Translations of all these works into English are greatly to be desired.
There is much that has been sympathetically written and published about Japanese paintings both in Europe and America, but however laudatory, it might be all summed up under the title, “Impressions of an Outsider.” Such writings lack the authority which only constant labor in the field of practical art can confer. A Japanese artist, by which I mean a painter, is long in making. From ten to fifteen years of continuous study and application are required before much skill is attained. During that time he gradually absorbs a knowledge of the many principles, precepts, maxims and methods, which together constitute the corpus or body of art doctrine handed down from a remote antiquity and preserved either in books or perpetuated by tradition. Along with these are innumerable art secrets called _hiji_ or _himitsu,_ never published, but orally imparted by the masters to their pupils—not secrets in a trick sense, but methods of execution discovered after laborious effort and treasured as valued possessions. It is obvious, then, how incapable of writing technically upon the subject must anyone be who has not gone through such curriculum and had drilled into him all that varied instruction which makes up the body of rules applicable to that art.
I have read many seriously written appreciations of Japanese paintings published in various modern languages, and even some amiable imaginings penned for foreigners by Japanese who fancy they know by instinct what only can be acquired after long study and practice with brush in hand. All such writers are characterized in Japan by a very polite term, _shiroto_—which means amateur. It also has a secondary signification of emptiness.
[Chapter 3 Head-Band: The design called “Dew on the Grass and Butterflies” (tsuyu, kusa ni cho).]
CHAPTER THREE. LAWS FOR THE USE OF BRUSH AND MATERIALS
Upon a subject as technical as that of Japanese painting, to endeavor to impart correct information in a way that shall be both instructive and entertaining is an undertaking of no little difficulty. The rules and canons of any art when enumerated, classified and explained, are likely to prove trying, if not wearisome reading. Yet, if our object be to acquire accurate knowledge, we must consent to make some sacrifice to attain it, and there is no royal road to a knowledge of Japanese painting.