Japanese Art—A Reappraisal ’ 
By Rosert T. Paine, Jr., Assistant Curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
[With 4 plates] 
Most westerners are inclined to see 
in Japanese art a mere reflection of 
influences from the art of China. The 
Chinese, on the other hand, feel that 
Japanese art is disagreeably different. 
Common sense should indicate the 
natural conclusion that Japanese art 
is something distinctive, that its roots 
may have been transported from 
China, but its blossoms have developed 
a new variety in a new environment. 
The seventh- and eighth-century 
Japanese became fully aware of the 
greatness of China. At the same time 
they realized their own national unity 
and power. They analyzed and imi- 
tated the Chinese administrative 
organization. They adopted ideas 
wholesale. In name they sought to 
follow the Chinese educational system, 
but whereas this was one of the demo- 
cratic elements in Chinese life, in 
Japan it developed into an appendage 
of the aristocratic governing class. 
The artists of China may assuredly be 
grouped together as products of a 
rigid university training who, though 
they were philosophers, statesmen, 
and poets, also became painters. The 
biographies of the artists of Japan 
reveal origins among soldiers, aristo- 
crats, churchmen, and craftsmen. 
The last group is in many ways the 
most important. Before the days of 
1 This article was first written in relation 
to an exhibition of Japanese art held at the 
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and was pub- 
lished in the Bulletin of that Museum, vol. 
46, No. 263, February 1948. It is here 
revised for a more general public. 
the direct imitation of Chinese insti- 
tutions the artisans in Japan were 
organized into hereditary corpora- 
tions. ‘These craftsmen were made to 
fit into the feudal system of the Japan- 
ese. Their knowledge was that of 
technique and medium rather than in 
profundity of thought or charm of 
sentiment. When called upon, they 
illustrated the highest ideals of the age 
of their patrons, but they could seldom 
be classified as scholar-officials. Their 
traditionalism was handed on from 
generation to generation. 
The first important history of Far 
Eastern art, Fenollosa’s ‘‘Epochs of 
Chinese and Japanese Art,” was 
written at a time when artists of the 
Kano family were still living in Japan. 
Fenollosa saw that there was a con- 
tinuous tradition from his friend Kano 
Hogai back to the days of Wu Tao-tzu, 
the most famous Chinese artist of the 
eighth century. Here wasa single line 
stretching back for more than a thou- 
sand years. The school descends from 
the earlier ink monochrome painters 
of the fifteenth century, who in turn 
had done their utmost in Japan to 
revive the glories of the Sung period 
(960-1260) of Chinese art. 
But, in the very study and apprecia- 
tion of this backbone tradition which 
runs through the art of both China 
and Japan, much that is being praised 
today was omitted or undervalued by 
Fenollosa. This is particularly true of 
the later periods of Chinese art when 
the so-called literary man’s art flour- 
ished. ‘This school was influential in 
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