Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-01-21
JAPAN'S HONOR TO !
 v RUSSIAN ARTIST.
Vereschagin Allowed to Sketch
 at the Nikko Temples.
MADE GUEST OF THE EMPEROR.

AAR TrGa%ures Displ@yEd and Sacred
 Rooms Opened Up-sketching Tour Cut short. 5 The most interesting visitor to Japan
 in 1903 recently left it and admitted
 that he was leaving in hurry-forced
 to cut short his visit by some months,
 says Eliza R. Scidmore, the Tokyo cor
 respondent of the Chicago Tribune. Vassili Vereschagin, the Russian paint
 CT, came by the Transsiberian road last
 summer, unheralded and without os-
 tentation. and went immediately to work sketching in the courts of the
 Nikko temples With the usual hospi- tality to visitors of such calling and quality, the Japanese officials showed every usual attention to the distin- guished painter, and because of his na-
 tionality yet more was done for him.
 Noblesse oblige.
 Vereschagtn was. made the guest of
 the emperor, house was given him
 close beside the Iyeyasu temple, and
 the household department attached an official to him during his stay to at tend his movements and provide for
 him in every way. The lord abbot opened up all the treasures, all the inner and most sa-
 cred rooms brought forth costumes and paraphernalia of festival times
 and had acolytes and servitors pose for him. and there never was such sym pathy and mutual admiration as ex-
 isted between Vereschagn and the nSf fv af a month that he remained there. That
 charming scourtly and courteous man
 of the world, the polished bouleyardier
 and big bearded cosmopolitan, appealed
 to them strongly. disarmed them so
 completely by his fl.iendliness. his
 suitability, his appreciation and. above
 all by his professional genius, that tho
 name of Russian was held in different
 esteem in Nikko.
 Ncreschagin remained in Nikko for month, making Il whole series or
 small sketches small for Nereschagin
 as wc know his canvasses in great eA-
 hibitions-and taking voluminous notes
 in small sketchbooks and in pencil
 memoranda. He allowed no one to
 see his canvas sketches and studies nor
 
 cry morning at daylight he went to the temple courts and worked with
 swift intentness until the hour for ad-
 hitting visitors, when he dropped the
 palette and brushes and became wis itor too, roaming with notebook and gnidebook in hand or studying out
 some next viewpoint.
 By o'clock, when visitors had left the temples. he set to work again and
 made the most of fading daylight. sun
 set glow and carly moonlight. Now wo
 may look for q great series of paint
 ings worthily declaring the splendor
 and picturesqueness of the Tokugawa shrlnes, pendants for his great series of paintings of Indian temples and central Asian mosques, paintings So
 widely scattered now that one can only
 see considerable number of them to-
 gether ill the Tretiakoff's gallery at Moscow. i
 Nereschagin was most interested in
 the ancient alt of Japan-the architec- ! ture, the coloring, the landscape set ting and the splendid interiors of Nillko temples and palaces appealed to him,
 and the old pictures and statues. the fine metal work captivated him entire ly.
 In kioto he worked as industriously [ as at Nikko, but Japanese conservatism and reverence for the sanctlty of the ! imperial person could not be sufficient ly overcome to permit him to paint the interior of the old palace there. That palace and the Mic castle. wnere the shoguns lived, he declared the most splendid interiors he had seen, and he
 made every argument to obtain leave to sketch the gold walled rooms, with their flower paneled ceilings
 ! Other rooms there are in Kioto near ly like to those of the palace, and those | he was free to work from, but the home, the living rooms of many sacred emperors, could not be profaned. 1 Vereschagin put no limit to his
 praises of the Japanese people, but
 there can be no doubt that his intena ! ed stay was cut short by the hostile at 1 titude of his country. And the Japa- nese must have been greatly relieved, too, when he got away safely without 1 any indignity being offered or harm done by some crazy patriot. 1 Vereschagin avoided Tokyo and the ! social life and all lionizing. He came l quietly. worked hard and went away after spending barely two months in 1 the country he had long dreamed Of l visiting and where he had intended to ! pass nearly a year 5ss He was among the Japanese entirely,
 and he praised them in his own enthu- siastic, dramatic way. '". 'I tell you they are the best, the
 kindest, the most refined people in the ! world! And how good they have been to me!' .... 5~ '...
 The few foreigners who met him as he strolled about Nikko in the jaunty
 serge suit and panama hat of Trou-
 vile or the boulevards, or, more pic
 turesquely, in the long rubber rain coat with the peaked Capuchin hood that
 completely enveloped him, and as he
 sat watching the festival procession,
 found him the most delightful of en- l thusiastic visitors. His eye was alert