Chapter 16

Why has Japanese art made so little of man as man? Is it due to the "impersonality" of the Orient, as urged by some? This suggests, but does not give, the correct interpretation of the phenomenon in question. The reason lies in the nature of the ruling ideas of Oriental civilization. Man, as man, has not been honored or highly esteemed. As a warrior he has been honored; consequently, when pictured or sculptured as a warrior, he has worn his armor; his face, if visible, is not the natural face of a man, but rather that of a passionate victor, slaying his foe or planning for the same. And so with the priests and the teachers, the emperors and the generals; all have been depicted, not for what they are in themselves, but for the rank which they have attained; they are accordingly represented with their accouterments and robes and the characteristic attitudes of their rank. The effort to preserve their actual appearance is relatively rare. Manhood and womanhood, apart from social rank, have hardly been recognized, much less extolled by art. This feature, then, corresponds to the nature of the Japanese social order. The art of a land necessarily reveals the ruling ideals of its civilization. As Japan failed to discover the inherent nature and value of manhood and womanhood, estimating them only on a utilitarian basis, so has her art reflected this failure.

Apparently it has never attempted to depict the nude human form. This is partly explained, perhaps, by the fact that the development of a perfect physical form through exercise and training has not been a part of Oriental thought. Labor of every sort has been regarded as degrading. Training for military skill and prowess has indeed been common among the military classes; but the skill and strength themselves have been the objects of thought, rather than the beauty of the muscular development which they produce. When we recall the prominent place which the games of Greece took in her civilization previous to her development of art, and the stress then laid on perfect bodily form, we shall better understand why there should be such difference in the development of the art of these two lands. I have never seen a Japanese man or youth bare his arm to show with pride the development of his biceps; and so far as I have observed, the pride which students in the United States feel over well-developed calves has no counterpart in Japan--this, despite the fact that the average Japanese has calves which would turn the American youth green with envy.

From the absence of the nude in Japanese art it has been urged that Japan herself is far more morally pure than the West. Did the moral life of the people correspond to their art in this respect, the argument would have force. Unfortunately, such does not seem to be the case. It is further suggested as a reason that the bodily form of Oriental peoples is essentially unæsthetic; that the men are either too fat or too lean, and the women too plump when in the bloom of youth and too wrinkled and flabby when the first bloom is over. The absurdity of this suggestion raises a smile, and a query as to the experience which its author must have had. For any person who has lived in Japan must have seen individuals of both sexes, whom the most fastidious painter or sculptor would rejoice to secure as models.

It might be thought that a truly artistic people, who are also somewhat immoral, would have developed much skill in the portrayal of the nude female form. But such an attempt does not seem to have been made until recent times, and in imitation of Western art. At least such attempts have not been recognized as art nor have they been preserved as such. I have never seen either statue or picture of a nude Japanese woman. Even the pictures of famous prostitutes are always faultlessly attired. The number and size of the conventional hairpins, and the gaudy coloring of the clothing, alone indicate the immoral character of the woman represented.

It is not to be inferred, however, that immoral pictures have been unknown in Japan, for the reverse is true. Until forcibly suppressed by the government under the incentive of Western criticism, there was perfect freedom to produce and sell licentious and lascivious pictures. The older foreign residents in Japan testify to the frequency with which immoral scenes were depicted and exposed for sale. Here I merely say that these were not considered works of art; they were reproduced not in the interests of the æsthetic sense, but wholly to stimulate the taste for immoral things.

The absence of the nude from Japanese art is due to the same causes that led to the relative absence of all distinctively human nature from art. Manhood and womanhood, as such, were not the themes they strove to depict.

A curious feature of the artistic taste of the people is the marked fondness for caricature. It revels in absurd accentuations of special features. Children with protruding foreheads; enormously fat little men; grotesque dwarf figures in laughable positions; these are a few common examples. Nearly all of the small drawings and sculpturings of human figures are intentionally grotesque. But the Japanese love of the grotesque is not confined to its manifestation in art. It also reveals itself in other surprising ways. It is difficult to realize that a people who revel in the beauties of nature can also delight in deformed nature; yet such is the case. Stunted and dwarfed trees, trees whose branches have been distorted into shapes and proportions that nature would scorn--these are sights that the Japanese seem to enjoy, as well as "natural" nature. Throughout the land, in the gardens of the middle and higher classes, may be found specimens of dwarfed and stunted trees which have required decades to raise. The branches, too, of most garden shrubs and trees are trimmed in fantastic shapes. What is the charm in these distortions? First, perhaps, the universal human interest in anything requiring skill. Think of the patience and persistence and experimentation necessary to rear a dwarf pear tree twelve or fifteen inches high, growing its full number of years and bearing full-size fruit in its season! And second is the no less universal human interest in the strange and abnormal. All primitive people have this interest. It shows itself in their religions. Abnormal stones are often objects of religious devotion. Although I cannot affirm that such objects are worshiped in Japan to-day, yet I can say that they are frequently set up in temple grounds and dedicated with suitable inscriptions. Where nature can be made to produce the abnormal, there the interest is still greater. It is a living miracle. Witness the cocks of Tosa, distinguished by their two or three tail feathers reaching the extraordinary length of ten or even fifteen feet, the product of ages of special breeding.

According to the ordinary use of the term, æsthetics has to do with art alone. Yet it also has intimate relations with both speech and conduct. Poetry depends for its very existence on æsthetic considerations. Although little conscious regard is paid to æsthetic claims in ordinary conversation, yet people of culture do, as a matter of fact, pay it much unconscious attention. In conduct too, æsthetic ideas are often more dominant than we suppose. The objection of the cultured to the ways of the boorish rests on æsthetic grounds. This is true in every land. In the matter of conduct it is sometimes hard to draw the line between æsthetics and ethics, for they shade imperceptibly into one another; so much so that they are seen to be complementary rather than contradictory. Though it is doubtless true that conduct æsthetically defective may not be defective ethically, still is it not quite as true that conduct bad from the ethical is bad also from the æsthetical standpoint?

In no land have æsthetic considerations had more force in molding both speech and conduct than in Japan. Not a sentence is uttered by a Japanese but has the characteristic marks of æstheticism woven into its very structure. By means of "honorifics" it is seldom necessary for a speaker to be so pointedly vulgar as even to mention self. There are few points in the language so difficult for a foreigner to master, whether in speaking himself, or in listening to others, as the use of these honorific words. The most delicate shades of courtesy and discourtesy may be expressed by them. Some writers have attributed the relative absence of the personal pronouns from the language to the dominating force of impersonal pantheism. I am unable to take this view for reasons stated in the later chapters on personality.

Though the honorific characteristics of the language seem to indicate a high degree of æsthetic development, a certain lack of delicacy in referring to subjects that are ruled out of conversation by cultivated people in the West make the contrary impression upon the uninitiated. Such language in Japan cannot be counted impure, for no such idea accompanies the words. They must be described simply as æsthetically defective. Far be it from me to imply that there is no impure conversation in Japan. I only say that the particular usages to which I refer are not necessarily a proof of moral tendency. A realistic baldness prevails that makes no effort to conceal even that which is in its nature unpleasant and unæsthetic. A spade is called a spade without the slightest hesitation. Of course specific illustrations of such a point as this are out of place. Æsthetic considerations forbid.

And how explain these unæsthetic phenomena? By the fact that Japan has long remained in a state of primitive development. Speech is but the verbal expression of life. Every primitive society is characterized by a bald literalism shocking to the æsthetic sense of societies which represent a higher stage of culture. In Japan, until recently, little effort has been made to keep out of sight objects and acts which we of the West have considered disagreeable and repulsive. Language alters more slowly than acts. Laws are making changes in the latter, and they in time will take effect in the former. But many decades will doubtless pass before the cultivated classes of Japan will reach, in this respect, the standard of the corresponding classes of the West.

As for the æsthetics of conduct in Japan, enough is indicated by what has been said already concerning the æsthetics of speech. Speech and conduct are but diverse expressions of the same inner life. Japanese etiquette has been fashioned on the feudalistic theory of society, with its numberless gradations of inferior and superior. Assertive individualism, while allowed a certain range among the samurai, always had its well-marked limits. The mass of the people were compelled to walk a narrow line of respectful obedience and deference both in form and speech. The constant aim of the inferior was to please the superior. That individuals of an inferior rank had any inherent rights, as opposed to those of a superior rank, seldom occurred to them. Furthermore, this whole feudal system, with its characteristic etiquette of conduct and speech, was authoritatively taught by moralists and religious leaders, and devoutly believed by the noblest of the land. Ethical considerations, therefore, combined powerfully with those that were social and æsthetic to produce "the most polite race on the face of the globe." Recent developments of rudeness and discourtesy among themselves and toward foreigners have emphasized my general contention that these characteristics are not due to inherent race nature, but rather to the social order.

How are we to account for the wide æsthetic development of all classes of the Japanese? As already suggested, the beautiful scenery explains much. But I pass at once to the significant fact that although the classes of Japanese society were widely differentiated in social rank, yet they lived in close proximity to each other. There was no spatial gulf of separation preventing the lower from knowing fully and freely the thoughts, ideals, and customs of the upper classes. The transmission of culture was thus an easy matter, in spite of social gradations.

Moreover, the character of the building materials, and the methods of construction used by the more prosperous among the people, were easily imitated in kind, if not in costliness, by the less prosperous. Take, for example, the structure of the room; it is always of certain fixed proportions, that the uniform mats may be easily fitted to it. The mats themselves are always made of a straw "toko," "bed," and an "omote," "surface," of woven straw; they vary greatly in value, but, of whatever grade, may always be kept neat and fresh at comparatively small cost. The walls of the average houses are made of mud wattles. The outer layers of plaster consist of selected earth and tinted lime. Whether put up at large or small expense, these walls may be neat and attractive. So, too, with other parts of the house.

The utter lack of independent thinking throughout the middle and lower classes, and the constant desire of the inferior to imitate the superior, have also helped to make the culture of the classes the possession of the masses. This subserviency and spirit of imitation has been further stimulated by the enforced courtesy and deference and obedience of the common people.

In this connection it should be noted, however, that the universality of culture in Japan is more apparent than real. The appearance is due in part to the lack of furniture in the homes. Without chairs or tables, bedsteads or washstands, and the multitude of other things invariably found in the home of the Occidental, it is easy for the Japanese housewife to keep her home in perfect order. No special culture is needful for this.

How it came about that the Japanese people adopted their own method of sitting on the feet, I cannot say; neither have I heard any plausible explanation of the practice. Yet this habit has relieved them of all necessity for heavy furniture. Given the custom of sitting on the feet, and a large part of the furniture of the house will be useless. Already is the introduction of furniture after Western patterns producing changes in the homes of the people; and it will be interesting to see whether the æsthetic sense of the Japanese will be able to assimilate and harmonize with itself these useful, but bulky and unæsthetic, elements of Occidental civilization.

That no part of the fine taste of the Japanese is due to the general civilization, rather than to the individual possession of the æsthetic faculty, may be inferred from many little signs. In spite of the fact that, following the long-established social fashions, the women usually display good taste in the choice of colors for their clothing, it sometimes happens that they also manifest not the slightest sense of the harmony of colors. Daughters of wealthy families will array themselves in brilliant discordant hues, yet apparently without causing the wearers or their friends the slightest æsthetic discomfort. Little children are arrayed in clothing that would doubtless put Joseph's coat of many colors quite out of countenance. Combinations and brilliancy that to the Western eye of culture seem crude and gaudy, typical of barbaric splendor, are in constant use, and are apparently thought to be fine. The Japanese display both taste and its lack in the choice of colors for clothing; this contradiction is the more striking in view of the taste manifest in the decorations of the homes of all classes of the people. Few sights are more ludicrously unæsthetic than the red, yellow, and blue worsted crocheted caps and shawls for infants, which shock all our ideas of æsthetic harmony.

In connection with Western ways or articles of clothing, the native æsthetic faculty often seems to take its flight. In a foreign house many a Japanese seems to lose his sense of fitness. I have had schoolboys, and even gentlemen, enter my home with hobnailed muddied boots, without wiping their feet on the conspicuous door mat, which is the more remarkable since, in their own homes, they invariably take off their shoes on entering. I have frequently noticed that in railway cars the first comers monopolize the seats, and the later ones receive not the slightest notice, being often compelled to stand for an hour at a time, although, with a little moving, there would be abundant room for all. I have noticed this so often that I cannot think it an exceptional occurrence. I do not believe it to be intentional rudeness, but to be due simply to a lack of real heart politeness. Yet a true and deep æsthetic development, so far at least as relates to conduct, to say nothing of the spirit of altruism, would not permit such indifference to another's discomfort.

My explanation for this, and for all similar defects in etiquette, is somewhat as follows. Etiquette is popularly conceived as consisting of rules of conduct, rather than as the outward expression of the state of the heart. From time immemorial rules for the ordinary affairs of life have been formulated by superiors and have been taught the people. In all usual and conventional relations, therefore, the average farmer and peasant know how to express perfect courtesy. But in certain situations, as in foreign houses and the railroad car, where there are no precedents to follow, or rules to obey, all evidence of politeness takes its flight. The old rules do not fit the new conditions. Not being grounded on the inner principles of etiquette, the people are not able to formulate new rules for new conditions. To the Westerner, on the other hand, these seem to follow from the simplest principles of common sense and kindliness. The general collapse of etiquette in Japan, which native writers note and deplore, is due, therefore, not only to the withdrawal of feudal pressure, but also to introduction of strange circumstances for which the people have no rules, and to the fact that the people have not been taught those underlying principles of high courtesy which are applicable on all occasions.

An impression seems to have gained currency in the United States that the unæsthetic features seen in Japan to-day are due to the debasing influences of Western art and Occidental intercourse. There can be no doubt that a certain type of tourist, ignorant of Japanese art, by greedily buying strange, gaudy things at high prices, has stimulated a morbid production of truly unæsthetic pseudo-Japanese art. But this accounts for only a small part of the grossly inartistic features of Japan. The instances given of hideous worsted bibs for babes and collars for dogs, combining in the closest proximity the most uncomplementary and mutually repellent colors, has nothing whatever to do with foreign art or foreign intercourse. What foreigner ever decorated a little lapdog with a red-green-yellow-blue-and purple crocheted collar, four or five inches wide?

Westerners have been charmed with the exquisite colored photographs produced in Japan. It is strange, yet true, that the same artistic hand that produces these beautiful effects will also, by a slight change of tints, produce the most unnatural and spectral views. Yet the strangest thing is, not that he produces them, but that he does not seem conscious of the defect, for he will put them on sale in his own shop or send them to purchasers in America, without the slightest apparent hesitation. The constant care of the purchaser in selection and his insistence on having only truly artistic work are what keep the Japanese artist up to the standard.

If other evidence is needed of æsthetic defect in the still unoccidentalized Japanese taste let the doubter go to any popular second-grade Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple. Here unæsthetic objects and sights abound. Hideous idols, painted and unpainted, big and little, often decorated with soiled bibs; decaying to-rii; ruined sub-shrines; conglomerate piles of cast-off paraphernalia, consisting of broken idols, old lanterns, stones, etc., filthy towels at the holy-water basins, piously offered to the gods and piously used by hundreds of dusty pilgrims; equally filthy bell-ropes hung in front of the main shrines, pulled by ten thousand hands to call the attention of the deity; travel-stained hands, each of which has left its mark on the once beautiful enormous tasselated cord; ex-voto tufts of human hair; scores of pictures, where the few may be counted works of art while the rest are hideous beyond belief; frightful faces of tengu, with their long noses and menacing teeth, decorated with scores of spit-balls or even with mud-balls; these are some of the more conspicuous unæsthetic features of multitudes of popular shrines and temples. And none of these can be attributed to the debasing influence of Western art. And these inartistic features will be found accompanying scrupulous neatness in well-swept walks, new sub-shrines, floral decorations, and much that pleases the eye--a strange compound of the beautiful and the ugly. Truly the æsthetic development of the Japanese is curiously one-sided.

A survey of Japanese musical history leads to the conclusion that while the people are fairly developed in certain aspects of the æsthetics of music, such as rhythm, they are certainly undeveloped in other directions--in melody, for example, and in harmony. Their instrumental music is primitive and meager. They have no system of musical notation. The love of music, such as it is, is well-nigh universal. Their solo-vocal music, a semi-chanting in minors, has impressive elements; but these are due to the passionate outbursts and plaintive wails, rather than to the musically æsthetic character of the melodies. The universal twanging samisen, a species of guitar, accompanied by the shrill, hard voices of the geisha (singing girls), marks at once the universality of the love of music and the undeveloped quality of the musical taste, both vocal and instrumental. But in comparing the musical development of Japan with that of the West, we must not forget how recent is that of the former.

The conditions which have served to develop musical taste in the West have but recently come to Japan. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed for the nation to make much visible progress in the lines of Occidental music. But it has already done something. The popularity of brass bands, the wide introduction of organs, their manufacture in this land, their use in all public schools, the exclusive use of Occidental music in Christian churches, the ability of trained individuals in foreign vocal and instrumental music--all these facts go to show that in time we may expect great musical evolution in Japan. Those who doubt this on the ground of inherent race nature may be reminded of the evolution which has taken place among the Hawaiians during the past two generations. From being a race manifesting marked deficiency in music they have developed astonishing musical taste and ability. During a recent visit to these islands after an absence of twenty-seven years, I attended a Sunday-school exhibition, which was largely a musical contest; the voices were sweet and rich; and the difficulty of the part songs, easily carried through by children and adults, revealed a musical sense that surpasses any ordinary Sunday school of the United States or England with which I am acquainted.