JAPAN
from the ninth, tenth, and twelfth centuries. They are preserved in a temple on the sacred island of Miyajima (now called Itsukushima), and they show that even in such remote eras the sculptor possessed great skill in delineating the human countenance under the influence of emotion. To later eras, however—the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—belong a wonderful series of masks which constitute a special outcome of Japanese sculpture. Every aristocratic household and every Buddhist or Shintō parish possessed a store of these masks. It is difficult to conceive any type of face, any display of passion, any exhibition of affection, of fury, of cruelty, of benevolence, of voluptuousness, of imbecility, that these masks do not reproduce with remarkable realism. Japanese catalogues set forth two hundred and sixty masks, each of which has a distinguishing appellation and is recognised as the work of an expert. The art of the sculptor was not exercised merely in modelling the features. His work was counted imperfect unless he fashioned the mask so that it could be worn by any one for a lengthy period without discomfort. There can be no doubt that the great success achieved in carving masks and the moving effect of their skilled use in association with the highly trained gesticulation and posturing, the splendid costumes and the weird music of the saru-gaku and the no-gaku, exercised a potent influence on the methods of the professional actor of the theatre proper. He did not wear an artificial mask, but he sought to mould his features into a mask-like picture of concentrated emotion, thus establishing a vivid link between his performance and the classic mime of aristocracy.
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