KYOTO, April 10-20.
I have passed the greater part of three days in the national
Exhibition,--time barely sufficient to discern the general
character and significance of the display. It is essentially
industrial, but nearly all delightful, notwithstanding, because
of the wondrous application of art to all varieties of
production. Foreign merchants and keener observers than I find in
it other and sinister meaning,--the most formidable menace to
Occidental trade and industry ever made by the Orient. "Compared
with England," wrote a correspondent of the London Times, "it is
farthings for pennies throughout.... The story of the Japanese
invasion of Lancashire is older than that of the invasion of
Korea and China. It has been a conquest of peace,--a painless
process of depletion which is virtually achieved.... The Kyoto
display is proof of a further immense development of industrial
enterprise.... A country where laborers' hire is three shillings
a week, with all other domestic charges in proportion,
must--other things being equal--kill competitors whose expenses
are quadruple the Japanese scale." Certainly the industrial
jiujutsu promises unexpected results.
The price of admission to the Exhibition is a significant matter
also. Only five sen! Yet even at this figure an immense sum is
likely to be realized,--so great is the swarm of visitors.
Multitudes of peasants are pouring daily into the
city,--pedestrians mostly, just as for a pilgrimage. And a
pilgrimage for myriads the journey really is, because of the
inauguration festival of the greatest of Shinshu temples.
The art department proper I thought much inferior to that of the
Tokyo Exhibition of 1890. Fine things there were, but few.
Evidence, perhaps, of the eagerness with which the nation is
turning all its energies and talents in directions where money is
to be made; for in those larger departments where art is combined
with industry,--such as ceramics, enamels, inlaid work,
embroideries,--no finer and costlier work could ever have been
shown. Indeed, the high value of certain articles on display
suggested a reply to a Japanese friend who observed,
thoughtfully, "If China adopts Western industrial methods, she
will be able to underbid us in all the markets of the world."
"Perhaps in cheap production," I made answer. "But there is no
reason why Japan should depend wholly upon cheapness of
production. I think she may rely more securely upon her
superiority in art and good taste. The art-genius of a people may
have a special value against which all competition by cheap labor
is vain. Among Western nations, France offers an example. Her
wealth is not due to her ability to underbid her neighbors. Her
goods are the dearest in the world: she deals in things of luxury
and beauty. But they sell in all civilized countries because they
are the best of their kind. Why should not Japan become the
France of the Further East?"
The weakest part of the art display is that devoted to
oil-painting,--oil-painting in the European manner. No reason
exists why the Japanese should not be able to paint wonderfully
in oil by following their own particular methods of artistic
expression. But their attempts to follow Western methods have
even risen to mediocrity only in studies requiring very realistic
treatment. Ideal work in oil, according to Western canons of art,
is still out of their reach. Perhaps they may yet discover for
themselves a new gateway to the beautiful, even through
oil-painting, by adaptation of the method to the particular needs
of the race-genius; but there is yet no sign of such a tendency.
A canvas representing a perfectly naked woman looking at herself
in a very large mirror created a disagreeable impression. The
Japanese press had been requesting the removal of the piece, and
uttering comments not flattering to Western art ideas.
Nevertheless the canvas was by a Japanese painter. It was a daub;
but it had been boldly priced at three thousand dollars.
I stood near the painting for a while to observe its effect upon
the people,--peasants by a huge majority. They would stare at it,
laugh scornfully, utter some contemptuous phrase, and turn away
to examine the kakemono, which were really far more worthy of
notice though offered at prices ranging only from ten to fifty
yen. The comments were chiefly leveled at "foreign" ideas of good
taste (the figure having been painted with a European head). None
seemed to consider the thing as a Japanese work. Had it
represented a Japanese woman, I doubt whether the crowd would
have even tolerated its existence.
Now all this scorn for the picture itself was just. There was
nothing ideal in the work. It was simply the representation of a
naked woman doing what no woman could like to be seen doing. And
a picture of a mere naked woman, however well executed, is never
art if art means idealism. The realism of the thing was its
offensiveness. Ideal nakedness may be divine,--the most godly of
all human dreams of the superhuman. But a naked person is not
divine at all. Ideal nudity needs no girdle, because the charm is
of lines too beautiful to be veiled or broken. The living real
human body has no such divine geometry. Question: Is an artist
justified in creating nakedness for its own sake, unless he can
divest that nakedness of every trace of the real and personal?
There is a Buddhist text which truly declares that he alone is
wise who can see things without their individuality. And it is
this Buddhist way of seeing which makes the greatness of the true
Japanese art.
V