It is indeed ridiculous that most of our people are disposed to regard
Western paintings as a kind of Uki-ye. As I have repeatedly remarked, a
painting which is not a faithful copy of nature has neither beauty nor
is worthy of the name. What I mean to say is this: be the subject what
it may, a landscape, a bird, a bullock, a tree, a stone, or an insect,
it should be treated in a way so lifelike that it is instinct with life
and motion. Now this is beyond the possibility of any other art save
that of the West. Judged from this point of view, Japanese and Chinese
paintings look very puerile, hardly deserving the name of art. Because
people have been accustomed to such daub-like productions, whenever they
see a master painting of the West, they merely pass it by as a mere
curiosity, or dub it a Uki-ye, a misconception which betrays sheer
ignorance.
_Shiba Kokan_ (Japanese, eighteenth century).