FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95  
96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   >>   >|  
nt, and accurate representation. Comparisons between the history of Asiatic and of European art are admittedly possible; but as yet we believe the precise nature of the similarity has not been stated. It lies in the fact that both conform to the general laws of decay. The Asiatic movement with which we are familiar is essentially Buddhist; it expresses that sense of the universe that is expressed in another form by Buddhist doctrine and its later developments along the lines of Taoist idealism. How far the spread of Buddhism in China represents a spiritual reaction from the dry materialism of Confucianism is no matter for brief and dogmatic discussion. We need only say that the fourth-century painting in the British Museum by Ku K'ai-chih, though the artist himself is said to have been a Buddhist, belongs clearly to an earlier movement than that of which the T'ang and just pre-T'ang masterpieces are the primitives. By comparison with early Buddhist art this exquisite picture is sufficiently lacking in emotional significance to tempt one to suppose that it represents the ripe and highly cultivated decadence of a movement that the growing religious spirit was soon to displace. Slight as his acquaintance with this early art must be, an Englishman who visited regularly the exhibition at Shepherd's Bush was able to gather from eight or ten pictures, a couple of large wooden Bodhisattvas, and a few small figures in bronze, some idea of the way in which Japanese primitives could enter and express the world of reality. That same power he will find in the Byzantine mosaics of the sixth century, which express the earliest triumphs of another spiritual revolution over the cultured materialism of a moribund civilization. That new movement spread slowly across Europe, and till the middle of the twelfth century there was no general decline. But the best was over in France before the twelfth century was out. Gothic architecture is juggling in stone and glass. In Italy Giotto followed Cimabue; and Giotto could not always resist the temptation to state the particular and leave the universal out. He sometimes tells us facts instead of expressing emotions. In the full Renaissance the coarsest feeling sufficed to flavour a handsome, well-made picture. Meanwhile, under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) Asiatic art had reached much the same stage. The Ming picture in the British Museum known as _The Earthly Paradise_ is inferior to the best
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95  
96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
century
 

movement

 

Buddhist

 
picture
 

Asiatic

 

express

 

spiritual

 

represents

 

primitives

 

spread


Giotto

 
general
 

twelfth

 
British
 
materialism
 

Museum

 

moribund

 

civilization

 

earliest

 

triumphs


slowly

 

revolution

 

cultured

 

couple

 

pictures

 
wooden
 

Bodhisattvas

 

gather

 

figures

 

reality


Byzantine

 

Europe

 
bronze
 

Japanese

 

mosaics

 

flavour

 

sufficed

 

handsome

 

feeling

 

coarsest


expressing
 
emotions
 

Renaissance

 

Meanwhile

 

Earthly

 
Paradise
 

inferior

 
reached
 
dynasty
 

architecture