JAPANESE ART, ARTISTS, AND ARTISANS.
By William Elliot Griffis. Published in Scribner's Magazine Jan 1888

JAPAN is the land of surprises. Among things unexpected none strikes the visitor or resident more than the environ ment of art and its makers. One sees that the love of the beautiful has penetrated to the lowest classes, that taste is highly refined, that a long perspective of history has given a background out of which exqui site flowers of genius have bloomed, that the very shape of the fingers seen, literally, In every hand, suggests delicacy and cunning skill; yet where are the factories and studios· Inside the dwellings, where are the bronzes, porcelain, and bric-a-brac? The house and living rooms, devoid of what we imagine to be furniture, suggest simplicity itself. Rarely are articles of virtu visible. The whole cast of civilization suggests extreme frugality, if not poverty. One wonders how Europe and America can be so filled with exquisite works of art, once exported from, but now no longer to be easily duplicated in, everlasting Great Japan.

These impressions, so often expressed by others, were shared by the writer seventeen years ago, when he first trod the soil of the Honorable Country. One year's life as a lone foreigner in a dankcastle town, and three years in the national capital, with much travelling and many visits to palaces, temples, feudal mansions, and artists·homes, did not greatly dull the edge of surprise. Then, the richly stocked shops and factories in the treaty ports, flamboyant with the gay daubs and over-decorated wares which sell well abroad, had scarcely more than a beginning. Then, the subdivision of labor, now increasingly practised, and the crass products of prison toil were unheard of. The emblazonry of paper fans, umbrellas, and wall-hangings, which make perpetnal red sunsets in our sea-shore tabernacles, had but begun.

Things were normal, and the Holy Country had been but recently defiled by the alien. The collector, purchasing agent, and specially accredited emissary of museum and publisher were not then in the land.

Yet the art, the artist, and the artisans were there. Gradually one was able to discover the foundries and atehers, and to ferret out the secrets and learn the curious vocabulary of the handicraftsmen. When familiar with the sword-wearing gentlemen and the intelligent merchants, the appreciative lover of art could carry temptation to their pride and often to their pockets, and thus win many a rare curio.

One found that these high-bred folks were averse to vulgar display, or to what might tempt the tax-collector or the spy that natural and relentless parasite of Japanese feudalism. There were many causes tending to simplicity of domestic interiors besides poverty. There was the ever-present dread of fire (the flower of great Yedo) in which city a day passing without a conflagration was a novelty amounting to a national event. No fire-insurance company existed, and the stream thrown on a blaze by the hand-engines borne on men's shoulders, and filled with buckets and dippers could hardly outrival a Chinese laundryman in the act of sprinkling clothes. Hence, nearly all valuables, and especially art treasures and
heirlooms, were kept insured in the dozo, a fireproof storehouse attached to every dwelling of importance. This fireproof building, made of timber coated with a foot of mud and hard-finish of plaster, contained hidden treasures of darkness, in the form of lacquer, ivory, crystal, porcelain, pottery, bronze, books, toys, and robes.

The fine-art store, such as one still sees in the inland cities, is a modest affair in one or two rooms, probably half the stock being exposed at one time. The proprietor sits before his brazier, in which a ball or two of the clay - and - charcoal powder smoulders, and will furnish a friendly and gratuitous cup of tea to all callers. He wipes tenderly the crystal you ask to see, and seems personally attached to each of his darling tea-pots, candlesticks, or pen-holder cases, as to a
child. Far from showing any eagerness to sell, the old-time dealer, in what foreigners irreverently duburios, appeared loath to part with his wares. A sale seemed to grieve him, despite the thanks and profuse compliments showered on you for honoring his hut with your exalted presence.

There is the richly pictured screen, with a water-brow mountain or beetling-precipice-sea-and-ship picture, or the autumn views of many trees ;the kakemono, or hanging wall-pictures, with poem in caligraphic characters, or with bamboo and stanza; the rare old pottery, with the signature or seal of Mr. Old Ink upon it, while the drinking-cup's inscription reads, "Everything (literally, one hundred things) goes just as we please; while to the discerning eye every shape, design, border-decoration, or fignre is suggestive, or even eloquent, of the ideas and lore of Asiatic humanity, of its literature, religion, and interpretation of nature. No art in any land is more symbolic and suggestive than that of Japan, despite the plea of the lingnists that the laugnage and people are devoid of imagination of the Aryan standard.

I remember vividly my first call, and subsequent visits, at a gentleman's house
in Fukui, and the contrast. On first entering his zashilci, or parlor, despite its neatness, the delicious Echizen tea, served with exquisite grace by his
pretty daughters, and the elegant dress and manners of all present, my amazement at the bareness and seeming poverty was flavored with mild disgust. On a subsequent visit, after tea, the talk ran on art. Presto! the black eyes gleamed, and the host's hands were clapped. "You would really like to see my miserable
collection" I was asked. The servant, responsive to the hand-clap, in lieu of a bell,
was given the storehouse key, and then disappeared. Soon the mat floor was piled and littered with box, roll, bag, and case. Out of yellow muslin wrappings, silken napkins, gold brocade bags, and crape cloths, issued gems of art, in gold,
ivory, crystal, lacquer, porcelain, and bronze, that made me wild with delight. The operation of getting out some of the host's special treasures reminded me of the process of unwrapping a mummy. One article, with apparently as many skins as properly belong to an onion, was finally resurrected from its sacred darkness, and with amazing reverence laid on the dai, or stand. Shades of Benjamin Franklin! it looked for all the world like his black Two-penny porringer·displaced by his beloved Deborah's china bowl, and immortalized in his autobiography. Had it been put up at auction by my host, verily I should not have bidden, at the highest, beyond a five-cent nickel That, however, was a historical gem, the pride of his colletion; and, I am not sure but he claimed it to have been moulded by Giyoji, who introduced the potter's wheel, over a millennium ago. The date of its birth in fire, from the kiln, lay back in I know not what age; for the year-periods, so familiar to my host's tongue, had then to my ears about as much meaning as the taps of a drum. Now, the "Flower of Literature", the "Heavenly Peace," vilization with Enlightenment, and the other names of the Japanese segments of centuries serve, when rattled off, to awaken at least interest enough to send me to the kindly reference-book. Often have I thus learned that bit of old Satsuma, at least five hundred years old, was, as the stamp revealed, decorated in Tokio, which got its name in 1869! while a bronze brazier, catalogued as three thousand years old, shows the truthful Goroza mark cut in our own century.

Before leaving my host, I had become acquainted with his tastes and resources, which in native art were ample, and learned a lesson often repeated. Before foreign commerce began, nine-tenths of Japan's art treasures were habitually kept out of daylight and locked up in fireproof safes, in which the only thing of iron was the lock and staple.

It was not uncommon, however, for gentlemen to meet together and enjoy
the products of local artists and artisans, and to compare notes and criticisms. The unique institution of Cha no yu (tea and hot water), which, probably more than anything else, developed the porcelain industry in the archipelago of Japan, served also as a school for the production of, and education in, native art. China
and Japan drink tea, and the starting-point of their fictile art is the tea-cup (to which we barbarians have added a handle) with the cover or lid (which Europeans have turned upside-down, and made into a saucer), even as the rice-bowl is perhaps the original unit of their pottery. In Corea, speaking broadly, no tea is raised or drunk; and Corea has no porcelain, though of old, even as the Arab sailors tell us and her tombs reveal, famous for her pottery. The Cha no yu, or tea-making ceremony, is an elaborate social ritual. It was invented, so it is said, by the great Taiko in the sixteenth century, to turn away the thoughts of his men of war from arms to polite etiquette, two things for which the Japanese have a genius. Perpetual peace was to be kept by means of artistic grace and enthusiasm in aesthetics. This peaceful policy failed of its original purpose, but it gave a mighty impulse to the ceramic art, which was set on a firm basis when Taiko's generals invaded Corea and by his orders transferred, not only the Corean potters, but almost the entire national industry to Japan.

In old Japan there were no academies, large ateliers, or picture-sellers, as in Europe. Each painter had his studio in his home, and was assisted by wife, children, pupils, retainers, or relatives; or he went off to spend weeks or months
at the monasteries, temples, or feudal mansions, filling orders for patrons. Some of the most famous basked in the sunshine of the imperial court, enjoying showers of gold; while others gained the aureole of immortal fame, roaming, slowly and miserably, from place to place. The schools founded by, and the traditions of, these old masters are still mighty in Japan. Not a few artists who gain a respectable living, and even fame, depend almost entirely on copying the pictures, and sketches or models handed down from the past. Instead of finding stimulus, and improvement, or inspiration in nature, they continually reproduce the same associated ideas so dear to the Japanese eye and mind.

Nevertheless, the Japanese artist reproduces with commendable faithfulness
many of the moods of nature. The national tenderness of appreciation, and sentimental interest in nature, as mirrored in ancient poems and belles-lettres, dates from the primeval period, when the Sunrise Land was fresh to the new dwellers amid its wonders. The wrinkled hills, multitudinous valleys, lava-cones,
mountain-ranges, waterfalls, and vegetable forms lend easily the lines which can
be made to appear in lacquer paintings. In the typical gold-lacquerer sketch on
this page, as furnished by the graphic artist, the peerless Fuji dwarfing into
insignificance the thatched cottages, wild fowls of the air, and the scant cultivation, suggest the sparsely settled regions remote from cities, and tell of solitude - man alone amid nature, and his puny power over her. An art symbol, nearly the reverse, narrates its story without words, but in a sufficient language of its own. This is a San-sui picture, having in it, as the term denotes, mountains and water. Nature is still here, but tamed and made man's assistant. The thatched Moon-viewing chamber,·or Cottage of outlook,·the stone lantern, to give light during the
long dark night, the wicket gate and hedge, the rustic bridge, the Mandarin ducks, or love-birds emblems of wedded joy, the storks living prophets of longevity, the smoothly worn paths, the well-curb and rope-bucket, are there, all suggesting man's enjoyment in, and harmony with, nature. Perspective and Western artistic requirements are subordinated to the form required for the gold-lacquerer's art. With varnish, metal, and color he will translate the India-ink sketch into a superb picture finished in burnished gold. Based on the graphic and pictorial arts are those arts decorative in which Japan excels. The noblest of these, and of purely native origin and develop- ment, is that of lacquering. The materials for writing, household furnishing, and personal adornment, with articles of civic ceremony and war, furnish the chief fields for the display of the finer artistic achievements ; though large surfaces, such as doors, ceilings, frames and panels, vehicles, and even ships, are lacquered.

The varnish flows drop by drop from the Rhus vernic-fera trees, which are usually planted on soil otherwise worthless, since they are of slow growth. The sap is quite poisonous, and acts on the human system very much as the poison-ivy of our own forests. Americans living in Japan, and ignorant of the properties of fresh lacquer, after handling it, or even staying in the room where mantel-pieces or doors have been treated, soon begin to feel a prickly sensation on the face and hands. The discomfort increasing, the victim finds himself next morning with eyes closed, or nearly so, cuticle harsh, dry, and red, and visage resembling a prize-fighter, fresh from the ring. Many have to take to bed. The Japanese tell a story about the most poisonous sort, saying that three men are required to gather it. After Baying their prayers, and bidding their friends farewell, one man rushes at the tree and with a blow of his axe cuts a gash. The second man dashes in with spout and bucket, to tap the trunk. The third, after due waiting, carries the gathered sap away.

After prolonged treatment of the gray viscous mass, by agitation in the air, coloring, and processes often secret, the varnish is ready for use. When properly applied, the coating, which is put on wood, metal, and other substances, resists hot and cold water, and most liquids liable to come in contact with house-hold utensils. Wood is the favorite substance employed for the best results in art, and for the most common as well as special uses.

The art dates historically from the seventh century, though tradition assigns its birth to the ages when almanacs, clocks, and writings had not yet arrived from the Asian mainland. Not a few articles now in national or private museums are, by documentary evidence, over one thousand years old. The difference between the best and the cheapest ware is manifest to the trained eye at once, while Father Time takes especial delight in showing the vanity of imitation, and the abiding honor of good workmanship. The baser sort, made by the scamp workman who dislikes trouble, by the cheat, the prison-labor contractor, or the honest Cheap John, has from one to three coats laid on the wood, or other basic material, which
has been primed, or covered with rice- paste, persimmon juice, or Mino paper, and is finished with or without polishing. The finer and costlier grades have from
five to fifty coats, with an amazing amount of grinding, polishing, drying, and man-
ipulation between applications. By a strange paradox lacquer must dry in dampness, else it will run and stick. Hence in every Urushi-ya there must be a closed cupboard of rough wood well moistened or even saturated with water. The coating dries more quickly in summer than in winter, and the best drying is done within a narrow range of temperature.

A lacquerer's workshop, once provided with the graphic artist, designs and the prepared sap, is very simple in equipment. The decorator traces, with a fine brush made of rat-hair, an out- line of the subject on the reverse side of the design.

This may be the wild-goose and the autumn grass, the lca-cho (flower and bird), bamboo and moonlight, Fuji-yama, peony, landscape, or marine view. For this rough sketch he uses lacquer, which he heats over a hot charcoal fire to keep it dry. Laying it, while wet, on the surface of the tray or box, he rubs the dry side with a spatula of whalebone, and is usually able to get twenty impressions from the one outline, which he has kept damp by holding it over the fire. In real gold lacquer the virgin dust from the mines is used; but usually silver, tin, or alloy dust is liberally employed. In the cheap varieties the metallic powder is mixed with lacquer, and applied with a brush, as seen in the upper picture on this page. Here, the artist, with -hair brush, holding his little palette on the back of his left hand, is filling out the pattern. The small boy or apprentice is grinding and polishing with
came11 i a -wood charcoal, ground whetstone, or deer-horn powder, the tool being a charcoal stick, or hard, smooth stone. The damp closet for drying has on its shelves articles in various stages of completion.

In old feudal days, when nearly every daimio, or lord of an important fief, had his court-lacquerer, a set of Lacquer Artista and Drying Closet. household furniture and toilet utensils was part of the dowry of a noble lady. On the birth of a daughter it was common for the lacquer artist to begin the making of a mirror case, a poem washing-bowl, a cabinet, a clothes-rack, or a chest of drawers, often occupying from one to five whole years on a single article. An inro, or pill box, might require several years for perfection, though it is small enough to go into a fob. By the time the young lady was marriageable her outfit in lacquer was superb.

Of the twenty-eight most famous lacquer artists of Japan, the majority flourished in Yedo, where the wealth of art in this line of achievement was, up to the time
of the abolition of the compulsory residence of the feudal lords, simply amazing. Fire, civil war, the dissolution of feudalism, and, most of all, an entirely new
knowledge of the value of time, have placed the old art almost among those said to be Lost.· Nearly all the most famous lacquerers of Tokio are now very old men. Watanabe Tosen, seven years ago, spent many months in finishing for the
empress a tobacco-box, ten by six and eight inches in dimensions; but the average workman now cares more for the making of money than for fame, while the old spur of loyalty no more provokes to noble achievement.

Lacquerers now earn from twenty cents to one dollar and a quarter a day. If, however, one is willing to pay and to wait, it is stoutly affirmed that as good products as those made a century ago can still be obtained. He who gives an order for such works as those which, after the Vienna Exposition, endured
scathless a fourteen months·baptism in salt water by the wreck of the French
steamer Nil, or which, reduced to ashes, will yield nuggets of gold, must have
patience and a long purse.