328 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



tities in the treaty ports and in the interior, at the lowest prices, 

 since their whole aim was to make as much money as possible. 

 The artisans themselves forsook to a great degree the old patterns 

 and the old methods of work, and sought eagerly for new forms 

 and decorations to please European taste, which hitherto they had 

 not known. The most tasteless things, considered so by the 

 Japanese, thus reached their market and found their customers. 



But unexpectedly, with the revival of our own art handicraft, 

 and the spreading of an educated taste abroad in Europe, there 

 came a turning-point in this corrupting tendency in Japanese art 

 industry. The number of connoisseurs and amateurs of the pure 

 industrial art-productions of Japan increased, the demand for them 

 grew, and a new impetus was given to industrial efforts, greater 

 and more powerful than any previous influence. This turning- 

 point is due not a little to the effect of the great industrial exhibi- 

 tions upon all interested Japanese, the government as well as the 

 artisans. The degeneration feared by so many, the ruin of 

 Japanese industrial art, has not come to pass ; but, in many depart- 

 ments, I mention only enamel and bronze work, there has been 

 remarkable progress during the past fifteen years. 



The conviction has been reached that the future of Japanese art 

 industry lies in the preservation of its individuality. Only while 

 the Japanese people retain their childlike joy in the beautiful 

 scenery of their country ; while they keep up the careful nurture of 

 their favourites in wood and field, temple-grove and house-garden, 

 continuing to draw from this living and ever fresh source their 

 themes and artistic inspirations, and do not lose their satisfaction 

 therein — the main ground of their happiness and of their cheap 

 labour-power — only in such case will they keep their place at the 

 head in their peculiar industrial and artistic productions. Only 

 thus can they hope to preserve the market they have gained, and 

 to adapt themselves to it anew. 



In the feudal days of Japan, as has been said, the finest products 

 of art industry went to the adornment of temples and dwellings of 

 the barons. They were generally made to order, and the princes 

 vied with each other in developing and maintaining conspicuous 

 talent. This gave the artist an undisturbed leisure and joy in 

 his creations. When it is maintained however that in recent times 

 many persons in the higher classes of Japan showed not only 

 interest in art industry, but occupied themselves with it — that even 

 princes and ministers modelled and painted lacquer ware, it must 

 be owing to a great misunderstanding of existing circumstances. 

 Dilettanti of this sort are much rarer there than with us. Verse- 

 making or poetising was always fashionable even in the highest 

 circles, and so was painting probably, but these circles have played 

 no such noticeable part in the development of industrial art as 

 has been sometimes reported. In Japan, art and art industry do 

 not dwell in palaces, but in the modest little wooden dwellings of 



