The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-11
JAPANESE ART.

sIAoross America and ASIA" the following
interesting essay on Japanese art, contributed
by Mr. John La Farge:-
Interest in Japanese art must have much
increased to have made Mr. Ruskin fear some
maliQn influence upon his artists coming
from this heathen source; and it is true that
many artists are in the habit of looking to it
for advice and confirmation of their previous
tendencies and efforts in art.
Our first knowledge of Japanese is not
recent. japanese products have come into
Europe for the last two hundred years.
In 1864 the importations into Holland of
Japanese porcelain, fine specimens, amounted
TO A, 943 pieces Japanese museums were
formed at Dresden and in Holland and very
good le-catalogues (rais0anes) of the last
Century distinguish carefully between Japa-
nese and Chinese work.
They have always been admired and col
lected, but, like other rare things, have had
their best merits passed over, because they
could be made the objects of a vulgar curl
ositv. Though they furnish q test if ever
there was one for discernment in art, those
who make it their business to instruct in such
matters were silent. Original appreciation of
excellence is never abundant; even so late as
1881. MIR. Owen Jones did not include Japa-
nese decoration in his Grammar Of Orna-
ment.
Since then, the opening Of the treaty ports
has made it familiar to all of us. We have
all admired the many objects made lovely by
their workmanship; their inimitable lacquers,
embodying on their surface complete school
of ornament; their unrivaled ivory and
metal work; their porcelains and enamels;
their bronZes, of colors unknown to ours,
cast and polished beyond our means;
their colored printing, contrasting with
our own brutal chromo-lithographs by its
franlness, or by delicacy equal to exquisite
hand-work These things all please the eye,
as if with the sense of touch. On analysis,
besides the wondrous finish, we notice the
novelty of the design, its energy, its accuracy,
its sentiment, very often the grandeur of its
style, very often stamp of individuality or
personal talent, its recalling of natural OBJ
jects, the enchanting harmony of its colors,
and its exquisite adaptation to the surface
ornamented.
We feel that we are looking at perfect
work, that we are in presence of distinct
civilization, where art is happily married to
industry. These accomplishments to every
day life, studied out, reveal a complete school
of art While it is still pure, uninhuenced
and unnjured by new contacts, it will be
well to inquire into it's value, and to learn
what lessons we can derive from 1T. Its
limits seem at this day distinctly traced. What
we shall know hereafter cannot contradict the
much displace them. Notwithstanding that
every nation bears intellectual fruit neither
natural nor tasteful to others, this is truer of
literature than of plastic art, for this last
speaks the more universal language; and with
out our aiming at full analysis, the princi-
pal characteristics of this decorative art may
be here described in some connected order.
Most evident in Japanese art is the use of
q marvellous decoration, the very crown of
that power over color always an heirloom of
the East, and separate gift from ours. 70
Eastern directness, fulnesS, and splendor the
Japanese add a sobriety, a simplicity, a love
of subdued harmOnies and imperceptible
gradations, and what may be called an
intellectual refinement akin to something
in the Western mind. If we wish, their
works can be for us a storehouse as
ample and as valuable in its way as
the treasures of form left to us by the Greeks.
For the Japanese, no combinations of colors
have been improbable, and their solutions of
such as are put aside by Western knowledge
recall the very arrangements of nature.
Great beauty of color is apt to obscure
The structure upon which it rests, and excel
lence of design is not seldom unrecogniZed
in the works of great colorists. Little as this
is felt in the harmonious synthesis of Japa-
nese decoration, Japanese drawings and wood
cuts in black and white allow us to gauge
their abstract power Of design and their
knowledge of drawing. Stripped of those
other beauties of color and texture so pecu-
liar to their precious work, these drawings
give us in the simplest way their control Of
composition, that power in art which affects the
imagination by the mere adjustment of lines
and masses. Herein their work can be COM
pared to the best, in this the most simple
means Of expression in art, for by this all its
forms and periods are united, and the
tattooing of the savage is connected with the
designs of Michael Angelo. In fact it is the
nearest expression of the will of the artist,
which is the very foundation of art. Japanese
composition in ornamental design has de-
Veloped principle which separates it techni-
cally from all other schools of decoration.
This will have been noticed by all who have
seen Japanese ornamental work, and might
be called principle of irregularity, or appa-
rent chance arrangement balancing of
equal gravities not of equal surfaces. A
Western designer in ornamenting a given
surface, would look for some fixed points from
which to start and would mark the places
where his mind had rested by exact and
Symmetrical divisions. These would be
supposed by japanese, and his
design would float over them,
while they, though invisible, would be felt
beneath. Thus few ornaments-a bird, q
Hower-on one side of this page would be
made by an almost intellectual influence to
balance the large unadorned space remaining
And so, by principle familiar to painters.
an appeal is made to the higher ideas of de-
sign, to the desire OF concealing art beneath
q look of nature. 1t has the ADVANTAGE of
allowing any division and extension, and
super-imposition of other and contradictory
designs. With another analogy to the higher
forms of art, the Japanese look to more sym
metrical ARRANGEMENT for their graYer effects