MODERN PROBLEMS IN PAINTING 671 



of thought, has also no wings. Its roots are bound to humanity. It 

 is painful to think how it has been trimmed, cut, and tortured by 

 unfeeling hands to be confined in a vessel for temporary admiration. 

 Sotoba, a Sung poet, has remarked, "Men are not ashamed to wear 

 flowers, but what of the flowers? " If the Buddhist idea of retribution 

 is to be believed in, the flowers must have committed terrible crimes 

 in their former lives! Let us hope for the painters a better incarnation 

 in their next. 



Religion has been supposed to be the greatest inspiration of art. 

 It is often claimed that the loss of religious zeal caused the decadence 

 of art. But art is a religion in itself. The mere fact of painting a 

 holy subject does not constitute the holiness of the picture. The 

 inherent nobleness and devotional attitude of the artist's mind 

 toward the cosmos alone stamps him as the religious painter. It has 

 been remarked that in the picture of the bamboo by Sankoku lay 

 the whole mystery of Taoism. The stereotyped representations of 

 Christian or Buddhist subjects, of which, we are sorry to say, there 

 are so many, are not only a parody on religion but a caricature of 

 art itself. Here we see another instance of the effects of misplaced 

 patronage, where even religion made a handmaiden of art, and thus 

 diverted it from its legitimate expression. 



Again, the ambitions of kings and potentates have led them to 

 use art for their own glorification. Their monumental works were 

 not the patronage of art, but patronage of themselves. The same 

 spirit of self-importance moved them as that which led to the en- 

 couragement of portrait-painting by the modern bourgeoisie. The 

 instinct is natural, but not favorable to the elevation of art-ideals. 

 I n the hundred golden screens of Momoyama, we find the magnificent 

 tediousness that characterizes the work of Kano Yeitoku, painter- 

 iii-ordinary to the Japanese Napoleon. On the walls of Versailles we 

 feel the elaborate insipidity of Horace Vernet, the historian of the 

 Taiko Hideyoshi of Europe. 



Society, in posing as the patron, forgets that its true function is 

 that of the mother. Art was rarely allowed a place to nestle on its 

 bosom. The waywardness of art, born of her innate individuality, has 

 caused her to be treated as a stepchild. The palmy days of painting 

 were only when the painters had a recognized place in the social 

 scheme. In old times painting was either a trade or an occupation of 

 the religious. The great masters belonged to the guild if not to the 

 cloister. They were Bellinis, or Fra Angelicos. 



In the East, where hereditary profession is an important factor 

 of society, the family took the place of the guild. Our old master 

 was cither a scion of the Tosas, or a monk, a Yeshin-Sodzu, or a 

 Chodensu. Monasticism itself later on gave protection to the bro- 

 therhood of painters, for, in the strict formalism of Oriental life, the 



