JAPANESE ART. 



459 



choicest specimens of similar Chinese work. Tlie forms and ornamentation of the various 

 articles, although frequently grotesque, showed much grace and skill, and proved great 

 advancement in the application of the arts of design to manufacturing purposes. 



In examining into the character of art exhibited by the Japanese in the illustrated books and 

 pictures brought home by the officers of the expedition, of which several specimens are now 

 before us, the same surprising advancement of this remarkable people, as they have shown in 

 so many other respects, is strikingly observable. To the archfBologist there is presented in 

 these illustrations a living example of the archaic period of a national art, when the barbaric 

 character of the past seems to be fast losing its rude features in the earlj' and naive beginnings 

 of a sober and cultivated future. We are reminded, in a degree truly surjDrising, of the 

 monochromatic designs upon the Etruscan vases. We find simplicity of expression rather than, 

 as might be expected, extravagance aud grotesqueness ; and a soberness of coloring so far 

 removed from the gaudy tendencies of oriental taste, that, as we look, we are almost persuaded 

 that we have here a beginning of that unextravagant exjn-ession of nature which, in the early 

 Greek eiforts, though crude, is so interesting to the antiquarian and artist. The character and 

 form in these Japanese illustrations, though apparently much in advance of Chinese art, are 

 still typical rather than naturalistic ; yet they are marked by an observation of nature which 

 removes them from anything like conventionalism or manner. 



One of these specimens is a book in two volumes, written by the Prince Hayashi, the chief 

 member of the imperial commission appointed to negotiate the treaty, and presented by him to 



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Fac Simile of Horse, from Japanese Drawlngfl. 



Commodore Perry. The subject treated of is "The Points of a Horse," and the work is 

 illustrated by a large number of pictures. These illustrations are from woodcuts of bold outline. 



