512 OEIENTAL ELEMENTS OF CULTURE IN THE OCCIDENT. 



of the antique is soniethino- which does not occur in nature, and 

 a violent crossing of it and the flat roof arc una?sthetic in the 

 highest degree. The grand development of (lothic architecture is 

 due to the man}" methods of overarching the columns which made 

 the pointed arch possible. Now where does this element, which 

 enabled oui' great masters to produce their wonderful creations, 

 tirst appear as an artistic means of architecture? In the Mosque 

 of Ibn Tulun, at Cairo, which was erected between 876 and 878; 

 ))ut })robably even earlier in the Miqyas (Nilometer), on the Nile 

 island Roda." In art industry our dependence is still more appar- 

 ent. With all our technical aids we are still far from attaining the 

 noblest productions of the oriental textile industry. This is brought 

 home to us, with regard to the Middle Ages, by the raiment of 

 old (irerman emperors bearing Arabic inscriptions, and with regard 

 to the present time by examining the colors of genuine carpets, 

 or the gloss of genuine Brussa silks. And as in textile industr}' 

 China gave us silk, so also in ceramics that country taught us to pro- 

 duce the tinest material — porcelain. Rut the influence of oriental art 

 industry reaches far beyond the mere production of material. Every 

 connoisseur of our modern decorative art knows that it owes most 

 of its suggestions to Japan. "At the Paris exposition,'' the expert, 

 Ad. Fischer, says, ''everyone familiar with Japan could have con- 

 vinced himself that the artists of the various countries often adopted 

 the ideas of some Japanese artist. Thus, for instance, the porcelain 

 factory of lioezendael appropriated the glorious flower and bird 

 sketches of Schigemasa." Fortunately, we have learned at last to give 

 the Eastern patterns a Western surrounding, but one familiar with 

 flapanese art will frequently discern the exotic master even in the 

 creations of modern naturalism, which again lovingly studies our own 

 flora and fauna, for which the classicists lacked perception, so that we 

 ari' justified in asking whether this whole tendency, wdiich api)eals 

 to us as something native, does not after all owe its development to 

 the intelligent study of a foreign culture.'' One who saw tiie plates 

 of the elegant Vienna edition of Schmoranz, Altorientalische (Jlas- 

 gefilsse, which appeared in 1898 (e. g., XXIX), will re( ognizc^ that 

 also this branch of our modern art industry has, in its noblest crea- 

 tions, copied the Orient with greater luck than the antique. This 

 opens wider vistas concerning the influence of the Orient through 

 art industry. Thus Wilhelm Bode'' points out how Venice, which 

 in tlie fifteenth century reveled in the glory of Oriental carpets, 

 matui-ed the grandest school of colorists in painting, and indeed the 



« Compare Franz-Pascha, Die Baukunst des Islam, Darmstadt, 1877, p. 11. 

 ''A good survey of the character of Japanese art is given by Max Hrinkinann, 

 Kunst und Knnstgewerbe in Japan (lecture), Haml)urg, 1883. 

 '-'Vorderasiati^che Kniii)fteppiche, Leipzig ( liK)2), j). 4. 



