JAPANESE ART INDUSTRY IN GENERAL. 329 



poor but contented and happy people, whose needs are few and easy 

 to satisfy. Their products are called Te-zai-ku, i.e. " fine hand work." 



The apprentice advances through a long and, in our eyes, a hard 

 schooling to the rank of journeyman, from journeyman to master, 

 and it is only when talent, diligence, and perseverance are com- 

 bined that the highest rank can be reached — the place of a leading, 

 progressive artist. But the whole people, from the highest in posi- 

 tion to the lowest, show interest and comprehension for the produc- 

 tions of industrial art, and in this fact may be found undoubtedly 

 a powerful means of its advancement. 



The eye and hand of the Japanese are on the average more 

 practised than those of the European. Even the ordinary man can 

 generally make a fairly clear sketch of an article or a route. Why 

 is it .'' Is this keener artistic sense, this greater executive ability of 

 the people, inborn or acquired ? I think the latter, and believe 

 that the key to the problem is chiefly in the difficulty with which 

 Chinese and Japanese letters and characters are learned. It takes 

 years of practice and great diligence for the eye to distinguish them 

 quickly, and for the hand to imitate them easily with the India-ink 

 brush. But in this way the eye acquires great facility in recognis- 

 ing and grasping form and proportion, and the hand the dexterity 

 to reproduce them both with truth.^ 



The Japanese combine with their artistic skill not only a great 

 imitative faculty, but also much inventive power where small art- 

 conceptions and surprising effects are concerned. The inventive 

 spirit of the American is a speculative one, directed to the devising 

 of useful working-material and contrivances, some of which are 

 known in England and America as "Yankee notions." The Japan- 

 ese, however, invent little artistic trifles instead. In the one case 

 the spur to invention is the lightening of hand labour by substitu- 

 tion of other means. Here, it is the joy of artistic creation, with- 

 out any reckoning of the material benefit to be gained. 



In speaking of Japanese influence on the art industry of the 

 Christian West, it seems best to distinguish three periods of com- 

 merce with this land of the sunrising, viz., the Portuguese, Dutch, 

 and modern. The period of the almost exclusive commerce of 

 Portugal with Japan covers the last half of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. After the discovery of the country by Mendez Pinto in 

 1542, Portuguese Jesuits, led by Francis Xavier, introduced Christ- 

 ianity into the southern and middle parts, with such success that 

 many thousands were converted. The influence of these followers 

 of Loyola grew noticeably, until in 1582 some Christian princes of 

 the island of Kiushiu sent an embassy with rich presents to the 

 Pope at Rome and the court at Madrid by way of Lisbon. 



^ If the comparison be allowed, I would remind the reader here of the Slavic 

 nations and the well-known ease with which they acquire foreign languages. 

 The difficulties of their mother tongue exercise ear and tongue in such a way 

 as to fit them for a quick comprehension and use of foreign idioms. 



