ched garments of primitive Buddhism."[8] The change in the Japanese
temple was as though the gray clouds had been kissed by the sun and made
to laugh rainbows. The country of the Fertile Plain of Sweet Flags was
transformed. It suddenly became the land wherein gods grew not singly
but in whole forests. Like the Shulamite, when introduced among the
jewelled ladies of Solomon's harem, so stood the boor amid the sheen and
gold of the new temples.

"Gold was the one thing essential to the Buddhist altar-piece,
and sometimes, when applied on a black ground, was the only
material used. In all cases it was employed with an unsparing
hand. It appeared in uniform masses, as in the body of the
Buddha or in the golden lakes of the Western Paradise; in minute
diapers upon brocades and clothing, in circlets and undulating
rays, to form the glory surrounding the head of Amitaba; in
raised bosses and rings upon the armlets or necklets of the
Bodhisattvas and Devas, and in a hundred other manners. The
pigments chosen to harmonize with this display were necessarily
body colors of the most pronounced lines, and were untoned by
any trace of chiaroscuro. Such materials as these would surely
try the average artist, but the Oriental painter knew how to
dispose them without risk of crudity or gaudiness, and the
precious metal, however lavishly applied, was distributed over
the picture with a judgment that would make it difficult to
alter or remove any part without detriment to the beauty of the
work."[9]

In our day, Japanese art has won its own place in the world's temple of
beauty. Even those familiar with the master-pieces of Europe do not
hesitate to award to the artists of Nippon a meed of praise which,
within certain limits, is justly applied to them equally with the
masters of the Italian, the Dutch, the Flemish, or the French schools.
It serves our purpose simply to point out that art was a powerful factor
in the religious conquest of the Japanese for the new doctrines of the
Yoga system, which in Japan is called Riy[=o]bu, or Mixed Buddhism.

We say Mixed Buddhism rather than Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o], for Shint[=o] was
less corrupted than swallowed up, while Buddhism suffered one more
degree of mixture and added one more chapter of decay. It increased in
its visible body, while in its mind it became less and less the religion
of Buddha and more and more a thing wit