The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-09-04
Japanese Fans

Many Of these fan-pictures are illus
trations of national classics, fairy tales,
and historic legends. On this neutral
tinted reverse, for instance, a curved
line dashed across the disk is a slack
rope on it is a nondescript dancing,
and below half-kneeling figure repre-
sents the iuggler or Snowman. He is
gesticulating wildly with his fan, his
mouth is wide open with well-simulated
astonishment at the antics of the crea-
ture on the slack-rope. This performer
is like a badger yet it resembles a tea
kettle. Its body is the kettle one cum
ningly curved paw is the spout, another,
which swings the inevitable umbrella,
is the handle, and the tail and hind
legs form the tripod on which the ket-
tie sits. The story of The Accomplished
Tea-kettle is very old, and numberless
versions of it form a staple dramatic,
poetic or artistic diversion of the Japa-
Dese. Briefly, it is related that COM
pany of priests, who dwelt by them
selves in a temple, were affrighted by
their tea-kettle suddenly becoming
covered with fur and walking about the
room. It bothered them very much by
its pranks, being part of the time useful
and sober culinary utens1 and partly a
mischievous badger. Catching it and
shutting it up in a box, they sold it to
travelling tinker for a trifie, thinking
themselves well rid of it. But the tinlz-
er, though sorely afrighted when he
found what a bargain he had gotten,
shrewdly put his bewitched tea-kettle
to good account. He travelled far and
wide exhibiting his wonderful beast,
which diligently performed on the slack
rope. Princes and mobiles came in
throngs to see his show; and so he
made himself very rich by his unique
entertainment. The lucky tinker and
his accomplished tea-kettle furnish
forth adventures for the Japanese play
goer as numerous and various as those
of our own Humsty Dumpty, dear to
the heart of every English-speaking
child. On the reverse of another fan
you discover an illustration of fairy
lore. A hare and a badger, grotesque-
ly dressed in waternan's garb, are each
padding about in boats on a small
sheet of water. They glare at each
other defantly, but the hare, nOtwith-
standing he keeps his simple expression,
seems to have the advantage of the
other The hare and the badger, in
the story of The Cracking Mountain,
we're old foes, and had many a tussle,
in which the hare usually got the better
of his adversary. Finally the hare,
having built wooden boat, set off on
voyage to the capital of the moon, in
viting his enemy to accompany him.
The wary badger refused, but building
boat of clay, he followed the hare.
The waves washed the clay so that it
began to dissolve then the hare, pad
ding his craft full upon the lnckless
badger, crushed his sinking boat, and
the wicked animal perished miserably
in the water. In these faneiful pictorial
conceits the Japanese greatly excel.
Hoksai, a japanese artist, says an in
elligent writer on Asiatic art, has mod
estly protested that it is more easy to
draw things one has never seen than to
represent objects with which everybody
is familiar. But these fantastic crea-
tions of the imagination are all so care
fully and characteristioally limned that
they deceive by their realism. You
think that these odd creatures must
have been studied from life. You pay
an unconscious tribute to the artists
wise Interpretation of nature, for his
fundamental idea is natural. Serb