320 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



high technical perfection, numerous failures in perspective and 

 proportion. The frequent departure from Hne and symmetry in 

 their decorations offends our eye and feehng something as in 

 certain of Wagner's compositions, e.g., in Siegfried, the many 

 dissonances which follow a passage of harmonious accord offend 

 the ears of many a lover of music. 



This love of the Japanese for the bizan^e, the unsymmetrical, 

 and in our eyes, the unlovely shows itself not only in art in- 

 dustry, but in their gardening, for instance in the way in which 

 they arrange their flowers, and especially in the frequent treatment 

 of the pine or Matsu {Pimts Massoniana and P. densijlord), in their 

 gardens. Their eyes delight in its deformed figure, in its unnatural 

 and disproportionately long horizontal branches. Specimens which 

 have been made particularly monstrous in this way, e.g., the old 

 pine of Karasaki on Biwa Lake, are accounted among the most 

 notable sights of the country and attract visitors from far. 



Many of the productions of art industry, as well as the examples 

 of architecture, show that constructive art is far less advanced 

 among the Japanese than decorative art. We seek in vain among 

 their works of an industrial character for " the noble restful great- 

 ness of the Greek masterpieces " (Winkelmann), which distinguish 

 also Greek ceramics. Many of the Japanese models, like the 

 temples and Daimio fortresses, which were formerly the chief 

 repositories of art, are clumsy and dwarfed. But with these, how- 

 ever, there are many which, for lightness and attractiveness of 

 form, satisfy the most refined taste. Nevertheless their principal 

 skill is unquestionably in the line of decoration. Their compo- 

 sitions show well controlled exactness and strength, and charm by 

 their life and truth to nature, their often masterly colouring and 

 the high technical perfection of their embellishment. 



Most of the slender, airy, well-proportioned art forms of Aryan 

 nations are either wanting or are so changed as to be beyond 

 recognition. In their ceramics and metal industry we miss en- 

 tirely the beautiful vase and jug-shaped Amphora, Hydria, 

 Lekythos, and Oinochoe, while Krater and Kantharos appear in 

 numerous modifications, especially among bronze vases, because 

 they are so well adapted to hold loosely the blooming stalks placed 

 in them. The beautiful shape of the Indian sarai, which is used so 

 much of late for water and wine flagons made from crystal glass, 

 has been much changed in the Chinese and Japanese imitations in 

 porcelain and bronze. That which has been most retained is the 

 spherical enlargement at the base, but in place of the narrow slender 

 throat is one wider and far less pleasing, often with wing-like 

 appendages, and even griffins at the mouth of the vase. The 

 form of the Greek wine jar has never become domesticated, not- 

 withstanding it has been so often introduced into the country 

 among the presents of the Portuguese and Dutch. Cylindrical 

 vase-forms, copied from the bamboo cane, as well as polygonal 



