REVIEW
OF

THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING
IN

GONSE'S "L'ART JAPONAIS."
BT

ERNEST F. FENOLLOSA,
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC, UNIVERSITY OF TOKIO, JAPAN.

BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
1885.

Copyright, 1885,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.

All rights reserved.

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

709.52
G58aYf

REVIEW
OF THE

CHAPTER ON PAINTING IN L'ART JAPONAIS.1

THE

new work on Japanese Art, by the famous art
editor and critic, M. Louis Gonse, of Paris, differs
from its predecessors in the following points: It does
not record for us the incomplete and hasty observations
of a traveller ; neither does it attempt to beguile us
with a priori deductions spun out of ignorant enthusiasm and irrelevant philosophy ; neither is it a jumble of
disconnected facts, errors, and curio-dealers' jargon masquerading under cover of pretentious titles and aimless
magnificence. Moreover, it has for its author a trained
writer, whose easy, lucid, and forcible style is a perpetual
attraction; a critic, also, whose high scholarly attainments, joined with a rare sympathetic facility for perceiving good in however novel a form, have specially
fitted him for his delicate task; and, finally, an investigator and collector, whose exceptional position in European art circles has afforded him every opportunity for
research. If, now, we add to these advantages the fact
that several Japanese gentlemen have taken special interest in showing him specimens and furnishing him with
information, it will not appear strange that M. Gonse's
1

Reprinted from the "Japan Weekly Mail" of July 12, 1884.

1008075

4

REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

book is the one which, alone in its own field, merits
the world's serious consideration.
But it is not my purpose on this occasion to attempt
any critical estimate of L'Art Japonais as a whole,
even had I the ability. I must confess to a few general suspicions of error of judgment on the part of the
author; but I speak of these only as an introduction
to the special matter of my review. In the first place,
it seems to me that M. Gonse has made a mistake in
attempting to cover too wide a field. All forms of
Japanese art come within the scope of his inquiry: lacquer, bronze, porcelain, painting, sculpture, and the
rest. Now, in this effort to be encyclopaedic he has
only scattered his forces; for adequately to treat any
single one of these subjects ought to tax the full powers
of a competent specialist. It is to be expected, then,
that at all points the book suffers from a certain degree
of superficiality.
Again, it is hard to understand how M. Gonse, with
all his diligence in research, could expect to find in
Europe alone sufficient material on which to base a positive estimate. In painting, especially, he must have
known that comparatively few representative specimens
have ever left their country for the foreign market.
One might as well think of studying old European
painting by examining the specimens owned in America. A Japanese friend, however, — M. Wakai, the wellknown dealer of Tokio, — undertook to make up some
of these deficiencies for him. This gentleman not only
kindly allowed M. Gonse to use his unpublished notes
on the history of Japanese painting, but he succeeded
in bringing a loan collection of typical specimens from
Japan to Paris, for the special purpose of showing it to

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

5

M. Gonse. We have little hesitation in saying that it
is to these sources of information furnished by M. Wakai that the author owes the greater part of what is
correct in his novel account of Japanese pictorial art.
But two things need to be said here : first, that such
a loan collection could not, in the nature of things,
begin to cover the whole field; and second, that in
such matters it is quite inadequate to trust to any
single authority, however learned. Who can doubt
that, if M. Gonse had been able to spend several years
in careful research on the soil of Japan, he might have
written a far more complete and useful book ?
But our special business in this review is with M.
Gonse's long chapter on Painting. This is at once the
most attractive and the most original part of his whole
work. For, with the exception of a few brief papers
read before learned societies, no intelligible account of
this special art has hitherto been published in European
languages. And I think I am justified in saying that,
without any exception at all, M. Gonse's estimate of
Japanese paintings is the only one by any European
writer which enters into a sufficiently tender and just
sympathy with true Japanese taste and aims. It is not
enough to approach these delicate children of the spirit
with the eye of mere curiosity, or the cold rigid standards of an alien school. One's heart must be large
enough to learn to love as the Japanese artist loves,
before the veil can be lifted to the full splendor of their
hidden beauties. I cannot pay M. Gonse a higher compliment than to say that, from a distant land, he has
been enabled to enter this inner temple of appreciation, still closed as it is to many European residents
on the soil of Japan itself.

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REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

And yet, in the criticism which follows, I have much
fault to find with M. Gonse's facts and criticisms ; but
I trust that he will take also for a compliment this
effort of mine. If it were not that his work were so
good, one would hardly trouble one's self to attempt to
improve it. But M. Gonse has unconsciously laid himself open to the charge of leading the public astray, in
the distinct and positive claim of general accuracy which
he makes at the end of his preface. " I have gone to
the bottom of the matter," he says in effect, " and
although details may be hereafter added, yet my essential conclusions are ultimate and correct." This boast
was undoubtedly an unfortunate one, and M. Gonse
ought to have known better than to make it. Yet, once
made, it has to be dealt with ; and silence would be
friendly neither to M. Gonse nor to his readers. I need
then make no further apology for the earnestness of my
criticism. If, from his work, I rightly judge M. Gonse's
enthusiasm to be genuine, he will be the first to thank
me cordially for errors corrected, or points of importance and interest added.
M. Gonse's chapter on Painting occupies the second
half of his first volume. To the historical and descriptive sketch which fills the first half, I shall refer only
incidentally. He makes a good beginning in estimating painting as the most important of Japanese arts.
He has been almost the first European to see that all
other decorative arts cannot be understood except by
referring back to their basis in pictorial design. Most
foreigners in Japan have heretofore persistently maintained that the Japanese had no art of painting proper.
To them paintings have been only a single species of
curio, to be ranked, under the name of kakemono, side by

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

7

side with porcelain tea-sets, lacquer boxes, embroidered
dressing-gowns, and bronze jewellery. An American
to whom I was once speaking of Japanese pictorial
beauties gave voice to the prevalent perplexity by exclaiming, " B u t do the Japanese have pictures, — real
pictures, you know, in gold frames ? " It is refreshing
to find M. Gonse understanding that Japanese painting is much more than merely decorative, and indeed
worthy to rank side by side with the design of great
European masters.
On page 152 M. Gonse refers to Dr. Anderson as a
collector and a student; but he does not seem to be
acquainted with that gentleman's paper read before the
Asiatic Society, and he mentions his views only as
quoted in the volume of Mr. Reed. It cannot perhaps
be said that our author has added very materially to
the stock of facts presented in Dr. Anderson's paper.
It is in the extent and vigor of his critical estimates
alone that he passes far beyond the range of the latter
writer.
With regard to illustrations of paintings, I may say
here, what I intend to enforce throughout this review,
that M. Gonse has relied too exclusively on printed
collections of copies. In the first place, the copies
themselves, mostly by Tanyu, were not careful reproductions, but only rough notes to supplement memory ;
and, in the second, Japanese wood-engravers, with all
their cleverness, have never learned to reproduce the
gradations of tint in good paintings, but have been satisfied with blotchy black masses which bear no resemblance to the tones of the originals. No wonder, then,
that M. Gonse's reproductions of these engravings are
quite worthless for a comparative study of styles.

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REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

M. Gonse's speculations as to the origin of Japanese
art (see pp. 127, 163, 198) are wild in the extreme.
There is a flavor in Japanese art, he thinks, not to be
found in Chinese. Even Japanese Buddhist art is much
nearer to the graceful excellence of the Indian than to
the hard, ungenial qualities of the Chinese. Persian
influences are continually cropping out. A wave of
Aryan culture, at some time divided into northern and
southern currents by the stubborn boundaries of China,
has been able uncontaminated to push eastward to the
Pacific. Corea also betrays in its art a marked IndoEuropean influence. In short, it is a great mistake to
say that the art of the East has been dominated by
China. But upon what does M. Gonse rely in making
up his estimate of Chinese pictorial art ? If Japanese
painting has been hitherto a terra incognita to European
critics, what shall we say of the art of Ancient China ?
Where has he seen representative specimens of old
Chinese Buddhist painting ? On what grounds can he
assert that the influence of Persia and India has not
passed through the mediumship of China ? It is clear
that M. Gonse entirely misunderstands the nature of
the great Chinese a r t ; and, of course, such wild historical conjectures are out of place in this age of the
world. The mutual relations of the civilizations and
arts of China, Corea, and Japan are now tolerably well
known. It is sufficiently accurate to say that in the
art of painting nearly everything has come from China,
not merely in germ, but in model, with the exception
of a few, and, in some cases, quite brilliant, native original modifications. The pure Japanese element, if it
exists, is a later product of temperament and historical
situation, after the vitalizing contact with China.

IN I/ART JAPONAIS.

9

The history of the pre-Kanawoka period is not so unknown as M. Gonse seems to think. At that time there
was only one school of painting, he asserts, of Chinese
origin (p. 163). This view is quite erroneous. It leaves
out of sight several distinct waves of Corean influence
which preceded the direct contact with China. In fact,
a decided evolution of schools can be traced, quite a
number of original specimens still exist, and even several individualities can be made out. M. Gonse is not
the only writer who makes Kanawoka the opening
painter in the history of Japanese art. Such is the
dictum of the well-known Japanese authority, Honcho
Gwashi, published in the seventeenth century. All subsequent writers on the subject, including Dr. Anderson,
have done no more than quote it. But the demonstrable
fact is that Kanawoka stands at the culminating point
of Japanese art. He is like Phidias in Greek sculpture.
It is against the laws of historic evolution for the climax
to be reached at the outset. During the whole ninth
century a powerful wave of aesthetic influence had been
pouring in from the great Tang dynasty of China ; and
a host of mighty artists, working in the same line with
Kanawoka, preceded and surrounded him, as no more
than the central figure of no earlier than the third great
school in Japan. M. Gonse further falls into the mistake
of most Japanese, of supposing that Kanawoka's style is
commonly very minute and delicate. This is of a piece
with his assertion that the whole school of Tosa originates in Kanawoka. But the fact is that the delicate
Tosa style is in the main a distinct reaction against the
titanic vigor of the Kanawoka conceptions. Having
seen in Paris the alleged painting by Kanawoka belonging to M. Wakai, M. Gonse says that it throws a clear

10

REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

light on the origin of pure Japanese art, there being in
it no Chinese element at all (p. 172). But the truth is
that Kanawoka is the culmination of the earliest wave
of Chinese influence, and that his highest excellences
are almost purely Chinese. Indeed, according to one
account, though by itself untrustworthy, Kanawoka completed his studies in China under Chinese masters. It
may fairly be asked why the Japanese have so widely
fallen into error on these points. The answer is that
Kanawoka has been little more than a name in Japan
since the fifteenth century. The critics of the days of
lyeyasu and his successors, including Tanyu and Yasunobu, were on quite a false track as regards old Buddhist
painting. The traditions in Japan as to authorship originating in those days are worth little ; and the study
of styles from internal evidence, the Japanese, until
lately, have never practised. It is only in the last few
years, when many ancient temples have been forced to
bring out scores of unsuspected treasures to the public
gaze, that, for the first time in four centuries, a sound
critical opinion has been capable of construction.
A word more on the subject of Kanawoka. M. Gonse
makes the assertion that there are only four paintings
by Kanawoka extant in Japan, which are universally
considered by critics to be authentic. He goes on to
give us a list of these four. Now, we feel called upon
to state that the frank particularity of this piece of information is entirely misleading. As to making a list of
the genuine Kanawokas existing in Japan, there has
never been a single serious or trustworthy effort. The
parts of Japan have been practically so isolated, and
owners have been so secretive with their treasures, that
little valuable cataloguing of the works of any artist

IN I/ART JAP0NAIS.

11

has ever been done. And' even of the alleged Kanawokas wrell known in recent centuries, there has been
no unanimity among critics as to genuineness. We say,
from our general knowledge, added to the results of
special inquiry, that, to most of the critics of Japan
to-day, the existence of any one of the four pictures
mentioned by M. Gonse (if I correctly identify them) is
totally unknown ; and of these, two, which I have had
the fortune to see, would be pronounced by every Tokio
critic to be of later date than Kanaw^oka. On the other
hand, from this brief category we find the greatest and
most powerful paintings of Kanawoka owmed in Japan
entirely excluded. We, too, will specify. For us, the
Shotoku Taishi in Ninnaji, Kioto, the Wind and Thunder
Gods in Raikoji, Bizen, and the Shi Ten 0 , formerly in
Todaiji, Nara, are not only the greatest unquestionable
originals of Kanawoka, but absolutely the most stupendous paintings in existence from a native brush, so
far as our personal knowledge extends. We ought perhaps to mention the famous standing Jizo belonging
to the Sumiyoshi family, as also the celebrated Rakan
owned by Yechimata. These are indeed very splendid
pictures; but as to their authorship critics disagree.
As for ns, we have little hesitation in saying that we
consider them productions of a later and more effeminate pen than that of Kanawoka. We think it quite
probable that the future will produce other original
Kanawokas from their present hiding-places, and, with
those already known, make up a total of ten or fifteen
authentic works of the master.
Having concluded his account of Kanawoka, M. Gonse
goes on to mention (p. 174) that Kanawoka had three
famous sons. He does not give their names; but since

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REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

Kanawoka really had only two sons, Ahimi and Kintada,
we take it that he has erroneously included the grandson Kinmochi. Speaking of Hirotaka in a very brief paragraph, he calls him the grandson of Kanawoka. This
is a mistake; he is the great-grandson. The account
of Hirotaka is altogether too meagre. Eanking as one
of the very greatest artists of Japan next to Kanawoka,
he deserves a much more lengthy and appreciative
mention. He did not very closely follow the style of his
ancestor, but combined force, delicacy, and the utmost
nobleness of expression in a way that foreshadows the
future manner of Toba Sojo, Mitsunaga, and Takanobu.
From this time onward, M. Gonse has very little to
say of the ancient masters. In the eleventh century
he knows of Motomitsu only by name ; and of Motomitsu's descendants he knows only one, Takachika
(p. 182), whom he calls the founder of the Kasuga
school, a title which belongs to Motomitsu himself. Of
Chinkai and Takayoshi we hear nothing. On page 179
the Chinese characters of Motomitsu's name are given
as " Tosa Motomitsu." This is a mistake. The name
Tosa is first used as a family name two hundred years
after Motomitsu. M. Gonse asserts that there are not
more than fifty paintings existing in Japan older than
the end of the eleventh century. In this he is surely
mistaken. It may well be that there were only fifty
such known to the old Yedo traditional criticism. But
the researches of the last few years have broken down
these limits. I have seen more than a hundred such
paintings myself, and I have no doubt that many more
are in existence.
M. Gonse quickly passes on to Toba Sojo, in the
twelfth century. This artist, he says, is the founder of

IN I/AKT JAP0NAIS.

13

a school of painting which culminates in Itcho of the
seventeenth century. This is taking a long and blind
leap. The only resemblance between the two artists is
that both sometimes painted humorous sketches. But
of any genetic relation between the two, or of the least
similarity of style, not a trace exists. M. Gonse makes
the mistake of most Japanese, of supposing that the
humorous sketches are the most important of the works
of Toba Sojo. Of his magnificent Buddhist paintings
and works in almost pure Kasuga style, he does not
speak. That any European collection possesses four
authentic rolls by Toba Sojo, we must be permitted to
doubt. The few. genuine rolls by Toba Sojo, unlike his
Buddhist paintings, have been carefully preserved, and
catalogued, in every age. The copies of them are innumerable. The genuine can be counted on the fingers.
They are as much a fixture in Japan as Fujiyama itself.
Stolen scraps may exist in out-of-the-way places. But
no rolls have changed hands for ages.
Toba Sojo is the only artist of the twelfth century
whom M. Gonse mentions; and he does little more than
mention Tsunetaka in the thirteenth. He speaks, however, of the names of others being preserved in history,
such as Keion and Takanobu. But he entirely omits a
score of the greatest artists of Japan, who illuminated
this period in constellated clusters, and made of it perhaps the most brilliant epoch of Japanese art. I t is the
culmination of the power and splendor of that school
which comes the nearest to giving us a pure national
art. I t is an age of supreme delicacy, purity, and
graceful spirituality in Buddhist painting ; but it is
especially the age of superb national historical painting.
I t is then that magnificent rolls, inscribed with scenes of

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REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

court, cloister, country, street, and especially with the
glory and horror of war, were daily issuing from the
ateliers of artists the most facile and inspired. In M.
Gonse's book we find not one word concerning the glories
of Mitsunaga and Keion, the greatest draughtsmen of
J a p a n ; of Tsunetaka and Takanobu; of the divine
Nobuzane ; of Arimune, Genkei, and Genson ; of Tamehisa the superb, with his colors rivalling Titian, and of
Shoga, Rioga, and Tameyuki, the pride and flower of the
Takuma line. All these were men whose works stand
in the very foremost rank of the art of all time. Compared with them, the artists of Tokugawa days seem
scarcely better than pygmies.
The fourteenth century M. Gonse condemns in toto as
an age of military anarchy; and he mentions in it only
two names, one of which, Keishoki, he has put about one
hundred and fifty years too early. But the fact is, this
age was full of the most exquisite painters, whose works
have come down to us in sufficient numbers, and whose
light is dimmed only by the glory of the giants who had
just preceded. Then flourished Kunitaka, Nagataka,
Yoshimitsu, Takakane, Yukimitsu, Mitsuaki, Ariiye,
Ariyasu, Korehisa, Yeiga, Rioson, and a host of others,
whose individualities are quite identifiable. All of these
are great artists, and Yoshimitsu is to be ranked only
just below Mitsunaga and Nobuzane.
If, now, we sum up the results of M. Gonse's exposition down to the opening of the fifteenth century, when
the Chinese renaissance came in, it amounts to this.
Kanawoka, of about the year 880 A. D., was a great
artist, whose works can be known, and style criticised.
One or two of his immediate descendants are known by
reputation. From their time to 1390, a period of four

IN I/ART JAPONAIS.

15

hundred years, it is possible to give only about ten names
at random, with no knowledge or criticism of their styles,
one excepted. It would seem as if a sponge had wiped
out the artistic records of four centuries. But the truth
is, that in this period a hundred artists of the most
exceptional powers rose and flourished; that the epoch
of the purest Japanese art evolved gradually, through
successive schools, to a culmination, in which at least a
dozen supreme masters shared, and then fell off gradually into a decline brilliant with afterglow. Fully a third
of the true history of Japanese painting does not exist
at all in M. Gonse's volume.
Speaking of the Tosa school as a whole, M. Gonse
manifests his ignorance of its true history. He mentions
(p. 180) as the most excellent artists of the school, the
fourth descendant of Tsunetaka, Mitsunobu (fifteenth
century), then Mitsuoki (seventeenth century), and lastly
Mitsuyoshi (eighteenth century). Now, to say nothing
of the fact that Mitsunobu was at least the sixth descendant of Tsunetaka, it can be easily shown that more than
half a dozen artists of the Tosa family were greater
than either of these three mentioned ; and although
we may well include Mitsunobu among the great Tosa
painters, Mitsuyoshi and Mitsuoki are not to be named
in the same breath with those giants. Mitsuoki is, indeed, often clever and beautiful; but Mitsuyoshi stands
to the great Tosas about as art production in the Roman
Empire stands to the work of Phidias.
In Section IV. M. Gonse begins his account of the
art of the Middle Ages. Of this he has been able to present a much fuller and fairer view than we can credit
him with holding of the ancient art. He has seen more
specimens of mediaeval painting. There are more books

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BE VIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

concerning it. Dates are more certain. He estimates
Cho Densu, Shiubun, Sesshiu, and Masanobu highly in
calling them the Massacios and Mantegnas of Japan ; but
it would have been more correct, perhaps, to speak of
them as the Leonardos and Buonarrotis, having reference
not to similarity of style, but to relative historical position.
Then is the culmination of Japan's most naturalistic art.
M. Gonse does well to admit that it is Chinese to the core;
but he greatly errs in his repeated declaration that this
great Chinese art rose for the first time to culmination in
the Ming dynasty. About the high antiquity of the great
Chinese painting he is very sceptical. It did not exist
before the early part of the twelfth century, he thinks.
This period, and the Emperor Kiso, he seems to include
under the Ming dynasty. This twelfth century was indeed a great culminating period of Chinese art, but it
was two hundred years earlier than the Ming dynasty,
and centuries of great artistic accomplishment had preceded it. These great Chinese schools of painting,' reaching full fruition under the Tang and Sung, had already
sunk far into degeneration by the time of the Ming. I t
was not the Ming artists whom Sesshiu, Cho Densu, and
Masanobu took for models. It was mainly the masters
of the Sung, whose influence stamped itself deep into
the whole course of later Japanese production.
It is quite erroneous to assert, as M. Gonse does, that
Cho Densu for the first time in Japan painted a death
of Sakya. All such stories, as well as that no cat was
depicted among the animals, are popular modern tales.
The fact is that the Nehanzo was painted at least as
early as two centuries before the time of Cho Densu.
Tamehisa, Shoga, and Eioga painted it with the utmost
beauty and power. It is not true that the great school of

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

17

Chinese Buddhist painting became first known to Japan
in the days of Cho Densu. I t was already being studied
at the end of the twelfth century. Tameyuki, Tamehisa,
and Shoga were influenced by it. Yeiga early in the
fourteenth century painted in ink. Even apart from
this fact, it is the very gravest mistake to assert, as
M. Gonse does (p. 187), that the style of painting previous to the days of Cho Densu had been invariably
careful and minute. Colossal figures of gods and goddesses, rivalling in power the conceptions of Michael
Angelo, had from time to time been produced. Stupendous ink paintings were not uncommon in the century following Kanawoka. The great Chinese influence
of the Tang had indeed never wholly died out; and Cho
Densu, five hundred years later, did but rekindle into
flame the smouldering heat. A Buddhist might well believe that Cho Densu was a re-incarnation of the spirit
of Kanawoka.
The only design of Cho Densu which our author gives
in illustration is from a printed reproduction of a hasty
sketch by Tanyu. This collection of prints from Tanyu's
copies of designs by many old masters, which M. Gonse
has freely used, he considers to be of the very highest
importance for the history of mediaeval painting. I have
already given my reasons for considering this a sad mistake. The collection is quite worthless as a source of
study to any one except such an accomplished connoisseur as could, from his general knowledge, reconstruct
the originals in imagination.
Of Josetsu, M. Gonse speaks with remarkable freedom. This is the more astonishing as he fails even to
mention artists far better known than Josetsu to Japanese critics. Most educated Japanese have never even
2

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REVIEW OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

heard of him. But our author is correct in attributing
to him a very deep influence on later Japanese art,
though he is wrong in saying that Josetsu was a pupil of
Cho Densu. Their several styles are, in fact, quite unlike.
Cho Densu is the grand, vigorous figure-painter, who appalls us with the vastness of his conceptions. Josetsu is
mainly the delicate landscape-painter, who charms us
with his simple naturalness and beauty. Again, it is
going rather too far to call the latter the founder of the
school of Kano. He has no more connection with Kano
than with any other school of ink painting. All we can
say is that he is one of those who introduced into Japan
the priestly style of Chinese painting in black and white.
But in this sort of influence he is equalled, if not surpassed, by Soga Shiubun, whom M. Gonse never mentions. This Soga Shiubun, who is to be distinguished
from the Japanese priest Shiubun, was, equally with
Josetsu, a Chinese who became naturalized in Japan.
The rival, and perhaps at one time the teacher, of Sesshiu, he is to be ranked among the greatest landscapepainters of any age. Neither does M. Gonse mention
Nen Kawo, the immediate predecessor of Cho Densu and
Josetsu, who, equally celebrated, did at least as much as
they to introduce the pure Chinese style. Noami, too,
another star in this brilliant cluster, is not even named.
The priest Shiubun, pupil of Josetsu, and Sotan, the
pupil of Shiubun, our author passes by with the briefest possible remark. Of the former he says that nearly
nothing is known; and of the latter, by his silence, we
infer that he thinks the same. But the lives and works of
these two artists are quite well known, — far more so,
indeed, than is true in the case of Josetsu. Their landscapes, in grandeur and beauty, rival those of Sesshiu

IN L'ART JAPONAIS.

19

himself. They ought to be made the central figures
of M. Gonse's chapter, instead of mere names. The
same thing ought to be said of his account of Soami
and Jasoku. They ought to have been glorified as the
peers of Sesshiu, rather than slurred over as second-rate
men of whom little is known. All these rank far above
any artist whatever of the last two hundred and fifty
years. And yet, upon the latter period M. Gonse gives
us a hundred pages, while a single page is enough for
the giants of the fifteenth century! This treatment of
his subject fully enforces what I said at the beginning
about M. Gonse's utter lack in opportunities of seeing
in Europe a sufficient number of representative specimens from the greater masters. Who can doubt that if
Noami, Soga Shiubun, Jasoku, Soami, and Sotan had
been names as familiar to him as Hokusai, Yosai, and
Hiroshige, he would have given comparatively little of
his time to the latter ? M. Gonse neglects the old masters, not because he is unable to understand them, but
because he does not really know them.
But our author tries to make amends for previous
shortcomings by giving quite a full and appreciative
account of the first two Kanos, Masanobu and Motonobu.
He makes, however, a very unfortunate mistake in publishing the signatures of the two artists. Under the
characters for Motonobu he writes Masanobu, and vice
versa. Speaking of the works of Masanobu, he mentions
a famous picture of the Three Founders, formerly exhibited in Tokio, and afterward brought by M. Wakai to
Paris. A writer, M. Paul Mantz, in an article published
in the " Gazette des Beaux-Arts," has said that in this
picture Kano Masanobu, having only a vague idea of
the physiognomy of these ancient worthies, must have

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copied most accurately in portrait the faces of three
of his friends. We may say simply of this specimen of
romancing, that the prototypes of the three faces of
Shaka, Boshi, and Koshi appear again and again in Chinese art, and that two out of the three physiognomies
have not the least resemblance to any Japanese type.
Motonobu was undoubtedly a great artist, but far
from being the "prince of Chinese and Japanese painters," as he is represented in a quotation from a native
work. Contrary to popular tradition, I say firmly that,
though more prolific, he is to be ranked just a little
below his father Masanobu. I have no desire to decry
the genius of Motonobu ; but it is an injustice to others
who are less widely known, to give him a position entirely exceptional. Working on to the end of a vigorous
old age, he was enabled, like Sesshiu, to impress his individuality deep into the taste of the time. As founder of
an academic style, he is of the first importance. But,
somehow or other, in the majority of his works we miss
that depth and intensity which startle us, like the voices
of gods, from the mellow-toned sheets of Shiubun, Noami,
Jasoku, and Masanobu. To a certain extent he was the
first prominent victim of a disease which, later on, was
to eat the life out of the black-and-white school of Japanese painting, — the disposition to allow manner gradually to take the place of matter. But in his very greatest
works, especially those of his youth, he scales the heavens and battles with Titans.
M. Gonse admits that he has been enabled to see the
greatness of Motonobu for the first time in specimens
brought by M. Wakai in his loan collection from Tokio.
Up to the very moment of writing his book, he had
seen only inferior and unsatisfactory examples of the

IN I/ART JAP0NAIS.

21

master. But highly as M. Gonse was afterward induced to rank the Old Hogen, we cannot avoid the
suspicion that his appreciation is still inadequate, in
view of the fact that he places his productions lower
than the Ukioye. If M. Gonse had seen a few more
of the masterpieces of this sturdy old patriarch of
Kano, it is quite certain that they would have unceremoniously overturned his Hokusai-crowned pagoda
of generalizations.
The illustrations given in this work of the early
school of Kano have, in several instances, no relation
to the style of Kano at all, being really taken from the
Shijo school of modern Kioto. Especially would we
instance the design of geese on page 196. This is
surely either from Keibun or one of his school.
On page 195 M. Gonse gives an excellent theoretical
statement of the relation of high quality in painting to
calligraphy. It is most true that one who cannot feel
the sesthetic beauty in abstract brush-strokes is in no
position to understand what is most characteristic in
Japanese ink sketches. Touch is far from being the
most important thing in a r t ; but it goes a long way
toward making up the flavor and vitality of what is
characteristically beautiful in a master's work. If this
be true of our own schools of black and white, it is
still more true of the art of the East. As sculpture in
Greece had to conform to the nature of marble and
chisel, so painting here must conform to the nature of
the stiff-haired pencil. We only repeat the dictum
of every Chinese and Japanese critic, when we assert
that painting is but a species of writing. But it would
have been more fortunate for M. Gonse if he could
have made this formula his constant companion and

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practical guide in criticism. We should then have
been spared the inconsistent theory which makes of
Hokusai and his compeers the dominant masters of the
brush in the East. Is Hokusai the man whose strokes
would be dear to the sensitive lover of the art of
Ogishi ? On the contrary, nothing could be more
vulgar, rough, and unlovely than his barbarous system
of penmanship. No doubt there were force and method
in his touch; but so there are in cuneiform inscriptions,
of which, indeed, his dry arrowhead-like strokes often
remind us. It will perhaps be a revelation to M.
Gonse, but it is strictly true, that Hokusai is despised
in Japan, not because he was of low birth and painted
vulgar subjects, but because his pen is as raw as that
of a country bumpkin. If a man in the East were to
write as Hokusai painted, he would be sent back to
school to learn his letters.
M. Gonse at last comes to the great Sesshiu. The
fact that M. Gonse does not fully appreciate Sesshiu
and his influence, is shown by this very postponement
to the end of the chapter. Sesshiu is no odd character
in the fifteenth century, to be marked off from all the
other great masters of the day, by having drunk too
deeply for his good at the well of Chinese taste. He
is the central sun about which the orbits of these
secondary glories circle. Sesshiu is the open door
through which they all looked into the seventh heaven
of Chinese genius. Motonobu, still a young man at
Sesshiu's death, borrowed from him an incredible
amount of his knowledge of design. The irrepressible
vigor of Sesshiu's genius has left a mighty legacy of
treasure to the Japanese people. He is the well from
which all late artists have come to drink the draught

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

23

of immortality.
And yet M. Gonse ranks Sesshiu
below Hokusai and Yosai! The Western world has
still to learn in what the true greatness of Eastern
painting consists. It is not merely in externals and
technique, wThich are easily understood. It is in the
greatness of heart and mind, which are hardly understood at all. The capacity of a painting is measured
by its spiritual depth.
Our author now passes on to Sesshiu's pupil Shiugetsu
(p. 204), whom he ranks as fully equal to the master.
This estimate is far from the truth.
Undoubtedly
Shiugetsu is a good artist, but in intensity and power
quite below the level of Sesshiu. Side by side with
a landscape by Sesshiu, and on the same plate, M.
Gonse reproduces a large kakemono of his own, which
he attributes to Shiugetsu (p. 194). He even traces its
history, and says it was brought from Peking, where
Shiugetsu, four centuries ago, passed some years. This
plate is perhaps the finest in the book; but it unfortunately records one of M. Gonse's gravest errors. He has
been terribly deceived regarding this painting of Shiugetsu. Instead of being a genuine work of the fifteenth
century brought from Peking, it is, on the face of it,
a modern Kioto work of the Shijo school not a hundred
years old. Its style is removed from that of Sesshiu
and Shiugetsu by the whole length and breadth of
three centuries of rapid change. The signature on the
kakemono as reproduced is Shungetsu, the first character
of which name has no resemblance to the " Shiu" of
Shiugetsu, as may be seen by comparing it with the
latter, given in fac-simile of Shiugetsu's signature on
page 204.
With regard to Sesshiu's alleged pupil, Shoyei or

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Togan, M. Gonse has again got strangely mixed up.
According to him, these were one man, Shoyei being
his name while pupil of Kano, afterward changed to
Togan when he became pupil of Sesshiu. Now the
truth is that Kano Shoyei, the son of Motonobu, is said
by some authorities to have been the first teacher of
Togan, who afterward studied the style of Sesshiu, but
long after the latter's death. Chuan, whom he mentions as a great rival of Sesshiu (p. 206), is an almost
unknown man, who never achieved a national reputation. Soga Sojo was probably one of the names of
Jasoku himself, not of Jasoku's son; and the latter
was not the teacher of Chokuan. M. Gonse does not
seem to know that there are two members of the Soga
family named Chokuan, father and son. The date
which he gives for Chokuan belongs to the earlier one,
but the signature and examples are from the son (p.
206). He greatly mistakes in supposing that Chokuan
and his teacher united elements from both the Kano
and Tosa schools. The fact is that the Soga school,
from beginning to end, is the school of all in Japan
most removed from Tosa influence. Our author is right
in saying that during the sixteenth century the school
of Tosa underwent a sort of eclipse. Kano Sanraku he
speaks of as " Samaku."
To review M. Gonse's account of the great culminating period of the fifteenth century, we must say, that,
although more soundly appreciative than that of any
previous writer, it is yet altogether too meagre and
inadequate. Josetsu, Kano Masanobu, Motonobu, and
Sesshiu he mentions as the great artists, but without
understanding their mutual relations or their true
range and character of design.
Motonobu, indeed,

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

25

belongs mostly to the sixteenth century, quite after
the culmination; and greater than either Josetsu or
Motonobu loom up Soga Shiubun, Soga Jasoku, Priest
Shiubun, Noami, Soami, and Sotan, of whom he says
practically nothing.
In the sixteenth century M. Gonse omits all mention
of the innumerable famous pupils of Motonobu, such as
Giokuraku, Suyeyori, Nagamitsu, and Yosetsu; and he
does not even speak of the brother and rival of Motonobu, Kano Utanosuke, who was one of the most powerful artists of all time, and undoubtedly the greatest
bird and flower painter of Japan. Moreover, in the
latter half of the century, he dismisses the giant, Kano
Yeitoku, and his prolific school, with a mere word.
After Motonobu and Utanosuke, Yeitoku is almost the
last great figure in Japanese art, whose heart burns
with the internal fire lit from the torch of the Sung
genius. Out of nothing he created the greatest purely
decorative school of painting that the East has ever
produced. The splendor of life in the brief days of
Hideyoshi's power and luxury was due largely to him.
Ladies and gentlemen moved like gorgeous birds
through palaces and gardens of gold and rainbows.
Temples and castles and spacious halls sprang up all
over the land, with walls and ceilings literally incrusted
with gold and masses of gemlike color from the hands
of Yeitoku, Sanraku, and their pupils. Yeitoku was
the first in Japan to make use of gold leaf in large
masses as a ground for paintings on walls and screens.
But, in addition to this new manner of his own, he
painted with superb power in the old black and white
method of his grandfather's academy. His landscapes
and figures and dragons and tigers are hardly, if at

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all, inferior to those of Motonobu himself. When we
contemplate his versatility, as well as the originality
and vastness of his wOrk, we are sometimes almost
tempted to rank him as the greatest of Japanese
painters. But M. Gonse does not mention his school
and style, nor the names of his companions and pupils.
He is in too much haste to get at the later decorative
school of the Ukioye, which, when compared with
Yejtoku, is like a kitten before a tiger.
M. Gonse, having traversed the sixteenth century
in a page and a half, draws breath at the beginning
of the seventeenth, under the shadow of the great
name and power of the Yedo-founder, lyeyasu. Here
he indulges in another misleading bit of generalization.
He tells us that there have been four great periods
of culmination in Japanese art, — one in the ninth century, one in the fifteenth, one in the seventeenth, and
the last at the commencement of the present century.
Later on, he informs us that this most recent one is by
far the greatest of the four. Now, it is true that there
have been four culminating periods; and they are
rightly placed by M. Gonse, with the exception of the
third. This should be taken away from the seventeenth century, and set back to the year 1200 A. D.
Our author entirely omits the great culminating epoch
of Nobuzane, Mitsunaga, and Keion; while he interpolates a Tokugawa culmination, which, in the art of
painting at least, never occurred at all. Moreover, the
fourth period reaches its height, not with Hokusai in
Yedo, as M. Gonse imagines, but with Okio and Ganku
in Kioto, who, although great for modern days, cannot
compare in power and depth with the leaders of any
one of the three preceding periods.

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

27

I have said that there is no culmination in the seventeenth century; rather is there a fearful decline. In
fact, Japanese art had hardly reached such a low ebb for
eight hundred years. It is in vain that one points to
the all-dominating genius of Tanyu. Tanyu, although
indeed an artist of great excellence, drew a large part
of his inspiration from his great Chinese and Japanese
predecessors; and while we admit that he elaborated
a spirited technique of his own, yet he lacks sadly in
depth and sincerity. He wakes up the last expiring
coals of the great classic epoch into a final brilliant
flame, which goes out in almost perfect darkness. So
absolutely did he absorb into himself all the art forces
of his day, that nothing was left for an enormous train
of flatterers, pupils, and successors, but mechanically to
copy his external traits. The very success of his academy is the ruin of the Kano art. His greatness has
been much exaggerated in later days. The humble
slaves of his genius have ever looked back upon him
as the greatest artist of Japan. They see all art only
through his eyes. He is the veil which shuts out from
them the true perspective of past glories. The other
great original artists of the century — Sansetsu, Sotatsu,
Itcho, and Korin — stand out like oases in a dreary
waste.
In his formal generalization as to the comparative
value of this seventeenth century and the preceding
one, M. Gonse reasons wholly upon theory, and not
upon fact. The sixteenth century, he says, was full of
wars and religious troubles. The seventeenth, on the
contrary, was an era of profound peace under a strong
government. It is only in days of peace that the fine
arts can flourish, our author writes (p. 207). Thus the

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painting of the last part of the sixteenth century has
fallen into great weakness, while the peaceful rule of
Tokugawa ushers in a decided improvement in the art.
Now, there could hardly be a greater mistake than all
this. The school of Yeitoku and Sanraku at the end of
the sixteenth century reaches the height of power and
splendor. It is not so deep as the work of an earlier
age ; but it is replete with that technical and gorgeous
decorative quality which M. Gonse seems best to understand and love. He has missed what to him would
have been perhaps the most astonishing revelation of
Japanese art. On the other hand, in the seventeenth
century, the Japanese mind fell largely into indolence
and triviality. There was no healthy outlet for greatness under the crushing despotic political system. Society was occupied with innumerable formalisms and petty
conceits. What had once been the living rules and
ideals of living heroes dwindled away into romantic
traditions and unreal affectations. It was then that the
Japanese learned to be dissipated and deceitful. Puppet-shows and cock-fights and courtesans and midnight
escapades now absorbed the energies of the young
bloods whose grandfathers had conquered Corea. The
art of this period reflects truly the character of the
times. The greater part of it is taken up with representations of the famous public women of the day,
of actors and jugglers and drunken gentlemen and
beastly obscenities ; with irreverent caricatures of gods,
the gloss and glitter of fine garments, trivial half-minute
sketches which drove wild the shallow-pated bibbers of
tea, and old Chinese designs in their twentieth dilution
to suit the delicate taste of the age. No doubt the Yedo
despots were well pleased to see the dear people so

IN L'ART JAPONAIS.

29

happy and contented with their innocent amusements.
There are, of course, many delightful and some new
characteristics of the art of this epoch; but it has a
decided childishness and insincerity about it. The spiritual element has all fled j and the materialistic gayety
which remains can never be mistaken for true artistic
inspiration.
But let us follow M. Gonse in detail. He does well
to praise Sansetsu very highly. Kano Sansetsu, indeed,
is a splendid and original artist, to whom the Japanese
have seldom accorded due consideration. But though
living in the seventeenth century, he is the last representative of the earlier Kano style, and, in short, an
anachronism. He alone refuses to be touched by the
all-solvent manner of Tanyu. He belongs properly
with the great men of the sixteenth century. Shokwado, M. Gonse decidedly overpraises. His art is mostly
a joke, an affectation, loved by formalistic tea-men and
pseudo-literary dilettanti. Of Sotatsu (p. 212) very little is said, while many pages are afterwards devoted
to Korin. M. Gonse does not mention Sotatsu, as he
ought, among the teachers of Korin (p. 233). I t is
largely from the sketches of Shokwado, our author
thinks, that Korin derives his peculiar manner. This
is far from the truth. There are no relations whatever
between Korin and Shokwado. On the other hand, it is
a well-known fact, that whatever is great and splendid
and characteristic in Korin is still greater and more
splendid in Sotatsu. Sotatsu is the greatest flowerpainter of Japan, with the exception of Kano Utanosuke. He is also to be ranked among the greatest
colorists. The other name of Naonobu is given by
M. Gonse as Kadzuma, but erroneously (p. 212). The

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name is really to be pronounced Shume, or Shumenosuke. Naonobu is indeed a good artist, and did much
to help Tanyu to rivet the fetters of the later Kano
school. But he is not to be called one of the greatest
artists of Japan, by any means. M. Gonse speaks of
Tanyu as a great connoisseur of old paintings (p. 215).
This is true in so far as paintings of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries are concerned. His certificates of
genuineness accompanying these are of great value.
But of the old Buddhist and Tosa schools he, like most
others of his day, knew comparatively little; and he is
somewhat untrustworthy in old Chinese paintings. M.
Gonse appreciates to the full the beauties of Mitsuoki
(p. 216), but he ranks him far too high as an artist.
He is a weakling compared to the great men of Tosa.
Undoubtedly he has those effeminate and technical
excellences which foreigners generally find the easiest
to understand; but of deep artistic insight and grasp he
possesses little. He is best in delicate flower-painting,
and is also celebrated for quails.
Of Ukio Matahei, M. Gonse speaks as follows (p. 219):
He was the first to paint pictures of the common people,
dancing girls, prostitutes, countrymen, and every-day
street scenes. He is to be called the first ancestor
of Hokusai. He was despised as an artist because his
subjects were low and common. Neither Kano nor Tosa
had ever so demeaned themselves as to paint subjects
despised by the aristocracy. In short, Matahei and his
successors were the first to open the field of Japanese
life as a whole.
Now, the above is "a text a propos of which several
lessons may be enforced. In the first place, it is not
true that the field of national life and custom has been

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

31

claimed for the first time by the so-called Ukioye artists,
of whom Matahei is the earliest. The great artists of the
second culminating period in Japan (about 1200 A.D.),
which M. Gonse entirely ignores, — Mitsunaga, Keion,
Nobuzane, Takanobu, Tsunetaka, Yoshimitsu, and hosts
of other masters of the early Tosa school,—illuminated this whole field with their transcendent genius,
in a manner which the later popular painters, from Moronobu to Hokusai, cannot begin to approach. In fact,
down to the sixteenth century there had never been a
time in the history of the Tosa school when its artists
did not love to paint the life of the common people in
every form, and when emperors and nobles did not
think these subjects worthy of profound interest and
sympathy. It is the coming of purely Chinese influence in the fifteenth century which created that literary and cultured aristocracy to which M. Gonse refers.
Undoubtedly, for a couple of hundred years interest in
Japanese life was on the wane in high circles. Chinese classicism was the vital inspirer of the third great
Japanese art culmination. But by the end of the sixteenth century this movement was already far on the
road to decay; and by the seventeenth, the resumption
of interest in Japanese affairs had become quite general
and spontaneous. It must not be supposed, however,
that the Kano school had, up to this time, identified
itself solely with the Chinese movement, as M. Gonse
implies. On the contrary, the very earliest Kanos, including Motonobu himself, often painted the ordinary
scenes of Japanese life with great spirit and splendor.
The guests in the salon and the cooks in the kitchen,
the housemaids gossiping and the betto joking, the
prince mounted on his richly caparisoned steed and the

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wayside beggar covered with sores, the insolent soldier
and the obsequious farmer, all found place in their kaleidoscopic panorama. In fact, it is the illustrious Kano
Sanraku who originated the style of Matahei himself;
and many pictures attributed to the latter are probably
by the former. So much for the subjects of the Ukioye.
But now, in the second place, why have the paintings
of modern Ukioye artists been mostly despised by Japanese connoisseurs ? Is it, as M. Gonse says, because
their subjects were vulgar ? To assert this is a grave
mistake. If it were so, we might well ask why the
paintings of equally homely life by the early Tosa artists and the great Kano have been treasured by native
enthusiasts of all classes and in all ages as worth many
times their weight in gold. Even Matahei himself has
never been despised by the native connoisseurs as Hokusai has been despised. Indeed, the paintings of Matahei have ever been held in very high esteem. The key
to the understanding of all this, is the fact that vulgarity has not been in general associated with subjects
as such, but with their method of treatment. Matahei has
been admired because his style of painting is not vulgar.
His Ukioye is treasured because its " quality " is high.
So in the case of Kano Motonobu ; his conception and
execution are those of an artist, not those of a street
juggler. So of the paintings of beggars and servants
and farmers by Mitsunaga and Nobuzane, no educated
Japanese will deny that they " enter the divine sphere,"
and go deeper into solid artistic conception than even
the most fairy-like scenery of Shiubun, Sesshiu, and
Soami. But when we come down to the Ukioye of
Utagawa, of Shunsho and Hokusai and Hiroshige, and
the rest, all this is sadly changed. Their works are

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33

despised, not because the subjects are vulgar, but because their form of painting is vulgar. Clever undoubtedly they may often be in externals; but however it
may appear in their engravings, in their paintings their
conception, touch, and general technique are without
refinement or depth. It may be difficult to specify in
words to the inexperienced just in what this vulgarity
consists. But it might be equally difficult to explain to
a Japanese the patent difference between the clever
newspaper poetry written for country journals and the
verses of a genuine singer. The ordinary Asiatic cannot see why a chromo-lithograph is not quite as good
as a fine oil-painting. No European would think of
mistaking the saloon lounger, with his pomade and
diamonds and showy clothes, for a gentleman. What
is it in the last analysis that instantaneously betrays the
gentleman to a refined eye ? It is hard to say, but it
is perfectly clear. So in the case of Hokusai and the
Ukioye, we miss all that indefinable something which
is implied in the word " taste," and we hear only the
clever talk of the barber and bar-tender, or the unpoetical song of the rural poet, or the absurd masquerading
of a second-class actor who is not at heart a gentleman.
We have no desire to impose classicality or aristocratic
notions upon Art, and we are well aware that many a
precious gem is found in the rough; but the heart at
least must be pure, and the purity must become an external fact and manifest to all eyes, before transcendent
excellence can be allowed.
Our author speaks well of Hanabusa Itcho (p. 221);
but he is not well acquainted with his true range and
character. We admit that Itcho is a very fine humorous painter indeed; but he is far more. In his paintings
3

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in classic style, and especially in his Buddhist paintings,
he has not been surpassed by any artist since Tanyu.
With Nobuzane and Tamehisa and Sotatsu, he may be
ranked among the greatest colorists of Japan. M. Gonse
says that it is Hiroshige who carried to perfection the
style of Itcho. Poor Itcho!
M. Gonse ranks Tsunenobu altogether too high as
one of the greatest artists of Japan (p*. 227). He is
hardly more than a very clever imitator of Tanyu.
Still, in the better works of his youth, there remains a
spark of the divine fire. Koyetsu, the lacquerer, ought
not to have been placed among the great painters of
Japan. Man of high taste though he was, his real
achievement lies in his decoration of lacquer; and as
a painter he was only the merest amateur. His influence upon Korin as a painter is nothing as compared
with that of Sotatsu. M. Gonse's enthusiasm over a
heron by Tsunenobu, comparing it in power with a
study of Eembrandt (p. 228), is a piece of criticism in
the right direction. We only wish he would be equally
enthusiastic over the still greater works of the older men.
The criticism which seems to prevail among Europeans
in Japan, who have read M. Gonse's work, is that he
decidedly overpraises Japanese painting. I have been
asked several times whether this is not the truth. My
reply has always been, that the chief excellence of
M. Gonse's work lies in the fact that he is the first
European writer to perceive distinctly the absolute
artistic worth of Japanese painting in general. It is
not merely a barbaric curiosity, it is not merely sketching, it is not merely decorative, it is not merely conventional ; but it is honest and absolute painting in its
highest sense, and worthy of comparison with European

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35

masterpieces. The only fault I have to find with M.
Gonse in this regard is a lack of correct judgment in
distributing his praise among the several schools and
artists.
M. Gonse makes Shohaku one of the greatest painters
of the school of Kano, and he places him at the end of
the seventeenth century (p. 228). The truth is that
Shohaku is a contemporary of Okio, and belongs to the
Soga family. His style has nothing whatever of Kano
influence in it. He is an anachronism in Tokugawa
days. H e has been transplanted from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. He is a re-birth of the spirit
of Soga Shiubun or Soga Jasoku. Our author speaks
of Rinrio as a celebrated Japanese painter at the end of
the seventeenth century. He says Japanese esteem
him very highly. We should think they did, and ought
to, considering that he is the greatest Chinese artist of
the whole Ming dynasty!
M. Gonse, in Sectioit VI., passes on to the period of
Genroku. He says that Dutch influence had little effect
on art in Japan. In this we are prepared to say that he
is quite mistaken. This view of the matter, I believe,
has never before been published ; but it is certain that
most of the characteristics of the later art of Japan
would never have existed but for this sinister European
influence. The art of M. Gonse's own favorite Hokusai,
indeed, is an art debased by a large proportion of this
very mixture. He has neither the purity of Eastern nor
of Western art. He is of mongrel breed.
Of Korin our author gives the most appreciative and
well-judged account of any in the whole book (p. 231).
He thoroughly understands the genius of Korin. He
perceives that his excellence lies, not in his extraordi-

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nary manner, but in his high and poetic feeling. He
admits that at first the strange style of Korin was rather
repulsive to him; but that, on " taking pains " to place
himself at the " Japanese aesthetic point of view/' he
has been enabled to perceive an " inexpressible charm,"
an "harmonious rhythm," and a " sureness of synthesis,"
which justify his being ranked among the first of Japanese artists (p. 232). Now, all this is admirable, and
exactly to the point. But we cannot withhold here an
exclamation of profound pain that M. Gonse has not
applied the same high and sufficient tests in estimating
the worth of all the other great painters in Japan. If
in the case of Kanawoka and Nobuzane and Sesshiu
and Jasoku and Yeitoku, and a score of others, he had
taken equal pains to put himself at t h e " Japanese point
of view," had equally striven to perceive subtle spiritual
meaning and noble purity of taste beneath unfamiliar
externals, the greater part of this criticism would have
been rendered superfluous. We should then have been
spared the disgrace of seeing Hokusai elevated over the
heads of the masters of the ages. We cannot here do
better than allow M. Gonse to correct his own mistake.
He writes on page 233: " The taste of the great public,
blunted by the overseasoned dishes of recent concoction,
has to-day no relish for the choice and aristocratic flavor
of the art of Korin. On the other hand, collectors and
critics of true refinement worship Korin as a demi-god."
Is this the same critic who, on other occasions, condemns
the aristocrats for their narrowness of view, and joins
the " g r e a t public" in lauding Shunsho, Hokusai, and
other sensational delineators of actors? We have no
disposition to hunt up superficial contradictions in our
author's pages; but this discrepancy is so fundamental

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37

that the total problem of Japanese art criticism is involved in it. The fact is that the lovers of the aesthetic
beauties of Korin are the very men who utterly condemn
Hokusai's coarseness. Korin and Hokusai stand at just
the opposite poles of Japanese taste. If M. Gonse's
method of estimating the excellences of Korin is correct, then his ill-judged praise of the Ukioye is entirely
wrong. On the other hand, if Hokusai is the greatest
of Japanese painters, then the lovers of pure and aristocratic taste have made a sad mistake. If M. Gonse
really appreciates the purity and nobleness in Korin, as
he alleges, we may safely predict that he is fairly on the
road to the greatest temples of Japanese art, and that in
time he will worship there alone.
On page 236 M. Gonse speaks of Mitsuyoshi as the
most delicate and elegant master of the school of Tosa.
But he is, at best, only a tolerable imitator of Mitsuoki.
It is not he who is specially celebrated for quails, but
his grandfather; and it is .not he who worked out an
original line of painting in the Tosa school, but his son
Mitsusada. Bitsuo has no great celebrity as an artist.
It is men who love the curious rather than the excellent that care for him. Yosen and Isen are mentioned
(p. 240) as the last great celebrities of the Kano school;
but, like Dr. Anderson, M. Gonse takes no notice of
Yeisen, the father of Yosen, who was far greater than
either of his descendants. Pacing page 240, an illustration is given of a study by an artist of the school of
Korin, as the author alleges. But the fact is that the
style of this design has nothing whatever to do with
Korin, being a perfect specimen of the school of Goshun.
Of Goshun, whom he calls Goshin, M. Gonse has considerable to say (p. 243). Goshun, he says, is the real

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OF THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

founder of the Shijo school of Kioto ; and his style is
purely Japanese, with not a trace of Chinese influence.
This school of Goshun our author places side by side
with that of Okio, and separate from it. In fact, he
succeeds in making Goshun the dominating spirit of the
age, rather than Okio. All this is quite misleading.
Goshun was undoubtedly a painter of repute before the
astonishing development of Ohio's genius; but at that
time he was painting in the style of his master Buson,
a style filled to overflowing with modern Chinese influence. I t was the beauty, clearness, and force of Okio's
work which for the first time awakened Goshun to the
possibility of a grander career. Although Okio may
have politely refused to take his elder as a pupil, yet it
is directly from Okio, and no one else, that Goshun took
all those qualities which M. Gonse admires in him, and
which alone, among the several styles of Goshun, he
seems to be acquainted with. Thus Okio, not Goshun,
was the true founder of the Shijo school; and though
Goshun proved a worthy coadjutor in popularizing the
new movement, and though his pupils may have taken
the name of their master rather than that of Okio, yet,
as a fact, the methods of the two ateliers were practically
identical, and the two together formed what is rightly
to be called the Okio or Shijo school. It is strange
that, overestimating the importance of Goshun, as our
author does, he should have almost entirely ignored the
stupendous Ganku, the one artist of modern Kioto who
may fairly be counted as Okio's successful rival. The
school of Ganku really has existed side by side with that
of Okio, as a decidedly separate influence, down to the
present d a y ; and, as a fact, with the exception of Shohaku, Ganku is the only artist of recent times worthy

IN L'AKT JAP0NAIS.

39

to be ranked almost on a level with the great masters of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
M.Gonse speaks of Torei as a pupil of Goshun (p. 243),
and one of the greatest of Kioto artists. The reason undoubtedly is that an unusually fine specimen of Torei
has happened to fall under his eye. . But one cannot
fairly judge of relative ranks from single specimens. A
rarely fine work of a second-class pupil is often greater,
in such externals as easily strike the foreign eye, than a
common every-day work of the master. The specimen
produced of Torei is indeed very fine, but it is entirely
in the manner of Nanping, and has nothing of Goshun
about it. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that
Torei was ever a pupil of Goshun, and he is regarded
in Japan as one of the lesser satellites of Okio's sun.
The other names of pupils of Goshun, which our author
gives, betray his imperfect basis of classification. Of
these, the Seisen he mentions can be no other than
Kano Seisen of an entirely different line ; Renzan is the
famous pupil and heir of Ganku; Zaichu is a pupil of
Okio, and Soshizan belongs to the school of Nanping.
Our author, on page 247, gives Yusho as the name of
Okio's teacher, instead of Yutei. He says that Okio had
two distinct manners, one strong and free, like that of the
great Japanese masters, and belonging to his early age,
and later a more formal manner derived from the Chinese.
It is the former of these, M. Gonse thinks, upon which
his reputation mostly rests. This generalization is, however, quite untrustworthy. Okio had indeed a rough
manner of painting, as well as a delicate one. But in
this he was not unlike all the celebrated Chinese and
Japanese artists of an earlier day; and, as with them,
this distinction had no relation to age or reputation.

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REVIEW 0E THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING

He produced in both, side by side, according to subject
or mood, just like Tanyu or Motonobu. Of the four
pupils of Okio mentioned in this work, Ippo and Tozan
are pupils of Tessan. A far greater number than four
should have been included in the category of Okio's
best pupils. M. Gonse seems greatly to admire the style
of Ippo, whom he calls Itspo; but in his alleged signature he gives us the name of quite a different man,
namely, the Ippo who belongs to the school of Hanabusa
Itcho. The second characters, ho, of the two names are
utterly unlike.
Of Sosen (p. 250) our author gives a very fine and
appreciative estimate. Sosen and Korin are, of all, the
only artists whom he treats with perfect justice. The
illustrations which he gives of designs by Sosen are beyond all praise. With the exception of the landscape
by Sesshiu, they are about the only first-class designs
in the whole book. M. Gonse has well remarked, what
seems to be ignored here by both Japanese and foreign
residents, that the greatness of Sosen lies by no means
in his paintings of monkeys alone, but that he is absolute master in representation of all species of animal
life. It ought not to be inferred, however, that only
the rougher paintings of monkeys by Sosen, mostly on
paper, are genuine, and that the most delicate ones,
with lines like the finest hair, are always false. It is,
indeed, these latter that the forgers have mostly imitated, the former being beyond their powers; and it is
also true that the former are generally the best. But
the latter do exist in considerable numbers.
M. Gonse makes the mistake of supposing (p. 253)
that the name " Shijo," in the title " Shijo School," is that
of a celebrated professor of the academy. It really means

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

41

" Fourth Avenue." and refers to a street in Kioto. The
illustration of birds given on the same page M. Gonse
erroneously ascribes to the school of Okio. I do not
believe that any of Okio's pupils could possibly have
painted such bad birds. They are out and out of the
school of Hokusai, and bad enough to be by the master
himself. M. Gonse mentions Hoyen as one of the best
of modern landscape-painters; but he does not seem to
know that Hoyen is the greatest pupil of Keibun, the
brother of Goshun. He has evidently been greatly deceived with regard to Chikuden. Chikuden is really
the prince of the school of modern Chinese taste, which
M. Gonse mostly and rightly ignores, — the so-called
Bunjingwa, — and has no relation whatever to Ganku and
Buncho, with whom he is ranked (p. 255). Where in
the world M. Gonse got the idea that Kano Yusen was
a director of the school founded by Korin, we cannot
imagine. Hoitsu he somewhat overrates.
We must now plunge with our author into a most
exaggerated eulogy of the artists of the modern vulgar schools (p. 259). On this ground for the first time
M. Gonse has obtained material for original study. No
one before him has given in European languages such a
full account of the Ukioye. But even on this ground,
where he is most at home, both by disposition and
information, he falls into several mistakes. He pronounces the characters in the name of the first Miyagawa " Nagaharu," instead of Choshun. Afterward he
speaks of Choshun as a son of Nagaharu. He also affirms that Katsukawa Shunsui is the name taken in
later life by Miyagawa Shunsui. But the best authorities make the former, Katsukawa, a different man, and
a pupil of Miyagawa. Shunsho, a pupil of the first

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Katsukawa, he considers one of the greatest artists of
Japan (p. 262). In force, color, and grandeur of style,
we are told, he rises to the summit of artistic excellence. Now, here one cannot do too much to correct
the false impression which our author gives. We grant
that Shunsho's published works, as specimens of colorprinting from wood, may be among the most remarkable, and even in some cases splendid; but, as a painter,
he is so very unsatisfactory as hardly to be worthy of
mention as a good artist at all. Even in his printed
designs we cannot find the vigor and elegance which
M. Gonse so praises ; but it is not our purpose to enter
into any criticism of such work. As a painter, he must
be judged from his paintings; and in these we find a
certain softness and delicacy, but no other good quality. He is not so vulgar in his conceptions as Hokusai,
and that is one point in his favor; but in vigor and
originality he cannot compare for a moment with Hokusai. His fame arose from his being the head of a prolific school of designers, who supplied the street prints
of popular actors, during a period when the Japanese
theatre proper, amid public enthusiasm, was evolving its
characteristic forms. Utagawa Toyoharu, who is mentioned in connection with Shunsho, is, as it appears to
us, a far greater artist than the latter. He is less vulgar, his colors are finer, and his designs may fairly be
called elegant. Teisai Hokuba (p. 266) is considerably
overrated. Toyokuni he should have ranked as one of
the best artists of the school. But where, in M. Gonse's
account of Ukioye painters, shall we find the long list
of successors of the veteran Torii Kionobu ? With the
exception of giving the name of the founder, he does
not mention the school, although it holds almost as

IN L'ART JAP0NAIS.

43

conspicuous a place in the history of popular painting
as the whole school of Katsukawa.
But, after all has been said about the Ukioye artists,
the truth remains that they are hardly worthy, with the
exception of the first Miyagawa, to be ranked among
Japan's masters of painting. Clever as designers of
prints to be hawked about the street, they undoubtedly were ; but it ought surely to require more than
this to place them near the head of the list. Indeed,
in their popular function and their artistic merit, they
came very near to the point of standing toward Eastern
art, as the designs in the present New York " P u c k "
do* to Western ; and M. Gonse makes himself almost as
absurd in the eyes of Japanese as a Japanese would
make himself in the eyes of M. Gonse if, in writing a
treatise on the history of Western painting, he should
seriously speak of the genial Mr. Keppler as the legitimate successor of Apelles, Velasquez, and Reynolds.
Our author now comes to Hokusai (p. 269), to whom
he devotes a whole chapter of panegyric. " He may
be ranked beside the most eminent artists of our own
race. . . . His color, as well as his execution, have in
his later works an incomparable force and splendor. . . .
That which first strikes us in some of the paintings of
Hokusai is a seductive elegance which intoxicates us
like the perfume of flowers. . . . His pencil seems to dematerialize itself in following with sympathetic ecstasy
each phase of his tender inspiration. . . . It is then that
Hokusai has the unaffected frankness of a gentle soul
lifted far above the noises of the world. . . . Hokusai,
says M. Duret, is the greatest artist that Japan has produced. " Now, how far these estimates are based upon
such a careful criticism, and such a sympathetic effort

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to understand the depth of Japanese genius, as would
warrant our author's persisting in them, even after the
last word has been said about Eastern painting; or how
far he has been biassed by the extraordinary overestimates prevailing among other foreign writers, due to
the fact that, in their t ignorance of all else, they look at
everything Japanese, and especially Japanese art, only
through the eyes of Hokusai, — we cannot well determine. But, however it be, we utterly dissent from the
character of his conclusions; for, in the first case, it is
easy to see that our author's eyes are blind, and, in the
second, that he has to learn much more about Eastern
excellences in order to distinguish what is proper and
pure in them from the qualities of alien schools. Some
people admire poetry in proportion as it approximates
to word-painting. Others appreciate music and sculpture for the story they are supposed to tell. But this
is to ignore the utter differences of the several languages in which the arts speak to us, and to have no
taste for that pure expression of the peculiar innate
possibilities of each, required by their several laws. I t
is the same with radically distinct schools of painting.
To admire, as typical in Eastern art, that painter whose
qualities are the farthest removed from the genius of
that art, being the nearest approximation to the qualities of European, is to confess one's self to have no taste
for the special flavor of the former. This implication
may seem to contradict what we have previously said
as to M. Gonse's special attainments. But the contradiction is not in u s ; it is in M. Gonse. We are continually provoked with him for vacillating between two
entirely irreconcilable standards.
Our author seems to indorse the mistake of others

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45

in supposing that Hokusai's influence brought to the
highest perfection the whole series of the decorative
arts. The artisan artist, so much spoken of by Anderson and Jarves, was indeed an interesting sociological
phenomenon. But we deny that the artistic character
of sculpture and decoration was, as a whole, bettered by
having its foundation in Hokusai's design. Bather is it
clear to us that the prevailing vulgarity of the latter
decidedly lowered the tone of the former. We cannot
too much enforce the fact that, as we look at the matter, and according to the opinion of all Japanese critics,
Hokusai's painting is vulgar, not because it deals with
vulgar subjects, nor because Hokusai was not a man of
rank, but because it is vulgar in its manner, and almost
always in its conception. We grant readily that he is
a designer of great originality and vigor, that his printed
books are marvels of technical skill, that his range of
subject is wider than that of any other Japanese artist,
and, finally, that his art is, as M. Gonse says, more
human. He breathed in the atmosphere of homely low
life as naturally and fully as Phidias inspired that of a
world of gods. But a painting is not a good or great
painting merely because it deals with the doings of common people, and mimics, however cleverly and laughably, points which are interesting to common minds.
Genre is great when it reaches true pathos, as in the
case of Millet. The greatest works of the classical
Italian period hardly surpass his delineation of peasants,
for nobility, spirituality, and depth. But then, Millet
was a rare soul. Hokusai, on the contrary, was of
coarse grain, and became at best only a caricaturist.
Neither are we obliged to admit that his range of subject of itself points him out as an artist of high quality.

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It is not how much we do, but how much we do well,
that tells. I take it that wide range of subject has done
less than nothing in giving Gustave Dore high rank.
Neither shall I admit Hokusai's cleverness as an engraver and a designer for engraving, to be at all decisive in settling his rank among the painters in Japan.
M. Gonse himself quotes M. Duret, who says (p. 290):
" If we wish to compare Hokusai with European artists, it is not among painters that we can classify him,
but we ought to consider him solely as a designer, and
compare him with masters of design and engraving."
Now, if it be true that Hokusai stands thus toward European art, why should they not admit that he stands in
the same relation toward Japanese art? And yet,
in his final section, when he gives us a summary view
of Japanese painters, M. Gonse says that Hokusai crowns
the evolution of Japanese art as its most brilliant and
exquisite representative. Now, the truth is, that, while
Hokusai as a designer for comic prints and caricatures
is without a rival, and while in his engraved works his
defects of method are less conspicuous than in his paintings, yet as a designer, whether for engraving or painting, his work cannot be compared for a moment with
the grand serious conceptions of the masters of either
Europe or the East. In his paintings, Hokusai falls very
low indeed. They are often blotchy, bad, ill-conceived,
common. His pictures of gods look to us like dressedup coolies and ranting actors. Those brutal faces; those
sloppy unformed brush-marks, the farthest removed from
all that is beautiful in calligraphy; those dirty stains
of color, often compounded of medicinal ingredients
bought at an apothecary's, — these are the well-known
qualities which neither originality nor vigor enables us

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47

to forgive. Vigor, originality, rapid instantaneous fecundity, these are qualities which every great artist needs;
but they are the signs of great art only when united and
concentrated on high artistic aims. That the aim of
Hokusai and his contemporaries of the Ukioye was
really low, foreigners cannot understand who have not
mixed for some time with the common people in the
large cities of the Empire. They cannot see why the
innumerable phases of Japanese life are not represented
in the Ukioye with serious artistic purpose. Thus, one
writer, in speaking of the two types of Japanese face,
describes, as characteristics of the aristocratic physiognomy, the long noses, oval faces, oblique eyes, and high
eyebrows which have become the ideal type for actors.
Another recent writer gives us an illustration of a vulgar fat courtesan, and describes it as a Japanese lady of
high rank in full dress. I t is not uncommon in such
books to find figures of Chinese adults and children passing for typical Japanese. A common exclamation of
foreigners in looking at paintings of Chinese subjects
is, "I like that, it is so Japanese ! " If then, the untrained eye cannot recognize the difference between the
character and surroundings of Chinese life and those of
Japanese, how can it be expected to appreciate the distinction between high and low among Japanese themselves, or between what is genuine in Japanese life and
the masquerades and caricatures of it which have become
popular in the theatre ? Speaking of surimono in Toyokuni style, one writer asserts that these portraits are the
types one meets every day in the streets. The truth is
that they were never seen off the boards of the stage,
and on them only at the point of an exaggerated and
conventional expression of some supreme passion or

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dramatic climax. The pictures of ladies too, whose tall
forms and small heads we find some European critics
praising, are nothing but male actors taking female
parts. When these artistic purveyors to a low popular
taste were not representing actors, it was the famous
courtesans of the day that they loved to draw; and
such drawings had not even the merit of being faithful
studies from nature, since they deliberately conventionalized these portraits to make them conform to the
stage type. I t is true that Hokusai himself was not
always deliberately drawing figures of actors; but even
when not, his conceptions were everywhere tainted by
such perverted ideals. His faces of men, when not like
actors, are almost never like actual Japanese of any other
than the more brutal sort, and his women are almost
always like courtesans. Even his very birds are coarse
and vulgar, with heads quite like people of the lowest
caste. He saw life through a vulgar eye, quite as the
hostlers and pimps and people of the lower classes generally saw it, who had no diversion or range of ideas beyond that afforded by the theatre, Ukioye prints, novels,
and Yoshiwara. This is the source of the general misconception as to the aspect of Japan and the Japanese
among Europeans. If the sporting new^s of the present
day in Europe and America could command, for its
illustrations, designers of the highest talent, we should
admit that such work satisfied indeed a wide-spread
popular demand ; but we should take the phenomenon,
not as a sign of the excellence of the art, but of the
general lowness of taste.
It is another great delusion, as I have previously
hinted, to say with M. Gonse that Hokusai represents
a pure Japanese art without mixture. Hokusai, as is

IN L'ART JAPONAIS.

49

well known, studied such specimens of oil-painting as
from time to time had been brought from Europe. He
was fond of foreigners and their ways, and painted
occasionally in oil himself. From this practice comes
largely the badness of his coloring. For the first time
in Japanese art, he uses dirty warm greens and yellows,
and his reds and blues he tries to make impure like those
of discolored European paintings. In form, too, he conceived that he borrowed much from European suggestion. He thought he had hold of a great law of nature
in the principle that the head of a standing figure should
always be vertically over one of its feet; and it was his
attempt to distort most of his figures into conformity
with this fixed rule, which gave them often their exaggerated and affected attitudes. He really undertook to
be an eclectic, and to make a synthesis of European and
Eastern traits. In spite of his natural cleverness, the
attempt was a good deal of a failure, and his work no
less thoroughly hybrid, though infinitely more vigorous,
than the Yokohama school of to-day.
" It is only since Europeans have placed Hokusai at
the head of all native artists that the Japanese have
universally come to recognize him as one of their great
men," says M. Gonse, quoting M. Duret. This is also a
misconception. The class of Japanese who are willing
to rate Hokusai as a great artist to-day are the same
devoted followers only, who had always recognized him
as leader. Hardly a Japanese of culture has been really
converted to the foreign view. Critics here regard with
amazement or amusement European estimates. It is
hardly to be expected, to be sure, that those genial
Japanese gentlemen who make a business of selling
Hokusais, and other Ukioye, in the capitals of Europe,
4

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should take great pains to oppose the opinions of enthusiasts who pay them such high prices; but their real
tastes are shown by what they buy for their own
keeping.
M. Gonse goes on to remark, as a matter of great interest, that "kakemono of Ukioye are generally mounted
with a splendor and elegance quite special," and that
"the silks used harmonized with the luxurious furnishings of the teahouses, for which the paintings were
specially designed." We do not know just where M.
Gonse got this curious piece of information. We suspect from the few "restored" examples which have been
sent to Paris, supplemented by his own imagination.
For our part, we may say that we have never seen in
Japan an Ukioye, of what we may call the long-nosedactor school, which had anything but a very common
mounting. The Ukioye that get into the Tokio market
come out of old hiding-places, in a most forlorn condition, where they have been relegated, much as we stow
away in dusty closets old numbers of newspapers; and
they are sold at a very low price. The Tokio dealers
buy them up, and sell them at a profit of about one
thousand per cent to the few merchants who make it
a business to send such things to Paris. These latter,
before exportation, employ some first-class kioji-ya of
the capital to remount the pictures carefully with the
most splendid old cloths they can find, because they
know that such will tickle the French taste, and help
the final sale. To be sure, many other paintings beside
Ukioye are similarly "doctored" for the foreign market.
But the difference between the two cases is that, while
these elegant Japanese and Chinese fabrics have always
been used for the noble works of old masters, a Japanese,

IN L'ART JAPONAIS.

51

out of his own taste, would about as soon think of putting such treasured cloths, full of classic association, upon
these vulgar trivialities, as he would think of paying
the highest polite honors to a peddler or a betto.
After this detailed expression of our views on Hokusai as the leader of Ukioye painters, there is little
more to say of M. Gonse's account of the rest. He
follows the same track. Kikuchi Yosai and Hiroshige
he puts second to Hokusai only, of all the artists of
Japan. To our eye they are decidedly inferior to
Hokusai. And here let me correct an impression which
I may have left from my total dissent from M. Gonse,
that I underrate and am blind to the artistic excellences of Hokusai. But this would be a mistake. I
appreciate Hokusai up to the very last limit of his
legitimate worth. I t is not that I love Hokusai less,
but that I love the old, great, and nobler masters more.
It is only where M. Gonse treats of Hokusai relatively
to others that I find fault with him. All that is spontaneous and genuine in Art I love for itself. But one
star differs very much from another in glory.
M. Gonse takes pains to distinguish between Keisai
Kitao and Keisai Yeisen. Unfortunately, under the
fac-simile of their signatures in Chinese characters, he
has given the wrong name to each (p. 294). It would
be impossible more effectually to mislead the reader
who wished to make a practical use of M. Gonse's book.
We have not the least doubt that this is an error overlooked in the proof-reading, and that it points, to no
ignorance on the part of the author. Still, it is a piece
of very serious carelessness, and is a slip parallel to that
before cited in the case of Masanobu and Motonobu.
We may remark, in passing, that the name of the

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former Keisai should be read Kitao Keisai, instead of
Keisai Kitao.
Of Yosai our author says, that his work is a happy
mixture of refined spiritualism and scrupulous realism.
For us, we may say at once, the refined spiritualism
does not exist. Yosai is the coldest and the most repulsively materialistic of all modern Japanese artists.
He utterly lacks the genial and human element which
is so attractive in Hokusai. His figures are astral
shapes of the dead half-materialized. Their brutality
is not relieved by honest love of expression. His talent,
which is decidedly great, is of hand and brain only.
Not a genial spark from the heart enters into it. His
most ambitious compositions, such as the burning of
Abokiu, are utter failures, whether from a Japanese
or an European point of view. Yosai's technique is
remarkable. I do not know of another good quality
in him.
M. Gonse has filled all the earlier part of his book,
and has illustrated his historical sketch, with innumerable reproductions of designs from Yosai's printed work,
"Zenken-kojitsu."
This is by far the best thing Yosai
has ever done. Yet his designs of the great men of
old days are utterly lacking in deep feeling and classic
taste. They pose in his compositions, not as they have
been conceived for ages in the hearts of the people,
but as translated into the vulgar language of a Yosai
merely. An eye which cannot see what these compositions lack, qualities which the Japanese call air
and tone, is not in a position to understand the true
excellence of Eastern art.
In his last section (p. 304), M. Gonse sums up the
course of the history of Japanese painting, and presents

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53

a list, to be borne in mind, of the great culminating
painters of the age. We, too, may sum up our criticism of M. Gonse's work by criticising this list. It does
not contain a single name between the ninth and fourteenth centuries; it leaves out the majority of the great
men of the fifteenth century, who stand higher than
Josetsu and Motonobu; it has no one at all in the sixteenth century except Motonobu; it puts in Naonobu
and Tsunenobu in the seventeenth, who have no right
to be mentioned in this Pantheon of Painters; Koyetsu,
the lacquerer, ought not to have been ranked with the
painters at all; Sotatsu and Itcho should have been
mentioned equally with Korin; Ganku should have
been inserted in the place of Goshun; and the whole
Ukioye ought to have been omitted, with the exception
of Matahei.
Of the illustrations in general, we must say that they
are unworthy of the book. Two or three plates only
are first-class. All the colored ones are trivial, of
modern Ukioye. Nine tenths of the illustrations are
from prints of Yosai and Hokusai. A few of the other
old masters are reproduced from prints of Tanyu's
hastily sketched miniature copies. Of all the old masters preceding the eighteenth century, only one work
of one is so adequately reproduced that any study
of style could be at all based upon it. This is the landscape of Sesshiu (p. 194). Hardly the least idea can
be obtained from this book of the style of any other.
Now, in closing, I wish to express myself again
plainly, about M. Gonse's work as a whole. I may
seem to have criticised too harshly the very author
with whom, above all others, I greatly sympathize.
I t is because his work is in general so good, that it

54

THE CHAPTER ON PAINTING IN L'ART JAPONAIS.

seems worth the while to criticise it so carefully. That
it will justly have a wide influence in stimulating the
taste for Japanese productions, I am certain. M. Gonse,
I repeat, is the only European writer who has ever
entered into a true appreciation of Eastern painting;
and if he has trodden this new ground with an uncertain step, it is not because his instinct is incorrect and
his disposition unfair, but because he does not yet see
the central point which he is ever approaching, and thus
he dares not yet trust himself enough to follow the new
star which shines as guide in these regions. It may,
perhaps, be an odd idea to some, that painting is not
everywhere an identically defined process, extending
over all its particular cases the domination of a single
set of laws. But the truth is that each school or possible system of painting is like a new race, or a new
species, in which the points of difference are as vital
and lawful as the points of resemblance; and this truth
must be borne in mind before all others, in a definitive
attempt to estimate Japanese painting.