One of the most important principles in the art of Japanese
painting—indeed, a fundamental and entirely distinctive characteristic—is
that called living movement, SEI DO, or _kokoro mochi,_ it being, so to
say, the transfusion into the work of the felt nature of the thing to be
painted by the artist. Whatever the subject to be translated—whether
river or tree, rock or mountain, bird or flower, fish or animal—the artist
at the moment of painting it must feel its very nature, which, by the
magic of his art, he transfers into his work to remain forever, affecting
all who see it with the same sensations he experienced when executing it.
This is not an imaginary principle but a strictly enforced law of Japanese
painting. The student is incessantly admonished to observe it. Should
his subject be a tree, he is urged when painting it to feel the strength
which shoots through the branches and sustains the limbs. Or if a flower,
to try to feel the grace with which it expands or bows its blossoms.
Indeed, nothing is more constantly urged upon his attention than this
great underlying principle, that it is impossible to express in art what
one does not first feel. The Romans taught their actors that they must
first weep if they would move others to tears. The Greeks certainly
understood the principle, else how did they successfully invest with
imperishable life their creations in marble?
In Japan the highest compliment to an artist is to say he paints with his
soul, his brush following the dictates of his spirit. Japanese painters
frequently repeat the precept:
_Waga kokoro waga te wo yaku_
_Waga te waga kokoro ni ozuru._
Our spirit must make our hand its servitor;
Our hand must respond to each behest of our spirit.
The Japanese artist is taught that even to the placing of a dot in the
eyeball of a tiger he must first feel the savage, cruel, feline character
of the beast, and only under such influence should he apply the brush. If
he paint a storm, he must at the moment realize passing over him the very
tornado which tears up trees from their roots and houses from their
foundations. Should he depict the seacoast with its cliffs and moving
waters, at the moment of putting the wave-bound rocks into the picture he
must feel that they are being placed there to resist the fiercest movement
of the ocean, while to the waves in turn he must give an irresistible
power to carry all before them; thus, by this sentiment, called living
movement (SEI DO), reality is imparted to the inanimate object. This is
one of the marvelous secrets of Japanese painting, handed down from the
great Chinese painters and based on psychological principles—matter
responsive to mind. Chikudo, the celebrated tiger painter _(Plate VI)_,
studied and pondered so long over the savage expression in the eye of the
tiger in order to reproduce its fierceness that, it is related, he became
at one time mentally unbalanced, but his paintings of tigers are
inimitable. They exemplify SEI DO.
From what has been said it will be appreciated why, in a Japanese
painting, so much value is attached to the strength with which the brush
strokes are executed _(fude no chicara),_ to the varying lights and shades
of the _sumi_ (BOKU SHOKU), to their play and sheen _(tsuya),_ and to the
manifestation of the artist’s power according to the principle of living
movement (SEI DO). In a European painting such considerations have no
place.
An oil painting can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the
artist is satisfied. A _sumi e_ or ink painting must be executed once and
for all time and without hesitation, and no corrections are permissible or
possible. Any brush stroke on paper or silk painted over a second time
results in a smudge; the life has left it. All corrections show when the
ink dries.
Japanese artists are not bound down to the literal presentation of
things seen. They have a canon, called _esoragoto,_ which means
literally an invented picture, or a picture into which certain invention
fictions are painted.
Every painting to be effective must be _esoragoto;_ that is, there must
enter therein certain artistic liberties. It should aim not so much to
reproduce the exact thing as its sentiment, called _kokoro mochi,_ which
is the moving spirit of the scene. It must not be a facsimile.
When we look at a painting which pleases us what is the cause or source of
our satisfaction? Why does such painting give us oftentimes more
satisfaction than the scene itself which it recalls? It is largely
because of _esoragoto_ or the admixture of invention (the artistic
unreality) with the unartistic reality; the poetic handling or treatment
of what in the original may in some respects be commonplace.
A correctly executed Japanese painting in _sumi_ called _sumi e,_ is
essentially a false picture so far as color goes, where anything in it not
black is represented. Hence, _sumi_ paintings of landscapes, flowers and
trees, are untrue as to color, and the art lies in making things thus
represented seem the opposite of what they appear and cause the sentiment
of color to be felt through a medium which contains no color. This is
_esoragoto._
It is related that Okubo Shibutsu, famous for painting bamboo, was
requested to execute a _kakemono_ representing a bamboo forest.
Consenting, he painted with all his known skill a picture in which the
entire bamboo grove was in red. The patron upon its receipt marveled at
the extraordinary skill with which the painting had been executed, and,
repairing to the artist’s residence, he said: “Master, I have come to
thank you for the picture; but, excuse me, you have painted the bamboo
red.” “Well,” cried the master, “in what color would you desire it?” “In
black, of course,” replied the patron. “And who,” answered the artist,
“ever saw a black-leaved bamboo?” This story well illustrates
_esoragoto._ The Japanese are so accustomed to associate true color with
what the _sumi_ stands for that not only is fiction in this respect
permissible but actually missed when not employed. In a landscape
painting effects are frequently introduced which are not to be found in
the scene sketched. The false or fictitious is added to heighten the
effect. This is _esoragoto—_ the privileged departure, the false made to
seem true. In a landscape a tree is often found to occupy an unfortunate
place or there is no tree where its presence would heighten the effect.
Here the artist will either suppress or add it, according to the
necessities of treatment. Not every landscape is improved by trees or
plantations; nor, indeed, is every view containing trees a type scene for
landscape treatment. Hence, certain liberties are conceded the artist
provided only the effect is pleasing and satisfactory and that no
probabilities seem violated. This is _esoragoto._ Horace understood this
and lays it down as a fundamental principle in art: “_Quid libet
audendi_”. The artist will oftentimes see from a point of view impossible
in nature, but if the result is pleasing the liberty is accorded. Sesshu,
one of the greatest landscape painters of Japan, on returning to his own
country after having studied some years in China, made a painting of his
native village with its temple and temple groves, winding river and pagoda
or five-roofed tower. His attention being subsequently called to the fact
that in this village there was no tower or pagoda, he exclaimed that there
ought to be one to make the landscape perfect, and thereupon he had the
tower constructed at his own expense. He had painted in the pagoda
unconsciously. This was _esoragoto._
There are no people in the world who have a higher idea of the dignity of
art than the Japanese and it is a principle with them that every painting
worthy of the name should reflect that dignity, should testify to its own
worth and thus justly impress with sentiments of admiration those to whom
it may be shown. This intrinsic loftiness, elevation or worth is known in
their art by the term KI IN. Without this quality the painting,
artistically considered and critically judged, must be pronounced a
failure. Such picture may be perfect; in proportion and design, correct
in brush force and faultless in color scheme; it may have complied with
the principles of IN YO, and TEN, CHI, JIN or heaven, earth and man; it
may have scrupulously observed all the rules of lines, dots and ledges and
yet if KI IN be wanting the painting has failed as a work of true art.
What is this subtle something called KI IN?
In our varied experiences of life we all have met with noble men and women
whose beautiful and elevating characters have impressed us the moment we
have been brought into relation with them. The same quality which thus
affects us in persons is what the Japanese understand by KI IN in a
painting. It is that indefinable something which in every great work
suggests elevation of sentiment, nobility of soul. From the earliest
times the great art writers of China and Japan have declared that this
quality, this manifestation of the spirit, can neither be imparted nor
acquired. It must be innate. It is, so to say, a divine seed implanted
in the soul by the Creator, there to unfold, expand and blossom,
testifying its hidden residence with greater or lesser charm according to
the life spent, great principles adhered to and ideals realized. Such is
what the Japanese understand by KI IN. It is, I think, akin to what the
Romans meant by _divinus afflatus—_that divine and vital breath, that
emanation of the soul, which vivifies and ennobles the work and renders it
immortal. And it is a striking commentary upon artist life in Japan that
many of the great artists of the Tosa and Kano schools, in the middle
years of their active lives, retired from the world, shaved their heads,
and, taking the titular rank of HOGEN, HOIN or HOKYO, became Buddhist
priests and entered monasteries, there to pass their remaining days,
dividing their time between meditation and inspired work that they might
leave in dying not only spotless names but imperishable monuments raised
to the honor and glory of Japanese art.
[Chapter 6 Head-Band: The chrysanthemum pattern.]