Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1874-01-02
Japan Fan-Pictures

Many of these fan-pictures are Illus
trations Of national classics, fairy tales
and historic legends. On this neutral
tinted reverse, for instance, curved line
dashed across the disk is slack rope,
on it Is a nondescript dancing, and be-
low, a half kneeling figure represents
the juggler or Snowman. He is gestieu-
lating wildly with fan, his mouth is
wide open with we'll simulated astonish-
ment at the antics of the creature on the
slack-rope. This performer is like a
badger, yet it resembles tea-kettle. Its
body is this kettle, one cunningly curv-
ed 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 kettle sits. The
story of the Accomplished Tea-kettle is
very old, and numberless versions of it
form a staple dramatic, poetic, or artis-
tic diversion of the japanese. Briefly it
is related that company of priests, who
dwelt by themselves in temple, were
affrighted by their tea-kettle suddenly
becoming covered with fur and walking
about the room. 1t bothered them very
much by its prsnks, being part of the
time useful and sober culinary utensil
and partly mischievous badger. Catch
ing it and shutting it up in a box, they
sold it to travelling tinker for trife,
thinking themselves well rid of it. But
the tinker though sorely afrighted when
he found what bargain he had gotten,
shrewdly put his bewitching 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
throDgs to see his show, and so he made
himself very rich by his unique enter
tainment. The lucky tinker and his ac-
complished tea-kettle furnish forth ad-
ventures for the japanese play-goer as
numerous and various as those of our
Humpty Dumpty, dear to the heart of
every EugIish speaking child. On the
reverse Of another fan you discover an
1 illustration of fairy lore. A hare and a
badger, grotesquely dressed in water
mems garb, are each padding about in
boats on small sheet of water. They
glare at each other defantly, but the
hare, Notwithstanding he keeps his sim
/ pie expression seems to have the advan-
tage of the other. The hare and the
badger, 10 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 wood
en- boat, set off on voyage to the eapi
tai of the moon, inviting his enemy tc
accompany him. The wary badger re
fused, but building boat Of clay, he
followed the hare. The waves washed
the clay SO that it began to disolve; then
the hare padding full on the lueklesi
badger, crushed the sinking boat, and
the wicked animal perishei mlserably
in the waters. In these fanciful pictori
al conoeits the Japanese greatly excel
Hoksai, Japanese artist, says an intel
ligent writer on Asiatic art, has modest
| ly protested that it is more easy to draw
things one has never seen than to repre-
sent objects with which everybody is fa
miliar. But these fanciful creations o.
the imagination are all SO carefully anc
Enthusiastically limned that they de
ceive by their realism, You think thai
these odd creatures must have been
studied from life. You pay an uncon.
scious tribute to the artists wise interpre-
tation of nature, for his fundamental
idea is natural.