February, 1919 
31 
“Philosophers”, by Shu- 
bun. Among Shubun’s 
pupils was Masanobu, 
renowned for his hieratic 
paintings 
A Landscape screen by 
Maruyama Okyo, natur¬ 
alist, who was accus¬ 
tomed to paint directly 
from his subjects 
“Prelates", by Maruyama 
Okyo. Together with 
two pupils he decorated 
the Daijo Temple of 
Kamaeizan 
At Horyuji Temple, near Nara, there is a 
pleasant little sculpture, Prince Shotoku of 
Japan as a Child. And, in a document lately 
found at the temple, a priest has written that 
“we, wishing to do a deed by virtue of which 
we may be admitted to Nirvana, cause with the 
deepest reverence the making of this sculpture.” 
A legend says that, shortly before Shotoku’s 
birth, an angel told his mother that the child 
was predestined to teach the whole world, the 
story further holding that the 
mother suffered no pain when the 
prince was born. This reverential 
way in which he is viewed is in¬ 
deed only just, for he, if any man, 
merits the title of the father of 
Japanese painting. It was in 
572 A. D. that he was born, a 
little prior to which time Budd¬ 
hism had been brought to Japan 
by Korean missionaries, and 
when yet a boy the prince showed 
himself deeply in love with the 
beautiful Indian religion. He 
fought on its behalf against the 
party seeking to uphold by the 
sword Japan’s pristine faith of 
Shinto; later he gave both great 
energies and fine gifts to lectur¬ 
ing and writing on Buddha’s 
teaching; and in eagerness that 
this should have a worthy temple 
in Japan, he founded Horyuji. 
Work at the Temple 
Loving art keenly, himself a tal¬ 
ented sculptor, and friendly with 
one of the best Korean painters 
of his day. Prince Asa Shotoku 
entered with the utmost zest into 
personal supervision of decora¬ 
tions at the temple; and some 
frescoes there, depicting angels 
and Buddhistic deities, are re¬ 
garded as the oldest paintings ex¬ 
isting in Japan. It has been sug¬ 
gested that the artist, named Cho, 
was in actuality a Korean. But 
Shotoku soon had the satisfaction 
of seeing many of his own com¬ 
patriots actively painting, which 
color was always the medium of the Japanese 
till quite recent times. The early Buddhistic 
artists naturally took their formulae chiefly 
from Buddha’s own land, and naturally looked 
• for technical enlightenment to China, painting 
having begun there so much earlier than in 
Japan. But has not the similarity between 
Chinese and Japanese art been greatly exag¬ 
gerated? Some writers actually infer that 
Japan, as a painter, lacked character of her 
own, and merely uttered her 
neighbor’s. 
Nevertheless, almost from the 
first, the Japanese wrought with 
an elegance, a daintiness, beyond 
the alchemy of the Middle King¬ 
dom school. And, whereas Chi¬ 
nese art is somewhat staid and 
solemn to the Western mind, 
Japanese is notably light-hearted, 
abounding too in humor. Con¬ 
sonantly it often expresses a fond¬ 
ness for the grotesque, which taste 
is marked in the pictures by Kobo 
Daishi, who, living at the end of 
the 9th Century, is famous as the 
inventor of the syllabic signs with 
w h i c h his fellow-countrymen 
write today. 
Kose no Kanaoka 
Kobo attained great distinction 
in the clerical profession, but, as 
painter, he was in no way com¬ 
parable to Kose no Kanaoka, who 
was born about 850, and began 
life as a designer of those pretty 
landscape - gardens for which 
Japan is so famous, his avowed 
aim in work of this kind being 
ever to attain quite natural ef¬ 
fects. Then, his skill with the 
brush coming under the notice of 
the Mikado, he was long kept 
busy with religious pictures for 
the royal palace, painting some in 
a bold, simple style, others min¬ 
utely. But the best of all his ex¬ 
tant works is one at Ninwanji 
Temple, near Kyoto, a memorial 
{Continued on page 56) 
early group found their subjects exclusively in 
the pantheon of that faith whose spreading, in 
Japan, might have been long delayed but for 
the sculptor-prince. 
The Chinese Influences 
Study of the frescoes at Hoiymji does not re¬ 
veal the exact nature of the paint used, which, 
presumably, was something akin to tempera, 
although, for independent pictures, water- 
‘The Han Emperor, Kao Tsung”, part of a silk screen ascribed to Tosa 
Mitsunobu, who died in 1S2S. Examples of his work are very rare 
