Feb. 25, 1886] 



NA TURE 



387 



in man's history. But the art, like the civilisation, of 

 Europe cannot be traced to the Cave-men ; both are a 

 heritage from the Greeks, distributed westwards by Rome. 

 Nor was Greece itself other than an apt soil for the de- 

 velopment of seeds brought from Egypt. Who that has 

 gazed upon tlie wall-paintings of the tomb of Ti at Sak- 

 karah, or has seen the wonderful wooden statue at Boulak, 

 known as the Shekh-el-Beled, or the sculptures on the 

 sandstones of Wady Mughara, or the figures cut on the 

 obelisk of Heliopolis, can. doubt that the men who did 

 these works, full of truth, grace, and vigour, were the 

 worthy foregoers of the sculptors of Greece and the 

 painters of Italy? As the message of Greek art was 

 borne by Rome to the West, so was it carried by the 

 Macedonian conqueror to the northern frontiers of India, 

 where the Buddhists of the Punjab countries pressed it 

 eagerly into the service of their religion. In the sculp- 

 tures of the monasteries of Yusufzai (Swat frontier of 

 the Punjab) brought to light by IVIajor Cole, R.E., and 

 admirably photographed in the magnificent publication 

 of the Indian Government issued under the title " Pre- 

 servation of the National Monuments of India," this 

 Grffico-Buddhic art is amply exemplified, and most in- 

 teresting it is to trace in these remains both the reposeful 

 strength which the mobile Greek admired, and the 

 vigorous action which pleased the conte iiplative Asiatic. 

 Among the most striking of the sculptures are a figure 

 of Maya being borne to the Trayastrinsha heaven, re- 

 calling, and probably suggested by, the work of Leochares 

 (B.C. 365) known as "Ganymede carried off by Jupiter's 

 Eagle," the figure of Prince Siddhartha before he left 

 home to become a mendicant, and the wonderful group 

 representing the death of the Buddha, with the face of 

 Devadatta full of evil glee behind the couch. The best 

 Buddhistic works of China or Japan, in comparison with 

 these remains of early Grxco-Buddhic art, are merely 

 feeble grotesques, in which the majesty and grace of the 

 prototypes have degenerated into strained pose and ges- 

 ture and the lifeless prectiness of craftsmanship. The 

 great gateways of the Tope at Sanchi, it may be noted 

 en passant, bear a curioui resemblance to the torii of 

 Shinto shrines in Japan, the principal difference being 

 the presence of a third cross-piece in the former, and the 

 elaborate sculpture of their elements. 



In the first century of our era the Buddhist apostles 

 reached China, in the fourth they were in Korea, and in 

 the sixth in Japan. Their art they bore with them, and 

 used as a means of propagation of their doctrines. In 

 the plates numbered i, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, and To — the last a 

 particularly interesting representation by the Chinese 

 artist of the eighth century, Wu-tao-tsu, of the eight 

 Nirvana of Buddha — the characteristics of this missionary 

 art are well displayed, and may be instructively compared 

 with the Yusufzai sculptures. 



But even the art of Egypt had its birthplace elsewhere 

 than in the Nile Valley. Recent investigations of the 

 earliest monuments tend to prove, as Mr. Bertin has 

 lately shown, that the Egyptians were not of a Semitic, 

 but of an Equatorial .African, stock. Mr. Bertin advances 

 also good grounds for supposing that the Bushmen of 

 South Africa, whose rock- paintings every traveller who 

 has seen them has extolled for their faithfulness and 

 vigour, came of the same or an allied stock. The Bush- 



men are by no means a degraded, though a stunted, race. 

 They have no kinship with the Negro or even with the 

 Bantu races. Their skulls are well-formed and free from 

 prognathism, and their meagre physique may perhaps be 

 due to the hardship they endured in their secular wander- 

 ings over the vast deserts that intervene between the 

 equator and the tracts to the north of the Cape Colony. 

 A psychological connection is thus established between 

 South Africa and the Far East which is worthy of being 

 more fully investigated. There are many facts which 

 tend to add force to this theory, startling though it may 

 appear, which I have no space to dwell upon. I may, 

 however, cite the analogy which seems to exist between 

 the Bushman clicks and the Chinese tones, the former 

 having a similar relation to consonantal to that which the 

 latter possess to vocalic sounds. 



Up to the middle of the last century the Chinese 

 school of painting, more or less directly developed from 

 Buddhistic art, held sway in Japan. Its history and the 

 modifications it underwent in the latter country are 

 admirably set forth by Mr. Anderson, and to his account 

 I must refer the reader. About the period referred to a 

 sort of revolt took place in Japan against Sinicism gene- 

 rally. The great Shinto revivalists, Mabuchi, Motdori, 

 and Hirata, scouted Buddhism and Confucianism with 

 equal emphasis. There is a quaintness in their logic 

 which is not unamusing. Motoori, for instance, defends 

 the Shinto lack of a moral code by the answer that the 

 very possession of a moral code was a badge of inferiority, 

 proving as it did the need of it, a need which Japan did 

 not feel, as the people had merely to obey the Mikado, 

 the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, to be assured 

 of their righteousness. While this religious renaissance was 

 preparing the way for the return of the Mikado to power, 

 a sort of Giottesque revolution took place in art : classicism 

 was, though only partially, abandoned, and a Realistic 

 school lyiikiyoyc) came into existence, of which the master 

 spirit was Hokusai, who died at the age of ninety in 1S49. 

 \nt\i& Hiyaku sho den (the Hundred Heroes) are sketches 

 made by him at the age of eighty-eight. The ukiyoye 

 school was that of Japanese art par excellence, to a very 

 considerable degree freed from Chinese trammels, and 

 full of the lively and mobile spirit of the people. Mr. 

 Anderson gives a good account of it, but hardly so full as 

 it merits. Nor is it adequately represented in the present 

 instalment, though doubtless it will be so in the complete 

 work. The woodcut, after a drawing by Hokusai, called 

 " The Maniac " (PI. 37) is a fine example of his fluent draw- 

 ing and skill and breadth in composition. The last is to 

 me by far the most interesting phase of Japanese art. So 

 it was to Motoori, whose very sensible observations on the 

 subject have recently been translated by that excellent 

 scholar, Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain (7>. As. Sac. Jap., 

 vol. -xii. p. 223). To Sinico-Japanese art, Motoori, though 

 an enthusiastic patriot, preferred Chinese art, especially 

 the finished pictures of the Chinese, and their rapid draw- 

 ings of birds, flowers, fish, insects, and the like, and again 

 I share his opinion. 



The ukiyoye style may indeed justly be regarded as the 

 highest expression of the art of the furthest East. Its 

 limitations are sufficiently obvious and not without in- 

 terest. The quite childish drawing of quadrupeds is 

 singular. The Japanese artists could draw them well 



