The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-12-12
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japanese Carving.

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more instructive way Of passing two days
in Japan than by devoting them to the
study of the wood carving for which the
artistic people of that country are famous.
In this field of art the empire of the Rising
Sun has no rivals In fact prior to 1928
no other nation seems to have perceived
tie artistic and commercial Importance of
wood carving. In that year the agitation
was started in Switzerland which culminat-
ed in the establishment by the State of
wood carving schools, and the consequent
creation of an aesthetic industry of the
greatest benefit to the Alpine common
wealth.
The success of the experiment in the
United Cantons gave rise to similar under
takings on the part of other nations.
Nearly all of these have been attended
with happy results. In Austria, the
schools of Vienna, Prague and Buda Pesth;
in Russia, of St Petersburg, Moscow and
Odessa; in Germany, of Berlin, Leipsic,
Munich and Hamburg; in France, of
Paris, Lyons, Dion and Marseilles; in
England, of London, Liverpool, Manchester
and Leeds, and in the United States, of
Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadel-
phia, Chicago, and above all Cincinnati
have graduated pupils whose work has
made new era in the art history of the
lands to which they belong.
Strange to relate, all of these schools
have been profoundly affected by Japanese
influences. The conventionalisms of the
latter have been adopted in their entirety
OF with slight notifications. The growing
cock on Swiss cuckoo clocks, for example,
is almost an exact copy of the conventional
bird, as carved by Kioto workmen for the
past FIVE centuries. Even the curious
arbitrary rules prescribed in Japan as to
the contrasting and balancing imposition
and superimposition of leaves, flowers and
animal forms have been more or less fol-
lowed by every art school in Christendom.
In commenting upon this fact, George
r. Hahn, the famous designer of the
Century Magazine, says; at may be
possible to excel Japanese art in lis own
fields, but it is very improbable. They
have developed highly complex but
artistic system of ornamentation, whose
potentialities are simply numberless. For
mere ornamention it surpasses all the other
systems known to the artistic world.
To gain an insight into the wood cary
ing of Japan begin the first step and visit
the artist at work. There are ateliers
everywhere, Yokohama, Kyoto, Tokyo,
Nikko and Nagasaki. They are separate
from the artists home, but the leading
room in the household Here he works
and with him, learning and assisting, are
his wife and children, and often pupils and
admirers. At the first glance, you see
that he works not with one hand but with
his whole body. Crouched upon the
floor, he will hold the piece of wood with
his feet as with a vice and cut, indent,
bore and finish with either hand Nearly
all are more or less facile with both hands.
Many of them are ambidextrous.
A second glance shows how little the
worker trusts to plans and drawings and
how much to his intellect. No matter
how complicated the design or how ec-
centric the treatment, he speeds along in
his toll without any assistance in the shape
of book, paper or sketch. He transfers
directly from his Imagination to the wood.
More cogent evidence is found in his work
tools These, though Of that marvellous
steel which as yet we can but initiate and
not produce, are few in number and
simple in character. They offer startling
contrast to 'carver's outfits" of Cincinnati
and Geneva, where hundred odd instru-
ments are at the modeler's disposal. He
works downward and towards himself, very
much as he writes the Chinese ideographs.
He seldom re-touches what he has passed
Apparently the finished design lies before
his minds eye, and as each fragment is
evolved it is complete entity. To see
him at his best go into the studies of Hanna
numa in the rear of the Grand Hotel, Yo-
kohama. He is the greatest figure carver
in the world, and his productions are
worldfamous. Here are limbs painted,
some white and some flesh color. 1t takes
time and evidence to convince you that the
former are not cast in plaster of Paris and
the latter moulded in wax from plaster
mould Alongside of his masterpieces the
statues in the Vatican and Louvre seem
lifeless conventionalties.
When you have visited dozen. ateliers,
90 next to the native shops. Here you
will find the smaller and cheaper works of
art. No matter how cheap, they are always
beautiful, grotesque or ingenious. They
are never commonplace. Here are screens
whose panels serve as fields on which are
magnificent landscapes, battles of ancient
races, wonderful waterscapes, illustrated
myths and fables or the figures of demigods
and heroes Here are other screens on
which wicker work, twisted ropes, chain
cables, braided ribbons, scaly surfaces and
hides and skins are initiated with startling
fidelity to fact.
Idols and diminutive pagodas, dragons
and groups of tortoises, monkeys, cranes,
fishes, weapons and articles of furniture
and decoration afford unlimited opportuni-
ties to study the versatility and imaginative
power of the japanese mind.
But to see the highest development of
wood carving you must go to Deakins su-
-perb galleries. Here are chef d'0ures
which go to the national museums or the
private collections of the great millionaires
of the Old World and New Here, for
example, is secretaire of ebonized wood,
q feet deep, 81 feet wide and 81 high.
1t has taken an artist 5000 days to make
and put together, 10 years out of the best
part of his life, and represents his creative
fancy in score of moods. Here is IA
moulding in which parabolic curves follow
ovoids to helix so graceful as to suggest
the interlaced tendrils of grapevine.
There is plane surface, filled in with
fretwork, so as to seem a lattice full of
vines in full bloom turned by some magic
smell into the finest iet TTnlike Eurnnean