50 THE GENTLE ART OF BLAZON 



more dignified than a dancing poodle. There is no 

 middle course in heraldic painting. If you have to 

 represent an azure lion with scarlet tongue and claws, 

 you only render the beast ridiculous by making it 

 anatomically correct. Presently you will be landed 

 in that preposterous eighteenth-century fallacy of 

 representing landscape, pyramids, palm-trees, and 

 what not upon the escutcheon of distinguished 

 persons. 



The precocity and scope of Japanese civilisation are 

 trite subjects. Even in such superfluities as heraldry 

 they have caught the true knack and spirit of abstrac- 

 tion. They have chosen as their national flag the 

 rising sun : but they are far too instinct with the 

 artistic sense to make any attempt at realism. A 

 scarlet orb, emerging from the lower quarter of the flag, 

 drives scarlet rays across the argent field. Nothing 

 could much less resemble the actual planet; yet no 

 more perfect emblem could be devised, nor could it 

 fulfil more admirably the purpose of a distinct 

 ensign. 



There is one heraldic term which has found its 

 way into everyday speech, but is seldom used in its 

 proper meaning. It has come to be the practice, even 

 of good writers, to use the verb ' to blazon ' in a sense 

 wholly different from what it bears in heraldry. The 

 late Professor Skeat, whom few men ever caught 

 tripping, gave two different words (1) blazon, a pro- 

 clamation, to proclaim, which he assigns to an Anglo- 

 Saxon or Scandinavian source, and (2) blazon, to 

 pourtray armorial bearings, from the French blason, 



