rogatory to him, for we are always shy
of making fun of what we feel to be too closely a part of ourselves.
But impersonality has prevented the Far Oriental from having much amour
propre. He has no particular aversion to caricaturing himself. Few
Europeans, perhaps, would have cared to perpetrate a self-portrait
like one painted by the potter Kinsei, which was sold me one day as an
amusing tour de force by a facetious picture-dealer. It is a composite
picture of a new kind, a Japanese variety of type face. The great
potter, who was also apparently no mean painter, has combined three
aspects of himself in a single representation. At first sight the
portrait appears to be simply a full front view of a somewhat moon-faced
citizen; but as you continue to gaze, it suddenly dawns on you that
there are two other individuals, one on either side, hob-nobbing in
profile with the first, the lines of the features being ingeniously made
to do double duty; and when this aspect of the thing has once struck
you, you cannot look at the picture without seeing all three citizens
simultaneously. The result is doubtless more effective as a composition
than flattering as a likeness.

Far Eastern sculpture, by its secondary importance among Far Eastern
arts, witnesses again to the secondary importance assigned to man at our
mental antipodes. In this art, owing to its necessary limitations, the
representation of nature in its broader sense is impossible. For in the
first place, whatever the subject, it must be such as it is possible
to present in one continuous piece; disconnected adjuncts, as, for
instance, a flock of birds flying, which might be introduced with great
effect in painting, being here practically beyond the artist's reach.
Secondly, the material being of uniform appearance, as a rule, color,
or even shading, vital points in landscape portrayal, is out of the
question, unless the piece were subsequently painted, as in Grecian
sculptures, a custom which is not practised in China or Japan. Lastly,
another fact fatal to the representation of landscape is the size. The
reduced scale of the reproduction suggests falsity at once, a falsity
whose belittlement the mind can neither forget nor forgive. Plain
sculpture is therefore practically limited to statuary, either of men or
animals. The result is that in their art, where landscape counts for
so much, sculpture plays a very minor part. In what little there is,
Nature's place is taken