The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 21, 1906, Page 10

T was about five years ago, at an art section of a woman’s, ¢lub, ‘that one of the participants of a discussion said to anether, “‘Are you interested in Japanese prints?” to which the other, in astonishment, very curtly re- plied, “Interested in a Japanese Prince! Why, I mever even seen a Japanese Prince.” Since that time San Franciscans have bhad ample opportunity of becoming ac- quainted with at least the name of this particular branch of Orjental art, if not with the significance of its estheticisms. For, during this interim, there have been public exhibitions of prints, interesting sales in our shops, helpful lectures at a number of the clubs, and several books published Prior to this time, while a great deal of interest had been manifested in several European countries, even to the extent of the formation of large societies for the promeotion of the study of this art on this coast, it was practically unknown, except to & very small coterle of collectors The initial awakening of the genéral interest, which occurred at the time of a most successful cxhibition of prints, at the Hopkins Institute of Art in 1802. was augmented, first by an equally interesting exhibition at the Bohemian Club, and sub- by Ernest Fenelosa's lec- The Arts of Japan,” given un- der the auspices of the Chanmiag Aux 1l A demand for literature upon the sub- Ject knowledge, not only led to the importa- sequentiy tures on which should supply a more definite tion of every available work bearing cn Oriental art, but also inspired the pro- duction of local matter. To the works of Professor Anderson, Messrs. Fenelosa, Strange, Seitlitz, Bing, De Goneourt and Gouse — the waorld's recognized authori- ties—has been added a little bock by a California writer, Mrs. Dora Amsden, aud entitied “Impressions of Ukiyoye'—that has been found to be very helpful to be- ginners of the study. In consequerce of this voluntary and undirected educational movements a good- Iy number of peaple have been wo3 to the cause, until here, as in Europe, the study of Japanese art has become a cult with a large following. For, it is simply im- possible for the student of a ceftain iype of temperament to resist the beguiling inriuerces of this art. Its charms are &0 subtie—at first, its pretensions so mo.test, end unassuming, and tnen sqQ_promising— the interest it begets so keen and absorb- ing, that before the student realizes it he has acquired a taste for this art: a taste which will not only have a lasting effect upon his entire life, buc one that will be the means of broadening and developing THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. his ideas pertaining to every phase of art and every kind of pictorial beauty, and proportionately enrich it. r Japanese prints are not dastined to in- tercst the esthetically untrained. To such they are mere grotesque and peculiar drawings, unworthy of consideration. Some one has rightly said, “They are the caviar 'of art.” Naturally it but follows that the .wonderful synthesis of line, the beautiful symphon. ot color and the telling and carrying values of tone— achievements of art cxpression, jealously coveted by accidental artists- to be found in thede prints; are only dis- cerned through the eduycational sense. The art student—whether he be a prac- tical worker or a mere appreciator—per- ceiyes beauty in all its forms of expres- sion. Nature and art are to him open sesames, and every human expression, ranging from the crudest art of savagery to the most finished product of our high- est civilization, conveys some messagé of beauty. Tp not enjoy any ome of the different kinds of art expression, that has béen ac- cepted bv the art world at large, is an ef a lack of senve perception evidence Y HARRIDT G. CANFIELD, EAN Draper waltzed into the shab- by little room with a copy of the morning paper in her hand, ‘*There!” she cried exultantly. *“Read that— read it aloud, child The “child” was much older and larger than the young woman who addresed her, and far more sedate. She had another name—Mary Brandon—but it had fallen into * cuous desuetude” since the ad- vent of Jean, who mothered every one, from the man's boy to the minister. “You read it,”” Mary sald, “my throat Is like a nutmeg-grat this morning.” The animated ok faded from Jean's face and the distracting little dimple In her left cheek stopped work immediately. “Oh!" she cried regretfully, “I forgot your cold! You can’t do it after all. Just listen to this: “Wanted—An educated el- derly lady to read aloud to young man. Apply 2171 Dale avenue, 9 to 10 a. m.’ " “Since when,” said she, ‘*has your ‘child" become an. ‘elderly lady,’ Jean?" “Oh, I know you wouldn't do’as you are, but you make up so beautifully! Remembér ‘when you were 'Barbara Frietchie at the Whittier social? You have that wig now, haven't you, child? But you're hoarse, and so—" *“And so you can apply,” rupted her. ? You know what a miserable reader I am—galloping along one page and balk- ing at a long word or French phrase on the next. If I could choose my own book —'Easy Stories of One and Two Syllables, for Beginners,’ or something like that, T'd think it no sin to deceive the unsus- pecting youth. Mary laughed derisively. “Try it, if you like,” she said. “There may be no necessity for an elaborate make-up; if he needs a reader it's probably because his eyes have given out—glasses, my wig, and elderly manner, and there you are! Nothing will give you away, unless it is your laugh, Ji t sounds so young! But you haven't laughed much lately, Mary inter- Fsnammn e Yournc WordAN I~ 4 SNOW STORM By yESZAN and development on server. : While not every Japanese print may ap- tne part of the ob- 1've notice Mary looked steadily into her friend's soft brown eyes. “Come new,” she sald, “ 'fess up, dear, that you care more for Dr. Tom than you imag- ined, when you insisted on coming here to earn your living—peor, little living! If you had it to do over, wouldn't vou—" , ‘‘Never mind what I'd do, child,” Jean said quickly, the warm color flooding her tell-tale face. “What you are about to do Is of more portance now. Behold vour lay figure! Make of me what you will.” A half hour later a trim, “elderly” nt forth to seek a position as Two hours later ‘the lady re- laid down her work. “Didn’t you ' she asked. “‘Aren’t you hysterically. “Yes,” she engaged.” » why are you crying? Where is your wig, and—" Jean stopped her with a little gesture. “Child! child!” she cried, “you'll never guess who advertised—I didn’t, even when ! Whitney is not an uncom- “Tom ‘Whitney in this ecity? Oh, Jean! What did_you do?’ i ““Went in, of course. A maid ushered me into a dimly lighted room. where a man sat on a reclining chair, with a bandage over his eyes. He was big and broad-shouldered, with a little wave in his hair that reminded me of Tom. When he turned to speak to me I saw that it was Tom, but so sad-faced and subdued that I could have cried to see him. “Luckily he didn’t ask my name, and fear of detection changed my voice, so that my own mother wouldn't have recog- e - NS e 22 N peal to every educated sense—there being great differences of excellence in the works of the artists of the different scheols— on the whole, when taken in the aggre- gate, théy are fdund to be the very em- bodiment of accepted art principles. They, very profitably, may not only be used as a key to unlock the understanding of all kinds of ast—European as well as Aslauc —but also to open the visual faculties to a pictorial comprehension of nature. . ‘Who, among the collectors—irrespective of being an artist or layman—after study- ing Hiroschige's beautiful prints, has not been taught to enjoy the larger aspects of nature, even to the oxtent of seeing a Hiroschige study in every view, notwith- standing that it is in California, instead of in Japan? Art has go'long been felt to be a vague, intangible, indefinite and evasive some- thing—which is only revealed to genfus through inspiration—and, it is compara- tively ‘only of recent date that any one hus dared to claim it subject to any kind of analysis and demonstrable by any kind of law. But this age of sclentific research has not even permitted art to escape. and we have to-day the beginning of a nized it. ‘Please be seated,’” he sald quiet- Iy, ‘my eyes have been badly used and are on a strike at present—I'm under orders to humor them for a few weeks.’ “Then he lifted 2 book from the table 2t his elbow and asked me to read. It was a scientific work—somebody's horrid medical essays. I stumbled through the first page, and when I looked up, my face crimson with embarrassment, he was fix- irg his bandage! and the sad look had left his face—I'm sure’there was a smile hid- ing at the corner of his mouth! * ‘You needn’t read gny more,’ he sald, ‘but your voice is so soothing that I wish you'd talk.’ o X “T-t-talk,’ I stammered, “about wha! Oh, the days of your youth, or any old thing,’ he said, with such a boyish lavgh that I knew he had recognized me. The bandage had been moved to some purpose! He needed punishment—didn’t he, child?—and I promptly administered i "“Oh, what did you do?” anxiously. “I adjusted my spectacles with a grand- motherly air and said, ‘1 will tell you of something tbat happened -long ago—l wasn’t married then, and—' “My listener came suddenly to an up- right position and said sternly, ‘Are you now? Tell me, are you married now?’ ““‘No!" 1 cried, in a panic; ‘no. indeed! Please lie down, and I'i—I'll recite some- thing.' K ** ‘Yes,' he said, after a moment’'s hesi- tation, and there was a laugh in his voice, ‘recite ‘“The Prisoner of Chillon."’ “You know it begins, ‘My hair is white, but not with years'? Well, I'd recited just that far when he reached out and lifted wig, bonnet and all from my head. ‘No,’ he cried, ‘it isn't white with years,’ and then he—I mean I—" Jean laughed, blushed and came to a full stop. “Yes?" Mary said encouragingly. “What you do, dear?” “I—well, you remember I told you that I was ‘engaged (Copyright, 1%6, by E C.' Parcells) Mary asked g P e e AT NN N Y R sclence which has to do with art forma and théir mental and emotional corre- spondences, a sclence which supplies a few broad, fundamental and comprehen- sible principles that dre generally appll~ cablé. In Japanese prints these principles are ‘most simply and clearly expressed and for this reasgn the art student—whether in the studio, the designing room or the home—mekes a serious study of prints, realizing that from them may be acquired some standards of pure line, design and color compositions that are not generally 10 be pbtained from the study of Euro- pean art. That this study is not a fad is proved by the extensive collections that are to be found in the large museums of the world; in similar collections in the great manu- facturing places, where they are the sources of inspiration to the designmers, and in smaller collections that grace the walls of artists of all nationalities, That it is a growing interest is evident not only from the great demand for prints all over the United States and in Euro- pean’countries, a demand that has prac- tically cxhausted the commercial supply * in Japan and caused the prices to advance from 100 to 300 per cent. It is only a question of a few years when there will be no prints to be seen outside of the public and private collec- tions, because the editions which origi nally were large were also limited, and many of these have *been destroyed thraugh misuse and the wear and tear of time, while the remainder have ben car- ried intp the Occident and distributed through a number of countries. It is with this great art as with every other great art of the world, In that it is prized because it consists of the work of a distinct school of men who have lived, worked and passed’away, leaving behind them an honest and sincere portrayal of the life of a‘particular epoch of-a nation. And as Japanese prints are one of the expressions of the Genroku era—the very effervescent period of Japanese history, a period rich in poetic imagination and aesthegic feeling—and while they do not even represent the highest thought of the cultured classes, but are the art of the common péople, they still reflect the pre- vailing thought of the times and in do- ing so are one of the greatest art forms the world has ever known. Prints are stiill made in Japan, but the principles of the Ukiyoyo School no longer influence the art. Sclence, materi- alism and realism has displaced the old order of things. Skill has taken the place of art and craftsmanship that of the creative imagination. While the mere workmanship of the present product may compare fAvorably with that of the past, the design—not only regarding its content, but also its form, or the very pattern—is so inferior that it cannot even be classed with the art that has become known as Japanese prints. - S s T § 2 e i e ool | ¢‘9Y ZARLN OB~ e THE MORALLY BERFECT ITICGER BY YEIZ AN THE MORAZLY PERFECT IIGER BY YEIZGANT VE T T BY HrROSHIGE . < ’ “