JAPANESE ART. The accepted date of the beginning of fine art m .Tapan is at the close of the seventh century of the Christian Era. The physical] civilization of the country was then greatly advaneed by intercourse with China and with Korea. The Japanese scholars have not shown any rehodance to admit the supreme in fluence of these continental nations upon their own insular arts. The earliest sculptures in stone or wood, and the earliest paintings, some of which are preserved in temples and others in the Imperial Thisemn. show a knowledge of form and of the true value of design arguing an al ready advanced civilization: while there is no pretense that sneh a civilization had had time to develop itself in the islands of japan. The earliest buildings known, such as the Pagoda of Yakushiji. near Nara, universally accepted as of the seventh century, are of a matured type, the beautiful curves of the roofs and the com bination of the series of six of these, with the intermediate vertical walls and bal• ".s, into a single design bespeaking an original type al. ready very far advanced toward perfection. In sculpture, the bronze statuettes of these early years are as strongly Indian in character as the architecture is Chinese; but this is in great measure the result of Buddhist influence, and is nedrly as visible in what little has been identified as Chinese art of the same epoch. The work in silver and bronze and in woven stuffs shows a sense of the essence of decorative art vnch as the later and more splendid times could surpass only in variety and affluence. Thus the group of three Buddhist bronze figures in the Kakushiji temple, of which the tower or 'pagoda' is meal ioned above, art- undoubtedly of t he seventh century. and their workmanship, and morn espe cially the modeling of the Tonle parts, goes fate to prove the introduction through India of that in fluence of classical Greek art which is so often loosely assigned to the advance of any s-cry early Asiatic school of sculpture. In whatever form it was that the invasion of Alexander the Great, or other active political or mercantile influence, brought to India some sperhi•ns of the matured art of Greece, it can hardly he supposed that this influence was absent front the early Japanese seulpturt—so frankly based upon nature, and yet so traditionally noble is the statuary of the time in drapery well as in the larger modeling of the undraped torso and limbs. The paintings of the time are of course more or less injured; but they bear all the marks of a strong and well-under stood tradition. with the study of nature for its origin, and with immistakahle binding laws of Ile sign. In the eight Itcentury statuary had become inore realistic. and the 'temple guardians.' or heroic statues of denti-gods apparently of Brat)• manistie Indian mythology, have II ferocious rigor and a large freedom of design which raise these works to the greatest height of artistic merit known to us among the free and representative sculptures of the Far East, It is evident that only at II later date was the strong tendeney of Chino-dripanese art toward decorative 11-es Well eStablitilltil. DOWn to the ninth or even to the
tenth century it must have been still uncertain whether these arts would tool. as those of En rope had tended. toward a representative and ex pressional character, or whether shetild re:ied forward. as they have done, to a decorative exetdlonee aec•pted :us the pt rpose of the art. and far excelling in variety and completeness that known to Europe.
There are in Japanese historyy and tradition certain well-marked periods of development and of change. The thirteenth century of the Chris tian Era marks one of these. during which period the manners ,of the wealthier and influential (-lasses were. at-cording to all accounts, more se vere and deliberately removed from luxury than they had liven. and much more than they were to he. Some of the most interesting and impres sive pieces of Japanese sculpture belong to this epoeli. and it is pleasant to trace a fancied con nection between the comparative asceticism of the time and the severe design of these bronzes. Even the more realistic pieces—statuettes in which portraiture seems to be affected—are so severe in the casting of the draperies and so simple in pose and gesture that the very realism of the design is lost, as it were, in a kind of tra ditional dignity suggestive of a firm intellectual control over all the outlying branches of the central school. This influence of severe and re strained design remained unmodified in any seri ous way down to the accession to power of the Tokugawa shoguns in the sixteenth century. At this time the country was deliberately shut up from foreign influence. partly in protest against the pretensions of the Christian missionaries, and partly to secure an epoch of perfect peace, which, indeed, was gained, and lasted down to the time of the interference of the United States in the affairs of Japan as marked by the appearance of Commodore Perry's squadron in Japanese waters in 1853-54. During this period the arts became far more sumptuous than before. The abundance and variety of decoration increased very greatly. The richness of detail and brilliancy of color in architecture were matched only by the extraor dinary variety of design shown in the minor parts of decorative art, including textile fabrics, metal, lacquer work, and pottery. Painting, considered by itself and in connection with the separate pictures which we know as hacked with rich brocades and hung upon walls, or mounted upon portable folding screens, had ob tained a prodigious development in China in the twelfth century of the Christian Era; and the direct influence of this continental art upon the painting of Japan is traceable even to our as yet imperfect methods of investigation. The paint ings of the Tokugawa period. then, tend toward greater realism and a less fixed and unalterable tradition in the way of design than in the former time.