[From Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. XII (1885), pp. 2219 http://books.google.com/books?

id=yWsYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA221&source=gbs_toc_r &cad=4] (221) NOTES BY MOTOORI ON JAPANESE AND CHINESE ART. TRANSLATED BY BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN. [Read 16th April, 1884.] [Introductory Note by the Translator.Motoori, the greatest scholar and writer of modern Japan, was born at Matsuzaka in Ise in the year 1730, and died in 1801. This is not the place to tell the simple story of his life, or to enumerate his works. That has already been done by Mr. Satow in the Third Volume of these Transactions; and indeed so preminent is Motooris position, that there are probably few members of our Society who have not some at least indirect acquaintance with his writings, mention being made of him in almost every serious book that has been published by foreigners about Japan during the last decade. The fact is that his influence has been almost as powerful on politics as on literature. To him, more than to any other one man, is due the movement which, some five-and-twenty years ago, restored the Mikado to his ancestral rights,a debt of gratitude which was repaid a few years since by the elevation of Motoori (as of Mabuchi and of Hirata, the two other heads of the Shint Revival School) to the national pantheon. As a stylist, Motoori stands quite alone amongst Japanese writers. His elegance is equalled only by his perspicuity; and his premises being once granted, his reasoning, when exercised on his special subjects of literature, politics, and religion, is generally faultless. The premises themselves are doubtless often startling to the modern English or American mind. Thus he constantly assumes the intrinsic excellence of despotism, and the moral superiority of the Japanese to all [222] other nations. Generally, too, the words old and good are synonymous in his mouth. But then, when have logicians ever made their premises their chief care? Be this as it may, the opinions of an eminent man on any matter must always command a hearing. This will be granted by all, even by such as may refuse their assent to Motooris paradox, that connoisseurs are the persons least to be trusted on their own subject. The notes here translated are to be found in Vol. XIV, pp. 16 to 23, of the Tama-Katsuma, a miscellany in which are thrown together, without any attempt at order, jottings by Motoori on every topic under the sun. It was published in parts, the last part appearing ten years after the authors death. Like other Japanese works of this class, it requires a good deal of judicious skipping; but with such skipping, much pleasant reading and charming models of style may be extracted from it. The translation aims at faithfully representing the sense of the original, without pretending to a literalness which would disfigure Motoori's style still more than is inevitably the case in any version of his writings into a foreign language. For a correct rendering of some of the technical terms of art the translators thanks are due to Captain Brinkley, R. A. Motoori begins as follows:] ON PAINTING.

The great object in painting any one is to make as true a likeness of him as possible,a likeness of his face, (that is of course the first essential), and also of his figure, and even of his very clothes. Great attention should therefore be paid to the smallest details of a portrait. Now in the present day, painters of the human face set out with no other intention than that of showing their vigour of touch, and of producing an elegant picture. The result is a total want of likeness to the subject. Indeed likeness to the subject is not a thing to which they attach any importance. From this craving to display vigour and to produce elegant pictures there results a neglect of details. Pictures are dashed off so sketchily, that not only is there no likeness to the face of the person painted, but that wise and noble men are represented with an expression of countenance befitting none but rustics of the lowest degree. This is [223] worthy of the gravest censure. If the real features of a personage of antiquity are unknown, it should be the artists endeavour to represent such a personage in a manner appropriate to his rank or virtues. The man of great rank should be represented as having a dignified air, so that he may appear to have been really great. The virtuous man, again, should be painted so as to look really virtuous. But far from conforming to this principle, the artists of modern times, occupied as they are with nothing but the desire of displaying their vigour of touch, represent the noble and virtuous alike as if they had been rustics or idiots. The same ever-present desire for mere technical display makes our artists turn beautiful womens faces into ugly ones. It will perhaps be alleged that a too elegant representation of mere beauty of feature may result in a less valuable work of art; but when it does so, the fault must lie with the artist. His business is to paint the beautiful face, and at the same time not to produce a picture artistically inferior. In any case, fear for his own reputation as an artist is a wretched excuse for turning a beautiful face into an ugly one. On the contrary, a beautiful woman should be painted as beautiful as possible; for ugliness repels the beholder. At the same time it often happens in such pictures as those which are sold in the Yedo shops,1
[The cheap coloured prints called Yedo-e or nishiki-e.]

that the strained effort to make the faces beautiful ends in excessive ugliness and vulgarity, to say nothing of artistic degradation. Our warlike paintings, that is representations of fierce warriors fighting, have nothing human about the countenances. The immense round eyes, the angry nose, the great mouth remind one of demons. Now will any one assert that this unnatural, demoniacal fashion is the proper way to give an idea of the very fiercest warriors look? No! The warriors fierceness should indeed be depicted, but he should at the same time be recognized as a simple human being. It is doubtless to such portraits of warriors that a Chinese author alludes when, speaking of Japanese paintings, he says that the figures in them are like those of the anthropophagous demons of Buddhist lore.2
[The and . See pp. 172 and 102 of Eitels Handbook of Buddhism, s. v. Yakcha and Rkchasa. VOL. XII.29]

As his countrymen do not ever actually meet living Japanese, such of [224] them as read his book will receive the impression that all our countrymen resemble demons in appearance. For though the Japanese, through constant reading of Chinese books, are well acquainted with Chinese matters, the Chinese, who never read our literature, are completely ignorant on our score, and there can be little doubt that the few stray allusions to us that do occur are implicitly believed in. This belief of foreigners in our portraits as an actual representation of our people will have the effect of making them imagine, when they see our great men painted like rustics and our beautiful women like frights, that the Japanese men are really contemptible in appearance and all the

Japanese women hideous. Neither is it foreigners alone who will be thus misled. Our own very countrymen will not be able to resist the impression that the portraits they see of the unknown heroes of antiquity do really represent those heroes faces. It may be thought impertinent of me, as one totally ignorant of art, to express any opinions upon the subject. Yet all through the world individuals are unconscious of their own good or bad qualities, which can only properly be seen by lookers-on. It is the same in the case of the arts. Artists themselves are, of all men, those least able to judge, while the good points and the bad often reveal themselves to outsiders. It is because this is the case with painting that I venture to give expression to my views. Now, as I have not minutely studied, or indeed seen a sufficient number of specimens of the art produced both in China and Japan during the successive ages of antiquity, I will leave that alone and treat only of such pictures as are to be commonly seen at the present day, viz., Indian ink sketches, tinted pictures, and highly coloured pictures.3
[Sumi-e, usu-zai-shiki and goku-zai-shiki.]

As for the Indian ink sketches, their raison dtre being simply a display of touch by indicating an object as lightly and briefly as possible with a few strokes just daubed on, some of the very most skilful of them are doubtless worth looking at, and make one exclaim, Yes, indeed! that is the way to draw! But the productions of the great majority of these artists are worthless eyesores, and the particular favour accorded by the public [225] to all this rubbish is a mere blind following of a fashion once set. The enthusiasm for these same Indian ink sketches, and the rejection of all coloured paintings affected by our modem admirers of the so-called Tea Ceremonies4
[Cha no Yu. They are, properly speaking, tea-parties. But tradition having prescribed an elaborate ceremonial for their proper conduct, the actual partaking of the tea forms but a very small portion of the entertainment.]

is another case in point. It is not that these men have really formed an independent opinion, but that they perpetuate conventional rules formulated by the originators of their favourite pastime. Indeed, none of the things in which those persons who practise the Tea Ceremonies find such pleasure, possess a particle either of beauty or of interestthe written scrolls no more than the pictures; and the care and admiration lavished on them proves nothing but the obstinacy of their admirers. Tinted pictures are attractive, delicate, and pleasant to look at. When we proceed to consider the more highly coloured style, we also occasionally find something to admire. But not infrequently they offend the eye by their heaviness, as when the sea is represented of a deep indigo colour. Of the many Japanese schools of painting, some have been handed down in certain families who make art their profession. Most of the pictures painted by members of these families are produced by a mere rigid observance of certain artistic conventions current in those families, without any regard being paid to the true shapes of the things themselves. Paintings of this class have their merits, and also their defects. Thus nothing can be more repulsive than the already mentioned travesty of great men as rustics and of beautiful women as frights. It is a defect, too, to mark the borders and folds of garments by a very deep line. All such things are mere tricks for the display of mastery over the brush. Again our artists, in painting pine-trees in a Chinese scene, make a point of delineating a special kind to which they give tho name of Chinese Pine,5
[Kara-matsu.]

leading people to imagine that they are painting some particular variety of pine found in the old art products of that country. But there is no such species of pine in China. It is simply the ordinary [226] pine-tree drawn badly,a defect which, will it be believed? has here been regarded as a beauty, and has been handed down by successive generations of artists! Of all drawings the most repulsive are badly executed Indian ink sketches, representations of the above-mentioned Chinese Pine, garments with the folds painted thick, and pictures of Daruma, Hotei, Fukurokujiu6
[, , and , Buddhist personages frequently represented in Japanese art,the first often without any legs or else standing on a reed, the second with an enormous belly, and the third with an immensely elongated head.]

and such like. They are without exception tedious enough to look at once, and I cannot imagine wishing to look at them twice. To observe ancient rules is doubtless an excellent thing; but then regard must be had to circumstances, and above all to the subject-matter. In painting, for instance, it is a practice by no means to be always followed; for it were bigotry to refuse to adopt an improvement introduced by others. On the other hand, there are some excellent things to be found among the conventions of the schools. What could be better, for instance, than the plan of showing the interior of a house by taking away the roof, or of dividing the nearer and the farther distance by means of clouds? Many are the defects to which a neglect of such conventions leads, and many are the excellences not easily to be attained to by the freer sketchers of the present day. Again, there is a variety of styles now in vogue purporting to be imitations of the Chinese, whose votaries make a point of painting each object in exact conformity to nature. This is what is, I believe, called Realistic Art. Now I doubt not that the principle is an excellent one. At the same time there must be some differences between real objects and the pictures of such objects. Indeed there are cases in which a literal reproduction of the object as it is in nature produces a bad picture, unlike the object delineated. That is the origin of the conventions of the schools, and of the neglect by the latter in certain cases, of the facts of nature. Hence too the value of these conventions, and the perils attending their non-observance. The Japanese artists of the traditional schools are good landscape-painters. Most Chinese landscape-paintings are repulsively ugly,a [227] result of the Chinese not observing our conventions, but painting as the spirit moves them. They know not how to arrange their subject, putting roads and bridges in impossible situations, placing rocks and trees in positions not suitable for such things, being sketchy where details are wanted, and abounding in detail where it were better to be sketchy. Even their very best paintings show these defects, resulting from the misplacing of trees and rocks, and from the aspect of precipitous peaks,eye-sores which the Japanese schools avoid, thanks to the conventions by which they are guided in all these matters. Another grave defect to be noted in the Chinese artists is their predilection for painting ships and boats crooked. Doubtless it is in some such position that ships are generally to be seen; but that does not prevent it from being bad art to paint them so; for when so painted, they do not seem to be floating fairly on the water, their elevated stern giving them the appearance of being about to capsize. Such are some of the errors into which the Chinese artists fall by a neglect of rule and by excessive adherence to nature. Their birds and insects, again, though correct in detail, are mostly painted in a lifeless manner. They do not look as if they were flying or running. A further defect is their neglect of indicating the line of the ground when painting the leaves and stems of

trees and plants. There being in nature no such line to mark the ground, they are, I suppose, imitating nature in omitting it. But in a painting, the absence of such a line causes confusion. What we mean by the ground, relatively to actual objects, is the place where the objects are not,a place without any colour in particular. But the ground of a painting being white, that part of it which is destitute of objects will be white. Hence a difference for the painter between it and the colourless ground in nature; hence also the absolute necessity of a line. The neglect of Chinese artists to mark such a line arises from ignorance of this consideration. Even in Chinese pictures, however, the line is unavoidably inserted in the case of the human face. From the apparent absence of conventions, and from the consequent license given to the individual artist in China comes the unsatisfactory representation of the manner in which branches spread, of the stems of herbs and flowers, and of the position of leaves. The existence of such conventions regulating every thing would seem to have preserved the Japanese schools from like defects. The above-mentioned objections would seem to apply to Chinese art in general. On the other hand, a comparison of the works of the Chinese artists with those of the Japanese schools, so far as the delineation of birds, beasts, insects, fishes, and plants is concerned, shows that the extremely careful attention of the former to detail leads, in the hands of the most skilful, to representations that are the exact counterparts of the original. Few of the productions of our schools can be mentioned alongside of them: the hair of the beasts, the down of the feathers, the pistils of the flowers, the veining of the leaves,all is rough. It is doubtless the idea that it were useless and even faulty to draw in too detailed a manner pictures which are only to be viewed from afar, such as those on the screens in large houses or on walls, that has led to the esteem in which the sketchy style is held in our country. But surely the more finished paintings of the Chinese are the more pleasing to the eye. Thus, a comparison of the production of our schools with those of the Chinese painters shows that the art of each country has its good qualities and its bad, and that it were hard to give the palm to either. Again, of recent years we have witnessed the rise of a large class of artists who neither hold to the traditions of the schools, nor derive their inspiration from China, but who are freely eclectic as their own taste may dictate. Thus, culling the good and rejecting the bad, they seem to be preserved from any very glaring defects.7
[Motoori would seem to have in his mind such men as Hokusai and Ysai, who struck out a hue of their own during the eighteenth century.]

[Concluding Note by the Translator.So far Motoori. It will be seen that his observations make no pretension to completeness. If he speaks authoritatively, it is only with the authority of one who is not a connoisseur. His sole guide in judging of the art of his country is common sense, supplemented by talent and by a vast fund of general knowledge. The result of his plain, unbiassed investigations is certainly somewhat faint praise;this too from a man who was patriotic almost to fanaticism. As such, his remarks have seemed to me worth making known to foreigners, not a few of whom may often feel inclined to think Chinese and Japanese paintings ugly and grotesque, without daring to say so for fear of being looked down upon as wanting in proper esthetic [229] feeling. They may take courage: they have the greatest mind of modern Japan on their side, or very nearly on their side. They may laugh, too, at the much belauded Tea Ceremonies, and yet remain in the very best native company. For myself, I would not venture to express any opinion on such difficult and technical subjects. I am but half convinced by Motooris paradox that connoisseurs are less

good judges than other folks. Anyhow it is always pleasant to be able to help in obtaining a hearing for both sides of any question.]