462 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



In illustration of the rapidity and dexterity with which the Japanese artists work we have 

 the testimony of the chaplain of the Mississippi, the Kev. Mr. Jones, who employed an artist 

 at Hakodadi to paint for him a set of screens. Mr. Jones sat hy the painter and watched him 

 at his work. He made no previous sketch, but drew at once the various portions of the 

 landscape, putting in his houses, ships, horses, trees and birds, with wonderful readiness, the 

 whole being a fancy piece ; and when he came to paint the foliage of some pines, he used two 

 brushes in one hand at the same time, so as to expedite his work. The result was, though not 

 a production of high art, yet a much better specimen of ornamental screen than could readily 

 be found in the most pretentious manufacturing establishment of our own country. And here 

 we may add, that a very remarkable specimen of Japanese linear drawing in perspective fell 

 under Mr. Jones' observation. On the first visit of the squadron to Japan, as we have stated, 

 intense interest was excited among the natives by the engines of the steamers. Their curiosity 

 seemed insatiable, and the Japanese artists were constantly employed, when they had opportu- 

 nity, in making drawings of parts of the machinery, and seeking to understand its construction 

 and the principles of its action. On the second visit of the squadron, Mr. Jones saw, in the 

 hands of a Japanese, a perfect drawing, in true proportion, of the whole engine, with its several 

 parts in place, which he says was as correct and good as could have been made anywhere. The 

 Japanese artist had made it, and valued it very highly, being unwilling to part with it at any 

 price ; Mr. Jones would have gladly bought it, and offered to do so, that he might bring it 

 home as a specimen of Japanese skill. 



In regard to anatomical markings, there is, in the specimens of Japanese drawings we have 

 before us, no lack of such a degree of correctness as may be obtained by close outward observa- 

 tion of the parts. The muscular development of the horses, both in action and at rest, is shown 

 in lines sufficiently true to nature to prove a very minute and accurate observation, on the part 

 of the artist, of the external features of his subjects. This is very striking in the frieze of the 

 wrestlers alluded to above. It is characterized by remarkable precision in this respect, and 

 while preserving in the figures all the peculiar features of the Asiatic stock, the outer angle of 

 the eye running upward, the small corneas, &c., there is distinctive expression, yet with 

 similarity, and a height of art is reached in the drawings corresponding, as regards naturalistic 

 characters, with what has been found in some of the Ninevah fragments. 



The third example of Japanese art is afforded by an unpretending, illustrated child's book, 

 purchased in Hakodadi for a few Chinese copper " cash." This humble little primer suggests 

 a thousand points of interest in connexion with the Japanese, and acquaints us at once, as we 

 turn over the very first page, with an important fact as regards their advance in art. We here 

 find evidence that, unlike the Chinese, the artists of Japan have, as we have already hinted, a 

 knowledge of perspective. There is a balcony presented in angular perspective, with its rafters 

 placed in strict accordance with the principle of terminating the perspective lines in a vanishing 

 point abruptly on the horizon. On another page there is what appears to be some Tartar 

 Hercules, or Japanese St. Patrick clearing the land of reptiles and vermin, and the doughty 

 destroyer is brandishing his sword in most valiant style. This is drawn with a freedom and 

 humorous sense of the grotesque and ludicrous that are rarely found in similar books prepared 

 for the amusement of children with us. In one of the illustrations there is a quaint old 

 shopman peering through a pair of spectacles stuck upon his nose, and made precisely like the 

 double-eyed glasse's just now so fashionable, without any side wires or braces to confine them to 



