The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-04-27

HE SCRANTON TR1Bl
evolved cosmic emotion. feminine
pantheism." .s ,
AS far from this as one pole Is from
the other Is the Occidental view OF ma
ture and natures forces. The art of
the Japanese rises superior to gender.
superior even to all fantasy, and be-
comes a "veritable reflection OF what
has been and what Is; wherefore, we
have recognized that 1t Is nothing less
than higher education in art simply
to look at his studies of bird life. In
sect life. plant life, tree life. Compare,
for example. our very finest drawings
OF insects with Japanese drawings OF
similar subjects. The whole minute
exauisiteness of the Occidental draw
| ing has accomplished only an indiffer-
ent realism, while the Japanese artist,
with few dashes of his brush, has
seized and reproduced, with an incom-
prehensible power of Interpretation, not
only every particularly of the crea-
| ture's shape, but every special charac-
teris.ic of Its motion. Each figure flung
from the Oriental painters brush Is a
! lesson, a revelation, to perceptions un-
beclouded by prejudice, an opening of
the eyes of those who can see, though
it be only spider in a wind-shaken
web. a dragon-fy riding sunbeam, Il
pair of crabs running through sedge.
the trembling of a tish's fms In clear
current, the lit of u flying wasp, the
pitch Of a flying duck, mantis In
fighting position, or semi toddling up
a cedar branch to sing, All this art
is alive, intensely alive, and our cor
responding art looks absolutely dead
beside It,"
III. -
Take again, the subject OF flowers.
An English or German flower painting,
the result of months OF trained labor,
and valued at several hundred pounds.
would in Mr.. Hearn's opinion certainly
not compare as a nature study, In the
higher sense, with Japanese flower
painting executed In twenty brush
strokes, and worth perhaps five sen.
"rhe former would represent at hest
but an Intellectual and painful effort to
initiate a masslng of colors. The latter
would prove a perfect memory of GER
tain flower shapes instantaneously
flung upon paper, without any model
to aid, and showing. not the recollection
of any individual blossom. but the per-
! feet realization of a general law Of form
expression, perfectly mastered, with all
it's moods, lenses and infections. The
French alone, among western art
critics, appear to understand these fea-
lures of Japanese art. Without lifting
his brush from the paper. the French
artist may sometimes, with single
wavy line, create the almost speaking
figure of q particular type of man or
woman But ne can never rise su-
perior to sex. To understand what Mr.
Hearn means by the ability of the Jap
anese artist, the reader must imagine
Just such power of almost instantan-
eous creation as that which character
ICES certain French work, applied to
almost every subject except individu-
ality, to nearly all recognized general
types, to all aspects of japanese ma
ture, to all forms of native landscapes
to clouds and flowing water and mists
4 to all the life of woods and fields. to all
the moods of seasons and the tones OF
horizons and the colors of the morning
and the evening All this dawns upon
the western student gradually, but the
truth once learned Is not easily for.
gotten.
In the garden Of the little house in
Kumamato which Mr.. Hearn now oc.
cupies, there are about eighteen rocks
or large stones, of as many shapes and
sizes. They have no intrinsic value, not
even as building material. And yet,
the author tells us, "the proprietor OF
the garden paid for them something
more than $3.50. or considerably more
than the pretty house itself could pos
sibly have cost. And 1t would be quite
wrong to suppose the cost of the stones
due to the expense OF their transporta.
ton from the bed of the Shirakawa
No: they are worth $3.50 only because
they are considered beautiful TO Ger.
tain degree, and because there Is large
local demand for beautiful stones. They
are not even of the best class, or they
would have cost a great deal more
Now, until you can perceive that big
rough stone may have more aesthetic
craving, that it Is a thing of beauty
and a joy forever, you cannot begin tc
understand how Japanese sees ma.
ture."
The longer he dwells in the East, the
more Mr.. Hearn feels growing upon
him the belief that there are Exquisite
artistic faculties and perceptions, devel-
oped in the Oriental, of which we car
know scarcely more than we know OF
those unimagnable colors. invisible tc
the human eye, yet proven to exist by
the spectroscope." Can we wonder al
this feeling after comprehending Its
origin? l.. s, r.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS:
President Hyde, of Bowdoin, has writ
ten a work on Social Theology"
Thomas Hardy is dramatizng "Tess OF
the D'Urbervlles'' for Mrs. Patrick Camp
bell
A new edition of Motley's Dutch Re-
public is to be included in the "Bohn's
Libraries"
A collection of the late Robert Louis
Stevenson's letters is to be edited by Sid
ney Colvn.
The long-promlsed biography of the late
T.. A. Freeman will be brought out within
a few days.
Harry Furniss has abandoned his silly
rival to Punch, Like Joka, and taken NJ
the Pail Mall Budget, rechrlstened the
New Budget
Municipal Home Rule" study Ey
Professor Frank j. Goodnow, of Columbia
college, is announced.
Mr.. Stevenson's posthumous story, "St
Ive," will not be published by Stone &
Kimball until autumn.
Cassell G. Co. New York; issue a chear
but pleasing and sufficient Peoples Life
Of William Ewart Gladstone"
Henry Norman. whose book on China