JAPANESE COLOR PRINTS AND SOME

                    OF THEIR MAKERS

                               M. LOUISE STOWELL


N      order to understand the art of a
     people, it is necessary that the people
     themselves should be understood, not
     only from a geographical and politi-
cal standpoint, but in those higher aspects
which arise from their religious and aes-
thetic ancestry.
  In the art of the Japanese, a just appre-
ciation of it is impossible without under-
standing the various factors which have
combined to make this, in many respects,
one of the most remarkable peoples in all
history.
  It is essential that we should become
familiar with the nature of the Shinto
teachings in order that we may comprehend
the all-pervading spirit of reverence that
we find in the higher types of Japanese art.
It is equally essential in our appreciation
of the mystic quality in that same art, that
we should be acquainted with the infiltra-
tion of Buddhist teachings, from China
through the Korean peninsula, to Japan.
The insular character of the people must
also be given great weight in the causes
which have produced their art,-a cause
which is to be given equal prominence with
their climatic environment, which in many
respects bears a curious resemblance to that
of the British Isles.
  Also in the study of this art, must be
taken into consideration the racial charac-
teristics of its producers; having their


origin as they did in the Malay peninsula,
and not from the North and West, as com-
monly supposed. They have retained that
sense of finesse, diplomacy and deportment
which seems to be one of the inherent char-
acteristics of the Malay race and its de-
scendants. A consideration of these various
factors shows us that the Japanese must,
with his Shinto tendencies, reverence his
ancestors and delight in the worship of
heroes. From his Buddhist teaching, he
has an almost sensuous delight in all man-
ner of elusive mysticisms. The supernal
to him is not terrible, but familiar. At his
nurse's knee the rhymes of our Mother
Goose are supplanted by legends from the
Buddhist mythology, and as he grows older,
it is not the ring of the Nibelungen, but the
tale of the forty-seven Ronins that inflames
his boyish mind.
  In his childish excursions into the coun-
try, which is circumscribed in area, every
material feature has its piquant tale, the
hills and forests their gods and goddesses,
and the streams their nymphs, while every
cloud-form reveals a deity.
  With this early instruction, it is but
logical that every phase of nature should
be to him simply a convention which stands
for a legend and is ever associated in his
mind with that particular tradition. This
quality of mind makes him a devout wor-
shipper of nature, not nature per se, but
                                      53