670 MODERN PAINTING 



conquerors. Their barbarous rule crushed the vitality of the native 

 civilization, and painting had barely a chance to survive. Thence- 

 forward it is a decadence relieved here and there by few exceptional 

 geniuses. It was not the Mongols alone who inflicted such disaster 

 on Chinese art. The Manchus have come again from the North to 

 impose another alien government. Wars and disturbances never 

 ceased to harass the Chinese painter. What one regards to-day as 

 representative of Chinese art is but a dismal shadow compared with 

 what it was in the glorious age of the Tang or Sung masters. 



In Japan, owing to our insular position, we were saved from the 

 Mongol disaster which beset Chinese art. Yet there are instances 

 when a civil war was the cause of destroying local centres of art. 

 One on the largest scale, which affected the whole of Japan, was the 

 war of the Ashikaga-Shogunate, which raged with few breaks for 

 nearly a century following the fifteenth. It ravaged Kioto and 

 Xara, the ancient capitals where the arts and crafts had clustered 

 from early days. The school of portraiture which culminated with 

 Xobuzane, the virile representations of contemporary life which are 

 seen in the Tosa makimonos, were a vital force before this sanguinary 

 period. The vigor of Buddhist painters had then but slightly abated, 

 for the splendid kakemonos, commonly attributed to Kanoaka, 

 are mostly produced within two centuries of this crisis. But in the 

 incessant turmoil of the late Ashikaga period the artist had no place 

 to pursue his vocation. The monasteries, which were the nurseries 

 of painting, were burned or their occupants were dispersed. The 

 function of the hereditary court painters ceased, for the court itself 

 \vas suffering through the misfortune of continuous war. Any one 

 conversant with the history of Japanese art will notice how our art 

 \vears an entirely new aspect after the restoration of peace. It has 

 evolved new and interesting phases ; but the ancient traditions of 

 the Kasugas and Tosas were lost forever. 



Tho calamities imposed upon art by the social conditions do not 

 cud here. Even in the days of peace we shall find that the so-called 

 encouragement was by no means a boon to art. The self-complacency 

 of society is apt to make itself believe that patronage is everything. 

 On the contrary, the word " patronage " is in itself an insult. We want 

 sympathy, not condescension. If society really cared for good art, 

 it should approach it with the respect clue to all the noble functions 

 of life. As it is, painting has been often called to the degrading 

 service of society. It was this that made the great Tang painter 

 Yenrippon tell his children that he would disown them if they ever 

 learned to paint. 



Maeterlinck has said that if the flowers had wings they would fly 

 away at the approach of man. I would not blame them if they 

 ever flew awav from the cruelties of floriculture. Art. the flower 



