The Spirit of Japanese Art/The Ukiyoye Art in Original
THE UKIYOYE ART IN ORIGINAL
I often think the general impression that the best Ukiyoye art reveals itself in colour-print has to be corrected in some special cases, because the Ukiyoye art in original kakemono, though not so well appreciated in the West, is also a thing beautiful; and I feel proud to say that I have often seen those special cases in Japan. On such occasions I always say that I am impressed as if the art were laughing and cursing fantastically over the present age, whose prosaic regularity completely misses the old fascination of romanticism which Japan of two or three hundred years ago perfected by her own temperament. Whenever I see it (mind you, it should be the best Ukiyoye art in original) at my friend's house by accident, or in the exhibition hall, my heart and soul seem to be turning to a winged thing fanned by its magic; and when my consciousness returns, I find myself narcotised in incense, before the temple of art where sensuality is consecrated through beauty.
It is not too much to say that Shunsho Katsukawa, who died in 1792 at the age of ninety-seven, gained more than any other artist from the originals, through his masterly series of twelve pieces, "A Woman's Year," owned by Count Matsura, a most subtle arrangement of figures whose postures reach the final essence of grace perhaps from the delicate command of artistic reserve, the decorative richness of the pictures heightened by life's gesticulation of beauty; whilst the harmony of the pictorial quantity and quality is perfect. Behind the pictures we read the mind of the artist with the critic's gift of appraising his own work. When we realise the somewhat exaggerated hastiness of later artists, for example, artists like Toyokuni the First, or Yeizan (the other artists being out of the question, of course), Shunsho's greatness will be at once clear. It may have been his own thought to modify the women's faces from the artless roundness of the earlier artists to the rather emphatic oblong, from simplicity to refinement, although I acknowledge it was Harunobu's genius to make the apparent want of effort in women's round faces flow into the sad rhythm of longing and passion, a symbol of the white, weary love; in Harunobu we have a singular case of the distinction between simplesse and simplicité. It was the old Japanese art to portray delicacy only in the women's hands and arms; but certainly it was the distinguished art of Shunsho, with many other contemporary Ukiyoye artists, to make the necks, especially the napes, the points of almost tantalising grace; what a charm of abandon in those shoulders! And what a beautiful elusiveness of the slightly inclined faces of the women! I am always glad to see Shunsho's famous picture, "Seven Beauties in a Bamboo Forest," owned by the Tokyo School of Art, in which the romantic group of chignons leisurely promenade, one reading a love-letter, another carrying a shamisen instrument, through the shade of a bamboo forest. Not only in this picture, but in many other arrangements of women and sentiment, Shunsho reminds me of the secret of Cho Densu of the fifteenth century in his elaborate Rakan pictures, particularly in the point that the figures, while keeping their own individual aloofness, perfectly well fuse themselves in the alembic of the picture into a composition most impressive. And you will soon find that when the sense of monotony once subsides, your imagination grows to see their spiritual variety.
It is rather difficult to see a best specimen of the originals of Harunobu or even of Utamaro. I think there is some reason, however, to say in the case of Utamaro that he did not leave many worthy pictures in original, because he made the blocks, fortunately or unfortunately, a castle to rise and fall with; while I see the fact on the one side that, while he was not accepted in the polite society of his time, he gained as a consequence much strength through his restriction of artistic purpose. There was nothing more ridiculous for the Ukiyoye artists of those days than to intrude their work of the so-called "Floating World" into the aristocratic tokonoma, the sacred alcove of honour for the art of a Tosa or a Kano, and to attempt to call themselves Yamato Yeshi, whatever that means. What wisdom is there to become neutral, like Yeishi or in some degree Koryusai, who never created any distinct success either as Ukiyoye artist or as so-called polite painter. I can easily read the under-meaning how they were even insulted, by the cultured class, when they tried to satisfy their own resentment by such an assumption of Yamato Yeshi ("the Yamato artist," Yamato being the classic name of Japan); I see more humiliation in it than pride. The contempt displayed toward them, however, was not so serious till the appearance of Moronobu, who created his own art out of their sudden descent; his realism accentuated itself in the portrayal of courtesans and street vagrants of old Yedo, for the popular amusement, at the huge cost of being criticised as immoral. The artists before his day, even those to-day roughly termed the Ukiyoye artists, were the self-same followers. To begin with Matabei, after the Kano, Tosa, and Sumiyoshi schools successively, their work was strengthened or weakened according to the situation by the irresistibility of plebeianism; it is clear that the final goal for their work was, of course, the tokonoma of the rich man and the nobles. And it seems that they must have found quite an easy access into that scented dais, if I judge from the pictures of the "Floating World" (what an arbitrary name that!) that remain to-day. They had, in truth, no necessity to advertise themselves as Yamato Yeshi, like some artists of the later age who were uneducated and therefore audacious; and in their great vanity wished to separate themselves from their fellow-workers; while their work has a certain softness—though it be not nobility—at least not discordant with the grey undertone of the Japanese room, doubtless they lack that strength distilled and crystallised into passionate lucidity which we see in the best colour-prints. When I say that Moronobu was the founder of Ukiyoye art, I mean more to call attention to the fact that the Japanese block print was well started in its development from his day, into which process the artists put all sorts of spontaneity, at once cursing creed and tradition. As for the Ukiyoye artists, I dare say their weakness in culture and imagination often turned to force; they gained artistic confidence in their own power from their complete withdrawal from polite society. Such was the case with Utamaro and Hiroshige. I wonder what use there was to leave poor work in the original like that of Toyokuni and Yeizan, whose works often serve only to betray their petty ambition.
I have seen enough of the originals of this interesting Ukiyoye art, beginning with Matabei and Katsushige; Naganobu Kano, the former's contemporary, is much admired in the series of twelve pictures, "Merry-making under the Flowers," with the illogical simplicity natural to the first half of the seventeenth century. The fact that the name "Floating World" did not mean much in those days can be seen in the work of Rippo Nonoguchi or Gukei Sumiyoshi, whose classical respect weakened the pictorial impression. Mr. Takamine, who is recognised as the keenest collector of Ukiyoye art in Japan, has quite an extensive collection of the works of Ando Kwaigetsudo (1688-1715), Anchi Choyodo, Dohan Kwaigetsudo (early eighteenth century), Doshu Kwaigetsudo, Doshin Kwaigetsudo, Nobuyuki Kameido, Rifu Tosendo, Katsunobu Baiyuken, and Yeishun Baioken, all of them contemporaries of Doshu. Although their merit is never so high, even when not questionable, we can imagine that their work must have been quite popular, even in high quarters; among them Dohan might be the cleverest, but as a Japanese critic says, his colour-harmony is marred by ostentatious imprudence. I have seen the best representation of Sukenobu Nishikawa in "Woman Hunting Fireflies," soft and delicate. The other artists I came to notice and even admire are Choshun Miyakawa, Masanobu Okumura, Shigemasa Kitawo, and other names. I think that the time should come when the original Ukiyoye art, too, should be properly priced in the West; we are still sticking to our hereditary superstition that no picture is good if we cannot hang it in the tokonoma, where we burn incense and place the flowers arranged to invoke the greyness of the air. But I wonder why we cannot put an Utamaro lady here on the Japanese tokonoma.