He Ideals of the Eas Ith Special Refereno O The

HE I DEALS OF THE EAS I TH SPECI AL REFERENO O THE A R T O F J A PA N " 11 7 3 2. BY KAKUZO O KAKURA L O N D O N J O HN URRAY ALBE ARLE S TREET M , M 1905 PRE FATO RY NO TE wishes to point ou t tha t this book is wr i tten in by a na i a n t ve qf J ap . CO N TE N TS I NTRODUCTI O N THE RANGE O F I DEALS THE PRI MITI VE A RT O F J APAN CON FUCIANI S M NO RTHERN CH I NA LAO I S M AND TAO I S M — S O UTH ERN CH I NA BUDD H I S M AND INDIAN ART — THE AS UKA PERI OD ( 5 5 0 700 A .D .) — 1 08 THE NARA PE RI OD (700 8 00 A .O .) - 1 28 THE HEIAN PERIOD (8 00 900 AD .) W — THE FUJ I ARA PE RIOD (900 1200 A.D .) K K 1 2 - 40 A D THE AMA URA PERIOD ( 00 1 0 . .) 1 4 0- 1 w AS HI KAGA PERI OD ( 0 600 .) Vll C ONTENTS PAGE TOYOTO MI AN D EARLY TO KUGAWA — PERI OD ( 1 600 1 700 A n.) LATER TO KU GAWA PERIOD ( 1 700. 1 8 5 0 A .D .) THE M EIJI PERI OD ( 1 8 5 0 TO THE PRESE NT DAY ) THE V I STA I N T R O D U C T I O N K A KUZ O K A KURA t his O , the author of work on Japanese A r t Ideals— and the t future au hor, as we hope , of a longer and completely illustrated book on the same subject— has been long known to his own people and to others as the foremost living authority on Oriental Archaeology and Art . Although then young, he was made a member of the Imperial Art Commission which was sent ou t by the Japanese Government in the year 1 8 8 6 to study the ar t history and movements of Eur ope and the United States . Far from being overwhelmed by this experience , Mr . Okakura only found his appr eciation of Asiatic ar t deepened and intensified by his travels , and since that time he has x INTRODUCTION made his influence felt increasingly in the direction of a strong r e-nationalising of J apanese art in opposition to that pseudo Europeanising tendency now so fashion able throughout the East . On his return from the West , the Government of Japan showed it s appr ecia ’ tion of Mr . O kak u r a s services and con vict ions by making him Director of their New Art School at Ueno , Tokyo . But political changes brought fresh waves of so -called Europeanism to bear on the 1 8 9 in school , and in the year 7 it was sisted that European methods should become increasingly prominent . Mr . Okakura now resigned . Six months later thirty-nine of the strongest young artists in Japan had grouped themselves about him , and they had opened the Nip Bi it su in or pon j , Hall of Fine Arts , at of Yanaka , in the suburbs Tokyo , to which r eference is made in chapter xiv . of this book . I f we say that Mr . Okaku ra is in some INTRODU CTI ON xi sense the William Morris of his country, we may also be permitted to explain that the Nippon Bij it su in is a sort of Japanese Merton Abbey . Here various decorative arts , such as lacquer and metalwork , bronze be casting , and porcelain , are carried on , a anes aint in sides J p e p g and sculpture . The members attempt to possess themselves of a deep sympathy and understanding of all that is best in the contemporary art of movements the West , at the same time that they aim at conserving and extending their national inspiration . They hold proudly that their work will compare favourably with any in the world . And their names include those of Hashimoto Ta ik a n S e ssei K ozn Gaho , Kanzan, , , , and others equally famous . Besides the work of Bi it su in the Nippon j , however , Mr . Okakura has found time to aid his Govern ment in classifying the art treasures of Japan , and to visit and study the antiqui ties of China and India . With regard to t h e latter country, this is the first instance INTRODUC TION in modern times of the arrival of a traveller possessed of exhaustive Oriental ’ . O kaku ra culture , and Mr s visit to the Caves of Ajanta marks a distinct era in Indian archaeology . His acquaintance with the art of the same period in South ern China enabled him to see at once that the stone figures now remaining in the caves had been intended originally merely of as the bone or foundation the statues , all the life and movement of the portrayal having been left to be wor ked into a deep layer of plaster with which they were afterwards covered . A closer inspection of the carvings gives ample j ustification o f V u ncon this iew , though ignorance, the " scious vandalism of mercenary Europe , has led to an unfortunate amount of cleaning and unintentional disfigu r e ment , as was the case with our own English parish churches only too recently . Ar t can only be developed by nations that are in a state of freedom . It is at once indeed the great means and fruitage INTRODUC TION xiii ofthat gladness of liberty which we call the of . sense nationality It is not , therefore , very surprising that India , divorced from spontaneity by a thousand years of op pression , should have lost her place in the world of the joy and the beauty of labour . But it is very reassuring to be told by a competent authority that here a s of also once , in religion during the era she W Asoka , evidently led the hole East , impressing her thought and taste upon the innumerable Chinese pilgr ims who V isited - her universities and cave temples , and by their means ‘ influencing the development of sculpture , painting, and architecture in r China itself, and th ough China in Japan . Only those who are already deep in the ar chmolo problems peculiar to Indian gy , of however, will realise the striking value ’ Mr. O k ak u r a s suggestions regarding the alleged influence of the Greeks on Indian . as sculpture Representing, he does , the great alternative art -lineage of the world — — M r namely , the Chinese . Okakura is xiv INTRODUCTI ON able to show the absurdity of the Hellenic theory. He points o u t that the actual affinities of the Indian development are of largely Chinese , but that the reason this is probably t o be sought in the existence of a common early Asiatic art , which has left its uttermost ripple-marks alike on of the shores Hellas , the extreme west oe of Ireland , Etruria, Ph nicia , Egypt , India, and China . In such a theory , a fitting truce is called to all degrading disputes about priority, and Greece falls into her proper place , as but a province of that ancient Asia t o which scholars have long been looking as the A sgard backgr ound of the great Norse sagas . At the same time , a new world is opened to s n future scholarship , in which a more y thetic method and outlook may correct many of the errors of the past . ’ O kak u r a With regard to China, Mr . s treatment is equally rich in suggestions . His analysis of the Northern and Southern thought has already attracted considerable INTRODUC TI ON xv attention amongst the scholars of that country , and his distinction between L a oism and Taoism stands Widely a o cept ed . But it is in its larger aspects that his work is most valuable . For he holds that the great historic spectacle with which the world is necessarily fam i o f liar , Buddhism pouring into China of across the passes the Himalayas , and by the sea—route through the straits— that movement which probably commenced under Asoka and became tangible in China itself at the time of N agarj u na in D — the second centu ry A . was no isolated event . Rather was it representative of those conditions under which alone can Asia live and flourish . The thing we call Buddhism c a nnot in itself have been a ‘ ri defined and formulated creed , with st ct boundaries and clearlydemarcated heresies , capable of giving birth to a Holy Office w of its o n . Rather must we regard it as the name given to the vast synthesis known as Hinduism , when received by a b xvi INTRODUCTION . F or foreign consciousness Mr . Okakura , in dealing with the subject of Japanese art in the ninth century , makes it abun dau tly clear that the whole mythology of the East , and not merely the personal t of doc rine the Buddha, was the subject of interchange . Not the Bu ddhaising but the I ndia nising o f the M ongolian mind , was the process actually at work much as if Christianity should receive in some strange land the name of Francis c a nism o m , fr m its first issioners . It is well known that in the case of Japap the vital element in her national activity lies always in her art .

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