gion may have influenced and
utilised Japanese art, it has never killed, or indeed affected to any
degree, what I may term the individualistic artistic instincts of the
nation. Japanese art requires to be closely studied. It is something
that grows upon one, and the closer it is studied the greater its
influence. To me one of its most pleasing features is what I have
termed in the Preface its catholicity. It is not, as art is in so many
European countries, the cult of a few, a sort of Eleusynian mystery
into which a select number of persons have been initiated. It has, on
the contrary, permeated, and exercised an influence upon, the whole
nation, and been employed for even the most humble purposes. It is for
this reason that, as I have previously observed, I am of opinion the
Japanese may be considered and described as the most artistic people
in the world.

I have referred to the grotesqueness and lack of perspective
incidental to some descriptions of Japanese art. It certainly neglects
chiaroscuro and linear perspective, and it displays an entire lack of
form knowledge. The human figure and face have apparently never been
studied at all. The colouring is frequently splendid, while the
figures are for the most part anatomically incorrect. One would think
that Japanese artists had never seen their own or any other human
bodies. A rigid adherence to conventionality is, in my opinion, a
defect of all Japanese art. By conventionality I do not, of course,
mean what I may term the individuality of the art itself, but the
fact that Japanese artists have felt themselves largely bound by the
traditions of their art to treat the human and other figures not in
accordance with nature, but altogether in accordance with the
conventions of that art, and to entirely ignore perspective. I am
quite aware that some enthusiastic lovers of things Japanese admire,
or affect to admire, these defects. They have been described as a
protest against the too rigid rules exacted in Western art. I suggest,
however, that art in its highest form should seek to be true to
nature, and in so far as Japanese art fails in this respect it is, I
think, defective. At the same time I cordially admit that its defects
are more than compensated by its splendid workmanship, its gorgeous
colouring, and its striking originality.

It was only about forty or fifty years ago that Japanese art became
known to any extent in Europe. Certainly the Portuguese missionarie