy fluxes were applied and fired until the
whole surface was covered, the surplus glaze was filed away,
and, lastly, the surface was polished. Numerous firings were
necessary to fill the spaces between the cloisons evenly.
The Japanese also cover faience with lacquer, chiefly dark
green or black, decorated afterwards with colours and gold.

The well-known basket-work, enclosing curious fragile speci-
mens of Sheba egg-shell porcelain, may be old or modern.
-The beauty of the interior painting and the fineness of the
basket-work appear to be the best tests of age the modern
;
examples are not equal to the old.
Kyoto Yeiraku Ware

"
In 1878 Franks wrote : There is an ancient pottery at
Kyoto, founded by family called Yeiraku, a title bestowed
a
upon them by the Prince of Kii. The present maker is of
the thirteenth generation. They make both pottery and
porcelain, especially the latter." Yeiraku is amongst the
most illustrious names which dominate the history of ceramics
in Japan, which is a record rather of individuals than factories.
The early products were tea-bowls (cha-wan) and tea-jars
(chaire) for the cha-no-yu. In 1594 the family removed
to Kyoto, and in the eleventh generation was represented by
Zengoro Hozen, who at first devoted himself to meet the
requirements of the tea ceremonies, under the advice of the
cha-jin y in which he showed remarkable skill, blending
pastes of different colours with great dexterity, and acquiring
a high reputation for his work, to which he added imitations
of Korean faience.
Porcelain soon attracted his attention, and ultimately he
produced fine celadons of the sea-green tint, and admirable
blue-and-white, with the blue, as usual, under the glaze,
lyenari, the eleventh prince of the Tokugawa dynasty,
governed a land at peace, where wealth was devoted to art,
and the feudal princes, who followed his example, sent gifts
of pottery and porcelain to the Shogun, a custom which
established a whole-hearted emulation in their factories.
Zengoro's deserved fame induced Harunori, feudal Prince of
Kishu, to appoint him, in 1827, as the manager of his kilns,
where he made the Oniwa-yaki, the celebrated Yeiraku ware,
in imitation of the Chinese, though it scarcely ever equalled
it. The ware was stamped with his seal, and it. attained au
immense popularity amongst collectors. He made a close
study of the composition and application of glazes, and his
aubergine porcelain, his rich combinations of turquoise blue,
purple, and yellow, applied to faience, were some of his
achievements. Another colour, the coral-red, again imitated
from the old Chinese, was no less successful, the names
Kinrante (scarlet and gold brocade pattern) and Akaji-kinga
(gold designs on a red ground) being sufficiently distinctive.
This success brought many honours to Yeiraku; Harunori
gave him no less than three seals, which may be found upon
the ware he made. One, Kahin Shiriu, was devoted to the
very finest pieces, and to them sometimes is added the second
seal, Yeiraku, and many of the specimens imitating the
Chinese turquoise blues and purples are stamped Yeiraku-
yen. In addition to pottery and porcelain, a hard stoneware
was produced and decorated with rich single colour and
variegated glazes.
The great potter worked for Harunori at Nishihama, for
eight or nine years when he retired, Yoshehei, a potter from
;
Kyoto, was appointed director of the works, which were

closed in 1844, when Harunori died.
CHAPTER XVIII
MINATO WARE TO RAKU WARE

'THHIS factory, near the town of Sakai, in the province
X of Idsumi, is interesting because of its antiquity. A
Buddhist priest named Goghi, or Giyogi, who returned from
Korea in the seventh century, founded, it is said, the Todai-ji
temple in the city of Nara, the old capital of the empire.
He is credited with the invention of the potter's wheel, but
there appears no evidence to substantiate such a claim. No
doubt prevails in my mind, the Chinese invented that wheel,
as they invented many things which were discovered by
other peoples. Giyogi probably brought it from Korea, and
he might have worked with it at Minato, or instructed the
potters in its use.
Archaic pottery, such as that ascribed to the early cen-
turies, isvery rare, and as far as I know, none of our museums
have any specimens of the first Minato ware turned upon
the wheel. It was centuries later when the factory made the
brittle biscuit ware, which for a long time was left in the
biscuit state a yellowish earthenware, unglazed, eminently
suited for ash-bowls (hai ki), which were used in the tea
ceremony, but useless for tea-bowls (chawari), because pottery
unglazed allows water to percolate.
In the seventeenth century a thin glaze was adopted. About
this time another pottery was started by Hachita Gensai,
who confined his attention to the production of ash-bowls
for use at the cha-no-yu. They resembled the unglazed
Minato ware, though known by the name of the maker as
Gensai ware.
301
This later ware gives distinct evidence of turning upon
the wheel but much of the early ware, the oldest of the tea-
;
bowls, including many of those most precious to collectors,

was moulded by hand, leaving marks upon the clay even if
glazed, the impressions of the fingers.
it is One difficulty, a
grave one, in attempting to classify early pottery such as
the Minato Yaki in the absence of marks, is to be found in
the number of potteries, some of them carried on by a small
family, and many producing the same articles tea-bowls, ash-
bowls, and ordinary household utensils. For this reason,
amongst the other marks not arranged in alphabetical order,
will be found some which are common, some very uncommon.
The mark "Minato Yaki," which is given, dates about A.D.
1770. The old kilns are still in use, but the pottery of Gensai
has ceased to exist.
Nabeshima Porcelain
The factory was the property of Nabeshima, feudal Prince

of Hizen, who, at Okochi-yama, produced porcelain distin-
guished for its paste and glaze, as well as its blue, though it
scarcely approaches Hirato in either respect 'the blue has
"
the curious Mohammedan " tone. Whereas the colour at
Hirato used sometimes, but rarely, with blue was brown, at
Nabeshima it was red or green, and this distinction aids re-
cognition, for at the private factories of porcelain no factory

marks were used, though copies of Chinese pieces might be
marked with the marks appearing on the original. For the
same reason Nabeshima porcelain never appeared upon the
market, being, as we have stated with regard to Hirato,
reserved for the feudal prince. Again, like Hirato, specimens
are rare even the museums are often lacking. Amongst the
marks willbe found the blazon of the prince of this house
who employed Ri-sanpei when he returned from the Korean
War in 1592. Ri-sanpei was a Korean potter, but he met
with indifferent success in his search for materials.
The removal of the factory in 1710 to Okochi or Okawaji,
S
I 9
*H <
co O
303
MINATO TO RAKU WARE 305
after two trials at Taku and Arita, was attended with success,
and it is to the prince of the later period that this was due.
There is one hint that must not be overlooked. The lower
edge of the saucers for the cups is painted in blue with a
design resembling the teeth of a comb, hence its name Kushite
that is, the ware with the comb-teeth. This, then, marked
the ware produced and sent by the Prince in presentation to
the Imperial Court and to the Shogun, in plates, cups, and
ornaments, which are amongst the objects most desired by
Japanese collectors, though two varieties of celadon were
also much admired. I have a pair of vases, probably made
for a present to the Emperor, whose three leaves and flowers

of the Paulownia imperialis are treated conventionally in
relief on a celadon ground. These are in imitation of Chinese
celadon. The other variety was a fine crackled ground of
peculiar tone.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum there
is a
quadrangular
incense-burner (koro) a tray with four feet,
consisting of
supporting a trough, over which fits a cover of pierced net-
work at the sides are alternately a tree and a koi fish at a
;
waterfall borders of leaves and cinquefoil on a red ground.

;
This early piece is assigned to 1740. There are other speci-

mens of later origin. One, a saucer dish (sara), is painted
with fern-like branches and leaves in green and blue, on the
inside, whilst outside are scrolls in blue surmounting the blue
comb-teeth (kushite"), which form a border to the foot rim.
Again I have to note that Okawaji ware may be modern,
for amongst the objects in the Museum is a pair of flower-
vases (hana-ike) which are not earlier than 1875. Like much
of the modern ware, the vases are richly ornamented in
brilliant colours and gilding, with flowers and leaves. Round
the neck are storks in a red ground at the base a band of
;
green scale pattern with two sacred tortoises amidst con-

ventional waves.
But the Okawaji porcelain which the collector seeks is
the best of the ware which is painted with the blue, the
Nabeshima ware with the Kushite" design as a mark, the white
or buff ware covered with the notable celadon glaze.
Ninsei and Kyoto Faience
The name of Ninsei, Nomura Ninsei, must ever be honoured

amongst the great potters of Japan. If the three elements,
Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, blended in him, from that
FLOWER VASE, BY NINSEI.
blend he evolved a product which was national, and this,

in spite of the fact that the making of pottery was not his
profession; yet, somewhere about 1650, having possessed

himself of the secrets of the Hizen factories, he set himself
to manufacture enamelled pottery. Omuro-yaki, the name
given to his first successful efforts, was made in the district

of Omuro, he had no kiln of his own, only a keen logic,
for
an inventive spirit, and a fine taste and these were enough.
Working in the neighbourhood of Kyoto, at Awata, Iwakura,
and Mizoro, he practised and imparted, giving to his fellow
workmen of his knowledge, and probably acquiring from them
practical skill, until his influence wrought such a vital change
that the natural style proclaimed itself Japanese. It was
then that the faience of Kyoto assumed a new character, a
beauty which before had been lacking, for, though the works
of Ninsei belonged to various styles, each seemed to be the
outcome of a special process, though all of the buff, fawn-
coloured, and cream-coloured ware was crackled with a
circular crackle almost regular. This is, of itself, a trust-
worthy test of this ware.
The paste or body of the pieces made and decorated by
him varied, as we should expect, in view of his migrations.
The most common is a hard close-grained clay nearly brick-
red in colour then another clay was yellowish-grey, with a
;
texture as close as pipe-clay. The most popular was the

pottery with a finely crackled glaze decorated with flowers,
in which blue and green enamels were used with gold. His
monochrome glazes, black over green, pearl-white, golden-
brown, and buff, were often painted with
chocolate,
coloured enamels in floral designs and gilt. His skill as
a modeller was almost as great as that shown in other
directions.
The test of the crackle, the test of the paste, the quality
of the decoration, and of the modelling, should be applied to
every piece, even though it is marked with his two characters,
engraved in the paste, for his designs were imitated at Kyoto,
where decorated faience was very popular, and many of them
are marked with his name. Genuine specimens realise high
prices in Japan, and though the demand for fine old Japanese
ware has not yet arisen in England, it will come, and whoever
owns any old Kyoto ware, the work of Ninsei, will rejoice
thereat and be glad. Two other noted potters, Kinkozan and
Kenzan, were associated with Kyoto and its neighbourhood
but we have already read something of Ninseiat Awata,
later,
which was Kyoto too.
Ohi Ware
Near Kanawaza,in theKaga province,a kiln was established
about the end of the seventeenth century by a potter, Choza-
yemon, on the Raku system. Each piece was shaped by
hand and fired separately. The ware of Ohi was encouraged
by the leaders of the tea ceremonies, which, of itself, is a
testimony to its excellence. There are numerous wares called
Raku, which vary, it may be slightly, but the best must
have two qualities they must be smooth to the touch of
hand and lip, and they must retain the heat. Some clays
possess these qualities more than others, and the Ohi clay
was redder and denser than many the glaze was a very
smooth yellowish-red lustre. The fourth Chozayemon used
a seal which is shown in the list by the side of the name of
another maker scratched in the paste. This name Sen-ki
is one amongst many. Nearly all the villagers are potters
possessing their own kiln.
Raku Ware
An old Korean potter, Ameya, settled in Kyoto about 1560,
and introduced the Raku ware, which was named Juraku,
before the Shogun Hideyoshi honoured his son and successor,
Chojiro, by giving him a seal to mark his ware. This seal
is shown as the fourth Raku mark in the list. The descend-
ants of Chojiro, the Ameya Chojiro, who is known as the
first of the family whose generations have descended to the
present day, used their own seals, as the gold seal was lost
by the second Chojiro, but the character was always Raku.
This mark is represented in the Museum at South Kensington
by a series extending from about 1650 to 1840, from the
third ,to the eleventh Chojiro. The successive names are :
(i) Chojiro, (2) Chojiro, (3) Do-niu, (4) Ichi-niu, (5) So-niu,
(6) Sa-niu, (7) Cho-riiu, (8) Toku-niu, (9) Riyo-niu, (10) Tan-
niu, and (u) Kichizayemon.
The other seal,mark 3, is associated with Kichizayemon's
seal in a double mark upon a tea-bowl. It reads " Made at
the Senraku Garden." Mark 4 is found upon a
papier-mache*
STATUETTE OF FUKUROKUJU IN RAKU WARE.
tea-bowl covered with brown lacquer, and 5 shows the name

of a potter, Kikko, a modern maker of Raku ware whose
kilns are at Osaka. These pieces are in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, with others from various Raku potteries.
CHAPTER XIX
SANDA WARE TO YATSU-SHIRO WARE

pottery is known as yaki, and the crackled ware
WHILST
as hibi-yaki, the celadon variety is named seiji and
the stoneware shaki. It may happen that all these varieties
may be traced to one factory or one district, or the wares
may be limited. At Sanda they were yaki and seiji. Kuki,
feudal Prince of the Setsu province, established kilns at
Sanda at the close of the seventeenth century, but ordinary
ware only was made until a hundred years later, when two
workmen returned from Arita, where they had succeeded in
learning how to make porcelain, and, by the aid of some
pupils of the famous master Rokubei, on their return they
produced an excellent celadon, the Sanda seiji, which became
so noted as to be used as a generic term for Japanese celadon,
though a much finer product had long before been made at
the Hizen potteries, especially at Nabeshima.
The Nabeshima celadon had a tone of much delicacy, the
Chinese was a little warmer in tone, but the Sanda seiji was a
brighter green. This ware was produced in large quantities,
whilst that of Nabeshima was only made for presentation
or for special use. Some princes reserved the whole of the
products of their factories others were content to allow the
;
sale of what they did notrequire for themselves. The aboli-

tion of the feudal system led to the decline of many of
the privately owned kilns, and Sanda celadon ceased to be.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum are two specimens of
this glaze. One is an incense-burner (koro) shaped as a
cock looking backwards, made about 1710 ; the other is
310
1. CUP, MINO WARE. DISH, VEDO BANKO WARE. SAKE CUP, YEIRAKU WARE.
2. VASE, OTA WARE. VASE, ARITA WARE. CANDLESTICK, TOZAN WARE.
3. DISH, ARITA WARE. SAUCER DISH, AWAJI WARE.
SANDA TO YATSU-SHIRO WARE 313
a curious reticulated cage, oviform in shape, which might

have been used as a koro or as a receptacle for the leaves of
fragrant flowers. This is ascribed to 1767, and is a piece
of unusual character, resembling in form a piece of Seto ware
in the same museum, though the pierced work is of different
design.
Satsuma Ware or Faience

Whatever opinion may prevail regarding Japanese porcelain
in comparison with Chinese, there is a general agreement
that the pottery of Japan is pre-eminent, and foremost stands
the old Satsuma. So-called Satsuma, sent in loads from
Tokyo, may be brilliantly decorated, it may be perhaps artistic
the large vases and jardinieres, for instance but it is
all ;
not the Satsuma which is so highly valued by the connoisseurs

of Oriental Art ;
in fact, it is nothing like it in size, colour,
texture, crackle, or decoration. In size pieces of real Satsuma

are small ; in colour they range from cream to old ivory ;
in texture they are hard ; in crackle, minute ;
in decoration,
enamel colours, matt gold, and raised ornament are of the
greatest delicacy. There are other varieties still rarer but ;
we quote Mr. Ernest Hart " During the whole of my stay

:
in Japan, in private and public collections, and in all the

collections which I have seen in Europe, fine Satsuma of
the older dates is the rarest and least attainable, while spurious
imitations are the most abundant and disfiguring features.
But of some thousands of pieces of so-called Satsuma offered
me elsewhere, and at other times, I have hardly ever found
one that was both genuine and of any art value."
The feudal Prince of Satsuma, in 1598, returned from a war
in Korea with a number of workmen, some of whom were
potters. Shimazu Yoshihiro employed these men in copying

from Korean models, having first selected the most skilful
and removed them to Chiusa or Chosa. Ware having a fine
paste was made, some covered with green, yellow, or black
some parti-coloured or flambe. The Prince of Sasshiu,
glaze,
by name Mitsuhisa, set up a kiln in his own grounds, in which
16
verifiable enamels were employed by workmen, who were
furnished with designs by a noted painter Tangen, possibly.
Tangen decorated some of the
ware himself, for a beautiful
enamelled specimen might well
be Satsuma-Tangen, and, as
such, would be recognised by
the Japanese collector, because
of the fashion of its decoration.
At a later period, after the
closing of this and another
private kiln, came another
Prince of Sasshiu, who, at the
end of the eighteenth century,
took the Satsuma factory under
his protection. This Prince
Yeio sent two men to Kyoto,
and, on their return, the manu-
facture of hard Satsuma was
resumed and decorated with
diapers, subjects, and
floral
landscapes, in addition to the

mythological ho-ho birds, the
shishi lion, the dragon, and the
kirin, a kind of unicorn com-
monly called a kylin. The pro-
ductions were presented to the
Shoguns and Daimios, and to
the friends of the prince. They
were not for sale.
The enamelled faience having
decoration in colours and gold
upon a hard, white paste is
SAKE*-BOTTLE IN OLD SATSUMA very rare, so are the mono-
WARE.
chrome glazes, especially yellow
and black. Olive-green, associated with dark mustard-yellow
or with chocolate^brown, really comes into another class of
the flambS or transmutation glazes, and not the monochrome.
These splashed pieces have a different paste, forming a fine,

hard body, nearly a stoneware, and they had a high repu-
tation in the cha-no-yu ceremony, in which you will read
that a distinct function in that ceremony was the admiring
of the old utensils, especially the tea-bowls. The stimulus
given to the potter in this way was considerable, the cha-jin
was the arbiter of taste, as he was the ceremonial chief of
the tea-club, the leader of the cult of the cha.
Old Satsuma is exceedingly rare. It is said that there are
PERFUME-BURNER IN SATSUMA WARE.
no genuine specimens having a mark, and none painted with

"
figures. One curious class " mushroom Satsuma is highly
valued in America, where it is described as resembling a bed
of mushrooms, in curious, round crackle, with ivory brown
undertints. Imitations ? Why, yes !
Tokyo and Kyoto
and Ota. These are all yellower in tone than the real old
ware. From Ota, Kozan, a modern manufacturer, has issued
a great quantity of pottery commonly sold under the Satsuma
name. The old decoration and the old ware are aptly
described by Franks : "The Satsuma ware, made at Chiusa,
known as ko-chiusa, resembles a very smooth ostrich-egg in
texture and colour, and is very delicately decorated.. An-
other ware is grey inlaid with white, like the pottery of
Yadsushiro, and is closely copied from Korean." The
decoration may be seen upon a few pieces in the Victoria
and Albert Museum. It is sparse, not crowded, consisting
of a few sprays or branches of flowers in colours and gold,
which was applied in outlines as early as 1630. Another
style of decoration consists of panels or patches of different
diapers and conventional ornament, also painted with enamel
colours and glit. A koro, or incense-burner, about A.D. 1660,
a vase to hold a tea-ladle (shaku-tade) about thirty years
,
later in date, in the Museum, are both ko-chiusa. Another

koro, a tripod vase with handles and a cover, surmounted
by a lion, made at Nawashirogawa, about 1720, marks the
later home of the factory. Both Chiusa and Nawashirogawa
are in the province of Satsuma.
Seto Ware
Many villages in the province of Owari had their kilns,
and produced ware which bore the name of its place of
origin Seto, Shino, Oribe, and so on. The old Seto ware was
reddish-buff stoneware, covered with a brown glaze, streaked
with lighter or darker tones of brown, and marked at the
base with curious, irregular, concentric rings, caused by the
thread or wire used to detach the object in its clay state
from the wheel resembling the markings on the outside of
an oyster-shell. These itoguiri marks appear especially on
the early Seto ware the stoneware, not the porcelain. The
most famous potter, whose work distinguished the village
of Seto, was Kato Shirozayemon, whose other name was
Toshiro. On from a visit to China, early in the
his return
thirteenth century, he, after trying kilns at several places,
found here the clay he wanted.
It was used in making vessels for the tea ceremony, which
need no description, because they have been noted before. The
tea-drinkers gave the name of Ko-Seto to the much-prized
6
W W
J
8
S3
H W
5 3
PQ
317
ware made by him from the native clay, though other ware,
made from clay which he brought from China, named Kara-
mono, or Chinese ware, was even more highly valued. We
read of one small tea-bowl which cost thousands of dollars
in the days of the Shogun Hideyoshi. Japanese collectors
account the first Toshiro's ware as priceless.
Toshiro's descendants took his name, prefixing the second,
the third, and the fourth, but they appear to have had other
names, which, however, are not recorded as marks, and need
not be given. Another potter, Kato Tamikichi, settled at
Seto, after working at Arita, early in the nineteenth century.
He produced the sometsuke porcelain, painted in blue under
the glaze. This is still made in plates or tables of large size.
Ki-Seto ware, the yellow Seto, was produced at another
pottery. The buff-coloured stoneware was covered with a
yellow glaze, at first thin and transparent, afterwards opaque.
The latter glaze was often marked by transparent green spots,
and decorated with flowers and grasses. There is one re-
semblance between this and the Seto ware proper, on the
base, the itoguiri marks may be traced not in the earliest
fifteenth-century work, made by Haku-an, which is ex-
cessively rare, but in the ware made two centuries later.
It depends for its value upon the depth of the yellow glaze ;
the specimens having a dark-yellow colour are amongst the

objects most valued by the tea-drinkers.
Soma Ware
Amongst the blazons given in the lists will be found that
of the Prince ofSoma, a kicking horse, ascribed to the painter
Kano Naonobu. This ware derives its name from the feudal
prince, so the decoration of it in later times was associated
with the horse though the older ware only bears his coat-
;
of-arms, the early nineteenth-century products were painted

with a horse, or a herd of horses, galloping. The pottery
made at Naga-mura consisted chiefly of small cups, probably
sake"-cups, with a rough indented surface outside, npon
which the horse was sometimes represented in relief. Heraldic
badges occur upon examples from many factories, but, when
we bear in mind that princes made presents to their friends,
it would not be safe to conclude that the blazon
always
indicated the pottery where they were produced.
Toyo-ura Ware
Of the old potteries at the foot of the hill of Toyo-ura, in
the province of Nagato, little is known. Unglazed ash-bowls,
like those described elsewhere, were the chief objects made.
The mark given, "Toyo-ura yama," the name of the factory,
is found upon pieces made about the middle of the nineteenth
century pinkish-yellow unglazed ware, with black marks at

the side.
Tozan Ware
The feudal prince of the family of Sakai, in the province
of Harima, founded the pottery for the purpose of imitating
the Arita ware of the class known as sometsuke, painted- in
blue under the glaze. The early ware appears to have no
mark the one given dates about 1820, when the imitation
;
was successful. Porcelain, painted with symbols, landscapes,

etc.,was produced, as well as celadon porcelain, also after the
Chinese style. Like many of the other private factories,
when the power of the Shogun ceased, the interest of the
princely patron in the fictile art, the personal element,
diminished and expired so that, in many cases, even if the
;
kilns were not closed, the work degenerated, as was the

case here. I have not been able to find why the ware re-
ceived the name Tozan, for the mark indicates the place of
"
origin in this case Made at Himeji."
Yatsu-shiro Ware
Potteries existed in the province of Higo, south of Hizen,
from very remote times, centuries before the arrival of a
Korean potter, best known as Uyeno Kizo, a vassal of the
feudal Prince Kato Kiyomasa, but only common articles for
JAPANESE CLOISONN^ ENAMEL.
321
household use were made until about 1600, when he settled
at Toda, near the port of Yatsu-shiro, opposite the island of
Amakusa, noted for its potter's clay, which yielded a fine,
iron-red paste, for pottery known at first as Toda-yaki, after-
wards as Yatsu-shiro yaki, one of the most delicate faiences
of Japan.
The paste had a close texture of admirable quality, and a
pearl-grey glaze was used upon it, which in the older pieces
is uniform, lustrous, and minutely crackled,
producing a
combination of rich quality as a ground upon which the
decoration of storks flying in the clouds, of various diapers,
or of simple lines in combination was applied, not in the
usual way by the painting of enamel colours, but inlaid with
white clay before glazing. A tea-bowl (chawan) which I
have has the hard red paste, a pearl-grey glaze, finely crackled
and ornamented with lines, diapers, and flowers in white
inlays, also on the base inside. The red clay is splashed
on the base where there is no glaze, and above it where it is
mingled with the pearl-grey glaze. This ware was copied
from the Korean, but the copy is far superior to the original.
It represents the Henry Deux or St. Porchaire ware of Japan,
and is very rare. The modern ware is pretty, but collectors
have no use for modernity.
Another very desirable variety of the Yatsu-shiro yaki is
the streaked pottery in white the design engraved and filled
;
with white is intended to represent brush marks from a very

coarse brush, used with boldness and rapidity. The potters
of this factory never used enamels; their decoration, the
colour of the glaze, and the texture of the clay varied, but
the ornament was always inlaid pate sur pate. The storks
and clouds (unkaku) formed the usual design, the paste varied
from iron-red to dark grey, the glaze from pearl-grey to dark
brown, and the crackle in the degree of its fineness but as
;
the inlaid decoration was constant and peculiar to this factory,

it is easy to identify the ware when familiar with its dis-
tinguishing features, and here, as always, one careful glance

is better than a page of description.
Yet the study, apart from actual specimens, is full of interest;

the bowls, such as the one described, show how great was the
influence of the cha-jin, and the cha-no-yu, for the vessels
employed in the tea-clubs were compulsory coarse and
archaic bowls, not turned on the wheel, were preferred to all
others. We should say that they were thick, perhaps un-
shapely and little decorated, but they were highly prized
for one quality they were very smooth to the lips, as I

have before noted several times.
CHAPTER XX
JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS
those who have learnt to love Japanese prints, their
FORcharm is immense, their fascination extreme. In the
finest of them, the colouring, quiet as it may be, is serene and
mellow, in perfect harmony. In others, where the tones are
rich and glowing, they are still harmonious. For grace and
beauty of composition, and for excellence in the sweep of the
lines, they surpass all other coloured prints, forming a class
apart.
The wonderful advance in public estimation, which has
led the Western collector to place them amongst his treasures
of art, has affected their value so much, that they may soon
be beyond the purse of those of moderate means. Now,
when it is too late, the Japanese, who have only lately shared
our appreciation, realise that they have made a great mistake
in selling them out of their own country for a mere trifle,
and with characteristic sagacity they are hastening to supply
the market with reproductions, so that, at the outset, a
danger awaits the beginner he may be tempted to buy these
forgeries, which are worthless.
Fortunately, there are tests which will minimise this
danger. Look at the paper and feel it. If it is stiff and
springy and thick, the print is modern the old prints are
;
upon soft paper difficult to describe, because it in texture

resembles nothing that we use, but so peculiar as to be easily
recognised with practice. Hold the print up to the light ;
if it is old, you will see the whole picture through the back; if
it is modern, the colours only will be shown. Then, again, as

325
the engravers worked at home in the living-room, the paper
is often very brown that is, the old paper because the en-
gravings were hung up in that room to dry, though some of
the old paper had a natural brown tone.
The old colours were soft and mellow they may be faded,
;
but the harmony is still there the fading has affected them
equally. The later German pigments, especially an offensive
violet, may easily bedetected as work not earlier than
about 1880, whilst the latest colours, the aniline dyes, differ,
owing to their lack of capacity. Comparisons must be made
to emphasise these differences, but the task is not a hard
one. The colours used in the best period, mineral and
vegetable, the reds and yellows, the curious lacquer colours,
the quality of the blacks, may soon be identified, and should
never be mistaken. The earliest prints were tinted by hand,
and this should be specially noted. In fact, in one lesson
under proper teaching, the beginner would acquire such
ability to distinguish the old from the modern prints, that
it seems a pity not to have practical lessons for this purpose,
rather than books, though these have their value they

furnish material for interesting study.
As in the West, so in the East, the first books were printed
from wood blocks but, whilst the Western world progressed
;
in adopting movable types in the fifteenth century, the

Oriental practice of engraving was maintained until the last
few decades, and still exists. This produced a continuous
succession of skilled wood-engravers, to whom much of the
credit for colour-printing in Japan is due, but even their
names have been forgotten. Probably they were never
recorded, yet their work will never perish, and, though the
artist, the print-designer, receives all the credit, many of the
painters had nothing at

all to do, either with the engraving or
the printing. So that when we speak of a fine colour-print,

by Kiyonaga, or Utamaro, we must distinctly remember that
the design only was supplied by them the engraving was ;
always done by another person. And we must remember,

too, that when the engraving was completed, thousands of
prints received impression from the blocks.
JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS 327
The Ukiyo-ye school of genre painting never equalled the

Tosa and Kano schools, upon which we need not dwell here,
except to note that the former was the earlier by hundreds
of years. Considered from an artistic point of view, the
paintings of the later genre school excited less interest than
the colour-prints there was but little demand for them in
Japan, where the artists devoted themselves to the prepara-
tion of illustrations for books and of subjects for prints, to
the exclusion of painting proper. This is one of the causes
why such genre paintings are rare. Nobody valued them.
Yet they were always superior to the colour-prints in which
most importance was attached to the harmony of colouring.
No print can equal the original in the quality, which, for lack
of a better word, may be termed the lustre of the colours,
neither can it be equal in life and freedom of touch.
When the engraver pasted the design, face downwards, upon
the block of soft cherry-wood, he proceeded to carve the
block until that design was left in bold relief, thus destroying
the original entirely. The process is referred to later. I am
inclined to doubt whether coloured drawings were thus
destroyed first, because there would remain no guide to the

printer second, because illustrations of actual print-making
;
show the picture upon the wall and third, because Fukuba's
;
collection ofUkiyo-ye paintings at the Japan-British Ex-

hibition included every artist of eminence, from Iwasa
Matabei and Hishikawa Moronobu, to Hokusai, Kunisada,
and Hiroshige.
I cannot do better than quote Mr. Arthur Morrison's
introduction to Mr. Happer's catalogue, to which I refer
elsewhere. It is very appreciative and interesting.
"
No process of printing has ever brought forth such
another body of pure art as was put forth in Japan in the
eighteenth century and in the early part of the nineteenth ;
' '
though in fact one may hesitate to use the word printing

to describe the process whereby Japanese colour-prints were
produced, since it conveys to European minds ideas of
mechanical facture such as had no part in the art we are
considering. Each print, indeed, may be considered a water-
colour picture produced by hand pressure for there was no
;
press, and the printer was an artist rather than an artisan,

mixing and spreading his colours on the blocks and tinting
his sheets by a dexterous, simple, but delicate use of the ten
fingers he was born with.

"
Perhaps it is scarcely necessary, at this time of day, to
reiterate the details of the process ; but it may be stated
shortly that the original drawing, in black outline on very
thin paper, was pasted face-downward on a wood block,
and then cut through by the engraver with a precision which
left on the block an exact reverse of every brush-stroke of
the original, Proofs were taken, by hand pressure, of this
outline block, and were pasted in their turn on fresh blocks,
one for each colour in the design. Each of these colour
blocks was then cut in a manner to leave a flat surface of the
correct form to receive the pigment proper to it and the
;
finished print was the result of a careful and extraordinarily

skilful rubbing on all the blocks in succession, beginning
with the key-block. Such, broadly, was the procedure,
though many refinements were used, the colours being graded
and varied on the blocks, tints being printed over tints, and
wholly uncoloured and uninked blocks being employed to
'
effect a gauffrage or blind-tooling/ which often has a charming
effect in prints of the finest period.
"
This process, in its perfection, was of course not evolved
except after intermediate stages of experiment and advance ;
and here it may be well to glance for a moment at the history

of the school of artists to whom we owe this delightful chapter
of the world's art. It must be understood that there are
and have been many diverse schools of painting in Japan,
and one of the latest evolved was that of the Ukiyo-ye, or
school of ordinary life.
"The founder of this school was one Iwasa Matabei, a
man of noble birth, who lived at the end of the sixteenth
century and through the first half of the seventeenth. Mata-
bei was one of the greatest artists produced by Japan or
any other country, though his work is now exceedingly rare ;
he was a painter purely, and produced no colour-prints, but

by combining the characteristic features of the two great

classic academies Kano with much that
the Tosa and the
was wholly his own, he originated the manner which was
followed, with individual variations, by the school of artists
who produced the colour-prints. The school was maintained
by Matabei's son and other followers, still as a school of
painters merely, till the time of Hishigawa Moronobu, in the
latter half of the seventeenth century. Moronobu, a painter
of genius, widened the scope of the school, and was the first
of its members to produce prints, although in plain black
only. His book illustrations had great force and character,

and detached sheet prints are rare and much sought.
his
"
From the time of Moronobu the Japanese print passed
through a period of development culminating in the decade
1760-1770, when Harunobu put forth an extraordinary suc-
cession of works in which the printing process was pushed
to its furthest and most exquisite limits. First the prints
in plain black were roughly embellished by hand with touches
of a red-lead pigment called tan these tan-ye, as such prints
;
were called, soon received touches of other colour to reinforce

the red, and presently gave place to prints coloured by hand
in a fuller manner, the red tint being now given by beni, a
beautiful pigment which was used in divers ways all through
the classic period of colour-printing. In a little while it came
to pass that black lacquer was used to reinstate the moderately
full palette used in the hand-coloured print, and the prints
distinguished by this feature are known as urushi-ye. The

urushi-ye was the final form of the hand-coloured print, and
was immediately followed by the simplest form of the print
in which colour was applied by pressure, in the manner which
has endured ever since.
"
These first sheets wholly produced by printing appeared
early in the eighteenth century and were the production of
Torii Kiyonobu, who with his younger brother, Kiyomasu,
drew many designs illustrating scenes in the theatres of their
time. The colours used were a rose-pink (beni, in fact)
first
and a soft green, and extremely beautiful arrangements of

colour were effected with this simple palette.
"
Presently other tints were added and secondary colours
were produced by superposition of blue over red, red over
yellow, and so forth. All through the early part of the
eighteenth century, prints of increasing complexity and
technical accomplishment were given to the world by painters
of the Torii and Okumura sub-schools Torii Kiyohiro, Torii
Kiyotada, Torii Kiyoshige, Torii Kiyomitsu, Okumura Masa-
nobu, Okumura Toshinobu, and Nishimura Shigenaga,
till at last Suzuki Harunobu, a pupil of Shigenaga, and an
artist of extraordinary delicacy and distinction, carried the
process to its
highest possibilities.
"
Fromthat moment the ukiyo-ye studios of Yedo sent
forth a succession of the most exquisite colour-prints which
the world has seen. Harunobu's pupil Koriusai and Kiyo-
mitsu's pupil Kiyonaga made designs of great sweetness and
dignity, and Katsugawa Shunsho, pupil of a sub-school
which had hitherto confined itself to painting, began a series
of portraits of actors and women in powerful line and strangely
delightful colour. Kitagawa Utamaro, from about 1780 to
1804, poured forth his splendid series of beautiful women
and groups, while Yeishi, Yeisho, Shigemasa, Shuncho,
Shunman, Kitao Masanobu, Toyokuni, Toyohiro, and Sharaku
enriched the world with many prints of the first order, with
individual excellencies peculiar to each master. Then came
old man painting-mad
'
Hokusai, the marvellous

'
and
Hiroshige, the extraordinary landscape painter, who with the
simple and restricted means of the Japanese colour-printer,
and a direct audacity of technique surprising to analyse,
caused the natural aspect of old Japan to live before our eyes
for ever.
"
Many other painters contributed to the history of the art,
but in so hasty a sketch as this even their names must be
passed over almost all of the least importance were repre-
;
sented in the very splendid Happer Collection. Mr. Happer's

extraordinarily complete series of prints by Hiroshige had
been well known for some time, but the collection as a whole
was scarcely less noteworthy for its remarkable series of the
finest work of Harunobu, a master whose works become
more and more the object of the best collectors, and command
prices many times greater than those of even a few years

back. It had also a special feature in its hachirakaki those
tall, narrow prints which were used to decorate the hachira
or supporting parts of a Japanese house.
"
Owing to the use for which they were designed, prints
of this form were destroyed in large numbers, and so are now
uncommon in any state, and especially rare in the brilliant
condition of many in this collection. Prints by the rare
primitive artists made another striking feature of Mr. Happer's
collection, and included such rarities as specimens of Nishi-
mura Shigenobu, Torii Kiyotada and Torii Kiyoshige while ;
examples of that especial prize the complete uncut early

triptych figured among them, and there was a complete set
of Hokusai's ten tall prints of the Shashinkio the only set I
had ever seen together."
I have put the last two paragraphs in the past tense.
The paintings of Japan show no appreciation of the round-
ness or modelling of things they are circumscribed by lines
;
enclosing gradations of colour, which may compensate, in

some degree, for the absence of chiaroscuro, but which are
what we should term flat washes for fabrics, and monochromes
" "
or polychromes of the blob type for all other objects.
Infinite use was made of the black line applied by the brush
whose point was held vertically.
The the sumi-ye, the black-and-white, were
earliest prints,
impressions from wood blocks, upon which a tracing of the

original sketch, or the sketch itself, face-downwards, had been
pasted, and cut through from the back, an easy process
enough when the toughness and thinness of Japanese paper
are considered. The one object of the engraver was to
preserve the exact touch of the original. Impressions from
the blocks were facsimiles of that original, and they were
used in the preparation of colour-blocks, just as in the modern
process colour-printing each block was cut away, so that
;
a flat surface remained for the printing of each colour separ-

ately, having always due regard to its relation with the key-
block.
The two-colour printing in red i.e. rose-pink and green
the beni-ye, required three blocks, two for the colours, one for
the key, and to this class were ascribed those prints with a
third colour, yellow. The polychrome prints, the nishiki-ye,
are distinguished from those in which the predominant colour
isa rich tone of orange-red, free from varnish, which are the
tan-ye. The other class, in which a glossy black and colours
varnish or lacquer colours appear, forms the true urushi-ye.
The sizes and arrangements of the prints give the biyobus
or screens with six pictures as the largest, though all screens
are not large. The kakemonos also vary in size, the standard
being 29 inches long, 10 wide, made up of two full sheets
joined in the middle. The long, narrow prints, about 5 inches
wide, are the hachirakaki, which were used to decorate the
hachira, the inside pillars supporting the roof of the house.
Lastly, the smaller pictures of kakemono form are known as
hosso-ye. The makimonos were horizontal, not vertical, like
the kakemonos.
The surimonos resembled nothing so much in English art
" "
as the
"
admission and " benefit tickets engraved by
Bartolozzi, mostly after Cipriani. They were souvenir or
commemorative prints of small size with decorative designs
little upon which the artist had lavished colour,
pictures
silver, and
gold, with a profusion which is somewhat surprising
when contrasted with the artistic effect, the simplicity of
design and colour, so marked in the larger and earlier works.
'Gauffrage is a process of raising in relief, which was
often
applied to prints so as to secure certain fluting or crimping,

without colour. To effect this a special block was cut and
so adapted to the key-block that, on application of the usual
pressure, the parts affected stood out from the surrounding
design; thus the feathers of a crane treated by gauffrage
would show, not only the exact form designed by the artist,
but a relief, which in Western art would be treated by shading ;
and we have noted that shading, as we understand it, was

not practised by Oriental painters, in gauffrage, slight
shadows were naturally cast by the parts in relief, according
to the angle at which the light fell.
In the making of the surimono the gauffrage is usually

heightened by extreme pressure, giving a high, sharp relief
on both the plain and the coloured parts. The print rarely
covers the whole of the ground, because a space must be left
for the poetry which conveys the good wishes, for the New
Year especially. The design is suitable to the occasion, if it
be only a group of symbolical ornament, or a single spray of
flowers. "The Ship of Good Fortune with its Seven Gods
of Good Luck and its Cargo of Treasures," the animals re-
presenting the year of the cycle of twelve years, and a host of

other subjects were utilised, not only by the designers of
colour-prints, but by a multitude of amateurs whose signatures
ire attached to their work. These are puzzling to the collector
who thinks only of the professional artist who furnished
designs for other people,and in addition supplied them to
the publishers just as they did the ordinary colour-print
designs. Perhaps their origin scarcely dates back further
than 1750.
CHAPTER XXI
ARTISTS AND THEIR COLOURS
resuming the consideration of the colours, let

BEFORE
us glance for a moment at the men who produced
the coloured print designs. The painters, almost without
exception, belonged to the lower orders they were members
of the most humble, but best-known school. Again and again
" "
writers on this subject insist on the low degree of the
Ukiyo-ye painters. To us that fact is only interesting in

passing. It is the work that matters rather than the man,
though it strikes us with surprise that such a mass of fine
work should be consistently produced through two hundred

years, by men who lived on the verge of poverty, as in the
case of Hokusai. At the best the painters appear to have
been of the artisan class, earning from fifty to seventy sen a
day, equivalent to from a shilling to eighteenpence.
They lived with the people, and painted those subjects
with which they were most familiar; their constant association
with the Yoshiwara women is evident by their work the
most flagrant examples of such association are rightly banned.
This statement can be revised in the case of some, whose work
also speaks for itself. But the rival portraits of famous
courtesans is as much a feature of the colour-print as the
Geisha girls, who belonged to another class. The former can
always be distinguished by their flowing robes, immense
sashes, and especially by the amazing coiffure with its rows
of giant pins. Utamaro and his school revelled in depicting
them.
Then the engravers and the printers were men again of
ARTISTS AND THEIR COLOURS 337
the artisan class, even lowlier in position. Their work was

usually carried on in their homes, and, though skilful beyond
compare, it was mechanical in its interpretation of the artist's
designs. The latter, when he made a correction, did so by
sticking in its proper position upon the design a piece of
paper, on which the correction was drawn. Such was the
it is sometimes difficult to separate
ability of the engraver that
the drawing from the print without the most careful in-
spection.
This a testimony to the skill of the printer as well. He
is
copied the colours with absolute fidelity, increasing the

colours of his palette as the artist himself enlarged his scheme
of colouring.
Japanese names are rendered into English by words of
varying form, though the sounds, when pronounced, are
closely allied. I have endeavoured to keep to one standard,
but have not interfered much with what other people say.
This will account for differences which you will find in the
spelling. Mr. Happer thus describes the prints :
"
The terminology of prints varies, and, in order to avoid
reiteration, the following explanation is offered.
"
The earliest prints, usually in books, were black and
white, called sumi-ye. Beni-ye, a term originally limited to
the pink and green two-colour print, is also loosely applied
to prints with a third colour, usually yellow, achieved with
only two colour-blocks, as distinguished from the multiple
colour-print the true nishiki-ye. Owing to the dominant
orange-red, called tan, the hand-coloured print, without the
addition of lacquer, is termed tan-ye, and where the glossy
black, and colours mixed with lacquer appear, urushi-ye is
the correct term.
"The term kakemono-ye is rightly restricted in this cata-
logue to the vertical diptych or two full-sized sheets joined

to make a picture 29 inches long by 10 inches wide. The
narrow long picture of about 5 inches wide is called hashira-
kake, from hashira (the inner pillar of a Japanese house), on
which it was designed to hang. Often in one sheet of paper,
usually they are joined about the middle."
During the tentative stages the colours were sober we
have noted the black and white, with soft tints applied by
hand; soft flame-colour reds, faded greens, tawny browns,
dull blacks, darkened violets, formed the palette which, in
all subjects, as in the theatre compositions, gained strength
as it was enriched with purer, vivid tones, which in later
times were carried to excess. It is Shunsho's name which
stands pre-eminent amongst the artists of Katsugawa.
Designer of great power, colourist of fine taste, he lifted
figure painting from its lowly place in art, and placed on a
level with all that was best in landscape and classical painting,
the genre of his day; the work he did received but slight
recognition from the arbiters of taste, the aristocratic critics
at home, but to the Western world it was comprehensible and
popular, it was a revelation of attitude, gesture, width of
treatment, and colour.
These artists of the Ukiyo-ye were not, as I have elsewhere
remarked, the learned products of the classical schools of
Tosa and Kano ; they came from the people whose lives they
chronicled, they painted what they saw, what they knew,
and, if they erred, they did so in company so notable, so
celebrated, that error ceased to be hence the everlasting
formula for drawing a face. But the brilliant and refined
examples of Shunsho's actors in female characters had
qualitieswhich the face, formalised as it was, could not
diminish. The actor stood before the toilet-glass in robes
of neutral tints indescribable, enlivened by orange-pink and
apple-green. Apple-green formed the ground, too, and a
pale, buff dado carried a fungus design in white. Other
actors were in four or five soft colours, emphasised with
gauffmge, all finely printed, with perfect register. Charming
compositions, refined colouring !Reminiscent of Harunobu
in the pale lavender skies and deep-red tree-trunks in the
"
series of Rokhasen, where girls are types of The Six Poets."
" " "
His other chief works are The Fans (3 vols. 1769), The
"
Mirror of the Beauties of the Maison Verte (3 vols. 1776).
These are all illustrated with colour-prints, forming perhaps
the best books of this kind which the country has produced.
UTAMARO.
SHUNCHO.
KUNISADA. MASONOBU.
339
I must not forget one point in connection with the colours
used, and that relates to the key-block, which was not always
in black. The outlines of the face and the undraped figure
were rendered in red, in prints after Utamaro especially, and
Shunman. Utamaro lived with his publisher and the effect
was probably the result of a successful experiment.
The colours used in colour-printing were numerous, and
included tamango, clear yellow
:
toka, dark chestnut
; at, ;
dark blue ; kusa, lettuce-green ; yama buki, clear orange ;
yubana, mastic white tatsutsi, silver white

; chiai, ver- ;
milion talcha, red-brown ; sumi, black

; and the celebrated ;
btni, rose-red. These have been described elsewhere, but one

style in which blue is predominant, perhaps in imitation of
the old Nankin blue porcelain, is known by a special name,
aizuri that is, blue print. Mr. Happer had one marvellous
example of this style on the wall of his room, which I could
"
not help admiring. It was by Hiroshige, Twilight Moon,
Ryogoku Bridge," one from the earliest set of views of Yedo,
having that decorative border which appears to indicate a
first impression or proof, being omitted in the later issues.
Blue, a wonderful shade, gave an indescribable effect.

Whistlerian in the extreme Shall we ever know how
!
much this great artist was influenced by Japanese coloration ?
The story of Claude Monet's purchase of a bundle of colour-

prints at Zaandam from a Dutch grocer who used them as
wrappers for his butter and cheese only goes back to 1856 or
1857, and that was about twelve years before Japan opened
her eyes to the world. Yet those prints helped Monet, Manet,
and Degas, the Impressionist school, as they helped Whistler.
Would it be claiming too much to say that this art owed its
origin to that ?
All the charm and grace, the simplicity and truth, com-
bined with strength, which mark the best period in Japan
are lost in the base, inferior modern work which the tyro
often buys in ignorance ignorance of the old colours and the
free outlines ignorance of that refinement which was no less
than marvellous, when we consider that this art was designed
for the masses, and ignorance, too, of the defective colour
and mechanical lines which distinguish the gaudy prints of
to-day. The simplicity and directness of the old traditions
require some study, but an ordinary observer can soon train
himself and in this self-training lies the secret of success
can master the points which form the tests, not alone between
the ancient and the modern, but between the old masters
themselves. Collectors must judge by the best standards, and
study those standards in the libraries of the great museums.
Then they can buy ! Or they can go to Sotheby's during a
big sale !
I do not propose to pass each artist of the Ukiyo-ye school

in a review that shall be historical and critical. By kind
permission of the Controller of His Majesty's Stationery
Office, I am able to provide an authentic list of signatures
of the artists, and, by Mr. Mapper's good consent, another list
with the approximate dates when they lived and worked.
I have in front of me a list which I had copied from actual
examples, but I came to the conclusion that, for reference,

the others were fuller and better than my own. I think
these two lists will meet the requirements of nearly all col-
lectors. I repeat my previous remark about variations in
the English spelling.

In the following pages I have selected some of the most
distinguished artists, and dealt with them in a desire to give
some added interest to a subject which is now receiving
such attention, that monographs on individual painters and
print-designers have already appeared in France, and Mr.
Happer has, I know, one ready on Hiroshige but Hiroshige ;
is near the close.
Moronobu has been mentioned, and his work up to the

time of his death in 1695, in block-printing, was a revelation
of strong, firm line, in fine composition, where the massing
of the black and white is singularly effective. These prints
were sometimes coloured by hand, and the next step, that of
printing in colour, soon followed. In connection with that
step we see the foundations of the great Torii school by
Kiyonobu, with whom I deal later. Kiyonobu had a number
of pupils who maybe identified the use of a part of his
by
name, which was something like a certificate of merit. Hence,

using Kiyo, we have Kiyomasu, Kiyotada, Kiyotomo, Kiyo-
harn, Kiyoshige, Kiyonobu II. (or Shiro), Kondo Kiyonobu
(son of Kiyoharu), Kiyohisa, and Kiyofusa. And, using nobu,
we find the famous Masanobu, Okumura Masanobu, who,
like his master, made black prints, hand-coloured prints, and
mechanically coloured prints. More remains to be said of him.

Careful note should be made of this fact when an artist
became the head of a school, his name stood in the same
relation to his pupils as did that of Kiyonobu. It must also
be remembered that many of the print-designers were dis-
tinguished painters, and that the early masters owed much

to the Tosa and Kano schools indirectly, and for colour more
than for design indeed, nothing for design, which in the older
schools was entirely regulated by tradition, was, in fact,
governed by rules, which gave no scope for initiative. In
them, the pupils imitated their teachers in a continuous
succession.
Space forbids the inclusion of many of the lesser masters
except in the list indeed, some of the greater ones have less
than justice done to them from the same reason. A kind of
claissfication, founded on that of Fenollosa, will give useful
indications in a summary of the Ukiyo-ye masters.
I. Its birth. Matabei and his successors, painters,
seventeenth century.
II. Its babyhood. Moronobu, ink-prints, end of seven-
teenth century.
III. Its childhood. Chosun, painter, Kiyonobu and
Masanobu ; ink-prints coloured by hand, early
eighteenth century.
IV. Its youth. Kiyonobu and Masanobu, colour-prints
in two colours, invented about 1743; Kiyo-
mitsu, Shigenaga, and Toyonobu added a third
block.
V. Its manhood. I. Harunobu inaugurated complete
colour-printing, 1765.
2. Toyoharu, Shunsho, and Shigemasa shared
with Koriusai the honours which followed.
3.Kiyonaga dominant about 1780.
4. Yeishi, Toyokuni, and Utamaro to 1880.
5. Hokusai, Kunisada, Hiroshige, and the end.

From the print-designers' point of view only, there are two
names in the list which may be excluded, Matabei and Chosun,
who were purely painters. The list given coincides with
one that was furnished to me by Mr. Happer, who added one
modern name, Kuniyoshi, who drew a series of " Views of
Yedo " in the old style without much success. It is in land-
scape where the European influence is evident that he has
great success.
The decay of the colour-print in art led to reproductions
of the old subjects, which form a kind of burlesque in which
the original subjects are remotely treated in more or less
glaring, poor, muddy colours, which can easily be distinguished

from the old.
The classical Chinese style of painting, including the
Buddhist, the schools of Tosa and Kano, which in their turn
became classical the Shi jo and the Ukiyo-ye, which probably
;
will rank as classical, failed when the spirit and beauty of

them were lost in conventional formalism. Colour-printing
failed, too, from the same cause. Yet there is hope. If
the nimble, clever fingers of the Japanese, guided by the
great minds which in modern national life have worked
miracles ifthose minds and those fingers, in unison, grasp
the new developments, a renaissance of art may carry glad
tidings to a world that will never forget the glorious past.
The artists of the early schools, Buddhist, Tosa, Chinese,
and Kano, which can be distinguished by the variations of
style and method, were the intellectual men of their genera-
tion, and they received honourable recognition the reward
of learning and poetic fancy embodied by the brush. On
the other hand, the Ukiyo-ye painters, though the best
products of the artisan class, were ignored. This is one
reason why Japanese colour-prints could be bought so cheaply
at first. They cost little to produce, and were sold in large
numbers. So we may say that Ukiyo-ye, the vulgar, or
common art of the people, was a protest, great and successful,
KORIUSAI.
KORIUSAI.
TOYONOBU.
145
against the exclusiveness of wealth and position. True, each

of the other schools has its followers, so clearly have the
traditions of the past been maintained. But these followers
axe the classes who failed to appreciate this later work until
recently. The masses hailed it with joy. Portraits of actors

and beauties, theatreprogrammes, fairy tales, stories from
history, were produced in thousands, amongst a host of
other subjects, such as the Seven Gods of Good Fortune,
which, with the exception of Benten, the goddess of wealth
and fertility, were treated in a broad, jocular spirit. Truly
for them, the people, the Ukiyo-ye, which depicted "the
passing world of every-day life," was a boon.
The Daimios and their Samuria patronised Hishikawa
Moronobu, who, about 1659, had made twelve drawings for
a. book of instruction for women, all about etiquette and
hygiene, with these as illustrations, printed from one block

in black the sumi-ye. When these were coloured by hand
they became Otsu-ye, because Matabei, the founder of the
school lived at Otsu.
Naturally, the first efforts of block-printing were crude,
but progress and time worked hand in hand, so that, from that
period onwards, the single-sheet picture, the cheap print,
grew from strength to strength, and from one sheet to five
or more only seldom, however, more than five. About 1675
;
Moronobu developed, to an extraordinary degree, his power

as a designer of ink-prints. From his time, comparisons
can be made in the style of the women's robes, and, above
all, of their coiffure. I thought I had made a discovery in
tracing the changes in the fashion of hair-dressing, but in

talking it over with Mr. Happer, I found that Fenollosa had
fully dealt with that subject, and on reference, I came to the
conclusion that the best determination of dates is to be found
in the recognition, of the artist's style, which, even in the
print, is as distinctive as our penmanship, and which, like it,
requires a considerable amount of study. Fortunately, most

of the prints have the signature, which was engraved with
the design, yet the signature cannot be trusted apart from
the style.
CHAPTER XXII
THE ARTISTS OF THE UKIYO-YE

new men cared nothing for the traditions, even of
THE they worked upon the material which
their teachers
was always before them. They vied with each other, they
passed from imitation of the best which their masters had
done, to the development of the plenitude of their own
powers and the utilisation of a large number of blocks
;
gave opportunities, freely used, for harmonious and nearly

infinite design and colouring, which, though imitated ,in
cheap copies, reveal qualities which worn-out or retouched

blocks can never show. And here let me state that too
much stress is often laid upon the signature. In all ages the
signature has been the readiest, easiest forgery, and amongst
all nations, in all branches of art, this fact remains. In
Japanese prints the signature was, as I have said, cut in the
ink-block from the first. But we return to the men amongst
whom Koriusai and Kiyonaga share the premier honours
with Harunobu.
Koriusai did his finest work during the period 1770-1781.
In the latter year he devoted himself entirely to painting
another example of popularity relinquished, perhaps, for love
of art. In his prints, which are distinguished by the pre-
valence of brilliant blue and orange, also by a new dark
chromium green, we recognise the master of the long hachira-
kaki, the strip pictures for the posts inside the house. Haru-
nobu usually confined himself to one figure as the subject
of such narrow prints Koriusai has successfully introduced
;
three, and the coiffures of the women show curious changes

of fashion, which some collectors crystallise into distinct
348
THE ARTISTS OF THE UKIYO-YE 349
dates. I have said something elsewhere on this point, which
is a very attractive one.

Kiyonaga, like all the pupils of the Torii school, is dis-
tinguished in the list by Torii in brackets after his name.
He was the last great artist of this school, and his works are
valued for their fine qualities the perfect brushwork, the
;
bold, varied, and expressive line, and the rich colouring,

displayed all the resources of colour-printing. His creations
were ever fresh, and unhackneyed. Here he
beautiful,
differed from Koriusai, whose frequent mannerisms were in
a measure responsible for his defeat by his younger rival,
Kiyonaga, who found himself pitted also against Shunsho
and Shigemasa, and the emulation was altogether good, it
stimulated each, though, as we have seen, Koriusai retired
from the contest. Kiyonaga matched himself against each,
his power of drawing, his perfection of composition, and
group of colour, making of him a formidable competitor.

Shunsho drew actors, yet, when Kiyonaga entered this field,
the elegance of his lines gave Shunsho, great artist as he was,
" "
no chance, alive with motion, vitality, and open-air !
Shigemasa was the exponent of the delicate, the elegant line,
yet when Kiyonaga adopted his style, he, in it, reached per-
fection in line, delicacy in texture, combined with matchless
brilliancy in colour. From 1780 to 1790 his influence
permeated Ukiyo-ye art even the rival schools felt his
;
power and yielded to his charm. When he himself became

conscious that both were leaving him, he severed himself
from colour-printing at one stroke, retiring into obscurity
for more than twenty years before he passed away. Shuncho,
of all the many whom he taught, alone approaches the high
plane of his master. At first a pupil of the Shunsho school,

he was attracted like his confreres to Kiyonaga, and unsigned
works of the two men are difficult to separate, except in one
particular the pupil shows the greater effeminacy.
When in 1765 full colour-printing was invented, the school
of painters, headed by Chosun, maintained the traditions of
the art of painting, and Shunsui, son or pupil of Chosun,
founded the Katsukawa family or school, the pupils of which
were adopted and distinguished by the prefix Shun. Amongst
them was Shunsho, who made successful inroads upon the
actor-printing preserves of Torii Kiyomitsu, which was but
justice when we note that Toyoharu and Harunobu had
both invaded Shunsui's. Evidently, these were endeavouring
to escape from the actor and all his works the vulgarity,
;
which Harunobu denounced, was welcomed by Shunsho,

who, in 1765, started his series of actors, full of dramatic
force, wonderful in colour, and interesting in costume and
coiffure. Every line of the kimono, of the obi, of the feather-
like pattern, ispure and harmonious, and his great picture-
" "
book, the Seiro Bijin Awase Kagami (1776), a collection
of actors and theatre scenes, is almost the most elaborate ever
printed. After running a race with Koriusai, after even
comparing favourably with Harunobu, Shunsho was beaten
by Kiyonaga, and, like Toyoharu, retired, and devoted himself
to painting. Shunko and his rival, Buncho, were the greatest
artists of his school, but Shunro that is, Hokusai the future
great master, only received his early training in it.
.Again, referring back to 1765, another name deserves dis-
tinction amongst many whose names appear in the list, but
whose work marks no epoch. Kitao Shigemasa, like Toyo-
haru and Shunsho, follows his line of work parallel with those
of Harunobu and Koriusai; but whilst they came into collision
with Kiyonaga and were beaten back, he, though scarcely a
rival ever, because Kiyonaga was too strong for him, was,
in a measure, his fellow worker certainly he was not a pupil,
;
not in any way a follower. While Koriusai produced portrait

after portrait of the beauties of the Yoshiwara, Shigemasa
appropriated another class, the professional singing girls, the

Geisha, and, as a draughtsman, he suffers nothing by com-
parison with him or with Shunsho. Indeed, in simplicity of
design and softness of colour, he is the greatest. Some of his
tints are secured by hatching one colour in lines over another.
The deliberate power and finish of Shigemasa can only be
appreciated by actual study of his prints, where his painting
of cloth, of solid embroidery, of drapery, reveals textures of
much beauty. In painting, print-designing, and book-illustra-
351
tion he achieved well-merited success, he stands almost
unrivalled for perfect beauty. Shunsho's great book, the
"
Seiro Bijin Awase," owed much of its distinction to the
collaboration of Shigemasa, amongst whose many pupils
Kitao Masanobu was eminent. He must be differentiated
from the early Masanobu Okumura Masanobu as the latter
was one of the founders of the Ukiyo-ye, whilst Kitao Masa-
nobu was contemporary with Kiyonaga and his rivals. In
his illustrated book, the designs for the Yoshiwara beauties
are marked by great complexity, his paintings have the same
character, and even a single chrysanthemum carries its
maximum number of blooms.
Before considering the Utagawa school, the difference
between Shunsho, and Shuncho, Shunko, etc., may be noted.
There are other artists of the Katsugawa school whose names
are likely to deceive if the second syllable is not carefully
noted. Shunman belonged to the Kitao family, not to the
Katsugawa, and he changed the form of the character Shun
in his name so that he should not be, in error, ascribed to it.
Shunsho we have seen as the founder of a school for actor
prints ; Shuncho has been noted as the closest follower of
Kiyonaga Shunman started an original style, treating out-
;
door groups in tones of pure grey, yet withal brightening

the neutral tints with red or yellow upon the flowers, and
green upon the leaves. His powerful curves and strange,
odd touches are distinctive, and he it was who began a
fashion, which, on Kiyonaga's retirement, merged into some-
thing of extravagance that was the inordinate height of the
female figures, which sprang from the petite to the grande,
and the difference is very striking when comparisons are
made between the early and the late Ukiyo-ye.
The people loved the theatre, the nobility shunned and
banned but the advent of the great actor Danjuro gave
it,
to the three men who excelled in the production of prints

after Moronobu's death, to Torii Kiyonobu, Torii Kiyomasu,
and Okumura Masanobu, a new incentive, a popular subject
upon which they displayed the resources of their art. From
tfie few prints of Moronobu came the stream of productions
introducing the ever-varying scenes of the theatre by his
great successors, whose wonderful grasp of mass and line,
coupled with marvellous facility of execution, fully met the

popular demand for Danjuro in his robes and roles. The
Tokugawa rulers tried expedients to check the enthusiasm of
the people for the theatre, but, whilst abolishing some abuses,
they seemed to stimulate the theatre-going habit and the
popularity of colour-prints which had, in the Ukiyo-ye school
before, represented the manners, customs, and history of the
nation, and the amusements of the women, now deserted
them the theatre was triumphant.
In early eighteenth-century prints the colour applied by
hand was tan (red lead), hence the name tan-ye. About 1715
Torii Kiyonobu substituted for tan another red extracted
from saffron fugitive, but beautiful. This was the red beni
which was associated with greenish-yellow and low-toned
blues and purples. Before that date black and white ruled
supreme with the hand-colouring already mentioned. Colour
and detail received much more attention both at Kyoto,
where Ukiyo-ye had its home, and at Yedo, where it became
fashionable. The discovery of urushi, or thin lacquer, as a
vehicle for the colours gave rise to the urushi-ye, a new style,
in which parts of the design were heightened in effect by
metallic powders, souffle orblown on through a bamboo tube,
and some parts were painted with black lacquer but this was
;
a little later. Without undue emphasis it will be well to

note the hair-dressing, and the fashion, say, of the obi or sash.
Up to this point the print had a black outline, the colour
was applied by hand. Impressions in colour from flat wood-
blocks are assigned to 1743 or thereabout. The long delay
in colour-printing seems to have been due to the failure to
find a vehicle for the colour in such mechanical work some ;
genius suggested rice-paste, and though the hachirakaki or

long prints for the pillars were still hand-painted why is
not clear the beni-ye prints in red with green formed, with
the superimposed black outline, a very delightful colour
scheme, with delicate shades of the two colours applied by
the aid of two colour-blocks. This process, in spite of re-
peated experiments, was in vogue for about seventeen years.

Even now, though the red has often failed and turned to
yellow still, however, beni-ye and though the green merged
into russet, these rare two-colour prints are amongst the
most charming productions of old colour-printing.
The art of the three masters, all of whom utilised this
process, can scarcely be differentiated, except that Masanobu

confined his attention largely to the delineation of women,
whilst Kiyonobu and Kijômasu devoted themselves to
theatrical scenes. They were painters as well as print-
designers and Masanobu, as a painter, for a time did little
;
for prints, setting himself to rival Chosun, who will receive

notice presently.
It was Kiyonobu who founded the Torii school, which took
the of his personal names, Torii Chobei.
first If Masanobu's
style is soft and feminine, Kiyonobu's is severely strong,

simple, and round. His faces are long and oval, with curved
noses, and eyes having the pupils in the corners. These
points are distinctive. About 1756 he began to use a third
colour-block, but whether its invention should be credited
to him or to Nishimura Shigenaga remains doubtful. In
any case the invention had far-reaching results, for which
the practicalskill derived from the two-colour system had
been a worthy preparation. The simpler means were dis-
placed by those of greater complexity, but the method was
the same, and, with the new system, new men appeared fur-
nished with powers in no whit inferior to their masters
indeed, so close is the resemblance, that without the signature
one might well be mistaken for the other. None of them
were engravers or printers it must be remembered, they
were designers.
Suzuki Harunobu, pupil of Shigenaga, gave early promise
of success which was more than justified when, about 1765,
he became the most popular artist of his time. Two of his
"
sayings are worth quoting. Why should I degrade myself
"
by the delineation of actors ? indicated uncommon inde-
pendence in those days, but then his desire was, as he said,
"
to be the true successor of the painters in the department
of printing." He meant that his prints should be fit substi-
tutes for paintings, and his coloration has been described as
"
a correct conception of saturated harmony." The number
of colour-blockswere by him only limited by the effects which
he wished to produce, and many of these were the result of
the superposition of colours green and purple, for example
by pairs of primary colours. Harunobu founded a school
whose most celebrated pupil was Koriusai, who ranks amongst
the most able designers of his country, sharing the honours
with Kiyonaga, with Harunobu in a class apart.
CHAPTER XXIII
MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS
made at Yedo were called Yedo-ye,
early colour-prints
THEthough when more colours were employed and
later,
another style adopted, a new name, Nishiki-ye, expressed the
change, indicating brocade pictures. Harunobu was well
served by his printers, whose pigments were as good as the
method of their application was admirable. The new art of
1765 astonished and delighted the people of Japan, though
Ukiyo-ye was only a natural growth, the fruit of training and
experience which liberated the palette to painter and en-
graver, and gave work to the schools, which was increased
by the process of sheet-printing in diptych and triptych.
So that the school of Chosun, with Shunsui and Tsunemasa,
and later with Shunsui's pupil Shunsho, the schools of
Okumura and the Torii, flourished side
by side for many
years. Shigenaga and Toyonobu, branching off from Oku-
mara, shared with all the others in the progress of the period,
aspiring to the glories of a full palette, leaving the old
traditions, and passing onwards from the print coloured by
hand, from the early printing in red and green, and from the
three-colour process, to multiple colour-blocks and coloured
grounds, the special features of the development. The Torii
school provided a great artist, Torii Kiyomitsu, whose best
work might be ascribed to Harunobu, in the absence of
signature, though before Harunobu died, in 1770, his prints
had reached a high level of excellence which is properly
estimated by collectors now. The competition of the
schools was keen. Koriusai succeeded Harunobu, and closely
imitated him; Kiyonaga followed Kiyomitsu, and brought
18 357
success to the Torii school ; whilst Shunsho, the disciple of
Shunsui, founded his own celebrated school, and Toyoharu
appeared upon the scene as the pupil and successor of Toyo-
nobu. Such an array of talent, such a struggle for supremacy,
had never before been seen. When these died, the decadence
commenced, though it was arrested by several individual
artists, who are deservedly placed amongst the foremost
masters of the art, which was just perfected when the
Utagawas, the greatest group of individuals in number and
productiveness, took prominent positions as print-designers.
Though the schools of Harunobu and of Koriusai were in
the ascendant before Kiyonaga's genius drew all under his
influence, or nearly all, the other schools fought on with
varying fortunes. The Utagawa family had furnished two
pupils to the first Toyonubu, and the Utagawa school founded
by them was destined to play a great part in the subsequent
history of the Ukiyo-ye. The elder Utagawa, Toyonobu
again note how the Toyo in the master's name is carried on
died young, and his works are scarce in painting and colour-
prints alike. Toyoharu, who became the leader of the
school, showed no sign of decadence, but he only spent a few
years in print-designing, retiring to practise the more con-
genial art of painting yet, in that short period, he displayed
;
very uncommon talents. His finest work is a set of four

prints illustrating the elegant accomplishments, which, for
perfect drawing, for combined strength and expressiveness
of touch, show qualities which place him, for the moment,
side by side with Kiyonaga and his early retirement was
;
followed by the advent of his greatest pupil, Toyokuni,

whose style was not unlike that of Kiyonaga. He was a
popular artist without much originality, but he saw what the
public wanted, and met the demand. The colour-prints of
actors by him have but little worthy of praise, being for the
most part coarse and careless. On the other hand, some of
his works in triptych and pentaptych, some of his groups
of very tall girls, and some of his night pieces may contend
with those of Utamaro, with whom he appears in competition,
"
for when he published a series of Beauties of the Yoshi-
.
ft
wy^d r:
\-7
359
MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS 361
wara," Utamaro issued a similar set, and this happened more

than once.
Toyokuni was influenced by the Dutch manner through
his master, Toyoharu. Evidences may be found in his prints
of unusual light and shade, modified European curves, and
so on. Toyokuni's brother, Toyohiro, was an able designer
who worked in the same school, sometimes upon the same
subject, who had pupils of his own, amongst whom was the
famous Hiroshige, one, and not the least, of the trinity of the
renaissance of Ukiyo-ye, which included Kunisada and
Hokusai, of whom Kunisada was taught by Toyokuni with
another pupil Kuniyoshi. These two became leaders, and
lived till about 1860, being followed by Kuniyoshi's pupil,
Yoshitoshi, the head of the Ukiyoyeshi, until he died a few
years since. Of Kunisada, it is said that no artist produced
more prints, and that in none is the decline of art more
consistently displayed. He employed several names on his
colour-prints, as additions to either Kunisada, Toyokuni or
Toyokuni II., or Utagawa, his school or family name ; such
were Kachoro, Gototei, Kio, Kokuteisha, Ichiyosai, and
Ichiyusai.
Yeishi was at his best from about 1786 to 1800, when
Utamaro and Toyokuni also flourished, though the last lived
on for twenty-five years in the new century the exact dates ;
are given in the list. Yeishi, for a painter and print-designer

of the Ukiyo-ye, was quite an aristocrat, being of good birth
and some education, and more, a recruit from the classical
Kano academy. If we consider his full names we secure an
index of his career. Kano Yeisen, the Yedo Court painter,
was his first master ; from this we get an acknowledgment of
name Yeishi.
his influence in the prefix of the His further
progress was made under Okumura Bunkaku of the Torii, or,
in another form, the Cho school. Both school and master
were commemorated by Yeishi in his brush name, Chobunsai.
His personal name was Hosoda Yokitomi hence his school, ;
a small one, was the Hosoda school. Such variations as these

can be traced in the names of many artists. From the Kano
manner, with the landscape in a formula, the gods in a formula,
and with everything formalised, the exchange to notes of
nature-study was new life. In such infusion of new blood
the decadence of the art of Ukiyo-ye was for the moment
arrested. The artist saw what was around him, and he
represented it just as he saw it.
Still, Kiyonaga was the force, and that Yeishi put forth
his own strength and made his own standard is a testimony
to his judgment, no less than to his skill. Here a subject
or treatment might suggest Kiyonaga, there the blossoming
its
greys have more than a touch of Shunman but in the force

;
of drawing and design, the largeness of the massing, the purity

of the colour, and the clear sharpness of expression, all this
was Yeishi, and not another. Yet there were blemishes not
belonging to him alone, but to the period ; the almost absurd
elongation of the figures of men and women, the deterioration
in the lines of the faces, were only two faults, and there were
many more. The subjects were often vulgar, the treatment

was correspondingly vulgar, and liberty became licence,
because the ideals were lost, the social and artistic standards
had been swept away.
Soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century, Yeishi
relinquished the drawing of designs for colour-printing. Was
it due to chagrin at well-merited reproof for degrading his
art, or was it annoyance at the superior success of Toyokuni
and Utamaro ? Whatever was the cause, its effect was to
send him back to his painting, and from 1805 onwards, for
ten years, he issued large numbers of sketches in brushwork
of Yedo beauties. His most famous pupil was Yeisho
some say Gokei, but nearly all those whose prefix is Yei had
been pupils at his school, and all except Yeisho followed the
later manner of Utamaro.
Utamaro, like Yeishi, was of a different class from the
ordinary pupils of the Ukiyoyeshi, but with him and Toyokuni
the popular craze for novelty spoilt, in a large measure, that
which would have made for improvement. Then the foreign
influence of the Dutch, the issue of cheap, not always good,
illustrated books, the persistent theatre-going, and the general
unrest, were elements which evolved the coarser feelings.
New tastes were easily met by artists having such power and
facility as Utamaro, and that his work obtained an immense
popularity a testimony to his ability to provide just what
is
was wanted. In Ukiyo-ye art, realism was the breath of its

existence, but when the vulgar delighted in the revelations
that passed far beyond the bounds of propriety, not to mention
good taste, that breath was far from pleasing.
Utamaro was a genius a wayward one, it is true. His
father, a painter of the classical Kano school, was hopeful
for his son, and placed him under the care of Sekeyin, a
celebrated artist, who devoted himself to illustrating fine
oooks. There he acquired a mastery over brushwork.
Under the name of Toyoaki he painted Chinese subjects in
the Kano manner, but about 1780 he was attracted by the
success of Kiyonaga, with the result that, after a few years
of study, he amalgamated some of that artist's strongest
qualities with his own. For some reason he dropped the
iirst of his two names, Toriyama Toriyama Toyoaki and
assumed that of Kitagawa. It is said that his father dis-
owned him for this, but I cannot ascertain the reason. How-
ever, Kitagawa Utamaro, about 1786, advanced to a richer
and more lavish composition of numerous figures or detailed
landscape. He ceased to use the thick stroke shown in his
previous work, and for a time substituted a delicate hair-like
line, which yielded to a firmer line in Kiyonaga's manner.
This sends on the story some five years, during which time
he lived with his publisher, Tsutaya Juzaburo, and produced
some of his best work. The year 1792 was remarkable for
the fine work of all the great artists then living Shuncho,
Yeishi, Toyokuni, and Utamaro. The prints of the last artist
were distinguished by some fine reds, especially a beautiful
rose-red sometimes used in his outlines, and a no less brilliant
black appeared. Then about 1796 he issued some of his
finest books, illustrated with drawings of birds and flowers
in colours, but the criticism upon his women of about this
time is so severe, that I will not venture an opinion upon it,
but set it out in extenso in the next paragraph.
Fenollosa criticises a large colour-print, " Girls under a
"
Wistaria Arbour : "Who can deny a certain kind of beauty
and charm to this characteristic print ? In the faces there
is still a trace of Kiyonaga, as if his style had been distorted
in a The eyes have become short slits, the nose

bad mirror.
as long as a horse's, the mouth not big enough to swallow
the ladies' pipe, the arm hardly twice as thick as its stem.
The balloon has become as big as a modern sleeve, and seri-
ously challenges comparison with a neighbouring lantern.
What I mean by the looseness of drawing can be seen in the
flabby folds about the neck. The ladies look as if their
clothes were tumbling off. One wonders, too, what sort of
ungainly thing they are carrying in their obis. And yet the
technical beauties of the print and its handling of colour are
as fine as ever."
Another criticism of Monsieur T. Duret is no less interest-
"
ing : Utamaro the last of the great artists who have
is
specially devoted themselves to representing, with exquisite

lines and skilful composition, the women of Japan. After him
the art changes. Hokusai applied himself to other subjects.
Hiroshige devoted himself to landscape. Kuniyoshi to
battles and soldiers, and crowds of people. Utamaro, by
his own genius and the charm of his subjects, wields a veritable
fascination over the Europeans, who learn to appreciate
him. The engravings we owe to him are at the present time
in the very first rank of the possessions a- collector covets.
It may be as well, however, to utter a word of warning to
connoisseurs, to put them on their guard against imitations
and copies."
Not only is this word of warning necessary with regard to
Utamaro and his colour-prints it applies to all of the noted
artists whose names we shall give in some kind of merit later.
Now in Utamaro's case there were the pupils, Hidemaro,
Kikumaro, Michimaro, with Toshimaro, and Kikumaro's
pupils, Yoshimaro and Yukimaro, amongst others there was ;
his widow, who married one of them, who always made use
of the master's name, and there were the publishers, who
appear to have employed the pupils, who made use of his
name. The collector's business I should add, pleasure is
THE GAME OF BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK, BY TOYOKUNI.
365
to sift the true from the The best of these prints are
false.
very charming. Women

work and at play mainly at
at
play with the music of the samisen, and the refreshment of
sake, or walking in the street or garden Women in a famous
!
"
series, The forty-seven Ronin represented by the most
" "
beautiful women !
Utamaro, the decadent," died at
Yedo in 1806.
Yeizan was the son of Kano Yeiri, a pupil of the painter
Nansei, and a friend of Hokkei, with whom he sometimes
worked in the style of Hokusai. But he began his career as
an artificial-flower maker, and his early designing appears
to have been connected wth the surimono prints which were
so popular as commemorative and New Year's cards. Then
he set himself the task of imitating Utamaro's work. That
artist had just died, and Yeizan's imitations were so close
that they have been accepted as originals, especially in those
cases where Utamaro's signature was attached. The difficulty
of detection in the colour-prints of this class is considerably
same engraver, the same printer, and
increased because the
the same publisher were often engaged upon their pro-
duction.
Yet his own designs, in either the style of Utamaro or
Toyokuni, whom he also imitated, have sufficient merit of
their own him to rank with them and with Shunsen,
to enable
whose work same period was of considerable excellence.
of the
Like other artists, Yeizan had several names, the personal
one being Chokiusai Mangoro, and the other Tamegoro and
Toshinobu. We
have noted that several of the designers
a time gave up this branch of art. To
oi colour-prints after
these must be added this painter, who, about 1829, became
an author of illustrated books, for which he furnished the
designs.
Many painters, from Utamaro onwards, devoted them-
selves to the drawing of women, exaggerated into tall, slender
models upon which were displayed brocaded drapery, in
graceful folds and manifold patterns. And more, some of
them and in this, Yeizan was equal to Utamaro gave a
great amount of attention to tfre headdress, in whjcjj the
hair was built up into wonderful curves, and ornamented
with a striking array of large supporting pins of extraordinary
shape. Many of the courtesans were painted in half-length
portraits, in which these pins are especially conspicuous.
These portraits were as popular as the full-length ones of
"
these beauties of the Yoshiwara," and they characterise
the colour-prints of Utamaro, Yeishi, and their followers, as
much as they do those of Yeizan. Their contemporaries in
the Torii and Utagawa schools, together with the pupils of
Shunsho, occupied themselves in depicting the actors and
scenes from the theatre in fact, the later Torii did but little
else. And we have seen the great master Harunobu refusing
to touch the subject, though, amongst his many drawings of
women, a few actors appear to have crept in.
We have by no means reached the point when we can
say we know Japan and all things Japanese. At the best,
we are only on the fringe of a subject teeming with interest,
and with all that lore which awaits the revelation, hoc opus,
hie labor est, to cast aside preconceived ideas, to divest our-
selves of cast-iron prejudices social, religious, and political
and in the true spirit of scientific inquiry to endue ourselves
with strange and unknown customs, national and local
feelingsand conceptions, and altogether with an atmosphere
foreign to our own in every way, but supremely attractive,
inconceivably subtle, and exceedingly brilliant. Again and
again I have insisted upon the necessity for a mental attitude
commensurate with the importance of the subject, which, at
this point, is colour-prints, though the same need governs
every branch of Oriental art, of the craft of the workman,

whose poor pay and wretched daily food in no way affected
his devotion to his master or to his art, whose claims, though
never ceasing, were met by persistent endeavour, by life-long
service, and by a ceaseless surrender of self to art, which
yielded some fruit during life, but only the full harvest when
the passage of time embalmed with sweet memories the
names of those who in silence and forgetfulness had fought
on to victory, having no regard to fame or fortune, or to
those things which move the hearts and minds of meaner men.
CHAPTER XXIV
HOKUSAI
volumes have been written about Hokusai and his
SUCH
works, that a short account such as can be given
here will be far from doing justice to him. Passing away
in 1849, at the age of ninety, he left behind him such a mass
of drawings, so many thousands of engravings after subjects
drawn by him, and so many books illustrated with his work,
that one is simply overwhelmed with wondering astonishment
that one hand could accomplish so much, when we know that
he was always a poor man in trouble from the age of twenty-
six until his death, after he had for the last time signed
"
himself Manjorin," or rather,
"
Gwakio Rojin Manji," " the
old man mad about drawing," a signature used since 1835.
The variations in his style matched the varieties of his
subjects, of which a mere list would occupy pages of this
"
book. Rather would we answer the question What did
"
he paint ? in another way. He drew the likeness of every-
thing in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, and in the
waters under the earth, which gives three divisions the
mythical, the territorial, and the marine. He attached
himself to the school of Shunsho, the popular school Ukiyo-
ye and signed himself " Katsu Shunro," and this part of his
life seems the only one in which he was free from
pressing
care. Then he studied several of the old masters, notably
Iccho, and from the two styles the ancient and modern
his own had birth. He had served a long apprenticeship ;
" "
now, in the year 1795, he signed his pictures Hokusai or
"
Hishikawa Sori," but in the next year, at the age of thirty-
six, he changed his name again to Hokusai maturity had
369
arrived. no doubt be noted by the collector, that the
It will
"
"
signature Hokusai is given allied with other names.
Katsuchika is one of these, and indicates his birthplace, the

quarter of Yedo where his father made mirrors in metal for
the Shogun. Gwakio Jin is another, which he prefixed to
Hokusai about 1800, to indicate that he felt " mad about
"
drawing." A later inscription reads Zen Hokusai aratami
:
' "
I-itzu, formerly Hokusai, changing to I-itzu.' Zen Hokusai
Manji, Tokimasa, Zen Hosukai Taito, or Katsuchika Taito
are a few more.
A description of some of his drawings, not the prints,
from the catalogue of the Blondeau Collection may have
some interest.
"ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY HOKUSAI

" mentioned in De Goncourt's work on the Master,
The Collection is
published in 1896.
"
A Wood Cutter seated on a bundle of faggots, with another on his
back, his axe lying behind him ; in colours on paper, full-size,
oblong ; signed HOKUSAI.
"
An Ox laden with bundles of reeds, being driven by a boy on the far
side, half hidden by its haunches in colours on paper, full-size,
;

"
A Black Crow flying across a red sun streaked by mist ; in colours
on paper, full-size, oblong ; signed HOKUSAI.
" bamboo through
A Hake with a stalk of its gills ; in colours on
paper, oblong ; signed HOKUSAI.
full-size,
"
A Dragon Fly, Egg Fruit, and three Shells; in colours on paper,
full-size,
"
Passion Flower, a trailing branch with three clusters of blooms of
the hardy blue variety in colours on paper, full-size, oblong ;
;
signed HOKUSAI.
"Floral Study. A large-leaved trailing plant with purple berries;
in colours on paper, full-size, oblong ; signed HOKUSAI.
" A
Plum Blossom. closely-pruned branch just bursting into bloom ;
in colours, on paper, full-size, oblong ; signed HOKUSAI.
"
Cock and Hen of domestic fowls side by side, pecking on the ground ;
in colours on silk, mounted in brocade and framed ; signed ZEN

HOKUSAI TAITO."
The opinions held by expert critics on Hokusai are very

well worth quoting. Therefore I append them, with acknow-
VIEWING THE PLUM-BLOSSOM, BY TOYOKUNI.
371
HOKUSAI 373
ledgments to the writers for the excerpts. Fenollosa says :
"
He drew a variety of things, more rapidly and more vitally
than any other artist of his day he saw pictorial relations
;
and created them with individuality and spontaneity.

freshly,
This power over line, notan, and colour was almost endless
when he chose to exercise it. There is nothing out of which
he could not make a composition. His illustrated books
together compose an encyclopaedia of the world. And yet
he never rose to the level of those great ideas which have
made of Oriental civilisation a force that can never die out
of human culture. . His was a world cut off from all
. .
standards, except the intensity of its own impressions, of its

pleasures. No artist ever so revelled childishly, genially,
humorously, in pure externality."
F. M. Gookin, whose collection was sold at Sotheby's in
"
May 1910, remarks : Hokusai, who lived and worked until
he reached the age of eighty-nine, produced a mass of works
which, in all probability, has never been equalled in extent
or variety by those of any other man. No other Japanese
artist ever had so many different manners, or so many
pseudonyms, or essayed so many different themes, or was

more daring in
his compositions, or displayed more originality.
Like Shakaru, he belongs in a class by himself. His art,
wonderful in its versatility and masterly qualities, is in
many
respects sui generis. The personal equation is always domi-
nant. This was his salvation. More than any other thing,
it helped him to steer a straight course and avoid the rocks
upon which so many of his contemporaries were wrecked."

"
E. F. Strange, in Japanese Colour Prints," art handbook
of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is now out of
"
print, writes as follows The position of Hokusai in Japanese
:
art is generally misunderstood. As a painter, he is not in the

first rank outside of his own school, that of the
Ukiyo-ye.
He lacked the loftiness of idea (from the Japanese point of
view) and the refinement of classical training. With us, who
do not understand these things, he is, and always will be,
one of the great artists of the world. But we must not make
the mistake of considering his greatness as typically Japanese.
The qualities that ensure it in our eyes do not count in its
favour among the artists of his own country. As a personality
he is also great. Poor, but of an indomitable pride, he
held on the art with supreme perseverance."
way of his
The a few examples from the same source, are
prints, in
quite amongst the best that Nippon has ever produced, but
from a wealth of information I can only give here a very
few particulars of the works of Hokusai (Katsushika), 1760-
1849.
" Three Ladies, one seated on the planks over the
An Iris Garden.
marshy ground, another standing in conversation with her, and a
third attending to the plants, under the bough of a pine tree ;
oblong print about Hashirakaki size ; signed SORI. c. 1795

"
TwoLadies by a River, facing the entrance to a tea house, standing
conversing, each with a pipe, and a boy beside one carrying
parcels and an umbrella near by, two boys going fishing
;
oblong ;
print about Hashirakaki size ; signed ZEN SORI HOKUSAI. c. 1796

"
Enoshima. View of the Island with Fuji in the distance, from the
Seven Ri Beach, where two women are standing conversing with
a bearing a baby on her back, and beside them a man resting
girl
his load balanced on an upright staff YOKO-YE form ; signed
;
HOKUSAI SORI. c. 1796

"
A Lobster for the New Year a long narrow print about Hashirakaki
;
size, a Surimono ; signed GWAKIO JIN HOKUSAI. TOYO

for
'
DOKURIN, i.e. Yedo Old Style.' Written in the corner is the date
of purchase by a former owner ; Kyowa 2 = 1802.
"
At the Temple Gate. A Little Girl who has been to a Shmto temple
for the MIYAMAIRI ceremony, seated on a man's shoulders, re-
turning, with two women by the side of the man pigeons on ;
the angle of the Temple roof ; extra large sheet, upright ; signed
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI. c. 1807
"
New Year Dancers. A Group of three outside a house, one with
a mask, carrying a MOCHI pestle with GOHEI and a fan, another
with straw hat and fern leaves beating a gong, and a third dressed
as a woman on high clogs full-size, upright ; signed KATSUSHIKA
;
"
HOKUSAI. c. 1807
Finally, in order to give a fair idea regarding the Views,

I give the Japan name of the series, its English translation,
and other particulars, about which one only regret moves
me that is, the time is not ripe to produce the publisher's
seals.
HOKUSAI 375
"
Riukiu Hakkei (Eight Views of the Loochoo Islands). Seven Prints
of the First Edition, published by Moriji of Yedo, c. 1820 ; full-size,
'
oblong ; signed ZEN HOKUSAI, ARATAMI I-ITZU, formerly Hokusai,

changing to I-itzu.'
" Shokoku
Takimeguri (Travelling around the Waterfall Country).
Complete set of eight full-size, upright; signed ZEN HOKUSAI
I-ITSU. Publisher's seal, Yeijudo of Yedo. c. 1827
"
Shokoku Meikio Kiran (Views of the Bridges of Various Provinces).
Nine of the set of eleven full-size, oblong ; signed ZEN HOKUSAI
I-ITSU. Publisher's seal, Yeijudo of Yedo. c. 1827-30
" The three friends of the
Settsu Gekka (Snow, Moon, Flowers).
Poet. Complete set of three ; full-size, oblong ; signed ZEN HOSKUAI
I-ITSU. Published by Yeijudo of Yedo. Original edition, c. 1830
"
(The Imagery of the Poets.) Five of this set of ten plates, extra tall
upright ; signed ZEN HOKUSAI
size, ARATAMI I-ITZU. Publisher's
sign of Moriji, 1830.
"
Hiakunin Isshu Uragawa Yetoki (The Hundred Poems explained
by the Nurse). Twenty- five out of twenty-seven known sheets of
this series; full-size, oblong ; signed ZEN HOKUSAI MANJI. First
edition, published by Yeijudo of Yedo, 1839.
Hokusai had his peculiarities what great artist had them

not ? He drew everything in the world about him that was
worth the trouble, and apparently few scenes of men and
beasts and flowers were outside the bounds which he set for
himself. Rather did he enlarge his scope into the world of
the unseen, the creations of ghosts and monsters, which told
of the superstition of his fellow countrymen, also into the
realm of the grotesque, which revealed another side of the
national character.
With what unfaltering skill, the result of an endless
capacity for taking pains, did he describe the curves of wave
and mountain What a contrast between the heavy blocking
!
of the largest mass, and the almost microscopic care in the
slightest detail. In all the troubles that dogged his foot-

steps, in all the worries of his family life, never for a moment
did he lose sight of the idea that he was a student.
"
In his own words he described his career From the age:
of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of things. By

the time I was fifty, I had published an infinity of designs ;
but all I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth
taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a
littleabout the real structure of nature, of animals, plants,
trees, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence, when I am
eighty, I shall have made still more progress ; at ninety,
I shall penetrate the mystery of things ; at a hundred, I
shall certainly have reached a marvellous stage ; and, when
I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it but a dot or
a line, will be alive."
Hewrote this when he was seventy-five, and he lived for
fifteen years longer. Upon his tomb at Asakusa, a northern
"
suburb of Tokyo, was the inscription :Tomb of Gwakio
Rojin Manji," which means,
ft
the old man mad about
drawing," and this, too, was the last of his signatures upon
his works.
When we consider that, in order to live, he was compelled
to keep on drawing by day and night, for his patrons were
the poor, who could pay only a few sen, his devotion to his
art is truly marvellous, as his love for it was undying. Now
he has received some recognition as one of the greatest
painters, not only of the Ukiyo-ye, which he particularly
affected, but of the nation which now appreciates his genius.
377
CHAPTER XXV
HIROSHIGE
T T IROSHIGE was, as we have seen, a pupil of Toyohiro,
1 1 who was a fine landscape painter, with a wonderful
eye for composition, and yet a poor one for colour, with the
usual mannerisms of Ukiyo-ye, such as the bars across
the landscape representing cloud effects in rose-pink, and the
small figures in the view, just colour dots, yet effective withal.
The young Hiroshige had tried to enter the school of Toyo-
kuni I., was full; however, he was fortunately adopted
but it
by Toyohiro and worked for him till, in 1828, he died, and

the pupil became the master. He was then thirty-two years
old, and from that year onwards to 1850 his best work
appears to have been done, though he lived eight years
longer.
His wonderful power, softer and more charming than that
of Hokusai, places him at the head of the Japanese landscape
designers, and among the greatest and most original of the
world. At first he suffered from the prevailing taste for
tilings theatrical actors, and scenes from the plays. Leaving
Yedo he went to Kyoto, but after publishing a set of views
of that city he returned to Yedo and produced landscapes
and books of views which were so excellent as guide-books,
that the scenes of many of the pictures may be recognised on
the spot to-day. Mr. J. S. Happer, the greatest living
authority on Hiroshige, has very kindly allowed me to use
some most valuable notes which have not appeared before
in any book, only in the sale catalogue of the second portion
of his collection. My hearty thanks are hereby tendered to
him, and my readers will recognise the spirit which prompted
379
him to permit their use. We must hope that his monograph
on Hiroshige will not be long delayed. For other help due
acknowledgment is made elsewhere.
The notes are given in full, and the information on the use
of an adopted name in the third paragraph will assist in
solving a proposition which has puzzled many minds. An-
other point worth remembering is that, as Hiroshige worked
for Toyohiro till 1828, and the master received the credit
derived from his pupil's early work, so Shigenobu worked
for Hiroshige, who, in all probability, utilised his services
in his later works. The term "school" may read "family,"
and " worked for " must be modified in this sense the pupil
was adopted by the master and assumed a part of his name
in ordinary cases. The successor to the headship could, on
the death of the head, take the whole name, as Mr. Happer
shows clearly in this chapter later.
Hiroshige was almost as versatile in his choice of subjects
as Hokusai himself. Landscapes were undoubtedly his
strongest and best subject in them he ranged the face of
;
nature in all her moods. But he also painted the ordinary

Ukiyo-ye subjects, the graceful beauties of the Yoshiwara,
and the prints ofhis paintings might well be ascribed to other
artists who appear to have devoted their lives to the pro-
duction of this class of work, which has a tendency to stale
upon one's taste.
Mention is made of three prints designed as advertisements
for a dealer in shell-work, which consisted of intricate, clever

groupings of the different objects the dealer had for sale.
His humorous designs are not uncommon. Before me is
a picture of one from a print.
This print includes representations of the Seven Gods of
Good Fortune (Shichi-fuki-jiri) viz. Fukurokuju, with tall
:
head, a rough staff and scroll, and the robes of an ancient

scholar ; Hotei, with a bag, containing sometimes the Sacred
Treasures, here shown separately Daikoku, with his mallet
;
and bales of merchandise Yebisu, with fishing-rod and tai

;
fish (in this instance, in a jar) Jurojin, with a fan, and the
;
robe of a scholar Bishamon, in armour, with a trident and

; ;
HIROSHIGE 381
Benten, the only female of the group, with a musical instru-

ment, the biwa. The ship in which they travel is called the
Treasure Ship (Takarabune), and sails into every port on
New Year's Eve, with the Seven Gods as crew, and the
Sacred Treasures (Takaramono) as cargo. At the prow is
the Dragon, and by the side swims the hairy-tailed Tortoise,
symbolising success and longevity respectively. The chief

of the Sacred Treasures are The Hat of Invisibility, the
:
Lucky Rain-cloak, the Inexhaustible Purse, the Peaches of

Longevity, the Sacred Jewel (at the mast-head), the Clove
(Choji), the Scrolls, the Hammer, the Weight, and the Shippo,
a flat disc, probably a coin. Mount Fuji, the Pine-tree, and
the Crane are all emblems of longevity. The character on
the sail is Jiu } which has the same meaning.
Ando Hiroshige was represented at the White City by
"
several drawings, A Yedo belle, promenading under cherry-
trees," "Mount Fuji, from Kara stage," "A ferry boat on
Sumida River," amongst others; but it is impossible here
to say more.
Mr. J. S. Happer, the collector, sets out in the pages
which follow, the results of his investigations, and it is with
much pleasure that I give them welcome in this book.
"
In collecting the colour-prints of the Ukiyo-ye school
of Japan, the work of Hiroshige early attracted the admiration
and Finding that little was known
interest of the collector.
about the artist, and that there was more or less uncertainty
regarding his work and that of two of his pupils, who used
the same brush name, it was decided to acquire everything
obtainable bearing his signature, in the hope that hitherto
unknown gems of art might be discovered, and that from
aumerous examples some definite knowledge of the artist
might be attained.
" This
purpose, kept steadily in view for years, was attended
with unexpected success. By comparing thousands of prints,
by the possession of some three thousand, and by the careful
scrutiny of every character and seal on each print, important
data were obtained, which are now given to the collectors
of the world for their information, with the hope that the
19
works of Hiroshige the First (in the writer's opinion the
only one of the name worthy of note as a print artist) will
receive their proper recognition. If this will enhance the
fame of Hiroshige and give him a lasting place in the Ukiyo-ye
school as the greatest interpreter of Nature in all her moods,
this collector will feel amply rewarded for his labour.
"The statement made in some excellent and painstaking
works on Japanese colour-prints that two or three artists
worked simultaneously and used in common the name
Hiroshige, seemed to the dweller in Japan utterly contrary
to all the customs of Japanese artistic or ordinary life. The
adoption of a name is a serious matter in Japan, whether in
the world of art or literature, whether at birth, at important
epochs of life, or at death. The succession to an honoured
title was not to be carelessly or unwarrantably entered upon.
It seemed, therefore, incredible that a name so esteemed
by his contemporaries as Hiroshige should be the common

' '
property of, at least, two individuals. When there was no

son worthy to continue the name of Danjuro, the actor, a
prominent actor pupil was adopted and took the name of
Danjuro, but there were never two Danjuros acting simul-
taneously. When Hokusai gave one of his many names to
a pupil, he ceased to use it himself. Toyokuni was a name
borne by three individuals, but by each the strict etiquette
of the age was carefully observed ;
the son took the title on
the death of the first Toyokuni, and not until he left the
world of art did Kunisada, the artistic heir, come into the
full enjoyment of the title to which, as the abler artist, he
had the better right. By analogy, and by all the customs
of Japan, it seemed incredible that a direct violation of
traditional usage should have taken place in the case of
Hiroshige. As his death occurred in comparatively recent
times, it seemed not impossible to discover the truth, and
by the facts now stated for the first time, with proofs afforded
by prints, it is hoped that the mooted questions are now
satisfactorily settled.
" from the prints themselves,
In searching for information
a discovery of the utmost importance was made : On prints
A YOSHIWARA BEAUTY, BY YOSHICHIKA.
383
HIROSHIGE 385
issued in the Kokwa era,1844-1847 (perhaps even two years

earlier), and the following eras, are imprinted the zodiacal
ar imal signs for the subsidiary cycle of twelve years, followed
by a number. The theory that this was a device for year
and month dating was confirmed by eagerly inspecting
hundreds of prints, not only by Hiroshige, but by his con-
temporaries Yeisen, Kuniyoshi, and Toyokuni (Kunisada).
"This discovery was a particularly valuable one, for it
was during the years 1848-1858 that the works appeared
which caused the confusion regarding the Hiroshiges. There
may be a latitude of twelve years, for a seal date of the snake
year may apply equally to the year 1845 or 1857, Du ^ w ^h
such an interval it is easy to determine which is the likely
date. Occasionally is found, in lieu of a number for the
month, the character uru, either in full or abridged, meaning
intercalary, for, as students of chronology are aware, Japan
in pre-Meiji days followed the Chinese lunar calendar, and
had, at varying intervals, years of thirteen months. These

intervals did not coincide with the zodiacal cycle signs, hence
the addition of the uru character to the seal made the date
'
absolutely correct e.g. Rat, uru,' could only be 1852, as

that was the only rat year in the period between 1842 and
1858 which had an intercalary month. This discovery, the
seal date, prepared the way for the final discovery, and that
was the finding of a sheet dated 1859, 2n(^ month, with
the signature Shigenobu aratamete ni sei Hiroshige, meaning
'
Hiroshige II. changed from Shigenobu/ a form of signature

made familiar to the collector from its use by Hokusai (Hoku-
saiaratame litsu), Kunisada (Kunisada aratame Toyokuni),
and others.
"This Shigenobu has been confused with Yanagawa
Shigenobu in fact his work ascribed to Yanagawa Shigenobu
;
'
was cited by one very eminent authority as imitative as
might be expected of Hiroshige I. to some extent/ But
Hokusai's son-in-law does not break away from Hokusai's
style to follow Hiroshige.
"
In brief, and to avoid elaboration, it is claimed that the
prints completely prove that Hiroshige, the Hiroshige who
is famed for the Tokaido set which has the masterpieces of
' '
the Rainy Day at Shono,' Snow
at Kambara/ etc., is the
Hiroshige whose name appears on all prints issued up to the
date of his death (the 6th day of the gth month of Ansei 5,
1858), that his pupil, Shigenobu, did not take the name
Hiroshige II. until the beginning of 1859 J that all the work
appearing during the Ansei era and prior to that era, was
the work of the master, though it is reasonable to think that
in some of his lengthy series he may have allowed his pupil
to assist, as Hokusai's pupils assisted in his great work, the
Mangwa but he did not resign, nor did his pupil take, the
;
name Hiroshige till after the death of the man who made it
famous.
"
Especially has the noted set of YEDO HYAK'KEI Hundred
Views of Yedo (118 in all) misled collectors ; but the seal
date, together with contemporary comment, conclusively
points to the authorship as that of Hiroshige I. Each plate
is dated, and the seal dates show that the prints were engraved
(probably drawn a month or two in advance) during the

years 1856, 1857, and 1858, the latest date being 1858, loth
month one month after the master's death. The seal dates
are confirmed in two instances by character dates : On one
plate, inscribed in the upper left-hand corner are the char-
'
acters Ansei 4, 1857, while the seal date reads Snake 8,'
'
8th month Ansei 4, Snake 6th month
'
on another
;
' '
appears on the flag, and the seal reads Snake 7 i.e. a
month later still other plates have the character

;
uru in the
seal, fixingthe date with certainty. If further proof were
needed, it may be found in the fact that, after the first edition
was issued, another edition appeared, omitting one of the
plates of the first edition, and containing one plate signed
Ni sei Hiroshige (Hiroshige II.), but this plate is dated
Ram 6, 1859-66, and the signature is negative evidence that
the other plates, as is the fact, were by the first Hiroshige.
Probably some accident happened to the blocks, and the aid
was invoked to supply the deficiency.
of the pupil
"
Other notable sets often ascribed to Hiroshige II. are :
VIEWS OF SIXTY PROVINCES, THIRTY-SIX VIEWS OF FUJI, and

HIROSHIGE 387
the VERTICAL SET OF THE TOKAIDO, issued by Tsutaya ;

but
all these plates are the work of Hiroshige I.
"With the foregoing facts it is hoped that others may
produce supplementary information from prints not included
in this collection, when a monograph on Hiroshige, equal to
that on Hokusai, may be written. At present it is futile to
attempt authoritative dating of prints issued prior to 1842."
Hokusai and Hiroshige may be accepted almost as modern
artists, certainly the masters of the Ukiyo-ye of a late period.
They excelled in landscape painting, and Hiroshige deserves
much credit for his persistent efforts to popularise this art
in coloured prints, when one remembers that portraits of
actors, scenes from the drama, portraits of Yoshiwara women

and Geisha girls, were so easy to sell, everybody wanted
ihem. He lived to see the success of his endeavours, and his
colour-prints have a rare distinction, which Mr. Happer has
properly expressed. Some think that Hiroshige 's landscapes
are less striking than Hokusai's, but no one amongst the
Japanese artists has surpassed Hiroshige in rendering the
idea of distance. In fact, they are scarcely comparable
their methods were different, each was supreme in his own
way.
Utamaro painted a few landscapes and some plants and
insects which were very remarkable. So did Keisai Yeisen,
Shunsen, Hokkei, and a number of other men, too numerous
to mention here. In the catalogue of sale prices a kakemono-
ye after Yeisen will be duly noted. It realised the large sum
of 84, and depicted a moonlight scene with unusual and
striking effect. So much of useful information is contained
in the catalogue, so much that embodies
great expert know-
ledge of the subject, that I cannot do better than advise a
careful study of it not for the prices alone, though nothing
has been inserted that did not sell for 10 or more. By
adopting such an arbitrary plan, many most useful prints
are not mentioned, but even the diminished list is almost
excessively large for a book like this.
For a similar reason numbers of the lesser men who designed
for colour-blocks are omitted, but that is partially remedied
by the lists, especially by the signatures. One last con-
sideration will close this section, and in my opinion it is
important.
What rule is to be the standard for these colour-prints ?
Shall certain subjects always sell well ? Shall the works of
certain painters demand high prices ? The answer to the
first question depends upon the general demand of collectors.
The answer to the second must be modified by the fact that
the painter only furnished the design otherwise the print
;
is not at all his work.
Rather am I inclined to a standard in which subject and

aesthetic merit shall form the main considerations. The
beauty of the design, the refinement and harmony of its
colouring, and all those qualities which appeal to the artistic
sense, are above other considerations, and the mere signature
is not enough to satisfy those whose chief desire is to possess
fine colour-prints.
The order of merit of the artists of the Ukiyo-ye school
has been thus estimated by Fenollosa. I give it because
whilst it is very difficult to divide artists into classes, the
process is easier where, as here, they were engaged in work
"
very similar in character. Of first rank, five, namely :
Matabei, Okumura Masanobu, Harunobu, Kiyonaga, and

Hokusai of second rank, eight, namely Moronobu, Kaiget-
;
:
sudo, Kiyonobu, Kiyomasu, Koriusai, Shigemasa, Shuncho,

and Utamaro and of the third rank, fourteen, namely
;
:
Chosun, Shunsui, Shunsho, Toshinobu, Mangosaburo, Shigen-

aga, Toyonobu, Kiyomitsu, Kiyohiro, Toyoharu, Buncho,
Yeishi, Toyokuni, and Hiroshige."
Some of these are not mentioned in my notes; one, at
least, does not appear in the lists of Mr. Strange or Mr. Happer.
What one would like to know is this is the judgment to
:
be given upon the work of the painter as a painting, or upon

the labours of the engraver and colour-printer ? It is cer-
tainly possible that the same craftsmen might have been
employed upon the work of several painters. And the
solution appears to lie in the direction of the publisher.
Efforts are being made to collate the publishers' seals. When
A YOSHIWARA BEAUTY, BY YOSHITORA.
389
HIROSHIGE 391
that is done, I think that a new standard may arise, founded

at least in part upon the merits of the colour-prints them-
selves. Fenollosa's merit list does not refer specifically to
these at all. He classifies them as painters, yet in the third
rank he places Hiroshige. I should feel inclined to rank
Hiroshige next to Hokusai in the first rank. Differences of
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SIGNATURES OF PAINTERS I.
opinion, differences of taste in art, breed no ill feeling, and

those who collect colour-prints are content to acquire the
best possible specimens at as reasonable a rate as may be.
The signatures on this page may include the school name,
which was often prefixed to the personal name, as Kano
Masanobu, the founder of the Kano school, or put in parentheses
after the name, as Shunsho (Katsukawa). The latter is prac-
tised in English catalogues, etc., but the former is the
Japanese practice. The essential part of the name is given
in every case in this list.
(i) Kose-no-Kanaoka, (2)Chodensu, also called Myocho

or Mincho, (3) Josetsu, (4)Shubun, (5) Kano Masanobu,
(6) Kano Motonobu, (7) Tosa Mitsunobu, (8) Sesshu, (9)
Shugetsu, (10) Shukwan, (n) Shukwado, (12) Sotatsu, (13)
Naonobu, (14) Yasunobu, (15) Kano Tannyu, (16) Mitsuoki,
(17) Matabei, (18) Hishikawa Moronobu, (19) Iccho, (20)
Koetsu, (21) Tsunenobu, (22) Korin, (23) Kenzan, (24)
Ritsuo, (25) Mitsuoki, (26) Go-shun, (27) Okkyo, (28) Ippo,
(29) Sosen, (30) Gan-Ku. Others follow on the next page.
None of the authorities which I have been able to consult
give a complete and the lists in this book do not pretend
list,
to be anything more than suggestive, as indeed indicating

the chief amongst many great painters.
The latest authorities, the British Museum catalogue and
that of the Japan-British Exhibition, do not agree, and I have
followed the latter rather than the former, as this is the first
occasion in which there has been an opportunity to study
native paintings with the aid of a guide, drawn up under the
auspices of the Japanese Government. The dates given are
taken from the same source, which shows that the primitive
school which culminated in Tosa Mitsunobu (1454-1525) was
only opposed by the organised Kano school on the advent of
its founder, Kano Masanobu (1454-1550), though Chodensu,
a century earlier, by breaking away from the traditional
style, be regarded as its virtual originator. Sesshu, an

may
independent, went to China accompanied by his disciple,
Shugetsu, and again the Chinese influence over Japanese art
was reinforced. When attention is called again and again
to this influence, it must be remembered that the Buddhist
priests had in their ranks many philosophers and poets who
were also painters, and that these looked to China as the
mother-country of religion and art. Thus it is that for long
centuries the Tosa school under the influence of its neighbours
represented much from religion and from the Court, and very
little from nature, whilst nature, becoming more important
HIROSHIGE 393
in the Kano school, ruled other independent schools, such as

the later Shijo and the Ukiyo-ye.
In the signatures continued on this page will be found
several artists closely associated with colour-prints. These
were essentially of the Ukiyo-ye school. The Shijo
school, so called from a street in Kyoto, though modern,
JS
R| t
Jh
*
4
ar
f-J
SIGNATURES OF PAINTERS II.
was not attracted to the art which aimed to supply pictures

to the people for a few sen. Hokusai stands apart as a
master-painter of landscapes, figures, flowers, and animals.
His pupils followed his style, and like him supplied subjects
for colour-prints. His various signatures show his change of
names, and their names, as derived in part from him, are set
out in what may prove to be a helpful form. A long list of
painters is given in the section on colour-prints. The last
list concluded with number 30.
(31) Hoitsu, (32) Sukenobu, (33) Chosun, (34) Shunsho,
(35) Shunro (Hokusai), (36) Sori (Hokusai), (37) Tokimasa
(Hokusai), (38) Sesshin (Hokusai), (39) Hokusai, (40) Taito
(Hokusai), (41) Katsushika (Hokusai), (42) Manrodjin (Ho-
kusai), (43) Itsu (Hokusai), (44) Issai (pupil of Hokusai),
(45) Hokuju (another pupil), (46) Hoku-un (a third), (47)
Hokkei (a fourth), (48) Hokuga (a fifth), (49) Teisai (a sixth),
(50) Hokuba (a seventh), (51) Hokusai's signature as
(52) Keisai Kitao, (53) Keisai Yeisen, (54) Hiroshige, (55)
Kunisada, (56) Kuniyoshi, (57) Kiosai, (58) Zeshin, (59)
Yosai.
I am fortunate in being able to add a very complete alpha-
betical list of facsimile signatures from colour-prints, under
special circumstances.
The Controller of His Majesty's Stationery Office has given
me permission to use the marks and signatures in Mr. Edward
Strange's "Japanese Colour Prints," the excellent Handbook
of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I am deeply indebted
to the Controller and also to Mr. Strange, and tender to both
my sincere thanks.
Note. The supplementary names are those in parentheses ;

that in larger type being the one by which the artist is
generally known.
I
!
10
11 13
3 *
4 j
I 17
20
i9
16
*
22 23
I ASHIHIRO, 2 ASHIKIYO, 3 ASHIKUNI, 4 ASHIMARO, 5 ASHITSURA, 6 ASHIYTJKI

(Kegwado), 7 BAIKOKU, 8 BAISHU, 9 BOGETSU, 10 CHIKAMARO, u
CHIKA-
NOBU (Yoshu), 12 CHOSO, 13 FUSATANE (Isshosai), 14 GAKUTEI (Yedo),
15 GAKUTEI (" Year of the Rabbit," with seal), 16 GEKKO, 17 GEPPS,
18 GOKEI (Yeishi's pupil), 19 GOSHICHI (Harukawa), 20 GYSDAI, 21
GYOKUHO, 22 HANZAN (Kakio), 23 HARUNOBU (Suzuki), 24 HIROKAGE, 25
HIKOKUNI.
*
20 27 28 29
*
*
31 32 33
35
ft
I
37
;t
I
41 42
44 45
45 48
26 HlROKUNI, 27 HlRONOBU, 28 HlROSADA, 2Q HlROSHIGE (I.), 30 HlROSHIGE
(II. Ichiysoai), 31 HIROSHIGE (II. Ichiryusai), 32 HIROSHIGE (II.), 33

HOKKEI (Shunyosai), 34 HOKUBA, 35 HOKUBA (Teisai), 36 HOKUCHO
(Shunshosai), 37 HOKUGA, 38 HOKUI, 39 HOKUJIU (Shotei), 40 HOKUMYO
(Sekkotei), 41 (Hokusai) SHUNRO, 42 (Hokusai) HISHIGAWA SORI, 43
(Hokusai) KATSUSHIKA TAITO, 44 HOKUSAI SORI, 45 (Hokusai) SAKINO
HOKUSAI TAMEKAZU, 46 HOKUSEI (Tohosai), 47 HOKUSHU (Shunkosai),
48 HOKUSUI, 49 HOKUTSUI, 50 HOKUYEI (Shunkosai).
396
*
51
53
&
59
58
57
,/S
I
64
61 62 63
67 68 70
71 72 75
51 KADZUSADA (Hishikawa), 52 KAGETOSHI (Gokotei's pupil), 53 KASETSU,

54 (Keisai) YEISEN, 55 KEISEI, 56 KIKUMARO, 57 KIYOHARU (Hishigawa),
58 KIYOHIRO, 59 KIYOKUNI, 60 KIYOMINE (Torii), 61 KIYOMITSU (Torii),
62 KlYONAGA, 63 KlYONOBU (Torii), 64 KlYOSADA, 65 KORUISAI, 66
KOYEN, 67 KUNIAKI, 68 KUNICHIKA, 69 KUNIHARU (Arashi TokusaburS,
changed to), 70 KUNIHIKO, 71 KUNIHIRO, 72 KUNIHISA I., 73 KUNIHISA
II., 74 KUNIKANE (Ichihosai), 75 KUNIKAZU.
397
>t
76 77 78 79
tt
81 83 84
,t
86 87
-9-
9] 93 95
97
76 KUNIKIYO, 77 KUNIMARO, 78 KUNIMARU, 79 KUNIMASA, 80 KUNIMASU,

8 1 KUNIMITSU, 82 (Kunimori) HARUMASA KOCHOYEN, 83 KUNINAO,
84 (Kunisada) TOYOKUNI II. (Kunisada, changed to), 85 (Kunisada) TOYO-
KUNI (Kachoro), 86 KUNISADA, 87 KUNISADA II. (Baichoro), 88 KUNISATO
(Ryusen), 89 KUNITERU (Issensai), 90 KUNITOMI (Kwasentei), 91 KUNIT-
SUNA (Ichiransai), 92 KUNITSURU (Utagawa), 93 KUNIYASU, 94 KUNI-
YOSHI (Ichiyusai), 95 KYOSAI, 96 MASANOBU (Okumura), 97 MORONOBU
(Hishikawa), 98 MUNEHIRO, 99 NIHO, 100 NOBUHARU.
398
.5S.
t
104 105
A
I
106 107 no
108
111 112 115
fi
116 117 119 120
t* 122 123 124

121
101 RvtJsEN, 102 SADAFUSA (Gokitei), 103 SADAHARU (Hasegawa), 104 SADA-
HIDE (Gountei), 105 SADAHIRO, 106 SADAKAGE (Gokotei), 107 SADAMASU
(Gochotei), 108 SADANOBU (Hasegawa), 109 SADASHIGE (Utagawa),
no SADATORA (Gofutei), in SADAYOSHI, 112 SADAYUKI, 113 SENCHS
ii4SENCH6(Teisai), IISSHIBAKUNI, n6SHiGEFUSA(Shigeharu's
(Seitotei),
pupil), 117 SHIGEHARU (Ryusai), 118 SHIREHARU (Gyokuryutei), 119,
SHIGEMASA (Kitao), 120 SHIGENOBU (Nishimura), 121 SHIGENOBU
(Ichiyusai), 122 SHIKQ, 123 SHINSAI, 124 SHIZAN, 125 SHUNCHO.
399
* i 129 130
126
128
* f t
134
131 133 135
139 140
145
146 147 148 149 150

126 SHUNKI, 127 SHUNKO, 128 SHUNKYO SHUNMAN, 130 SHUNSEI,
(Katsu), 129
131 SHUNSEN, 132 SHUNSHI (Seiyosai), 133 SHUNSHO, 134 SHUNSHO (the
same artist], 135 SHUNSHO (pupil of Shunkosai), 136 SHUNSUI (Tama-
gawa), 137 SHUNTEI, 138 SHUNTEI (Ryo), 139 SHUNYEI, 140 SHUNYO,
141 SHUNZAN, 142 TAMEKUNI (Jiryosai), 143 TERUSHIGE (Katsukawa),
144 TOMINOBU (Kwasentei), 145 TOMIYUKI, 146 TONAN, 147 TOSHIHIDE
(by special order), 148 TOSHIKATA 149 TOSHINOBU (Okumuru), 150
TOSHINOBU (by special order).
400
I
1S5
1
156 158 160
ft
163 165
161
*c
*? I
166 168
17ft
f
172
P 173
I
151 TOSHU, 152 TOYOHURA (Utagawa), 153 TOYOHIDE (Kitagawa), 154 TOYO-
HIRO, 155 TOYOHISA, 156 TOYOKUNI (I.), 157 TOYOKUNI (I.), 158 TOYO-
KUNI (Gosotei), 159 TOYOMASA (Ichikawa), 160 TOYONOBU, 161 TOYO-
SHIGE (Toyokuni's son), 162 TSUKIMARO (Bokutei), 163 UMEKUNI (Juk-
yodo), 164 UTAMARO, 165 UTASHIGE, 166 YEIRI (Rekisentei), 167 YEISHI,
168 YEISHO, 169 YEIZAN, KIKUGAWA, 170 YENCHO, 171 YOSHICHIKA,
172 YOSHIHARU, 173 YOSHIFUJI (Ichiosai), 174 YOSHIKADS, 175 YOSHI-
KATA.
2O 4oi
I * I
176 179 180
178
-1184 *
181
185
_*
182
187
188
19f 192 193 194 195
176 YOSHIKATSU, 177 YOSHIKAZU, 178 YOSHIKUNI (Jukodo), I7Q YoSHIMORI,

ISO YOSHIMUNE, l8l YOSHISHIGE, 182 YOSHITAKI, 183 YoSHITORA
(Kinchoro), 184 YOSHITOSHI, 185 YOSHITOYO, 186 YOSHITSUGU (Sada-
yoshi's pupil), 187 YOSHITSUNA, 188 YOSHITSURU, 189 YOSHITSUYA
(Ichiyeisai), 190 YOSHIYUKI, 191 Gwa painted, 192 Fude painted with
brush, 193 Dxu composed, 194 Utsusu copied, 195 By special order.
402
HIROSHIGE 403
Some names will be repeated in the long list men-

of these
tioned above. The last three names bring us to the close
of the nineteenth century. Kiosai, the Mark Twain of the
brush, died in 1889 Zeshin in 1891 and Yosai in 1878.
; ;
Zeshin poked fun at the classical side of the Kano school,

treating the gods with scant ceremony. Yosai confined his
attention to figure painting. The modern section at the
Exhibition introduced painting in oil, and the pictures I saw
differed but little from our own. The catalogue might be
that of an English gallery, except for the names of the artists.
"
Oil-painting An Ever-crystal Stream by Morinosuke Yama-
moto ; Oil-painting Chrysanthemums by Toraji Ishikawa ;
and Oil-painting Morning Scene at a Railway Station by

Morinosuke Yamamoto," are indications of modern thought
in Nippon. We can both appreciate those indications and
regret them so far as they leave the old inspirations. Rather
are we not beginning to understand the soul of the East
through the art of Old Japan, as the Japanese are likewise
learning something of the soul of the West. A complete
rapprochement is not yet !
A LIST OF THE CHIEF ARTISTS WHO DESIGNED COLOUR-

PRINTS
With approximate dates of their work where actual dates of birth and
death are not known
BAIREI (Kono). .:... ... . worked c. 1875-1895

BANKI . . . .
^"V;.. . . c. 1800
BUMPO (Shunsei) . . . . worked c. 1800-1830
V '
BUNCHO (Ippitsusai)
BUNCHO (Tani)
CHIHARU (Takashima)
.
.
.
.
...
.
.
.
worked
.
c.
c.
1764-1796
1763-1841
1776-1859
CHIKANOBU . . , . < - l86
CHINNEN (Onishi) . . . . worked c. 1820-1840
CHOKI (Yeishosai) . / . . worked c. 1773-1805
FUMINOBU . . . . . . c. 1853
........
FUMIYOSHI
FUSATANE
.
.
.
... .
C.
C.
1853
1853
GAKUTEI (Yashima)
GEKKO . .
HANZAN (Matsugawa)
.
. ...
.
.
*
. .
.
.
worked
.
worked
c.
c.
1800-1840
1896
1835-1851
HARUNOBU (Suzuki). 1703-1770
...
HARUTSUGU ....
HARUSHIGE (Suzuki)
HIDEMARO (Kitagawa)
.
. .
. worked
c.
c.
1747-1818
1770
1804-1817
HIROSHIGE (Ichiryusai) 1796-1858
HIROSHIGE II. (see Shigenobu) .
1782-1832
HISANOBU (Hyakusai) worked c. 1800
HOKKEI (Todoya) . . worked c. 1800-1840
HOKUBA (Teisai) . 1770-1844
HOKUGA (Hotei) c. 1850
HOKUJIU (Shotei) . . . worked c. 1820-1830
HOKUSAI (Katsuchika) 1760-1849
HOKUYEI (Shunkosai) -...,'. . worked c. 1830-1850
ISSAI (Katsuchika) . worked c. 1850-1865
ITCHO (Hanabusa) . 1651-1724
KAIGETSUDO (Yasumoto) . c. 1700
KANRIN (Katsuren Okada) c. 1832
KEINEN (Imao) c. 1892
KIGAKU
KlKUMARO
.....
KEISAI (pupil of HOKKEI)
....
.
worked
c.
c.
c.
1830
1850
1789-1829
KIYOCHIKA (Kobayashi) . c. 1880
KIYOHIRO (Torii) 1708-1766
KIYOMASU (Torii) .
1679-1762
KIYOMINE (Torii) 1786-1868
KIYOMITSU (Torii) .
1735-1785
KIYONAGA (Torii) .
1752-1814
KIYONOBU (Torii) . 1664- 1755 or 1756
KIYOSHIGE (Torii) . c. 1716-1735
KIYOTADA (Torii) worked c. 1714-1739

KIYOTOMO (Torii) . c. 1725
KOCHO .....
KIYOTSUNE (Torii)
KORIN (Ogata).
.
worked 1830-1864
c.
1660-1716
KOTEI
KUNICHIKA
.....
KORIUSAI (Isoda)
(Ichiyosai)
1720-6. 1782
c. 1890
worked c. 1830-1865
KUNIMARU (Utagawa) 1786-1817
KUNINAGA (Icbiunsai) c. 1810
KUNINAO (Utagawa) c. 1825

KUNINOBU (Pupil Of TOYONOBU) c. 1775
KUNISADA (Utagawa) 1785-1864
KUNITSUGU (Kozo) . c. 1840
KUNIYASU (Ipposai). 1799-1830
KUNIYOSHI (Utagawa) 1797-1861
KWAZAN (Watanabe) c. 1828
HIROSHIGE 405
KYOSAI (Shofu) ..... 1831-1889
MASANOBU (Okumura)
MASANOBU (Kitao)
MASAYOSHI (Kitao)
.....
.....
. . . worked c. 1685-1764
1761-1816
1761-1824
MASUNOBU (Tanaka)
MATORA (Oishi) .... . . . worked
worked
c.
c.
1754-1771
1820-1833
MITSUNOBU (Hasegawa)
MORIKUNI (Tachibana)
MORONOBU (Hishikawa)
....
....
. . . worked c. 1724-1790
1670-1748
1648-1715
NAGAHIDE , . . . . c. 1840
NANGAKU
NANREI .......
.....
OKYO (Maruyama)
, ? . . . e.
c.
1853
1853
1733-1805
RINSAI
RINSHIN
RlNTEI
.......
.
. .
c.
c.
C.
1853
1853
1853
RISSAI . . . . . . . c. 1854
RlSSEN . .
SADAFUSA (Gokitei)
SADAHIDE (Utagawa)
,
.....
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
worked
C.
c.
c.
1848
1825
1820-1864
SADAKAGE (Gokotei) c. 1835
SADANOBU (Hasegawa) c. 1840
SADATORA (Gofutei) . . . > . . c. 1825
SEITAI (Watanabe) . . . . . c. 1890
SEKIYEN (Toriyama)
SEKKYO (Sawa)
SEXTAN (Hasegawa)
.
.
...
.
.
..
.
.
.
worked
.
worked
c.
c.
c.
1773-1784
1790
1790-1839
SHARAKU (Toshiusai)
SHIGEHARU
SHIGEMARU .
......
.
...
. .
.
.
worked
.
c.
c.
c.
1775-1810
1853
1852
^
....
SHIGEMASA (Kitao)
SHIGENAGA (Nishimura)
SHIGENOBU (Nishimura)
.
....
*-,, . .
.
worked
1738-1819
1697-1756
1700-1740
SHIGENOBU (Tsunegawa) . c. 1725
SHIGENOBU (Yanagawa) . v . . .
1782-1832
"
SHIKIMARO (Tokeirin) . . worked c. 1790-1805

SHINSAI (Ryuryukio) . . . worked c. 1803-1845
*
SHOSENSAI . . . . . . c. 1850
SHUCHO (Tamagawa) . worked
. . c. 1790-1800
'
'
SHUMBOKU (Ooka) . . , ,
.
1676-1760
SHUNCHO (Katsugawa) . worked
. . c. 1770-1790
SHUN jo (Katsugawa) . worked
. . c. 1780-1790
SHUNKO (Katsugawa) worked
. . . c. 1765-1790
SHUNKO (distinguished as SHUNBENI). .
"
c. 1850
SHUNKYO (Katsugawa) . .
. . c. 1810
SHUNKYOKU (Katsugawa). ... . c- ^754
SHUNMAN (Kitao) worked c. 1785-1815
SHUNSEN (Kashosai). worked c. 1790-1829
SHUNSEN (Katsugawa) worked c. 1790
SHUNSHO (Katsugawa) 1724-1792
SHUNTEI (Katsugawa) 1769-1820
SHUNYEI (Katsugawa) 1769-1819
SHUNZAN (Katsugawa) worked c. 1776-1800
SOBAI c. 1790
SOKKEN (Yamaguchi) 1804
SOSEN (Mori) . 1800
SOSHISEKI 1840
SUGAKUDO 1848
SUKENOBU (Nishikawa) 1677-1751
TAIGAKU .
1850
TAITO (Katsuchika) . worked c. 1816-1853
TAKEKIYO '.. c. 1853
TAKISHIBA c. 1850
TERUNOBU (Katsnmura) worked c. 1716-1736
TOICHI . c. 1850
TORIN (Tsutsumi) worked c. 1780-1820
TOSHINOBU (Okumura) 1720-1763
TOYOHARU (Utagawa) 1733-1814
TOYOHIRO (Utagawa) 1773-1828
TOYOKUNI (Utagawa) 1769-1825
TOYOKUNI (Gosotei). 1774-1835
TOYOMARU c. 1796
TOYOMASA (Ishikawa) worked c. 1770-1780
TOYONOBU (Ishikawa) 1710-1785
UTAMARO (Kitagawa) 1754-1806
YASUMICHI c. 1809
YEIICHI (Seisai) c. 1853
YEIJU (Chokosai) c. 1810
YEIRI (Yeishi's pupil) c. 1810
YEIRI (Rekisenti) worked c. 1780-1810
YEISEN (Keisai) 1789-1848
YEISHI (Chobunsai) . worked c. 1780-1805
YEISHIN . c. 1830
YEISHO (Chokosai) . c. 1800
YEISUI . 1810
YEIZAN (Kikugawa) . worked c. 1800-1829
YOSAI (Kikuchi) 1787-1878
YOSHIHARU (Ichimesai) c. 1860
YOSHIKAZU c. 1850
YOSHITOMI c. 1850
YOSHITORA (Ichimosai) c. 1855
YOSHITOSHI (Taiso) . worked c. 1860-1892
CHAPTER XXVI
SOMETHING ABOUT JAPANESE HISTORY

life of a nation depends upon its virtue, its relation
THEto its highest standards of conduct, regardless of all
except the purity of those standards, by which thoughts and
actions are examined and regulated. Whether we understand
religion as a divine system of faith and worship to which its
followers are bound, or as a line of conduct founded upon
the life and teachings of some great prophet whose disciples
imitate both, or as a revelation from what we call nature,

or as a mere means of discipline, we arrive at a conclusion
justified by history, that such religion in its purity is both
an inspiration to the individual and a safeguard of the national
life. In its purity is the crucial test, the rock upon which
happiness and security are both founded and built.
These thoughts are suggested by the study of the history
of Nippon, which I am treating here, mainly in relation to
its progress towards Western civilisation. We can never
trace the origin of the old nations, we can only surmise, for
legends and myths embodying the supernatural cloud and
hide the facts. In this sense it is not intended to dwell upon
those far-off days ; in a few words it will suffice to begin with
Jimmu Tenno, the founder of the present dynasty, who
reigned about 665 the Empress Jingo, who conquered
B.C., with
Korea in A.D. 201,with the introduction of Korean civilisa-
t ion eighty years later, and to come to the advent of Buddhism
<-bout A.D. 550, which was followed by its acceptance by the

Emperor in A.D. 624. "
the old Shintoism, the Way of the Gods," regarded the
407
dead as spiritually living; the new philosophic Buddhism,
"
the Way of the Buddha," considered the living as spiritually
dead. Hence the two systems progressed side by side. The
first established the divine right of kings from the very begin-
ning, and was the source of an intense patriotism, regarding

the Emperor as its emblem, its soul, its glory. The second
was atheistic in its essence, though it degenerated into idolatry,
in which Buddha was adored as the ideal of intelligence,
goodness, and beauty, worthy of the imitation of mankind.
The art of Japan, inspired by Buddhism, prospered under its
protection many of the great masters were priests who lived
;
in monasteries.
The military power had been deputed by the Emperor to
the Shogun as commander-in-chief as early as the sixth
century. In time it became the custom to grant the office
to one of two rival clans, the Taira and the Minamoto. In
1192 Yoritomo was Shogun. He usurped the temporal
power, confiding the spiritual to the Emperor, or, as he is
sometimes called, the Mikado, who constantly resided at
Kyoto through all the troubles that came. But the term
Mikado is used to signify the person of the Emperor, not his
government. The sovereign of Japan is the Emperor ; the
gate of the Imperial Palace, mikado, exalted gate, is a figurative
term which indicated his spiritual office. Following the
isolation and seclusion of the religious head of the nation,
whose powers were limited and submerged during this period
of the Shogunate, came sanguinary struggles for supreme
power amongst the feudal princes. These lasted for four
centuries, the Minamoto clan gradually gaming ascendancy ;
but before lyeyasu victorious laid the foundation of the

hereditary line of the Tokugawa Shoguns by his victories
over the princes of the south, another influence appeared, the
first coming of the European, the herald of Western civilisa-
tion.
Marco Polo spent many years travelling in the East from
1272 to 1295, and visited Japan amongst other countries.
On his return to Venice, his native place, he fought against
Genoa and was taken prisoner. Whilst in prison he dictated
SOMETHING ABOUT JAPANESE HISTORY 409
"
his Maravigliose Cose," an account of his adventures, which
was published in 1559, just a year before Mendez Pinto, a
Portuguese adventurer, finally left Japan to return to his own

country, a first visit in 1537 being followed by other trading
vessels, by the establishment of settlements, by the intro-
duction of the arquebuse and the method of making gun-
powder, and by the arrival of Jesuit missionaries. The
government of the Tokugawa lyeyasu was firmly established
in 1600, but ten years before that the Portuguese and their
missionaries were expelled from Japan, and this expulsion
was followed by a cruel persecution of the native Christian
converts which lasted 1642. The Portuguese, during a
till
century's trading, appear to have affected the art of that

country but little. With the Dutch, who were suffered,
under severe remain in their settlements, the
restrictions, to
" "
exportation of Old Japan porcelain to all parts of Europe,
from 1600 onwards, was so great that large vases, entirely
out of place in the decoration of the native home, were
"
specially made for export in the style known as Old Imari,"
which had a peculiar decoration of red, green, blue, and gold,
in shaped panels, with diapers and landscapes, upon a ground
of peonies or chrysanthemums. Later examples show Dutch
ships and men in European costume, and similar ships may
be found in some paintings and colour-prints. With the
exception of the Dutch and Chinese, right on till 1853, all
foreigners were rigidly debarred from the country. In that
year other forces from the outside world came into play, and
the government was compelled to revise its position, which,
inside, was endangered by the jealousies, intrigues, and
quarrels of the princes and Daimios.
From the United States, the American Commodore Perry
led an expedition, which was courteously received, but not
encouraged, so it stayed only a few days in the July of that
year, yet the result was satisfactory, as a commercial treaty
between the two nations was signed in the March of the next
year, 1854. In October a similar treaty was concluded with
Great Britain, which was followed in 1855 by another with
Russia, These treaties were made by the Shogun or Taiko,
whose other name from 1854 was the Tycoon, and this
assumption of supreme power led to grave consequences some
years later. The combined effect of these treaties and the
influence of the outside world was to open two ports to
European commerce. They were Nagasaki and Hakodadi.
On December 12, 1860, Sir Hope Grant, the Commander
of the Forces in the Chinese war of 1860, when the Peiho
Forts were captured and Pekin looted, visited Japan on what
"
he termed a pleasure trip," and his impressions gathered
during a fortnight's residence there are worth quoting, but
"
space only permits a few words : A short time before our
arrival, three Russians and a Frenchman had been as-
sassinated, and the crime was imputed to the Daimios," who
"
entertain a great hatred towards all foreigners, and especially
towards the English and with good reason. They are aware
that we have taken possession of the whole of India ; and
they have seen China, one of the largest empires in the world,
"
completely broken up by us." Each Daimio's retainers
consider it to be their duty to carry out their chief's behest,
even though death or torture is certain to be the consequence."
"The houses are built of wood, except the foundations of
those belonging to the Daimios. Very destructive typhoons
and earthquakes are of constant occurrence, and a short time
ago (Dec. 1854) nearly the whole of Yedo was, in consequence,
shaken to the ground."
Two years after this, Mr. Richardson was murdered and his
companions cruelly treated by the followers of one of the
Daimios, who were involved in the struggle between the
Emperor and the followers of the Tycoon or Shogun, which
came to a crisis in May 1868, when the latter defeated the
former after having first suffered defeat. The Shogun
Yoshinobu resigned his office before this struggle began. In
July of the same year the Emperor was successful in quelling
the Rebellion, his power was established in Church and
State, the Shogunate of the Tokugawa family was abolished,
and the land, freed from the oppression of the Daimios, who
relinquished their feudal rights, flourished under its reformed
government, whilst its people, with new strength and spirit,
marched onwards along a new road to Western civilisation.

Looking backwards we can hardly realise that in 1860 the
"
Japanese began to wear European clothes."
The continuation of the history is from a " Short Description
of the Exhibits at the Japan-British Exhibition/' issued with
the compliments of the Committee governing the Depart-
ment of the Imperial Army :
"
The adoption of European methods in military drill by
the Samurai of Tokyo was followed by various provinces
supplanting bows and arrows in favour of firearms. During
the Restoration War, 1867-8, peace was secured mainly by the
Western mode of fighting, which was followed on the re-
habilitation of the reigning sovereign by the establishment of
a War Department controlling the Army and Navy. The
defence of Kyoto, the then Imperial capital, was assigned to
recruits of various Daimio troops, but some provinces adopted
the English or Dutch systems, others the French, which last
system was modified and adopted as the Army system in
1870. An arsenal was then inaugurated, and simultaneously
a law of recruits was ordained, and a select body was thus
organised at headquarters, by calling up five qualified persons,
'
irrespective of social status, per a certain estate (e.g. man-

goku ') from each province, in which sixty regulars were also
enlisted, besides commissioned officers. The new military
ordinance settled various groups of the force, such as battalions
or companies, according to local conditions ; the men com-
prising the standing army were then gradually assigned to
a number of services, horse and foot, artillerymen and
engineers.
"
The Imperial Guard, composed of infantry, yeomen, and
artillery, were for the time
first in 1871 selected from the
troops of the three provinces of Satsuma, Choshu, and Tosa.
Two garrisons of the Eastern and Western military provinces
were expanded into four, situate respectively at Tokyo,
Osaka, Kumamoto, and Sendai, the voluntary standing army
which formerly belonged to provinces being now assigned to
garrisons. At Tokyo ten battalions were stationed, at Osaka
five, Kumamoto two, and Sendai one. The absolute control
of the soldiery, by this process, once again came to the person
of the August Sovereign.
"The Departments of the Army and of the Navy were
both established in 1872. In addition to the Military Academy
and Preparatory School previously formed, an institute
for training principally non-commissioned officers entitled
' '
Kyododan had been inaugurated. About that time a

number of French officers headed by Lieutenant-Colonel S.
Marquerie of the General Staff were invited to Japan in order
to take up the training of officers, commissioned and non-
commissioned, and the evolution of the services was now
followed by great strides being made at the arsenals in the
production of ordnance and small-arms, as well as of subsidiary
stores. By thus supplying the requirements of the regulars
and of the reserves with home manufactures, Japan had no
longer to depend entirely upon the importation of war stores.
In the latter part of the year 1872 an Act of Conscription
came into force based on a combination of the ancient and
national customs and of the Western models. Every male
subject of the Empire now had to undergo military service
for seven years namely in the regulars for three years, and
:
in the reserves and the landwehr two years each. The

Samurai with his hereditary fighting privileges no longer
exists.
"
In the following year (1873) two garrisons (at Nagoya
and Hiroshima) were added to the existing four, these six
districts being each divided into two sub-districts provided
with stations and detachments. The newly enrolled units
were completed in the requirements for various grades (except
the gendarmes, who were created in 1881) and their strength
was fixed on a peace footing at 31,680 men, as well as in the
time of war, when they aggregated 46,350 men. In addition,
there was the Imperial Guard intact, consisting of four
battalions of infantry, a cavalry squadron, and an artillery
battalion. The soldiery, besides the Imperial Guard, were
then formed into fourteen regiments of infantry, the sub-
division of which was forty-two battalions, three cavalry
squadrons, eighteen sub-companies with guns, ten sub-corn-
panics of engineers, six sub-companies of transport troops,

and nine companies of coast-defence artillery. When the
conscripts were thoroughly trained those voluntarily enlisted
were gradually discharged. The Imperial Guards were first
presented with their colours when their battalions were
consolidated into two regiments in 1874. All the garrisons
were afterwards presented with their regimental colours by
the Emperor.
"
In the ensuing year, 1875, the Army was again reorganised,
especially as to the Imperial Guard, to which an engineering
company and a transport company were added. Hokkaido,
the northern island, began to be protected by a newly organ-
ised troop residing there with agricultural pursuits, most of
whom were recruited from the adjacent prefectures. The
conscription was unpopular in those days, but eventually a
good discipline prevailed. In the ordnance and small-arms
a vast improvement was achieved. The rifles of the Gewehr
pattern gave way to the Enfield type at the garrisons of
Tokyo, Osaka, and Kumamoto, whilst the rest were armed
with either the Snider or the Allimi. During the insurrection
of the South, 1877, the ammunition for these rifles as well as
for those of the Zundal type were manufactured and sent
into the field.
"
Themilitary affairs of the Empire were placed in order
during the years 1878 and 1879 by the Department of the
Army, the General Staff, and the Inspector-General, each re-
sponsible direct to the Emperor. While the Department

undertook the military administration, the national defence
and strategy were entrusted to the General Staff, the Inspector-
General reviewing the whole Army and going into its ac-
counts. Under the Inspector-General, at headquarters in
Tokyo, three divisional chiefs were appointed in the eastern,
the middle, and the western sections ;each governed two
military districts, from which could be formed a corps d'armee
to promptly meet any emergency. The terms of the reserves
and the landwehr had been again extended to three and four
years respectively, thus making a ten-year service for a
conscript. Consequently, about one-half of the drilled men
had remained in the service, by which extension no voluntary
recruitswere necessary even in a bellicose operation. Ex-
emptions from the conscription have been rather easily
obtained under the new regulations. The invention of the
Murata rifle by a Japanese officer of that name resulted in
the equipment for the first time of the soldiery with a uniform
pattern of rifles, the employment of other types disappearing.
"
The Emperor issued his Imperial Injunctions to his Army
and Navy in 1882, recalling their prime object and urging
them to personally cultivate the five cardinal principles of
Loyalty, Courtesy, Valour, Veracity and Modesty. A subse-
quent rescript for the expansion of his forces was due to
observation of the status of the world. Accordingly the plans
for the national defence were greatly altered ; in addition
to the Imperial Guard twelve brigades of infantry, six regi-
ments each of cavalry and artillery, and six regiments each
of engineers and transport were now formed. Towards the
end of the year 1882 a regular training of staff officers of the
Army was inaugurated at a college under the direct super-
vision of the Chief of the General Staff. Early in 1883 the
rules governing the Military Academy were reconstructed,
and German was added to the curriculum. A staff officer
of the Prussian Army in the person of Major Meckel was
invited to be an adviser to the General Staff ; through this
officer's services there have been remarkable strides made in
the tactical trainings. Thenceforth Prussian models were
freely adopted by the Japanese authorities in their ordinances,
and an extension of the conscript service to a term of twelve
years had resulted namely, three years in the regular
service, four in the reserve, and five in the landwehr. Through
the enactment of the new conscription law, an exemption
could no longer be procured save on account of physical
incapability. In a decade afterwards, i.e. in 1894, the re-
quired number of Army Divisions would be formed.
"
Areform of the administrative bureaux was decreed in
December 1885 universal education spread, commerce and
;
industries improved. The Army's development was also one

of the signs of the times. The military engineering depart-
ment was well occupied in the following year, fortifying

various points. The coasts were strongly defended. The
standards admitting the cadets to the Military Academy were
altered in 1887, when the present qualifications of a candidate
for a commission were framed. The Corps d'Armee system
superseded the garrisons in 1888. The staffs of the Army
and Navy had been severally administered under the super-
'
vision of the Sangun,' an office which was abolished in the
following year. A
severe enforcement of conscription ensued,
and various regulations pertaining to the plans to meet an
emergency, for military education, inspection, and supplies
were issued.The improved Murata rifle of the 1885 pattern
had now developed into a repeating type, and in the height
of manufacturing these small-arms at the arsenals, in 1894,
Japan was forced into war with China.

"
After the restoration of peace in 1895 it was decided, in
consequence of the general situation, to strengthen the
armaments. In the third year afterwards the units of
the Army were increased to thirteen divisions, including the
Imperial Guard thus were created six new divisions, the
;
Seventh to the Twelfth, besides a new establishment of two

brigades each of cavalry and artillery. In order that uni-
formity might be maintained in the plans of defence within
various jurisdictions, and for co-operative strategy of various
' '
divisions and for their discipline, three Totoku or Generals-
commanding were created, each directing four divisions, and

having their headquarters in Tokyo. They were under the
direct orders of the Emperor, and by his order inspected a
division or the manoeuvres of combined divisions. During
the six years, 1898-1904, the Gensuifu, an assembly of the
highest military advisers, composed of Field-Marshals and
Admirals of the Fleet, a General-Superintendent of Military
Training, and a Board of Military Councillors, came into
existence in the place of the Inspector-General and the
'Totoku.' Generals Kuroki, Oku, Prince Fushimi, Nogi,
Kawamura, and Hasegawa were among the Board, with
Nishi,
Admirals Inouye, Prince Arisugawa, Yamamoto, and Togo.
"
The training of non-commissioned officers was henceforth
entrusted to each individual regiment, thus abolishing an
'
institution called Kyododan.' The repeating rifles of the
Murata pattern were supplanted by the much improved 1897
type. Quick-firing field and mountain guns of the 1898 type,
designed by General Arisaka, were adopted, replacing the
former 7^ centimetre bronze guns. A certain revision of the
ordinance respecting the Imperial Camp in time of war gave
to the Chief of the Staff of the Army and the Head of the
Naval Board of Command power over their respective staff
officers in the preparation of strategical plans.
"
The efficient state of the Imperial Army was visible in the
operations of 1904-5. Complying with the requirements of
the then war footing, the service period of a conscript had
to extend to a term of seventeen years and four months
namely, three years' service with the colours, four years
and four months in the reserve, and ten years in the landwehr.
During the progress of the war, and following the restoration
of peace, a projected expansion of the Army aiming at
efficiency was accomplished. The thirteen divisions then
existing were raised to nineteen divisions, supplemented by
four cavalry brigades, two artillery brigades, a field-artillery
brigade and a brigade of communication troops. Two
brigades of heavy artillery were organised in place of the
coast-defence troops. The rifle of the 1897 pattern had to
be remodelled to a certain degree. As to the mountain guns
and field guns, a system of checking recoil was adopted.
Various equipments have thus been added to the whole army
since the events of 1904-1905, and further improvements are
constantly being made in order that the Services may remain
always abreast of the times."
I have much pleasure in tendering my best thanks to the
Committee, and do not think such history is misplaced in a
book dealing with the Arts of Japan, because they to a great
extent depend upon the governing classes, upon peace or
war, and upon the luxury rather than the necessity of the
people. Thus, in art metal-work,
the armour worn by a
General or Prince furnished wide scope for the artist; the
State Armour, the Body Armour, and the Lower Body Armour
were all elaborate, so were the Arms and their accessories.
Steel helmets were used in place of hide and leather from

" "
A.D. 1543, and leather lyo armour, so called from the
province in which it originated about 1464, was displaced
by wonderful suits of armour for horses as well as men.
Over constituted an outfit for an
fifty great classes of articles
army, and in each of these the units were exceedingly numerous,
as I have shown in the sword and its belongings. The siege
and fall of the Castle of Osaka, 1614-15, which resulted in
[yeyasu's victory over the Toyotomis, was not alone the be-
ginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which lasted for fifteen
generations, but re-established peace so that the Arts flourished
greatly, as they had done under the Ashikaga Shoguns from
1392 onwards for two hundred and fifty years. Peace and
progress have followed the war with Russia in our own days.
And in looking back upon Old Japan and its miracles of
Art, we may have some regrets because they are passed and
gone, but not for ever. There is still hope for a Renaissance.
Meanwhile we agree with the following opinion :
"
Though America first broke down the barriers, it was
Great Britain, more than any other nation, that in the end
helped and encouraged the regeneration of Japan. The in-
timate relations between the two countries began at a time
when Japan seemed still struggling with adversity. The
community of interest, which was presently to ripen into a
iirm alliance, found expression at a period when Japan's
prowess was unrevealed and her prosperous future unfore-
seen. We are, however, far too prone in England nowadays
to allow our minds to revert to the glittering spectacle of
Japan militant and victorious. We
fail fully to realise that,
though the national genius of Japan has found successful

expression in war, it is chiefly and honourably desirous of
winning world-wide recognition in the domain of peace."
The modern Art of Japan in the Exposition at the White
City in 1910 was full of promise. In the paintings, especially
those without traces of Western influence, no story of decad-
ence is and the carvings in ivory, in the
told, in the lacquer
cloisonne* ware "and pottery, and in the designs for textile
21
fabrics, there are evidences of re-animation, and thereat we
rejoice and hope. words on the history
And, for a few last
which we are beginning to study with awakened attention,
we may note that in the news of July 25, 1910, amongst
the metropolitan items was the following " Prince Tokugawa,
:
the President of the Japanese House of Peers, last night enter-

tained at dinner, at the Hyde Park Hotel, a large number of
Japanese gentlemen."
Still later, to bring history as close as can be in this book,

I note the annexation of Korea by Japan at the end of August
in the same year. The text of the treaty included the
following striking clauses :
"
Article I. -The Emperor of Korea makes complete and
permanent cession to the Emperor of Japan of all rights of
sovereignty over the whole of Korea.
"Article 3. The Emperor of Japan will accord to the
Emperor, ex-Emperor, and Crown Prince of Korea, their
consorts and heirs, appropriate titles, dignity, and honour,
and sufficient annual grants for the maintenance thereof.
"
Article 6. The Government of Japan will assume the
entire government and administration of Korea, and will
undertake to afford full protection to the persons and pro-
perty of Koreans obeying the laws there in force, and will
promote the welfare of such.
"Article 7. The Government of Japan will so far as
circumstances permit employ in the public service of Japan
those Koreans who accept the new regime loyally and are
duly qualified for such service."
It was stated that the Emperor Yi-Syek and ex-Emperor

Yi Heni willingly gave their assent to the annexation, and
the only hesitation shown was when the titles of the former
emperor were discussed. The Japanese proposed the title
of Grand Duke, but the Emperor insisted upon being styled
" "
whang or king. To this the Japanese finally consented.
The later Exhibitions of Modern Art of Japan include one
at Earl's Court in 1911, in which were some wonderful
specimens, not only reproductions of ancient examples, but
recent work of considerable merit. The minute cloisonne
enamel designs with cloisons in gold were as striking as those
in which cloisons were employed to build up the designs
and removed in the finishing, leaving a surface entirely
covered with enamel, giving effects altogether admirable.
FINIS.
APPENDIX
T~"*HERE has been no special demand for Japanese art for some
/
long time, so that the Hamilton Palace Sale still furnishes an

-
approximate guide to values. The Happer Sale of colour-prints

is of more recent interest, and the priced catalogue, though only
noting items of 10 or more, will be of much value for reference.
SALE-PRICES OF
OLD JAPAN LACQUER

AT THE HAMILTON PALACE SALE, JUNE AND JULY 1882
A circular box and cover, of red Soochow lacquer, carved all
over with flowers and ornaments, the top encrusted with
pierced and carved jade ornaments, $ 155. 6d.
A large black and gold card -case, with fish and male figures in
red and gold, 3 135. 6d.
An oblong box and cover, with foliage and flowers in a landscape
in relief, and encrusted with flowers and ornaments in silver-
gilt and coloured stones, 141 155.
A black and gold nest of three boxes, and cover, with chrysan-
themums and foliage, 10 los.
Another, with two boxes and cover, with foliage in gold, i i os. 6d.
An oblong stand, of black and gold lacquer, with a river scene,
buildings, boats, and figures, ^15 155.
A black and gold medicine-case, in four compartments, with a
river scene in gold, 2 2s.
Another, in five divisions, with a river scene, boat, and flowers
in relief, 4 45.
A nest of five trays, of black and gold lacquer, containing three
small ivory boxes, with figures and flowers in mother-o'-
pearl and other materials in black and gold cover, $ 55.
An octagonal tray, with figures and foliage in gold on black
ground, 6 i6s. 6d<
421
422 APPENDIX
A pair of black lacquer cups and saucers, with buildings and
foliage in gold, 3 135. 6d.
An oblong box and cover, with tray inside, with utensils and
other ornaments in colours and gold, ^38 i/s.
A black and gold box and cover, with landscape on the lid,
containing four smaller boxes of gold lacquer, $ 55.
A pair of square ditto, with foliage in gold, and four small boxes
inside, 7 75.
A medicine-box, in five divisions, with monkeys on horseback,
4445.
A pair of fan-shaped boxes, of red and gold lacquer, with land-
scapes, trees, and buildings, each containing two small boxes,
28 75.
A small shrine, of black lacquer,
containing three figures minutely
carved in rice grains, ^5 155. 6d.
An oblong gold snuff-box, the top formed of a plaque of fine
old japan lacquer, with a male figure in relief in gold colour
on black ground, 60 i8s.
A small shell-shaped gold lac box and cover, with a landscape,
l2 I2S.
A medicine-box, with five divisions, and an owl, a spider, and
foliage in relief, 4 45.
An oblong tray, of black lacquer, with foliage in red and gold,
9 95.
A small black and gold cabinet, with folding doors, containing
numerous drawers, trays, and boxes, ^37 165,
A shaped oval black box, the sides decorated with landscapes
in gold, a group of flowers in mother-o '-pearl and gold lac
on the lid, tray inside, iS i8s.
A fine oblong black and gold box and cover, with landscapes,
figures, and buildings in gold, inscribed inside "Maria Van

Dieman " glass shade and stand, ^315.
A very fine oblong chest, of black lacquer, with raised land-
scapes in gold, and studded with animals, birds, and other
objects in silver and gold, and with a large medallion, similar
inside the lid. Formerly the property of Napoleon 1. 73$.
An hexagonal tray, of gold lacquer, with a river scene, mountains,
and buildings in trellis border and a gourd-shaped box
;
of red and gold lacquer, 6 6s.

An octagonal nest of boxes, formed of thin pieces of bamboo
lacquered with gold, 2 12 s. 6d.
APPENDIX 423
A fan-shaped box and cover, of black and gold lacquer, with
bamboos and pine-trees, ^13 2S. 6d.
Another, with birds and flowers in colours, and tray inside,
445.
An oblong black box and cover, with gold ornament on the lid
and link border, 4 145. 6d.
A small nest of three boxes, powdered black and gold lacquer,
with diamond-shaped ornaments, 2 2s.
An oblong black and gold box and cover, with a vase and foliage
and border of ornaments in gold on the lid, and landscape
inside, 68 55.
An oblong stand, on feet of gold lacquer, with a river scene,
birds, and buildings, ^15 45. 6d.
A square box, of black lacquer powdered with gold, with a group
of three cranes, and fir- tree in gold, 13 25. 6d.
An oblong tray, powdered black and gold, with chrysanthemums
on the border ; and a red and gold letter-case, with cords,
i 5*.
An oblong stand, on engraved with foliage and insects
scroll feet,
in colours on trellis
ground, ^36 155.
A pair of hexagonal gold trays, with a river scene, mountains,
boats, and trees, 4 145. 6d.
A pair of small oblong boxes, black and gold, with chrysanthe-
mums on trellis 4 45.
ground,
A and gold boxes, with river scenes and
pair of quatrefoil black
buildings, and boxes inside on high stands of the same,
30 9*.
A round box, with dragons and clouds in gold on the lid, enclosing
four smaller boxes and covers, 36 155.
A small oblong gold tray, with chrysanthemums, 6 i6s. 6d.
A square-shaped tray, of powdered gold lac, with bamboos in
gold, 9 195. 6d.
A gold lac box and cover, formed as a house, 11 us.
A pair of large circular trays, black ground, with birds, foliage,
and flowers in gold, 42.
An oblong box, of black and gold lacquer, with figures in a
landscape, chased gold mount, 71 8s.
A very small gold lac medicine-box, in four divisions and a
;
small diamond-shaped black and gold box, i us. 6d.

A pair of small gold lac boxes and covers, formed as geese in
different attitudes, ^44 25.
424 APPENDIX
A shaped oval box, of gold lac, with a large and small male
figure in low relief on the lid, ^13 135.
A circular box and cover, of gold lac, with chrysanthemums and
foliage in low relief, enclosing four small fan-shaped boxes
and covers, ^50 8s.
A pair of small nests of three boxes, with river scenes, buildings,
and trees in gold, enclosed in case of the same design, ^29 8s.
A pair of oblong trays, with shaped ends, with landscapes and
buildings in gold, 6 i6s. 6d.
A shaped oval tray, with a river scene, buildings, and an angler
in gold, and an oblong black and gold stand on feet, ^3 135. 6d.
A pair of small black and gold basins, red inside ; a pair of
small oval-shaped trays, with landscapes and a square
;
tray, on stand, ^5 155. 6d.

An oblong black and gold tray, with plants in two medallions,
i us. 6d.
A round box and cover, with chrysanthemums on gold ground,

S 55.
A large oblong tray, with flowers and foliage in gold, on powdered
gold ground, 17 17 s.
A long oblong box, with utensils, trefoil, and other ornaments in
relief, on powdered gold ground, 21 ics. 6d.
A beautiful cabinet, of gold lacquer, with flowers and foliage in
relief, in mother-o '-pearl and silver, drawers inside, ^267 155.
A double-shaped box, of gold lacquer, with horses in a land-
scape, 86 2s.
An oblong gold tray, on feet, with foliage in relief on engraved
concentric ground, ^30 95.
A large black and gold cabinet, with folding doors, landscapes,
figures, and buildings in gold on carved ebony stand,
An old japan lacquer coffer, with a bullock carrying a vase of

flowers, and vases of flowers in gold and colours, with gilt
metal mounts on black and gold stand 3 ft. i in. by
i ft. 4 in., i ft. 7 in. high, ^315.
A square cabinet, of old japan lacquer, with folding doors, en-

closing drawers, landscapes, foliage, and birds in gold on
black ground, and with engraved metal-gilt mounts, 66 35.
The companion cabinet, 95 us.
A canteen, of old japan powdered gold lacquer, containing a nest
of five boxes, two trays, and a box with a large grotesque
APPENDIX 425
male figure, decorated with circular ornaments, bamboos,
and foliage, and contained in open case, with silver handle,
on metal-gilt foot, 39 i8s.
A rosewater-ewer and dish, of old black and gold japan lacquer,
with figures and landscapes, ^15 155.
The companion ewer and dish, ^13 135.
A pair of hanging vase-shaped jardinieres, of black and gold
japan lacquer, 2 125. 6d.
A small cabinet, of black and gold japan lacquer, with drawer
ii in. by 6 in., 10 in. high, 9 195. 6d.
An oblong box, of old japan lacquer, with a cart and plants in
gold, mounted with metal gilt 16 in. by 13 in., ^13 135.
A pair of vases, covers, and stands, with buildings, birds, and
plants in gold on black ground, mounted with twisted
snakes of ormolu, 210.
A black and gold japan lacquer nest of five boxes, 9$- in. high,
7 17 s. 6d.
A deep black tray, with a tree in gold ; and one, on feet,
22 is.
A very fine oblong coffer, of old japan lacquer, with a large
landscape, buildings, trees, and a river, with a bridge and

figures in the foreground, in border of birds and scrolls,
animals and birds in gold and silver in relief, similar land-
scapes on the front and ends and inside the lid, black and
gold trellis-border, with circular ornaments, inlaid with
mother-o '-pearl, chased metal-gilt mounts on carved and
gilt wood stand 4 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 3 in. From the Collections
of the Cardinal Mazarin, the Due de Bouillon, and Fonthill.
682 105.
A bamboo match-pot, carved with figures and trees, 2 2s.
A square nest of three boxes, of black and gold japan lacquer,
l2 I2S.
An octagonal tray, with handle of black and gold lacquer, inlaid
with mother-o'-pearl a pair of square trays, black and
;
gold ; and an oblong stand, ^3 135. 6d.

\ square tray, of gold lacquer, with plants in gold in circles, 2 2s.
Two round boxes, of the same, with round medallions, ^3 135. 6d.
\ scalloped tray, with black and gold, and gold trellis border ;
and a circular black and gold tray, with a landscape, 2 2s.
A pair of boxes, with a dragon, utensils, and characters in black
and gold, i
55.
426 APPENDIX
A pair of panels, with figures and landscapes in coloured mother-
o '-pearl, i us. 6d.
A nest of three boxes and stand, with figures in gold on black
ground, i& 185.
A pair of square lacquer bottles, with foliage, in borders inlaid
with mo ther-o '-pearl, 7 75.
A figure of the Japanese idol Amida, on gilt stand and wood
plinth, glass shade. From Fonthill. ^131 55.
A pair of large seated male figures, of black and gold lacquer,
with movable heads, and carrying branches decorated with
and circular ornaments in gold, the faces
utensils, foliage,
and hands 60 i8s.
gilt,
An oval-shaped lacquer box, with tray inside, with landscapes
in red and gold in low relief on black ground and a black;
and gold lacquer box and cover, ^3 35.

A pair of oblong metal plaques, with views of the Palais Corsini,
and Palais Caprarole, Rome, in gold on black ground of old
lacquer, 26 55.
A writing-desk, with a fir-tree in gold, g 95.
A box and cover and an oblong tray, with flowers in gold, 9 95.
A black and gold cabinet, formed as a pagoda, 4 145. 6d.
OLD JAPAN POTTERY AND PORCELAIN

Fifteen plates, with vases of flowers in the centre, 20 95. 6d.
Five ditto, with baskets of flowers and ten, with vases of
;
flowers,16 55. 6d.

Eleven ditto, with three vases of flowers in the centre, ^13 135.
Ten ditto, with pomegranates on the border, and deep-blue
compartments, ^15 155.
Sixteen ditto, with bamboos and flowers, 17 6s. 6d.
Twenty-four with lotos-flower compartments and pome-
ditto,
granates in the centre, ^30 95.
Twenty-five ditto, 32 os. 6d.
Sixteen ditto, with flowers, a circular medallion in the centre,
17 6s. 6d.
Eleven with a vase of flowers and scroll in the centre
ditto, ;
and on a table, 18 iSs.

six with vases
Thirteen ditto, with landscapes in square medallions, birds, and
ornaments, iS 18$.
APPENDIX 427
Eleven ditto, with a vase of flowers in the centre, ^15 45. 6d.
A pair of brown-ware tea-pots and covers, formed as groups of
bamboos, 7 in. high, 20 95. 6d.
A pair of Kaga-ware bowls and covers, with figures and orna-
ments in red and white inside, the outside in imitation of
black and gold lacquer, 9 in. high, 8 8s.
A pair of Kaga-ware basins, with flowers and ornaments in red
and blue on trellis ground, and enamelled inside, on chased
ormolu altar-shaped stands, 6 in. high, ^58 i6s.
A bowl and cover, with red, blue, and gold ornaments, mounted
with silver-gilt, 4 in. diam., 13 135.
A basin, pale-brown outside, enamelled with lotos plants, mounted
with silver gilt, 5^ in. diam., 22 is.
A bowl and cover, with fish and aquatic plants in colours, mounted
with handles, borders, and feet of chased and engraved
silver-gilt, 6 in. high, 48 6s.
A pair of octagonal dishes, with vases of flowers and foliage in
red, blue, and gold, eight circular pierced medallions on the
border, 8 in. diam., 15 155.
An eggshellbowl and cover, with hawks and foliage in gold on
white ground, mounted with borders, feet and top of silver-
gilt, 4 in. high, 33 12s.
A pair of vases and covers, with flowers and birds in compart-
ments in red, blue, and gold, and perforated medallions on
the shoulders and covers, 18 in. high, ^120 155.
A pair of very large vases and covers, with buildings and land-
scapes on white ground, and borders of trellis and semi-
circular ornaments, 36 in. high, ^225 155.
A pair of oviform vases and covers, with buildings and trees in
two medallions, and flowers and foliage in red, blue, and
white, and trellis-pattern bands of paler blue and gold,
27 in. high, 315.
A pair of jars and covers, with flowers and foliage in red, blue,
and gold, and borders of smaller flowers, the covers sur-
mounted by gilt groups of kylins, 2 ft. n
in. high, ^336.
A pair of octagonal vases and covers, with foliage and flowers in

red, blue, and gold, and kylins in medallions on the shoulders,
the covers surmounted by figures of kylins, 19^ in. high,
168.
428 APPENDIX
SOME SALE-PRICES FROM THE CATALOGUE OF
JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS, ILLUSTRATED

BOOKS, AND A FEW KAKEMONO,
THE PROPERTY OF
JOHN STEWART HAPPER, ESQ.,

OF NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A.
MASANOBU (Okumura)
A humorous Tan-ye showing Daikoku, the god of wealth, as a
child being carried to the temple to be re-named. He is
borne on the shoulders of Yebisu, god of daily food, followed
by Fukurokujiu, who holds an umbrella over his august
head, while Hotei offers gifts, and Benten follows carrying
his pipe case and mamori fuda or child's charm bag ; very
large size, upright ; signed OKUMURA MASANOBU, c. 1700,
i7 i 5 -
Three-sheet Beni-ye set of lovers, umbrella-sharing in spring

under a plum-tree, summer under a willow, and winter under
a maple ; Hosso-ye form, printed in rose-pink and olive-
green ; signed HOGETSUDO OKUMURA MASANOBU, c. 1715.
lO 105.
A grand Urushi-ye print, coloured by hand, an actor as a woman
with a flower basket on wheels ; Hosso-ye form signed ;
OKUMURA MASANOBU, c. 1720, ^17 IDS.
SHIGENAGA (Nishimura)
Love's calendar. A man and girl standing in
front of a screen
painted with bamboo, against which a broom is laid. He
leans on her shoulder looking over an open scroll with par-
ticulars as to the luck of the months of the year ; Hosso-ye
form, printed in rose-pink and green ; signed SENKWADO
NISHIMURA SHIGENAGA, and dated 1747, 11.
Hachirakaki, large size, Tan-ye. An actor standing, full-length,

holding a love letter signed SENKWADO NISHIMURA SHI-
;
GENAGA, c. 1730, 37.

APPENDIX 429
SHIGENOBU (Tsunegawa)
A woman standing under a cherry-tree to which a screen for a
garden party has been tied, looking at an open paper ;
Hosso-ye form, Urushi-ye, coloured by hand, and sprinkled
with gold; signed TSUNEGAWA SHIGENOBU, c. 1725, 15.
KIYOMASU (Torii)
An undivided triptych, Hosso-ye form. San to Bijin, " Beauties
of the three Capitals," full-length figures of three courtesans
each with her kamuro in front of the yoshiwara cages
Takao of Miura-ya, Yedo ; Handayu of Ichi-mon-ji-ya,
Kyoto and Yugiri of Ibaraki-ya, Osaka printed in beni
; ;
and green signed TORII KIYOMASU, c. 1746, ^25 los.

;
TOYONOBU (Ishikawa)
Hachirakaki of large size. A courtesan reading a letter, standing,
full-length, accompanied by her kamuro, holding a small
table and a sake kettle Tan-ye, coloured by hand signed
; ;
TANSENDO ISHIKAWA SHLUHA TOYONOBU, c. 1750, 41.

An "
undivided triptych, Hosso-ye form. Title : Koyomi
Samboku tsui " (Maple viewing triptych) in each section ;
two lovers standing under maple trees, and above them

small views in clouds, of peasants harvesting rice, cutting,
tying in sheaves, and knocking out the grain ; printed in
beni and green signed ISHIKAWA TOYONOBU, c. 1750,
;
20 i os.
A woman slightly draped standing beside the shutters of a room

in front of the bed curtain Hachirakaki form, printed in
;
three colours ; signed TANSHINDO ISHIKAWA SHIU-HA ;

sealed TOYONOBU, c. 1765, 16.
HARUNOBU (Suzuki)
An actor in the role of Banto Hirosaburo Shinsui, a ronin, full-
length ; an early Hachirakaki, in three colours and one
superposed ; signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU, c. 1760, ^13.
Two girls, on a balcony, one carrying a samisen and a book, the
other lifting a curtain to enter a room. The colouring is
very rich, for they stand on a floor of opaque cream, against
an orange balustrade, and the curtain a slatey blue. The
younger girl's dress is red with slatey-blue pattern, and
430 APPENDIX
purple and white obi, while the other has opaque cream
kimono with purple obi and under parts large size, almost
;
square, poem in clouds, with deep and decisive gauffrage ;

signed HARUNOBU. One of a set Fuzoku Shiki Kasen "
'
(Social Customs of the Four Seasons), 1770. This is for the

flower month, April. 25 ics.
A young man disguised as a komuro, with basket head-dress and
bamboo clarionet, secretly visiting two young girls whose
heads appear behind a barred window. An
exquisite piece
of soft colouring; the opaque cream of the man's robe,
gauffred to give the effect of crepe, with rich black girdle
and under side of the robe, make a startling figure on the
sunlit grass of yellowish-green, with a slatey-blue stream,
large size, almost square ; poem in clouds ; signed SUZUKI
HARUNOBU. One of the same set as the foregoing, and for
the same flower month, April. There being thus an inter-
calary month in this year, the set must have been 13, and
the date can be fixed at 1770. 25.
Taking a young girl to a temple for the Meyamairi ceremony of
naming, the party have just arrived within the red lacquered
columns of the Torii at the gate. This is one of the most
superb examples of the complete mastery of a full palette
of colours of this ever-varying artist in the height of his
power and popularity. The various shades of colour baffle
description, and the tone of the background is a mystery of
colour that no lens could pick up, while the gauffrage gives
to the folds of the garments a rounded reality quite wonder-
ful ;large size, almost square poem in clouds signed
; ;
SUZUKI HARUNOBU. One of the same set as the foregoing

for the Kagura month, 1770. 50.
Night scene a young man standing on a fence, breaking off a
:
branch of plum blossom for his lady love who is leaning on

a garden lantern. This is one of the most extraordinary
prints the artist ever produced, the whole background,
except the stream, being black. Moonlight is no doubt
intended, the stream catching the full rays, which shine also
upon the youthful figures, but without shadows, according
to the convention of the period. The robes are olive-green
with purple stripes, showing red in the under parts ; the
fence red, and the lantern, a neutral stone tint large size,;
almost square poem in clouds ; signed HARUNOBU. One

;
APPENDIX 431
of the same set as the foregoing ; this is the second month,
1770. 40.
A lady and two children playing at a Daimyo's procession, one
of the children holding aloft a mop, and the other riding a
hobby-horse interior scene, with a large leafy branch
;
straying across a railed opening in the background large ;
size, almost square, with many colours, and high gauffrage

in faultless condition ; signed HARUNOBU best period, ;
c. 1766-70, 26.
Two young girls standing by the garden gate, one holding by a
string a small dog, a stream in the centre, and thatched
houses and landscape in the distance. The garden fence is
in the deep brick red which Harunobu often employed,
against which the soft violet and grey of the girl's robes,
and the solid black of her shikake stand in quiet relief,
with only a slight gauffrage large size, almost square, in
;
fine condition ; signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU ; best period,

c.1766-70, 13 i os.
A young girl within an upper chamber looking across the balcony
at a distant autumn landscape of hills peering through
mist, with a maple tree under the balcony large size, ;
almost square, in many tones, and in almost pristine con-

dition, gauffrage giving slight relief ; signed HARUNOBU ;
best period, c. 1766-70, 24.

A lady with an umbrella under a blossoming fruit-tree, watching
a little boy on a hobby-horse, with a wooden covered way
as part of the background. The lady's dress, with its
quiet stripes and purple obi, is in strong contrast with the
1
bright-coloured child's clothes, and the gauffrage throws up

the folds into graceful curls ; large size, almost square
without any text, and in perfect condition signed SUSUKI ;
HARUNBOU ; best period, c. 1766-70, 20.

Two girls reclining on a low bench covered with a rose-pink
cloth, beside a stream under the full moon one holds a ;
fan and looks up at the moon, the other contemplates the

rising smoke from a small brasier ; the canopy of clouds
contains a poem large size, almost square, in exquisite
;
condition signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU ; best period, c.

;
1766-70, 24 i os.
A Samurai and a young girl in the upper room of a tea-house
overlooking the Sumidagawa with its river commerce, the
432 APPENDIX
delicate blue and grey striped robes of the girl, and the solid
black jacket over a wine-coloured clinging robe of the man,
in delicate contrast to the apple-green cloth covering the
low benches red lanterns showing strongly against a black
;
sky behind the houses on the far side of the river large ;
nearly square, in absolutely perfect state

size, ; signed
HARUNOBU ; best period, c. 1766-70, 25.
. V
HARUTSUGU
Hachirakaki. A girl and her lover, standing on the engawa of
a house, attracted by the sounds of music above, are looking
upward to where, in an upper chamber, a girl is playing the
samisen, her shadow being reflected on the shoji, while a
man leans against the partly opened window ; printed in
six colours; signed HARUTSUGU, c. 1770, 15 IDS.
KORIUSAI (Isoda)
Hachirakaki. A girl standing by the seashore with two buckets

before her, looking up into a pine tree where a No dancer's
hat and robe are hanging. This is probably an allusion to
the hagoromo or feather robe worn in the No play of that
name, wherein an angel alighting on the shore of Japan
put off her feather robe, and hung it on a pine tree while
she danced in joyous ecstasy, till, frightened by a fisherman,
she fled to heaven, leaving her robe behind. Signed KORIU-
SAI, 10.
A woman, with slight drapery hanging over one shoulder, dis-
robing for her bath, and looking down at her own form ;
through the window-bars of the apartment a cherry tree
isseen in blossom. In the poem, the revelation of form is
compared to the sight of Fuji, beautifully white, when the
robe of mist, loosened at the waist, disappears. Beautifully
bold free lines, and subdued colour scheme ; Hachirakaki
form, paper slightly toned signed KORIU, c. 1770, 16 155.
;
A girlstanding in front of a garden fence with flowers straying

over it, by the angle of a verandah, pulling at a monkey
who has drawn her kimono aside, revealing her limbs. The
soft grey-blue of her robe is decorated with butterflies, her
obi being of sage-green and white crepe. A fine impression,
APPENDIX 433
in grand conditionHachirakaki form
; signed KORIUSAI, ;
c. 20 105.
1775,
Scene from the Chiushingura, with female characters, Uranosuke
reading a letter on the verandah of the tea-house Ichiriki,
while the spy Kudayu is concealed below, and a woman
with a mirror is up in the balcony reading the reflected
writing grand
; full composition, admirably balanced, and
in fine condition ; Hachirakaki form signed KORIU, c. 1775,
;
KIYONAGA (Torii)
Hachirakaki. A Yoshiwara beauty with her kamuro, standing

under the eaves of a house decorated with the shime kazari
of fern leaves, paper gohei, etc., for the New Year over- ;
head a crescent moon shines upon a clump of bamboos,

which are printed from colour-blocks without any key-block.
The girl's kimono is yellow, with a loose over-robe of red,
and purple obi. Signed KIYONAGA, 20 los.
Four prints from a set of eight " Shiki Hakkei " (Four Seasons,
eight Views). No. I is Spring, two Yoshiwara girls returning
home accompanied by a boy with a branch of peach blossom ;
No. 2. Summer, at sunset, a woman

by a stone
seated
lantern under a pine tree loosening her robes, and another
standing talking to her No. 3. Autumn, on a breezy
;
day, a young ferryman bringing his boat to some steps to

take two ladies across the stream; No. 4 is also Autumn,
two girls talking at the angle of a house overlooking a garden,
one stooping to dip some water out of a stone cistern. All
are large size, nearly square form, in fine condition ; signed
KIYONAGA, c. 1785, 18.
SHUNSHO (Katsugawa)
An actor in female character, standing before her toilet case,
holding a mirror ; Hosso-ye form ; signed SHUNSHO, c. 1770,
10 IDS.
SHARAKU (Toshiusai)
The man with a pipe. A half-length portrait
of an actor in the
character of Banzuiin Chobei, the head of the Otokodate,
who befriended Gompachi and finally buried him ; full-
22
434 APPENDIX
sized print in colours on a silver ground ; signed TOSHIUSAI
SHARAKU, c.
1795, 34.
The man with a fan. A half-length portrait of an actor as an
old manholding a closed fan in his right hand full-sized ;
print in colours on a silver ground ; signed TOSHIUSAI

SHARAKU, c. 1795, 20.
A full-length portrait of an actor as Kono Moronao, Lord of
Musashi, in the play Chiushingura, standing under a branch
of plum blossom, in a splendid black outer robe with white
design ; large Hosso-ye form ; in grand condition ; signed
SHARAKU, c. 1785, ^13.
UTAMARO (Kitagawa)
A grand full-sized diptych. A group of noble young ladies and
children having a day's outing in the country, attended by
their tutor and governess, who are carried in kogos. The
scene is under the pine trees on the seashore, looking out
towards a white Fuji rising beyond the Izu peninsula. This
is a most splendid composition, printed in six colours, a
very fine impression, with gauffrage, and in faultless con-

dition, c. 1788, 14.
TOYOHIRO (Utagawa)
Yebisu the God of Daily Food, sharing an umbrella with a girl
in a snow-storm small size, almost square
; signed TOYO- ;
HIRO. One of a set of the seven Gods of Fortune, c. 1790.

l 12S.
TOYOKUNI (Utagawa)
Ladies' occupations in winter. Triptych ; an indoor scene with
shoji open, looking on to a garden covered with snow. In
is cutting down some branches of a dwarfed
the centre a lady
budding tree for interior decoration, while some other ladies
and children have been making a large snow-ball. Full-
size, upright; each signed TOYOKUNI, c. 1800, 10 155.
View of the Ryogoku Bridge and the Sumida River from the
Yedo Shore. Pentaptych. In the foreground a number
of gaily dressed women and others of humbler rank are
parading in front of the booths that line the river bank ;
the great bridge is seen at an angle extending over the three
APPENDIX 435
centre sheets, and the river traffic on the far side flanked
by completes the wonderful panorama of Yedo life.
tall trees
Full-size, upright each sheet signed TOYOKUNI, c. 1805, 22.

;
HOKUSAI (Katsuchika)
"
An original drawing in water-colours, Yama Uba, the old
woman of themountain," foster-mother of Kintoki, seated
in a reclining posture ;on paper, oblong, unsigned, 16.
Original drawing in colours. A boy faggot-gatherer crouched up
asleep under the trunk of an old pine tree, his basket of
sticks standing behind him on paper, unsigned, 10.
;
Original drawing in colours. A peasant in rain-hat and straw

cloak, with mochi pounder over his shoulder, rubbing over
the side of a mochi mortar with a wisp of straw on paper, ;
unsigned, 10.
HOKUSAI
Complete set of the thirty-six views of Fujiyama, with the
ten Supplementary Views, making forty-six in all original im- ;
pressions and issued between the years 1823 and 1829 all signed. ;
Sold separately. The best prices follow :
Sen pu Kai sei. A beautiful day and south wind on the slopes
of Fuji, the lower part covered with trees, the upper part
red, and the summit and crevices filled with snow great ;
masses of straight white clouds in the sky. No. 8, ^15 IDS.

Yama shita Shiro ame. Lightning at the base of the mountain ;
daybreak is illumining the snow-clad mountain's peak,

the lower part being in darkness save for the flash the ;
clouds are curling white clusters. No. 9, ^17.

LJshibori in the province of Hitati. Fuji seen across a misty
bed of water-reeds to the right, and a great junk moored in
the foreground, partly hidden in a blue overhanging cloud.
No. 12, 10.
3uwa Lake, in the province of Shinano, with the shades of evening
falling. In the foreground a thatched cottage under two
tall pines leaning to right and left. No. 13, 11 los.
Senju. View of Fuji from Senju, looking across the town of
flowers (Yoshiwara). In the foreground a procession of
men carrying muskets in red cases. No. 37, 10.
Toto Sumidagawa Gotenyama no Fuji. Fuji seen from Goten-
436 APPENDIX
yama, across the Sumida river. Clusters of people ascend-
ing the hills for a picnic at the cherry-blossom time, and a
view of the adored mountain. No. 40, 10.
Kanazawa oki nami ura. " The great wave at Kanazawa " ;
an exceptionally brilliant impression framed, ^23 IDS. ;
MATAHEI SCHOOL
A man carrying a hawk one of the very early coloured drawings
;
known as Otsu-ye, i.e. Otsu pictures, which were the pre-

cursors of the Ukiyo-ye colour-prints. Such examples are
now of the greatest rarity, and in the condition of this
specimen are scarcely known; c. 1675, 10.
MASANOBU (Okumura)
An actor in the role of Sanokawa Ichimatsu, carrying an
umbrella under a maple tree one of a set of three Aigasa
;
san boku tsui, " Umbrella-sharing set of three " printed in ;
rose-pink and chrome, the beni applied from colour-blocks

without any key-block of black outlines Hosso-ye form ; ;
signed HOGETSUDO OKAMURA MASANOBU, 22 los.

Two sheets of a triptych, Beni-ye ; on one a young girl attending
to the coiffure of the Saint Daruma, and on the other a girl
on a ladder supported against the head of Fukurokujiu,
invoking the assistance of the Lover Stars for her older
sister standing behind the ladder Hosso-ye form ; one
;
signed HOGETSUDO OKUMURA BUNKAKU, the other OKUMURA

MASANOBU, c. 1730, 11.
TOYONOBU (Ishikawa)
Hachirakaki. A woman disrobing for the bath printed in ;
three colours lilac, red, and green signed ISHIKAWA ;
TOYONOBU, c. 1760 in very good condition, 42.

;
Lovers under an Aigasa, " the umbrella of loving accord

"
one ;
" "
of a triptych Aigasa Samboku tsui, Umbrella sharing ;
printed in beni and pale green Hosso-ye form ;signed ;
ISHIKAWA TOYONOBU, c. 1750, 12.

A girlleaping from the parapet of Kiyomidzu temple to get an
answer to her prayer illustration to a poem
; ; Hachirakaki
form in two colours pink and a slatey blue ; signed TAN-
APPENDIX 437
SHINDO ISHIKAWA Sniu-HA ; sealed TOYONOBU, c. 1755,
lO IOS.
An Awabi diver standing by the edge of the sea wringing her
skirt full-length figure almost nude ; Hachirakaki form ;
;
printed in two colours pink and a slatey blue ; signed

TANSHINDO ISHIKAWA SHIU-HA ; sealed TOYONOBU, c. 1755,
KIYOHIRO (Torii)
Hachirakaki. A girl holding her lover on her back so that he
may reach up to a flowering cherry tree to attach poems to
the branches printed in three colours
; signed TORII :
KIYOHIRO, c. 1758, 12 los.

A woman semi-draped coming from her bed-chamber with a
letter in her mouth early two-colour print in rose-pink
;
and green Hosso-ye form

; signed TORII KIYONOBU,
;
c. 1745, 16.
KIYOMITSU (Torii)
Full-length figure of a woman in a rain-hat out walking Hac- ;
hirakaki form ; printed in two colours red and green ;

signed TORII KIYOMITSU, c. 1760, 12 los.
A Yoshiwara beauty standing beside her tobako-bon smoking
and watching the rings float away in the air ; a very grace-
ful composition in Hachirakaki form ; printed in three
colours rose-pink, green, and grey signed TORII KIYOMITSU,
;
c.1765, 13 los.
A woman in winter garb, hooded, hurrying along
and casting a
glance behind her ; Hachirakaki form ; printed in three
colours fawn, grey, and very pale pink ; signed TORII
KIYOMITSU, c. 1770, 16 los.
HARUNOBU (Suzuki)
Hachirakaki. A girl with Futen the Wind-god
in a storm,
above and driving dark clouds and
her, holding a scroll,
tempest downwards, blowing her garments open, and
scattering her sheets of toilet paper her kimono is striped
;
yellow obi black

;
with grey design on the sign-board at ;
the top are weather notes, commencing with the 2oth and
22nd days, when there will be great anxiety for the rice
438 APPENDIX
crops ; the letter in the hands of the god is his answer ;
signed HARUNOBU, 56.

A woman completing her toilette, standing watching a cat who
is playing with the skirt of her kimono, with background
of shutters, and glimpse into another room Hachirakaki ;
form in five colours signed HARUNOBU, c. 1762, 15 IDS.

;
An Oiran seated in a cage writing a letter, while two men view

her through the bars beautiful soft coloured composition
;
in five tones Hachirakaki form

; signed HARUNOBU, ;
c. 1762,14 IQS.
A snow scene outside a garden gate and fence, coloured in orange-
red, overhung by a clump of bamboo a young samurai is ;
parting with the object of his affection ; large size, almost

square, printed in six colours, with very sharp gauffrage,
throwing the snow into relief signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU ;;
no text ; c.
1766-70, 25.
A young lady in a red and blue striped kimono, followed by her
maid in violet kimono and chrome obi, carrying an insect
cage, walking by the seashore the sea is coloured a delicate
;
straw colour, and the ground is grey large size, almost ;
square, no text signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 24.

;
A rainy day street scene a young lady attended by her

;
maid, who holds an umbrella over her, passing a little girl

who is just opening her umbrella, and exchanging comments ;
beside them two dogs under the shelter of a house in the
background very full colouring in varied tones, some
;
gained by the superposition of colours large size, nearly ;
square, a magnificent impression, and in faultless state ;
signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 25.

Scene on a country road beside a river, with a high fence en-
closing a clump of bamboos at the corner of the fence
;
two girls are stopping, one standing listening to the Spring

song of the birds, the other stooping to pick some wayside
flowers just springing into life a lovely print in only six ;
colours, but instinct with beauty, the exquisite poise of the

girl standing before the deep-red fence, heightened by the
gauffrage large size, nearly square, in faultless state ;
;
signed HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 23.

By the seashore at low tide ; a samurai and a young girl
collecting marine objects, the man stooping pointing to a
shell he has just found, the girl standing with one hand on
APPENDIX 439
her chin and the other holding up the edge of her long sleeve,
with a junk beached just in the rear exquisitely beautiful
;
composition and colour scheme, mostly in quiet tones, and

the folds of the robes sharpened by gauffrage ; large size,
nearly square, in perfect state signed SUSUKI HARUNOBU,
;
c. 1766-70, 25.
A girl standing in a boat poling it up a stream, by a jutting
bank where water-reeds grow ; in the boat Daruma with
a red hood looks into the water and sees himself mirrored.
This a well-known and much admired work, and this
is
copy a very fine impression, the orange of the boat but

is
very slightly decomposed. No text in the clouds large ;
size, nearly square signed SUSUKI HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70,

;
9-
A girl kneeling, assistingher mistress to robe on the day of the
Tanabata festival, i.e. The Meeting of the Lover Stars.
The shoji of the upper room are partly open, showing beyond
the balcony some house roofs, a great shinto lantern, and
some branches of bamboo loaded with lucky symbols the ;
lady's robe, of pale striped blue, is a daring contrast with

the apple-green ground of the floor, yet is very pleasing.
Large size, nearly square, in superb state ; signed SUSUKI
HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 19.
KORIUSAI (Isoda)
Two lovers standing under a blooming plum-tree, to which
they have tied poems, the girl lighting her pipe from her
companion's a simple and graceful composition, printed
;
in four colours Hachirakaki form

; signed KORIUSAI,
;
c. 1770, 15.
A nude woman with a child in her arms stepping out of a bath-
tub on to a box placed beside it, behind her the clothes-
rack on which her garments are hung a composition to ;
which, besides his signature, the artist has placed his seal
SHOBEI, in pink with white raised characters Hachirakaki ;
form signed KORIUSAI, c. 1775, 21 IDS.

;
Nature's mirror ; a youth carrying a hooded girl on his back has

paused on the brink of a stream where he can get a reflection
of his love's face. In Japan the superstition that foxes
assume the forms of beautiful girls to lure their victims to
440 APPENDIX
destruction is very strong, and as water reflects the truth,
he has taken this method as a test, but the girl comes out
triumphantly in the ordeal. A superb print, but the colours
somewhat faded Hachirakaki form
; signed KORIUSAI, ;
but part of the signature trimmed off, c. 1775, 10.
KIYONAGA (Torii)
Hachirakaki. A
mother seated under a willow-tree, with bosom
bared, and another woman holding a baby boy who is
struggling to get to his mother a very choice composition,
;
and very curious but harmonious colour scheme, especially

in the robes of the seated woman signed KIYONAGA, 14.;
SHUNSHO (Katsugawa)
Two women in a field under a willow, one down at a wash-tub,
the other stretching and drying cloth tied to a roller fixed
to a tree, with background of a fence printed in six colours,;
and full of the Harunobu influence, even to the apple-green

ground, and full gauffrage large size, almost square ;
;
signed KATSUGAWA SHUNSHO, c. 1776, 18.

"
One of a series of Rokkasen, girls as types of The Six Poets,"
representing Ono no Komachi plucking a branch of sakura,
the large flowering cherry, while a female attendant stands
by holding another branch ; printed in six colours, with
gauffrage, and strongly reminiscent of Harunobu in the pale
lavender sky and deep-red tree trunk large size, almost ;
square ;signed SHUNSHO, and sealed with the jar-shaped

seal, c. 1776, 20.
Illustration of a poem by Kisen Hoshi, one of the Rokkasen or
Six Great Poets " ; a man and a young girl preparing for
'--
the tea ceremony large size, nearly square, in beautiful

;
condition signed SHUNSHO, c. 1776, 10.

;
SHIGEMASA (Kitao)
The dropped love-letter ; a woman
with an umbrella standing
under a willow beside a stream, while adjusting a hair-pin,
has, in her trepidation, dropped a love-letter which has
stirred her heart, as the breeze is rustling the willow ; Hac-
hirakaki form, in three colours, in beautiful condition ;
signed KITAO SHIGEMASA, 12.
APPENDIX 441
MASANOBU (Kitao)
Yoshiwara Shin Bijin Awase Jihitsu Kagami, " A Mirror of the
"
Beauties of the New Yoshiwara and their handwriting ;
first edition, Yedo, 1782, i vol. 14 full-sized pages of

;
illustrations in colours, making 7 double-page pictures, and

2 pp. of text at each end signed KITAO SHINSAI MASANOBU,
;
TOYOKUNI (Utagawa)
Hachirakaki of special size. An
actor seated in his dressing-
room beside his make-up box, having a cup
of sake, being
visited by one of the fashionable ladies of the day ; printed
in four colours, the obi of the lady being in figured silver ;
signed TOYOKUNI, c. 1804, 15.

Hachirakaki of special size. A man and woman standing in
front of a bamboo grille with a football above their heads ;
printed in four colours signed TOYOKUNI, c. 1804, 10.

;
Hachirakaki of special size. A woman, loosely robed after her

bath, seated in a dressing-room, and a man pushing aside
the reed blind, looking in on her printed in six colours; ;
not signed, c. 1804, 11.

Hachirakaki of special size. A woman standing on the edge of
a landing-stage at night, holding a lantern, which throws
a light upwards, and an actor seated in a boat moored to
the stage printed in six colours signed TOYOKUNI, c. 1804,
; ;
jj.
Hachirakaki of special size. An actor, as a samurai, seated
before a mirror at his make-up, and a lady fully dressed for
outdoors, standing behind him, waiting for him to write on
her fan printed in six colours and mica ; signed TOYOKUNI,
;
c. 1804, 16 los.
Hachirakaki of special size. An actor in his dressing-room,
with his tobako-bon before him, holding a fan and smoking
a pipe behind him a decorated shoji, which has been pulled
;
open, and a bevy of girls are looking in at him printed in ;
five colours ; signed TOYOKUNI, c. 1804, 18 IDS.
KUNISADA (Utagawa)
"
View of Futami ga ura, Ise. The Husband and Wife Rocks "
lashed together with a straw rope as a charm for the New
442 APPENDIX
Year festival of sun worship; on the horizon the sun is
just beginning to slant its broad rays over the darkened

sky and sea ; full size, oblong ; signed KACHORO KUNISADA,
c. 1830, 15 105.
HOKUSAI
Two large sheets of flowers one very fine, peonies and a butter-
:
fly ;the other, somewhat discoloured, iris blooms and

leaves ; both oblong ; signed ZEN HOKUSAI I-ITZU, c. 1820,
19 105.
Two large sheets of flowers : one very fine, convolvuli ; the other,
fairly good, peonies and butterflies ;
both oblong, but only
one signed ZEN HOKUSAI I-ITZU, c. 1820, 19.
Hokusai's complete set of " The Famous Bridges." Original

"
edition, entitled Shokoku Meikio Kiran " (Views of the Bridges
of various Provinces), published 1827-30, sheets. The order n
given corresponds with that of De Goncourt. Sold separately
at prices below 10, except those described.
Kameido Tenjin Taiko bashi. "The Drum Bridge at the

Temple of Tenjin, Kameido,'* Yedo. A semi-circular
wooden structure beside a trellis of pine trees. No. 7,
l2 I OS.
" Temma
Settsu, Temma bashi. Bridge (at Osaka), Province
of Settsu." Evening scene, on the occasion of the Festival
of Lanterns. No. 9, 12 los.
FUSATANE (Tsshosai)
Diptych. A
girl letting a crane out of a basket on the seashore.
The favourite sport of Yoritomo was flying these birds with
labels on their legs requesting those who caught them to
report where they were found, and then fly them again.
Full size, upright ; signed FUSITANE, c. 1850, 10 105.
"
Omi Hakkei, Views of Lake
Eight Biwa," complete set, on
four sheets; full size, oblong; signed FUSATANE, c. 1850,
10.
KIYOSHIGE (Torii)
Hachirakaki. The actor Danjiuro as Kiichi Hogen, the military
adviser and strategist of the Taira, holding one of his tora
APPENDIX 443
no maki, or books on the art of war ; signed TORII KIYO-
SHIGE, c. 1725, 38.
Hachirakaki. An actor as Kakogawa Honzo in the Chiushin-
gura, standing, full-length, holding the basket hat and
bamboo clarionet of a Komuso ; very large size ; signed
TORII KIYOSHIGE, c. 1725, 40.
HARUNOBU (Suzuki)
A girldancing the Nunozarashi, with long streamers of white

linen waved in serpentine movement in the air, her pink
dress decorated in the upper part with chess-men, and the
lower part in purple stripes colours mellowed by exposure
; ;
Hosso-ye f orm signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU, c. 1758, 14 IDS.

;
Two girls fishing in a stream where iris and other plants are
blooming one girl in the shallows with a net, the other
holding a small globe supported by a string and a bit of
stick, with fish in it ; the bank is yellow, indicating full
sunlight the stream one of those curious neutral tones that
;
are indescribable ; the dresses, red, purple, and green the ;
print is unsigned, but the absence of signature in no way

causes a doubt as to the identity of the artist ; no imitator
could produce a work of such beauty and fail to add the
name of the man he was imitating large size, nearly square,
;
without text best period, c. 1766-70, ^30.

;
The girls' festival in March. Two girls under a blossoming

peach-tree in an open field, one stooping to pick wild flowers,
which the other is admiring, standing upright, hat in hand ;
a beautiful impression in six soft colours, without any back-

ground or text, the peach blossom and the folds in the
robes slightly in relief by gauffrage large size, almost
;
square, in fine condition signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU

; best ;
period, 1766-70, 22.

c.
Picking young pines for the New Year festival. Two girls in
an open grassy glade beneath an old pine tree, one stooping
picking the young growth, the other standing looking on ;
the stooping girl wears an orange kimono, decorated with
white plum blossom, and the other a wine-coloured robe
with autumn-coloured maple leaves, the under-skirts of
each being white large size, nearly square, fine condition
; ;
signed SUSUKI HARUNOBU ; best period, c. 1766-70, 21.

444 APPENDIX
A young samurai presenting his lady love with a nightingale in
a cage interior scene, with open shoji in an arch
;
showing
a blossoming plum-tree outside a poetical combination ;
very dear to Japanese artists large size, almost square,

;
without any text or cloud drapery signed SUSUKI HARU- ;
NOBU ; best period,

1766-70, 21. c.
The sick rooster. A

girl standing at the angle of a house in a
garden holding a rooster in her arms, and another girl on
the verandah holding a small cup of warm sake for the
bird to drink ; a glimpse into the interior shows a dadoed
wall in which an opaque white is used and a relief design
impressed thereon large size, nearly square, without any
;
text, in perfect condition signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU ; best

;
period, c. 1766-70, 26.

A lady and a domestic passing along in front of a partly open
house with a vermilion-floored verandah, and a straggling
branch of peach bloom across the reed blind against the ;
vermilion, the robes of the figures appear quiet gradations

of soft material in motion large size, nearly square, with-
;
out text, and in grand condition ; not signed best period, ;
c. 1766-70, 12.
Picking young pines for the New Year decorations. A young girl
and her mother by a hill-side the girl stooping, pointing to
the fresh shoots, and the mother standing, pushing back
her hood and looking on the colours of this print, naturally
;
subdued, have been mellowed by exposure, but it is a good

impression large size, almost square
; signed SUZUKI ;
HARUNOBU, c. 1760, 19.

Two girls on a balcony overlooking the Sumidagawa at sunset,
with Fuji in the distance, and part of the Riyogoku bridge
on the right one standing, the other reclining against the
balustrade a fine impression, but the colours mellowed by
;
exposure ; large size, nearly square ; signed SUZUKI HARU-

NOBU ;
best period, c. 1766, 24.
A scene from the Ise Monogatari; two girls lost in the open
country by night are being searched for by men with torches ;
an early print with soft colouring, but somewhat stained by
exposure ; large size, nearly square, no text, and no signa-
ture, c. 1760, 23 los.
Hachirakaki. A burlesque of the scene in the Chiushingura,
where Uranosuke reads the letter at the tea-house Ichiriki ;
APPENDIX 445
a girl takes the hero's place, a black dog that of the spy
Kudaya, and the Saint Daruma looks out from a kakemono
to read the letter the girl is holding, instead of Okaru the ;
background wall is finely embossed, and also the girl's robes ;
the colours are brick-red, orange, lilac-green, and pink ;
signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU, 25.
KORIUSAI (Isoda)
Lovers seated over a hibachi, the girl fanning the charcoal ;
outside the rain is pelting down, and the willow branches

swaying in the wind ; large size, almost square signed ;
KORIUSAI, c. 1773, 10.

Two pheasants by a clump of bamboos, and a full moon rising
behind clouds large size, nearly square
;
signed KORIU, ;
c. 1774, 15 los.
A girlstanding behind a youth kneeling playing a tsuzumi, a
the background and a girl giving a juggling
line of hills in ;
performance both small size, nearly square

; signed ;
KORIUSAI, c. 1774, 10.
KIYOTSUNE (Torii)
Hachirakaki. Early morning, with a man sleeping under a

mosquito net, and a girl just awakened, pushing her head
out to have a quiet smoke these are seen through the open ;
shutters of a room, while, outside, another girl with a dressing-

gown is raising the wick of a lamp that has gone dim. An
illustration of the poem above, which means The morn :
has come too soon ; The early bell is a knell to all the plea-
sures of the night. A very beautiful composition, printed
in four colours ; signed KIYOTSUNE, c. 1775,
KIYONAGA (Torii)
one of a triptych. Four ladies visiting

.Mill-sized sheet, upright,
a temple two are standing under a torii at the foot of
;
stone steps, and two others are on a stone bridge under an

old tree behind them on a high bank are men, women,
;
and children passing to and fro fine colour scheme of pink, ;
purple, orange, and solid black in splendid condition ; ;
signed KIYONAGA ; best period, c. 1785-90, 14.

446 APPENDIX
Two full-sized sheets, upright, from a triptych. Five women
passing along under a trellis of wistaria, with long racemes
of flowers, beside a lake, the one leading just about to ascend
a high curved bridge full landscape background in Kiyon-
;
aga's best sunshine style, and the whole picture a wealth

of colour harmoniously displayed, and in grand state ;
signed KIYONAGA best period, c. 1785-90, 20.
;
Full-length figure of a lady with an umbrella under a willow-

tree printed in four colours, a good impression
; Hachira- ;
kaki form, paper a little browned ; signed KIYONAGA,

c. 1782, 18.
MASANOBU (Kitao)
Hachirakaki. Two ladies, full-length figures, standing side by
side ; signed KITAO MASANOBU, 52.
UTAMARO (Kitagawa)
A Tokugawa princess visiting a lady of high rank. In the centre,
the princess is alighting from a goshoguruma, drawn up
under a flowering cherry-tree, helped by a lady-in-waiting,
while another kneels holding a Court fan significant of her
rank on the right, a noble lady is seated behind a reed
;
blind, with two of her ladies-in-waiting ready to conduct

the illustrious visitor on the left, three of the princess's
;
maids are bringing forward the presents full-size, printed ;
in five colours each sheet signed UTAMARO, c. 1790, 10 10$.

;
Hachirakaki of special size. A woman

standing looking down
at her little boy, who has
placed his head under her dia-
phanous robe through which his face is seen, while the
nurse holds him by the girdle an exquisite bit of printing ;
in six colours, the soft under-tunic which encloses the

woman's bosom is silvered signed UTAMARO, ; c. 1804, 46.
A woman on a verandah stooping over a stone cistern, and
lifting out a block of ice in which the dipper is frozen, and
a woman standing behind a very beautiful Hachirakaki
her ;
of small but wide form, printed in five colours signed ;
UTAMARO, c. 1804, 24.

Raihin Dzui, " Exotic Birds," Yedo, 1793, 2 vols. complete,
first edition; vol. I. contains 12 double-page illustrations
in colours, and gauffrage vol. II. consists of text only, an
;
APPENDIX 447
explanation of the birds and plants illustrated ; by edited

Seki Eibun the first bird plate signed UTAMARO, and at the
;
end of the second vol. the signature KITAGAWA UTAMARO

with an altered later print of the first bird plate, in which
the name of UTAMARO has been cut away from the block,
and that of KEISAI inserted, above the seal of MASAYOSHI,
and with translations of the Chinese and Japanese prefaces
into English, 26.
SIX GREAT ARTISTS

Otoko Toka, the name of a dance for the i4th day of the ist
month or Otoko Fumi no Uta, " Poems written by Men,'
;
1
really poems for the New Year, i vol., first edition, Yedo,
1798, 10.
CHOKI (Yeishosai) the late artist name of SHIKO (Momokawa).

Triptych. Scene in the garden of the tea-house Naniwa-ya,
outside the grounds of the Asakusa Temple ; a party of
ladies with a gentleman, who have been pleased with the
productions of the publisher, Tsutaya Juzabro, have paid
a visit to the temple to see his grave, and are taking refresh-
ment in the gardens of the tea-house ; on the shaft of the
'
lantern is inscribed : Dedicated to Asakusa Temple of
Kwannon with "
prayers for felicity full size, upright ; ;
each sheet signed CHOKI, c. 1797, 23 IDS.

Hachirakaki. Full-length portrait of a lady standing, holding
a fan which is decorated with Sharaku's celebrated print,
" The man with a
pipe," an actor in the character of Ban-
zuiin Chobei a rather remarkable tribute of the appreciation
;
of Choki for Sharaku's work ; printed in four colours ;

signed CHOKI, c. 1797, 54.
SHUNCHO (Katsugawa)
A wet day. Triptych. Scene on a stone-walled bank over-
looking a river, with scenery and buildings on the other
side ; the rain is pouring down, and four young people are
standing under a tree on the right, three girls are in the
centre hurrying along, one holding an umbrella over another ;
and on the left two ladies and a boy have just crossed a
bridge ; large size, upright ; each signed SHUNCHO, and sealed
CHURIN, c. 1785, 29.
448 APPENDIX
In the bath-room. Hachirakaki. Two women, one half-clad,
standing in front of the grille, and the other nude, stooping,
drawing a cloth out of a pail of water ; very full size, printed
in three colours, sealed CHURIN, c. 1785, 14 los.
The early morning. Hachirakaki. A female domestic has
just pushed back the shutters, and js standing on the edge
of the engawa, beside a flowering shrub in a pot, getting a
breath of the sweet morning air ; on the cross-beam above
her head is pasted a paper charm, o-mamori, given at one
of the temples for the protection of the house ; full size,
printed in three colours; signed SHUNCHO, c. 1785, 11.
SHUNMAN (Kubo)
Scene in a tea-house overlooking the Sumida river. Diptych.
On the right a lady and gentleman are playing forfeits,
while others are preparing the refreshments, and making
ready the samisen on the left a man leans against the
;
square pillar, while a lady is standing behind two others

getting tea full size, upright
; one sheet signed KUBO
;
SHUNMAN, and the other SHUNMAN, c. 1795, 32.
YEISHI (Chobunsai)
The Eight Beauties Triptych. Four full-length
of Matsuba-ya.
figures of Tai yu, or high-class courtesans on each of two
of the sheets, and on the third, four female domestics, and
kamuro leading the procession full size, upright
four ; ;
each signed YEISHI, c. 1 800, 29.

The Good and Evil Influences. Triptych. Scene in the Yoshi-
wara, the women receiving and entertaining guests, while
mingling among the company are a number of tiny figures,
some clothed, others nude to the waist, with bald heads
and characters for faces, some urging the company on to
excesses, and others endeavouring to restrain full size,
;
upright each signed YEISHI, c. 1800, 1$ los.

;
The Ship of Good Fortune. Triptych. A long boat with prow

in shape of a ho-ho bird, and at the stern pine and bamboo,
with nine gaily dressed women aboard six seated and
three standing full size, upright
; each signed YEISHI,
;
c. 1800, 21.
APPENDIX 449
Prince Genji at a garden party. Triptych, showing the prince
seated on the right attended by three ladies, a lady ap-
proaching carrying an ornament, three playing the dosho,
tsuzumi, and a large gong, surrounded by the Shinto fire
emblem, and two more in the rear. One of a series of
"
triptychs : Furiu Yatsushi Genji, A Fashionable (or
"
Modern) presentation of Genji ; full size, upright ; each
signed YEISHI, c. 1790, 34.
HOKUSAI
Kanatehon Chiushingura. Complete set of eleven scenes ; full
oblong
size, ; c.
1825 ; on six sheets, ^18.
" Shika "
Sha-shin-kyo (The Imagery of the Poets). Complete
set of ten, revealing the Great Master's grandeur of design
and power of colouring at the height of his fame. A whole
chapter (XXXVI.) is devoted by De Goncourt to this set,
in which he gives the date of issue as 1830. 340.
An album of original drawings in black and white, containing
44 figure subjects, mostly women, 25.
Hokusai Mangwa, "Drawing." Complete set of 15 vols., the
first 12 published during the years 1812-34, vol. XIII. in
1849, vol XIV. in 1875, and vo1 - XV. in 1879; the last three
after the artist's death. Vol. XV. is a printer's proof copy.
With translation of preface. 21.
YEIZAN (Kikugawa)
Eosei Kantan no Yumi. Triptych. A Japanised version of
the story of Chao Lu Sheng at Kantan, where, while his
millet was being cooked, he fell asleep and dreamed he had
become Minister of State to the Chinese Emperor. Here
the pleasure of his dream consists in the good time he is
having with the demi-monde of the northern quarter ; full
size, upright, early work ; signed KIKUGAWA YEIZAN,
c. 1800, 14.
A Tokugawa princess alighting from her goshoguruma, drawn
up under a flowering cherry-tree, to receive a lady who
kneels before her, while at her rear her ladies-in-waiting
bring out a present ; triptych, full size, upright ; each
sheet signed KIKUGAWA YEIZAN, c. 1800, 12 IDS.
23
450 APPENDIX
Furiu Saku Asobi san "
Bijin, Three Graceful Beauties and sake
drinking Triptych. Three women seated and
sport."
kneeling, playing at forfeits in front of shutters, on which
the geisha and hokan (buffoons) are silhouetted ; full size,
upright; each signed YEIZAN, c. 1812, ^15.
YEISEN (Keisai)
Kakemono-ye. Moonlight scene of a bridge across a river,
flanked by high trees and tall mountains in the background ;
in the centre valley there are some fine effects of trees in
mist ; mainly printed in blue and a deep red ; signed
KEISAI, sealed YEISEN, c. 1832, 84.
The great carp. Kakemono-ye. A carp making its way up a
waterfall, the Japanese emblem of perseverance ; signed
KEISAI, sealed YEISEN, 25.
HIROSHIGE (Ichiryusai)
The Kiso Mountains under snow. Triptych signed HIROSHIGE, ;
dated 8th month, 1854; framed, 22.

The Rapids of Awa no Naruto. Triptych signed HIROSHIGE, ;
dated 4th month, 1854; framed, 11.

View of Kanazawa, in Musashi, by moonlight. Triptych signed ;
HIROSHIGE, dated /th month, 1854; framed, 13.
KUNIYOSHI (Utagawa)
Set of original drawings for the key-blocks of colour-prints in ;
black and white, never used. Ka Meisho hon Chiushingura,

the eleven scenes of the Drama of the 47 Ronin full size, ;
oblong signed ICHIYUSAI KUNIYOSHI

; mounted on six ;
sheets, 11.
Original drawing. The celebrated swordsmith Sanjo Kokagi

Munechika forging a blade in the grounds of the Temple of
Inari, assisted by a fox spirit in the form of a woman full ;
size, upright, black and white, tinted ; signed ICHIYUSAI

KUNIYOSHI, 10.
The ghosts of the Taira. Triptych. When Yoshitsune fled
from the wrath of his half-brother Yoritomo, with Benkei
and a few companions, he took boat and sailed across the
straits of Shimonoseki, where a great storm arose, and the
APPENDIX 451
Dan no Ura, assailed the vessel,
ghosts of the Taira, slain at
led by Admiral Tomomori, when Benkei defied them,
their
and, having prayed to the gods, the storm abated and the
wraiths disappeared full size, upright
; each sheet signed ;
ICHIYUSAI KUNIYOSHI, C. 1830, lO IOS.

Memorial portrait of Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi, by his pupil, Ikkeisai
Yoshi-iku, with poems by literary men, and the following
particulars. He was called Magosaburo (Cho-oro). Real
name, Magosaburo Igusa. Posthumous name, Shinshuin
Hosan Kokuho Shinshi. Died Bunkwa, year of the cock
((1861), 3rd month, 5th day; and was buried at Daisen
Temple, Hachikenji machi, Asakusa. Full size, upright.
The artist is represented seated with pencil and paper in
hand, and ink slab before him. 10 los.
SHUNKYOKU (Katsugawa)
A tea-house waitress, standing, full length, by the engawa of a
tea-house by the grounds of the Asakusa Temple, holding a
cup on a red lacquered tray ; Hachirakaki form, printed in
five colours ; signed KATSUGAWA SHUNKYOKU, c. 1754, ^31.
HARUNOBU (Suzuki)
A girl kneeling on a verandah completing her toilet before a
mirror, and holding up another to catch a view of the back
wave of hair the shutters of the house behind her partly
;
conceal a youth who is looking round the corner and tickling

her foot with a stick the scene is in the early morning of
;
summer, and her light garments reveal her bosom, while

their transparency also shows the shape of her arms and
curve of her back the floors and rock fountain are olive-
;
green, verandah orange, sliding shutter yellowish-brown,

the girl's kimono a slatey blue, while the cat has its details
embossed ;large size, almost square, no text signed ;
HARUNOBU, 1776-70, c.
33.
\ girl seated playing the tsuzumi in front of a recess with a
kakemono of Hotei against the wall ; through the open
shutters, a stone fountain and a patch of iris. A good
impression, with designs on robes and on wall raised by
gauffrage, but colours faded and stained by exposure ;
large size, nearly square, without text signed SUZUKE ;
HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 29 105.

452 APPENDIX
A refreshment stall beside a torii at the entrance to a temple,
and a girl hurrying forward with a tray of fruit, the wind
parting her garments and revealing her limbs ;all in quiet
subdued tones large size, almost square, no text signed
; ;
SUZUKI HARUNOBU, c.
1760, 16.
An archer about to go out for practice with his bow, being dis-
suaded by two young girls seated beside a screen, who play-
fully hold on to his bow-string to retain his company. The
ground of this fine print is of a peculiar bluish grey tone,
which has become decomposed, the other colours remaining
in beautiful condition large size, almost square, no text
;
and no signature, c. 1766-70, 16.

A snow scene, with two lovers under an aigasa, " the umbrella
of loving accord
" a striking contrast here presented
;
between the solid black coat of the young samurai and the
pale pink of the lady's costume, with its brocade pattern
raised by gauffrage. This is considered one of Harunobu's
finest productions, and is a fine impression, but has unfor-
tunately been considerably discoloured by exposure large

;
size, nearly square, without text ; signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU,

c. 1766-70, 10 los.
A snow scene exterior of a house with woman engaged in pruning
;
dwarfed trees in pots on a low stand, the snow lying in

thick light masses on the branches, and on the tree beside
the house. Here, although the colour of the paper has been
browned by exposure, the colours of the print have remained
almost intact, and the effect is very pleasing large size,
;
nearly square, without text or signature, c. 1766-70, 18.

A boy and girl looking into a well, both standing, the boy's arm
placed affectionately round the girl's neck, while he drops
a stone in to see if he shall get his desire ; above the well
the Pawlonnia Imperialis spreads its branches and flowers,
the emblem of rectitude ; fine composition, the colours
somewhat mellowed by time large size, nearly square,
;
without text signed HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 22.

;
A windy day in a sun-lit field, where two ladies are striving to

keep their hats on, and their garments under restraint, the
willow branches lashing overhead, and tall grasses bending
as they pass colours, naturally subdued, have slightly
;
faded, but the effect is good large size, nearly square,

;
without text signed SUZUKI HARUNOBU, c. 1766-70, 51.

;
APPENDIX 453
A girlstepping off a high bank on to the prow of a boat driven
end on against the shore, and her companions seated under
an awning a nice quiet composition in soft fawn and grey
;
tones, with a faded pink large size, nearly square, without

;
text; signed HARUNOBU, c. 1760, 16.

An Oharami wood-seller resting by the roadside, seated on a
tree-trunk, wiping her bosom with a handkerchief, and her
little boy, who is about to throw a stone at a cicada which
has settled on the trunk of an old fir-tree in a panel at ;
the upper corner, a peasant's hat and rain cloak a beautiful ;
print in spotless condition ; large size, nearly square, with-

out text or signature, c. 1766-70, 24.
Hachirakaki. Two girls, one seated and one standing, by the
red lacquered column of a temple torii the seated figure ;
in olive-green kimono is reading one of the kibiyoshi (" yellow

books," or novelettes) by Kitao (Shigemasa) her companion ;
has brick-red sleeves, olive-green striped obi, and blue skirt ;
the background is one of those soft indescribable washes

so frequently used by this artist signed HARUNOBU, ^78.;
A tall graceful woman standing beside the Tama river looking

at the reflection of the full moon on its waters Hachirakaki ;
form in five soft tones signed HARUNOBU one of a set of

; ;
" "
Six Tamagawa c. 1765, 30.
;
KUNINOBU
Hachirakaki. A young samurai and a girl in winter clothing,
with uchikise on their heads, passing along under a sprout-
ing willow, the man carrying an odawara lantern ; robes in
buff and chrome, obi in drab and red signed KuNiNdsu, ;
c. 1775. 52.
KORIUSAI (Isoda)
Aiter the bath. A
semi-nude girl seated against the railed
window fanning herself a black and white dog in the fore-
;
ground. Fine sharp impression, but colours mellowed by

exposure; Hachirakaki; signed KORIUSAI, c. 1778, 20.
A lucky omen. A tall figure of a woman, with robes decorated
with the fruits of the egg-plant, and, above her, Fuji sur-
rounded by clouds, lucky things to dream of ; magnificent
impression of a late work Hachirakaki form signed BUKO
; ;
YAGENBORI INSHI KORIUSAI ; " Yedo. The retired man

1
Koriusai/ c. 1781, 21 los.
454 APPENDIX
KIYONAGA (Torii)
A windy day. A girl with a jet black hood and garments
tossed about, struggling along against the wind, which is
whipping-up the long wistaria flowers overhead ; a beautiful
print in four colours, and in splendid condition Hachirakaki ;
form signed KIYONAGA, c. 1782, 39.

;
Scene in a joro-ya. In the foreground a girl is just about to

turn the corner of a screen, which divides the picture, so
that a view of another apartment is shown, where a girl is
seated beside a man asleep, with a draught screen behind
them; a wonderfully good composition in this Hachirakaki
form, in four colours ; signed KIYONAGA, c. 1782, 10 los.
Komurasake and Gompachi. The girl is standing in a bath-
house of the Yoshiwara, wearing only a loose robe, talking
to Shirai Gompachi through the grille of bamboo rods a ;
well-planned Hachirakaki in three colours ; signed KIYON-

AGA, c. 1780, ;io.
MASANOBU (Kitao)
Hachirakaki. A lady disrobing for the bath ; a fine study of
drapery and having a curious
slipping off fair shoulders,
form of gauffrage in the under-robe, which is made to look
like red crepe not signed, but unmistakably the work of
;
Masanobu, 40.
MASAYOSHI (Kitao Keisai)

Riyakugwashiki, "Methods of Cursive Design." complete A
set of6 vols. tinted. Vol. I. mainly Figures, 1795 ; vol. II.
Birds and Insects, with translation of the preface, 1797 ;
vol. III. Human

Figures, 1799 vol. IV. Landscapes, 1800 ;
;
vol. V. Fishes, 1802 vol. VI. Herbs and Flowers, 1813.

;
20 IDS.
UTAMARO (Kitagawa)
Large head portrait of a woman of the Tama-ya, as the poetess
Komachi, holding a brush to her lips and a roll of paper in
her hand. One of the first series of courtesans in large
" Seven Komachi
bust form, entitled Seiro Nana Komachi,
"
(poetesses) of the Tea-houses ; full size, upright ; signed
SHOMEI UTAMARO, c. 1790, 13 IDS.
APPENDIX 455
Gompachi and Komurasaki half-length ; of the lady in the fore-

ground, and the man standing behind her Hachirakaki ;
form, in four colours signed UTAMARO, c. 1790, 12 los.

;
A mother asleep leaning on a box while her baby boy is upsetting

the fish pond, and dragging a plant out of a pot and ;
another of a mother and child, with a lady friend both from ;
the series, Furiu Ko-takara Awase, " A comparison of dear

and beautiful children " full size, upright
; both signed ;
UTAMARO, 14.
SHUNCHO (Katsugawa)
Spring in the rice-fields. Diptych. On the right, a female
domestic stopping to tie her mistress's sandal, with a man
behind carrying flowers, etc. on the left, three ladies
;
coming towards the others, two of them holding hands ;
landscape in the background full size, upright both signed

; ;
SHUNCHO, sealed CHURIN, c. 1785, 22 los.
YEIRI (Rekisenti)
Triptych. Anoble lady standing under an old pine tree by the

seashore, reading a letter, one of her attendants holding a
large red umbrella over her, others behind her, and in front
on the left an attendant holding a box in which a man has
brought the missive full size, upright each sheet signed
; ;
REKISENTI YEIRI, c. 1800, ^25.
HOKUSAI
known twenty-seven sheets of The
Twenty-five out of the
Hundred Poets, entitled " Hiakunin isshu Ubagawa Yetoki "
(The Hundred Poems explained by the Nurse). Original issue,
published in 1839; all in fine condition. The order given is
taat of De Goncourt. The prices of 10 and more follow :
Poem by Harumichi no Tsuraki. Scene of two sawyers at work

cutting a huge log, very similar to those in the thirty-six
views of Fuji, and a woman and child crossing a stream
tinted by autumn maple leaves, which a man is dragging
out. No. 32, 12 55.
Poem by Bunya no Asayasu. Women in a boat on a lake where
waterlilies grow, gathering the leaves and flowers the ;
"
unstrung jewels everywhere scattered." No. 37, ^10 ics.
456 APPENDIX
Poem by Sanji Hitoshi. A daimyo accompanied by his sword-
bearer and a retainer, passing into the vapours of the dying
day, lying over a plain of young bamboo, muses as to his
hard lot in losing his love. No. 39, 10 los.
Poem by Fujiwara no Yoshitaka. A great bath-house over-
looking a lake where water-birds are diving, clouds of steam
rising from the bath, and bathers on the balcony, resting
or completing their toilette, while one man muses that once
life was not dear, but now for her sake he would that it
should endure. No. 50, 10.
Poem by Fujiwara Michinobu. A great flat plain with winding
roads seen from a hill-side, the trees on the horizon sil-
houetted against the early morning light. The coolies have
risen to commence their toil, and already are rushing along
carrying their heavy loads, with the feeling that, though
night will come again to give them rest, yet they hate the
morning's light. No. 52, 10.
YEISEN (Keisai)
Three blue prints of courtesans two from the series Hokoku
"
Hakkei, Eight Views of the North Country," i.e. Yoshiwara,
and one very fine of a woman by an arched window full ;
size, upright each signed KEISAI YEISEN, 11.

;
Two blue prints with the under-parts of the garments showing

"
red, from a series Riuki Ai Shitate, Fashionable Blue
" each is a
Costumes ; figure of a woman out walking in front
of a fence, with trees in the background full size, upright
; ;
each signed KEISAI YEISEN, and numbered 4 and 5 respec-

i i.
tively,
KAIGETSUDO (Yasutomo)
A courtesan of the Genroku period, full-length figure ; not
signed, c. 1700 ; kakemono, 10 105.
INDEX
Chosun, painterand print-designer,
343, 349, 357
Aizuri, coloured prints with blue,
Colour- prints, 325-406
34i
Akahada ware, 267 sale-prices, 428
Arita ware, 268
Armour and arms, 183 D
Armourers, the Myochin family, Danjuro, a great actor, 353
190, 203 Deme-Jioman, artist in metal, 106
Art of Japan, the, 23 Dohachi, potter, 290
lacquering, the, 163 and Kyoto ware, 297
Artists and their colours, 336
of the Ukiyo-ye, 343
more about them, 357
Asahi ware, 273 Early schools and painters, 38
Ashikaga Shoguns, the, 14, 44 Embroideries, etc., 206
Avvaji ware, 276
Awata ware (Kinkozan), 275
Flower festivals, 241, 244, 248
Fuchi and fuchikachira, sword be-
longings, 189
Banko ware and Gozayemon, 277 Fujina ware, 281
Ben-ye colour- prints, 329, 337 Fujiyama, the mountain, 30
Biyobus or screens, 41, 67 Fukusas, 1 06, 213-16
Bizen ware, 279
Blazons of the Emperor, the Sho-
gun, and some princes, 43, 45
Bronzes, 85 Gauffrage in colour-prints, 334
Buddhism, 18, 25, 32, 88 Gekkei or Goshin, painter and
print-designer, 73
Gensai ware, 301
Gods of Buddhism, 32, 90
Carved work in ivory and wood, happiness, 34
in Gorodayu Shonsui, potter, 256
Ceremonial flowers, 240 Goshin. See Gekkei
Ceremonies the incense, 234, 253 Gozayemon and Banko ware, 277
the tea, 230, 253 Great painters of the later cen-
Chief artists who designed colour- turies, 58
prints, 395-402, 403-6
Chobunsai. See Yeishi H
Chodensu, painter, 42, 44 Hanzan, famous for lacquer, 161
Chojiro's Raku ware, 235, 260 Happiness, the seven gods of, 34
457
458 INDEX
Harunobu, painter and print-de- Kiyomitsu, artist and print-de-
signer, 79, 329, 355, 357 signer, 343, 357
Hashira or hachirakaki colour- Kiyonaga, artist and print-de-
prints, 337 signer, 80, 320, 349, 357
Hideyoshi, Shogun, 54 Kiyonobu, artist and print-de-
Hirato ware, 281 signer, 73, 343, 353-5
Hiroshige, painter and print-de- Koetsu, painter famous for lac-
signer, 37, 361, 379 quer, 64, 69, 1 54
Hizen ware, 268 Kogai, belonging to sword, 186
Hoitsu, painter, 76 Korin, painter famous for lacquer,
Hokusai, painter and print-de- 64, 67, 159
signer, 79, 369 Koriusai, artist and print-designer,
Homes, tea-ceremonies, and tem- 330, 348, 356
ples, 228 Kunisada, artist and print-de-
Hosada school. See Yeishi signer, 361, 382
Kushite ware, 305
Kutani ware, 293
Kuzumi Morikage, master potter,
Iccho, painter, 63 295
Imado ware, 286 Kwansa'i, painter famous for lac-
Imari ware, 268 quer, 69, 162
Ippo, painter, 74 Kyoto ware and Dohachi, potter,
Iwasa Matabeii or Matahe'i, painter, 279
59, 76, 327-8 Yeiraku, potter, 299
lyeyasu, the first Tokugawa Sho- Ninsei, potter, 306
gun, 14
Lacquer, 134
Japanese characters or writing,257 masters in, 150
date-marks, 257 sale-prices of, 421
history, something about, 407 Lacquering, the art of, 163
Josetsu, painter, 46 List of chief artists who designed
colour-prints, 395-402, 403-6
K
Kachira, belonging to the sword,
M
189 Makimonos, 41
Kadjikava, famous for lacquer, 162 Marco Polo, 408-9
Kakemonos, 41 Marks on pottery and porcelain,
Kakemono-ye colour- prints, 337 259-66
Kakiyemon, potter, 273 Masanobu (Keta) two-colour
Kamakura school for lacquer- prints, 343, 353, 355
work, 150 (Okumura) ink prints, 46, 49,
Kano school of. painting, 26, 46, 54 343
Katsugawa school, 79 Masks, 125
Shunsho, 79 Matabei (Iwasa), painter, 59, 76,
Kenzan, master potter, 68, 228 327-8, 343
ware, 288 Menukis for the sword-handle, 189
Kimono, the, 222 Methods of ornamenting metal,
Kinkozan, master potter, 275 199
Kinrante ware, 296, 300 Mikado, the, 408
Ki-Seto ware, 319 Minato ware, 301
Kishiu ware, 290 Mitsunobu, painter and print-de-
Kiyomidzu ware, 290 signer, 49, 50
INDEX 459
Mitsuoki, painter and print- de- Saomi, painter, 46
signer, 59 Satsuma ware, 313
Mitsuyoshi, painter and print-de- Schools of painting, 23, 38, 344,
signer, 63 392
Miwa I., II., and III., wood and print-designing, 357-8, 361
ivory carvers, 126 Seimin, master in bronze-work, 94
Momoyama period, 54, 204 Sesshu, painter, 5 1
Morikage (Kuzumi), master potter, Sesson, painter, 53
295 Seto ware, 316
Moronobu (Hishikawa), 60, 76, Shakudo bronze, 109
327-8, 342-3, 347 Shibuichi bronze, 109
Motonobu, painter, 49, 50-1 Shigemasa, painter and print-de-
Mudras, the, 33, 93 signer, 343, 350
Myochin, the family of armourers, Shigenaga, painter and print-de-
190, 203 signer, 343, 355, 357
Shintoism, 16, 24, 32, 93
N Shokwado, painter, 59
Shonsui (Gorodayu), master pot
Nabeshima porcelain, 302
ter, 256
Namping, the Chinese painter, 69,
Shubun, painter, 46
70
Shun-ei, painter and print-de-
Naonobu, painter, 59
Netsukes, 1 1 1 signer, 79, 80
Ninsei, master potter, 64, 306 Shunjo, of the school of Shunsho,
79
Nishiki-ye multiple-colour prints,
Shunko, a pupil of the same school,
337
79
Nobuzane, painter and designer,
Shunsho, founder of the Katsu-
41-2
gawa school, 79, 155, 349
Shunzan, pupil of Shunsho, 79, 126
Signatures on carvings, 133
Obi, the sash, 222 lacquer, 181
Oguri Sotan, painter, 46, 49 metal-work, 205
Okimonos, alcove ornaments, 116 of painters, 391, 393
Okio, painter, 73-4 and print-designers, 395-
"*
402
Soma ware, 319
Sosen, painter and print-designer,
Pottery and porcelain, 249
75
marks, 261, 263, 265
Sukenobu, painter and print-de-
sale-prices, 426
Process of colour-printing, 327 signer, 79
Sumi-ye prints, 333, 337
lacquering, 1 63 Surimonos, 334
Suzuki Harunobu, 79, 329, 355,
R 357
Raku ware, 260, 308 Sword belongings, 186
Ri-sanpei, master potter, 302
Rishi, the immortals, 36
Ritsus, painter famous for lacquer,
68, 161, 211
Tannyu, painter, 58
Tan-ye colour- prints, 329
Tapestries, etc., 206, 217
Tea-ceremonies, the, 230, 253
Saga Jasoku, painter, 52 Temples, the, 239
Sale-prices, 421 Tokugawa Shoguns, the, 14, 408
Sanda ware, 310 Torii school, 73, 353-5
460 INDEX
Toriischool, Kiyonobu, its founder, V
73, 353
Tosa school, 25, 42, 54, 59 Viewing the flowers, 241
Toshinobu. See Yeizan
Toun, painter and master in
W
bronze, 94, 96 Women's fashions and men's ar-
Toyoharu, Utagawa school, 80, mour, 219
343, 358 Woven silks, embroideries, and
Toyohiro, Utagawa school, 361 tapestries, 206
Toyokuni, 358, 361, 388. See
also Hiroshige
Toyonobu, founder of the Utagawa Yatsu-shiro ware, 320
school, 343, 357-8 Yeiraku and his ware, 296, 299
Toyo-ura ware, 320 Yeishi, painter and print-designer,
Tozan ware, 320
80, 361-2
Tsunenobu, painter, 64 Yeizan, painter and print-designer,
367
Yemitsu, Shogun, 64
U Yoritomo, Shogun, 12, 42
Ukiyo-ye school, 60, 63, 327, 334 Yosai, famous for lacquer, 155
Umetada, master in metal-work, Yosen, painter, 70
192-3 Yoshimasa, Shogun, 153
Urushi-ye colour-prints, 329
Utagawa school, 6 1, 343, 357-8
Utamaro (Kitagawa), painter and famous lacquer, 162
Zeishin's
print-designer, 320, 336, 358, Zengoro Hozen or Yeiraku, 296-7*,
362, 387 299
Printed by Hasell, Watson & Viney, Ld., Lonion and Aylesbury, England-
I
19
LIBRARY
OF TORONTO
UNIVERSITY
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EA.B.

Pall Mall Gazette:" Mr. Blacker is to be congratulated on the

THE ABC OF COLLECTING

Pall Mall Gazette:" For the beginner there could be no surer

THE ABC ABOUT

FOURTEEN YEARS OF DIPLO-

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

WITH FORTY-NINE HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS, PRINTED ON

THE COPP, CLARK CO., LIMITED

Compared with old Chinese porcelain, for instance, its present

they may secure prizes such as lacquer signed Korin or

opportunities, before the times of high prices shall come.

the subject deserves my warm recognition. The frontispiece

kindly lent by Mr. Owen, of Darnell's, Wigmore Street, W.

and amongst the other okimonos, netsukes, and lacquer are

to Sotheby's for the unlimited use of illustrated catalogues,

II. THE ART OF JAPAN 23

III. THE EARLY SCHOOLS AND PAINTERS ... 38

IV. THE GREAT PAINTERS OF THE LATER CENTURIES .

VIII. THE MASTERS IN LACQUER ^

IX. THE ART OF LACQUERING . , . .

X. ARMOUR AND ARMS .

XI. WOVEN SILKS, EMBROIDERIES, AND TAPESTRIES . 2O6

xii. WOMEN'S FASHIONS AND MEN'S ARMOUR . . 219

XIII. THE HOMES, THE TEA CEREMONIES, AND THE

XIV. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN . . . . .

HIZEN, OR IMARI (KAKIYEMON), AWATA (KINKO-

ZAN), AWAJI 267

xvi. BANKO (GOZAYEMON) TO IMADO WARE : BANKO

(YUSETSU), BIZEN, HIRATO, IMADO . . . 277

XVII. KENZAN TO KYOTO WARE : KENZAN, KISHIU,

KUTANI, KYOTO (DOHACHl), KYOTO (YEIRAKU) . 288

XVIII. MINATO TO RAKU WARE :

NINSEI, OKI, RAKU , . . . . 301

XIX. SANDA TO YATSU-SHIRO WARE : SANDA, SAT-

SUMA, SETO, SOMA, TOYO-URA, TOZAN, YATSU-

XX. JAPANESE COLOUR- PRINTS . . . .

XXI. ARTISTS AND THEIR COLOURS .... 336

XXII. THE ARTISTS OF THE UKIYO-YE . . .

XXIII. MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS . . .

XXIV. HOKUSAI 369

XXV. HIROSHIGE. ARTISTS' SIGNATURES ON PRINTS,

XXVI. SOMETHING ABOUT JAPANESE HISTORY . .

APPENDIX I SALE PRICES . . . .421

THE BATTLE OF ICHINOTANI, BY SHUNTEI / * .,

SCENES PAINTED BY HOYEN. SHIJO SCHOOL . .,. . . 61

DOGS PAINTED BY OKIO . . . , . > .

TWO PRINTS WHICH SOLD FOR HIGH PRICES . .

KORO AND DRAGON, IN BRONZE *< . ,;.' '. . .-. , 91

OKIMONOS, ALCOVE ORNAMENTS, CARVED IN IVORY . . , 123

FANS IN USE, A FAN BOX, AND A FAN PAINTER . . '.; I . I .

TEAPOT, TEA-JARS, AND A DISH . . . . . .

CUPS, DISHES, VASES, AND A CANDLESTICK . . . .

PRINTS AFTER HARUNOBU AND KIYONAGA ^