In Japanese art simple forms supplied by nature are often used for suggesting other forms as, for instance, the stork’s legs for the pine tree branches, the turtle’s back for the pine bark lines, the fish tail for bamboo leafage, the elephant’s eye in the orchid plant, the shape of Fujiyama for the forehead of a beautiful woman, and various Chinese characters, originally pictorial, adumbrated in trees, flowers and other subjects. The universality of such underlying type forms recognized and applied by oriental artists is confirmatory of the principle that in both nature and art all is united by a common chain or _commune vinculum_ attesting the harmony between created things. A Japanese painting executed with the aid of such resources teems with vital force and suggestion, and to the eye of a connoisseur _(kuroto)_ becomes a breathing microcosm.
To give some idea of the order in which the component parts of an object are painted according to Japanese rules, which are always stringently insisted upon, flowers like the chrysanthemum and peony are begun at their central point and built up from within outwardly, the petals being added to increase the size as the flower opens. In a flower subject the blossoms are painted first; the buds come next; then the stem, stalks, leaves and their veinings, and lastly the dots called _chobo chobo._
The established order for the human figure is as follows: Nose and eyebrows, eyes, mouth, ears, sides of the face, chin, forehead, head, neck, hands, feet, and finally the appareled body. In Japanese art the nude figure is never painted.
In a tree the order is trunk, central and side limbs _(Plate XXI)_, branches and their subdivisions, leaves and their veinings, and dots.
In birds: The beak in three strokes (TEN, CHI, JIN), the eye, the head, the throat and breast, the back, the wings, the body, the tail, the legs, claws, nails and eyeball _(Plate XXII)_.
In landscape work the general rule is to paint what is nearest first and what is farthest last. Kubota’s method was to do all this rapidly and, if possible, with one dip of the well-watered brush into the _sumi,_ so that as the _sumi_ becomes gradually diluted and exhausted the proper effect of foreground, middle distance and remote perspective is obtained.