Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-17

! UM is keen and lively. A
N,W good part of his few
: J: !: = ! !: : !: !: ! !: J
W. spare minutes in New
Sf1ASSn York have been spent
W$ssyaA in a room, looking out
II iNMI upon Fifth avenue,
V\U NV that is crammed and
y I'll crowded with the
W choicest specimens of
Japanese art ever yet
brought away from the land of the chrysan-
themum. No reasonable human creature
could well quarrel with his taste. Beyond
question it is nightly fascinating spot
fairyland dashed with the Arabian Nights
and smelling to heaven of incense, of sandal
wood and altar of roses.
Things happen in this world in extremely
odd sequence. America would never have
seen these marvels had not Japanese
fanatic attacked the Czarewitch and turned
him back before reaching Yokohama, where
the flower and glory of japanese. art, both
ancient and modern, had been brought to-
gether to win his royal approval. If he had
been left to keep the even tenor of his way
| there would certainly have been new splen-
dors in the palace of the White Gar.
Nothing More Beautiful From Japan.
For here are bronzes, brocades, temple
| tapestries, caryen ivories, gold and silver
lacquer, Cloisonne, Satsuma, miraculous
crystals, more miraculous inlaying and en-
amels. When Sir Edwin said warmly,
'tNothing more beautiful ever came out of
JAPAN" none with eyes to see could rea-
sonably gainsay him.
Asked to say what in his opinion was the
distinguishing characteristic of Japanese
art, Sir Edwin replied, glancing all about
him:
''Only land peopled by artists could
have sent out this. There everybody, high
or low, has some trace of that instructive
comprehension of perfect work which
makes its possessor feel at first sight su-
preme artistic excellence of any sort. As
far as the East is from the West, so far are
Japanese canons and schools of art from
| those which we follow. But nothing is
ugly or commonPlace in the humblest
Japanese home. From rice tub to hairpin
all is beautiful and becoming. What else
can you expect of q people whose national
passion is finish in manipulation and nat
ural beauty? Do you know that the Gov
ernment maintains seats along the highways
so placed as to command any especially fine
! prospect, and that in time of the cherry
viewing the great spring holiday, the by
roads are studded with official notices of
where you may see the loveliest prospects
or finest clumps of plum or cherry bios
SONS? In the same spirit, the peasant
whose wife sets a Towering plant upon the
Tansu nourishes his eve with its beauty
even more than he would nourish his body
with fish and rice.
Patient Hands and Trained Eyes
'erhis artistic genius runs through all
their craft. Their commonest domestic
joInery has the same jewellers work COM
pleteness as this gold lacquer cabinet
modelled after the shrine of Iyemitsu, one
| of the most famous in Japan. To their
| patient hand, their trained eye, substance
matters nothing. All the thousand parts of
| it were shaped first from wood, fitted one to
another as nature fits petal to flower, every
! joint made smooth and fast, covered then
with fine clay, coat on coat, each one rubbed
down as smooth as paper, then lacquered
many times with rubbings between, busted
thick with gold, lacquered ten times more
with the finest transparent gum and again
rubbed down to a surface of glass. Besides
all that, see the ivory carvings the different
laequers, dark and light, that give depth
and dignity to frieze and base. A village
might have been builded with less time and
effort. If it was Japanese village, though,
you would see all through it the same un-
utilitarian love of beauty for beauty's own
sake, the same perfect finish to all and every
part.
s'To me the most wonderful of all things
about their art is its dual quality. In much
of their work the microscope can find no
flaw. Instead it brings to sight invisible
beauties. Yet if they so will the impress
ionist school is as nothing beside them. One
sweep of the brush, one turn of the dex-
trous wrist and you see 20 leagues of blue
distance or birds wing in the act of beat
ing.
Where the National Supremacy Lies.
"Therein, more particularly, lies the
triumph of the Japanese designer. He
reigns supreme and unapproachable in .
realm of flowers, leaves, birds and general
ized creatures, upon which his fancy may
work its will. What surprises me is his
manner of dealing with the human figure,
especially the female one. He lacks neither
power nor observation. Anybody must
concede thus much after one look at the
wrestlers over there in the corner. There
is life, strength, hate in every line. In
stinctively you catch your breath at sight
of them, listening for their grasps as they
tug and strain, yet they are mere hollow
figures carved out of wood and colored to
the life. Indeed, carving, especially wood
carving, seems to me the field of Japanese
supremacy. Certainly nothing known to
me in Europe from Grinling Gibbons mas
terpieces to the best things in our day
comes anywhere near the achievements of
superior Japanese workmen.
"Yet no Japanese artist, be he painter or
carver, can make female figure even half
expressive of the grace and beauty that
daily pass before him. Maybe it is because
Japanese beauty is delicate and little
varied, rather than striking. More proba-
bly,, though, it is. think, because of
woman's status, that of traditional infe-
rior, albeit she is, if fairly judged, perhaps
naturally the most modest, the most gentle,
the best hammered and most selfrespecting
woman in the whole world While nobody
is ever brutal to her, she is systematically
set aside, as thing of no moment.
Can't Produce q Woman's Face.
'Possibly that is why, graceful and fairy
like as she is in her swathings of soft Grape,
she has never inspired Japanese artist to
faithfully represent her charms. This group
Of ivory carvings sufficiently demonstrates
the failure. You find in them poise and
pose, q faithful rendering of the least fold,
the texture even, of kimono and obi, which,
worn as Japanese girl can wear them, are
the most artistic garments in the world, but
above them doll faces without character or
expression. Contrast with their vacuous
Ennu tho life ard vy,irit of tho doo ba holds