Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 2/Chapter 6
Chapter VI
REFINEMENTS AND PASTIMES OF
THE MILITARY EPOCH
THE art of landscape gardening made much progress during the Military epoch. It is a strange juxtaposition of terms — "landscape gardening" and "military epoch," — but the reader will see, before he closes this chapter of the nation's history, that contemporaneously with the development of the swords' supremacy there grew up certain refinements of life to which the spirit of the soldier might have been expected to be altogether antipathetic. The profuse application of pictorial and glyptic art to purposes of interior decoration is one of these incongruous features; the elaboration of landscape gardening is a second, and others will be presently noted, the whole suggesting that these tranquil pastimes and gentle pursuits were necessary refuges from the perpetual turbulence and violence of the time, and that in proportion as men had to occupy themselves with battle and bloodshed, they instinctively turned to any pursuit tending to redress the moral balance.
Already in the Heian epoch, as shown in a previous chapter, the designing of parks with miniature lakes, islands, and rockeries, occupied a prominent place in aristocratic attention. Some successful attempts were also made to reproduce natural landscapes and waterscapes within the limits of a mansion's enclosure. But the art was still in a comparatively conventional stage, not having broken away from the trammels of its Chinese origin. It was reserved for the men of the Military age not merely to extend the limits of the art enormously, but also to convert it into something like an exact science, codifying its principles and imparting allegorical significance to every part of its practice. Originally the scheme of a garden was worked out by a pictorial artist, consulting his own instinct of beauty in strict subordination to general rules. But, by and by, the Buddhist monks began to acquire a monopoly of skill. That was a natural result. Never from the first had a Buddhist temple been erected in Japan without most careful consideration of its surroundings. Its congruity with the environing landscape, its contrasts or agreements with the features of its approaches, the adaptation of its grounds to the "points" of their vicinity, — all these things were thought out with the utmost care, and the delightful impression produced by Buddhist edifices is due as much to this harmonising of art and nature as to any grace and grandeur of the structures’ proportions or any wealth of decoration. In the beginning of the thirteenth century the first treatise on the subject appeared from the pen of Yoshitsune Gokyogoku. On the form of park hitherto associated with the "bed-chamber" style of architecture he grafted certain precepts laid down by the Buddhists for arranging rockery stones, and he also indicated, as applicable to the whole, the Taoist doctrine of the active and passive principles. As to this latter canon, it was nothing but a mysteriously stated formula of balance. Nature has made everything in pairs, the dominant and the dominated, the male and the female, and in following nature's guidance, as was above all things essential, that universal law had to be carefully observed. Gokyogoku's work was a kind of grammar of park planning. By giving to everything a definition, he invested it with a motive, and for expressing the various motives general rules, many of them purely conventional, were laid down. A lake had to take the outline of a tortoise or a crane. An island might be a mountain, a field, a strip of seashore, a cloud in the distance, a morning mist, a sandy beach, a floating pine, or the bank of a stream. A waterfall was either full-face or profile, fragmentary or complete, uniform or stepped, corner or side, single, double, or threaded. A stream, if it ran from east to south and then west, was regular; if it flowed from west to east, it was inverse. If it did not rise in a lake, a country path should be associated with it to suggest a distant origin, or a mountain to suggest a spring, or a rockery to suggest a concealed font. There was also a waterfall landscape which called for certain salient features. All this was greatly elaborated by a monk called Soseki, who worked many of the moral precepts of the Zen sect into the fabric of his landscape; and ultimately, in the second half of the fifteenth century, the artist priest Soami extended the system so greatly and added so many subtle conceptions that he is often spoken of as the father of landscape gardening in Japan. Setting out by enumerating and defining twelve principal varieties of landscape and waterscape, he proceeded to indicate the constituents of each and their derivations. Thus, in rockeries he placed sea and river stones; plain and mountain stones; current stones and wave stones, stones that divide a stream, stones from which it flows, and stones against which it breaks; stones for standing beside; detached stones; erect stones and prostrate stones; water-fowl-feather-drying stones; mandarin-duck stones; three-Buddha stones, and sutra stones. Then of islands there was the wind-beaten or salt-strewn isle, which had neither moss nor rock because it represented a spot swept by constant sand-showers; there was a central island, or isle of elysium, to which no bridge led since it lay in mid-ocean; there was the wave-beaten island, the tide-lapped island, the guest island, and the host island. To Soami also was due the conception of the shore of the "spread sand" and the shore of the "piled sand," and his indications as to cascades, streams, trees, and shrubs are voluminous. Many of the ideas that a landscape was supposed to convey were purely subjective. Thus, in the park of the Silver Pavilion of Yoshimasa, which was laid out by Soami, there were scenes and features called the landscape of the "law of the waters," the landscape of the "sound of the stream," the landscape of the "essence of incense," the landscape of the "gate of the dragon," the "bridge of the mountain genii," the "vale of the golden sands," the "hill that faces the moon," and so on, several of which names have reference to Buddhist doctrines, and owe their appropriateness to an arbitrary association of ideas. Indeed, if it were necessary to indicate the chief difference between the parks of Japan and the parks of Europe, perhaps the truest formula would be that whereas the latter are planned solely with reference to a geometrical scheme of comeliness, or in pure and faithful obedience to nature's indications, the former are intended to appeal to some particular mood or to evoke some special emotion, while, at the same time, preserving a likeness to the landscapes and seascapes of the world about us. The two systems might also be described as the prose and the poetry of garden-making, respectively. The Japanese pays more attention to the spirit, the European to the form. Efforts to compose poetry in such a medium sometimes betrayed the composer into apparent extravagances and arbitrary analogies. Not always able to resolve into an exact alphabet the subtle language in which nature couches her suggestions, he manufactured an alphabet of his own, and ascribed to each letter a value which it possessed only in this artificial vocabulary. If history, tradition, or fiction has invested a certain scene with indelible memories of a glorious pageant, a pathetic tragedy, or a delightful incident, it is easy to foretell that a transcript of that scene will move the beholder to a triumphant, a sorrowful, or a joyous mood. But if without the aid of such well-emphasised association it is sought to secure special interpretations for particular scenes, then the artist must either invent a code to guide the interpreter, or leave the results of his art largely to chance. It was thus that there grew up about landscape gardening in Japan a species of written religion, often embodying beautiful and purely aesthetic principles, but frequently making incursions into the regions of myth, superstition, and petty conventionalism. It may justly be called a "religion," because, while it appeals, on the one hand, to some of human nature's highest moods, it prescribes, on the other, sanctions and vetoes which derive their force solely from supernaturalism. When from the contemplation of some exquisite landscape copied for his pleasure by years of costly toil, the rich aristocrat passes to the presence of a lowly peasant's cot and its rustic surroundings, reproduced with strict fidelity in some corner of his spacious park, he can scarcely fail to draw from the contrast its proper lesson of charity and tolerance; or when the beauties of a fair landscape are invoked to lend attractions to some high moral ideal; or even when, as an able writer puts it,[1] "obedience to laws of balance, contrast and continuity in line, form, mass, and colour, applied to the component parts of gardens, is enforced through the medium of precepts found in obsolete philosophies," the better aspects of the cult are seen. But when it has recourse to the doctrines of the Book of Changes or the terrors of demonology to obtain compliance with its canons, it assumes the character of a degraded religion. There is, however, very little room to find fault with the garden-making cult of Japan. Its results are invariably beautiful and aesthetically correct by whatever processes they are reached, and though the interest of the story they tell is much enhanced by intelligent study of the language in which it is written, their charms are palpable to the most superficial observer. Nature's masterpieces are reproduced and her principles applied with loving fidelity. From the gracefully spreading margins of lakes, or out of valleys between harmoniously contoured hills, rise rockeries, sometimes of colossal dimensions, providing paths for cascades or imparting mystery to the shadows of overhanging trees; and from grassy parterres massive boulders thrust strangely streaked or curiously shaped shoulders, adding notes of colour and suggestions of rude grandeur to the landscape. These rocks are free from offensive traces of artificiality. They are so skilfully disposed that they seem to have grown old in their places, and while their massive and reposeful effects are carefully preserved, all harshness of outline is relieved by nestling mosses or billowy shrubs and bushes. There is scarcely any limit to the sums expended on laying out these pleasure-grounds and on their up-keep. Huge rocks are transported from great distances,—rocks honeycombed by the beating of ocean waves; rocks smelted into quaint forms by the furnaces of volcanoes; rocks hollowed and gnarled by the teeth of torrents; petrifactions from the depths of inland seas, and richly tinted masses from mineral districts,—all these are sought for and treasured as a dilettante in Europe or America prizes the contents of his picture gallery. To produce in miniature celebrated landscapes or waterscapes, years are devoted to searching for counterparts of their components, or to training trees and shrubs in facsimile of the originals planted there by nature. In one of the celebrated parks of Tōkyō—a gem which, rough-hewed by old-time experts with resources as unlimited as their skill, and polished by four cycles of changing seasons, was destroyed in as many months during the iconoclastic era that followed the Restoration of 1867—the thirty-six views seen by travellers on the "Eastern Sea Road" between Tōkyō and Kyōtō, were copied so faithfully that to make the circuit of the park was to travel from one capital to the other. In many parks the "Eight Views of Omi Lake" are depicted. Sometimes models are borrowed from a poet's conception of supernatural beauties, as the isles of Elysium or the mountains of paradise. Sometimes dells or nooks of special beauty are consecrated to the memory of great philosophers or sanctified by shrines to tutelary deities. And every component of the scene—rock, shrubbery, hill, or valley, even each fence or lantern—has its distinguishing appellation and approved shape.
This extraordinary elaboration to which the art has been carried deserves consideration. It has already been said that landscape gardening is reduced almost to an exact science in Japan, and that though nature is supposed to be the teacher, the symbols she uses to convey her instruction, being interpreted by human intelligence, frequently assume arbitrary and conventional forms. From that point of view they may be compared to the mannerisms which, while they are not without a value of their own, often mar the purity of an accomplished author's style. The fact is, however, that the Japanese designer of a landscape garden, like the Japanese painter of a picture, never admits the possibility of obtaining photographic realism, which the Western artist, on the contrary, constantly strives to reach. The principle followed by the Japanese is that certain features only can be represented with the means and appurtenances at command of human skill, and that it is the artist's duty to select those features justly and to express them intelligibly. By long and careful observation he has discovered, or thinks that he has discovered, what may be called the aesthetic instincts of nature's operations, as displayed in the growth of trees, or the contours and grouping of hills, or the modelling and association of rocks, or the flow and spread of water; and he undertakes not only to depict those instincts by object lessons but also to formulate them in a grammar. Two results are noticeable: first, that his emphasis of special features is sometimes exaggerated to the verge of grotesqueness; secondly, that by the elaborateness of his terminology and the minuteness of his codes he seems to have lost himself in profusion while straining after selection. Thus, though the landscape gardener in Europe attaches little importance to rocks except as materials for building a grotto or constructing a bed for ferns or mosses, the Japanese gardener considers the shape and size of every rock and boulder with reference to the scale of his plan and the nature of the trees and shrubs he has to use, and recognises "one hundred and thirty-eight principal stones and rocks having special names and functions, in addition to others of secondary importance."[2] There are some fifty stones that bear the names of Buddhist saints, and have their appropriate positions and inter-relations in monastery gardens; there are five radical rock-shapes, which may be combined, two, three, four, or even five at a time; and there are broad divisions of hill stones, lake and river stones, cascade stones, island stones, valley stones, tea-garden stones, stepping-stones and water-basin stones, with their ninety-one subdivisions and their various orthodox groupings. In stone lanterns twenty-three specially designated shapes are found, and in water-basins thirteen, while for each form of lantern or basin there is an appropriate accompaniment of rocks, stones, shrubs, and trees. Fences, gates, and bridges, again, constitute a special branch of the art. Hundreds of varieties have been designed and have received the approval of great masters, and the skilled landscape-gardener knows which of these will best consort with a given environment, and how to make a delightful picture of grace, rusticity, cosiness, and warmth out of materials which from the hands of a tyro would emerge commonplace and uninteresting. Even wells have their gradus, and many volumes have been devoted to the discussion and delineation of bridges, arbours, lakes, rivers, cascades, and islands. It need scarcely be said that trees, shrubs, bushes, plants, and flowers are an extensive study. Here the Japanese have exercised their fidelity of observation with results that cannot be too much admired. They have learned to train each variety of tree and trim each kind of bush so that the most beautiful features of its natural growth shall be emphasised without being distorted; or, to use the language of Mr. J. Conder, that sympathetic and accurate student of Japanese aesthetics, they have developed "conspicuous ability in seizing upon the fundamental and characteristic qualities of natural forms, and creating a sort of shorthand, or contracted representation, for decorative purposes." It is true that this art sometimes degenerates into license. The forms that a tree or a shrub may be forced to assume are taken as models rather than the forms that its unrestrained growth suggests. But such abuses are the exception. As a rule the gardener only interprets and gives prominence to nature's intentions, fixing the beauties that vegetation would develop were the process of selection governed by artistic factors only, instead of being disturbed by unfavourable conditions of soil or surroundings. Trees and shrubs that have been thus trained and tended by him from generation to generation are objects of delightful comeliness, and, when examined closely, are found not only to have been kept in constant harmony with the finest types of their kind, but also to have been restrained from developing dimensions incongruous with their surroundings. For the Japanese gardener is not more particular about the shapes and grouping of his materials than about the general scale of the scene they produce, the aspects from which they have to be viewed, and the nature of their surroundings. It would be shocking if the trees and shrubs in a garden of limited area had the dimensions they attain in a primeval forest or on a trackless moor, and it would be crude and unsatisfactory if their size could be regulated only by the stages of their natural growth. Hence one of the gardener's important functions is to limit the stature of trees and, at the same time, to make them assume all the features of maturity and unrestrained vigour; a task demanding large endowment of the sense of proportion and comparison and its high training.
To this part of the subject belongs the art of miniature landscape-gardening, which also received great development in the Military epoch. The principles and rules of practice mentioned above apply to this art with undiminished force, but the scale of construction is reduced so that a landscape or waterscape, accurate in all details and having all its parts perfectly balanced, is produced within an area of two or three square feet. China gave this conception to Japan. A Chinese poet, constantly quoted by the devotees of the art, says that "it induces serenity of temper; fills the heart with love; makes a cheerful countenance; dispels drowsiness; banishes evil passions; teaches the changes of plants and trees; brings distant landscapes close; gives journeyless access to mountain-caves, sea-beaten shores, and cool grottos, and shows the procession of ages without decay." But it must be confessed that these miniature landscapes have a toy character which interferes with appreciation of their beauties. One can easily recognise the consummate skill displayed in bringing all their parts into exact proportion with the scale of the design. But there is always a suggestion of triviality which mars the effect. None the less they have the undoubted merit of lightening the life of the student or the humble tradesman, since they give him the constant companionship of a fair garden such as would otherwise be beyond his reach. They are usually arranged in trays of pottery, porcelain, or bronze, each tiny tree and bush carefully trained, and each pebble showing the features of the rock it is intended to represent.
Associated with miniature gardening is the art of growing trees in pots, which also may be said to have attained the rank of a national pastime from the Muromachi era; or, speaking more accurately, from the close of the fifteenth century. It is not suggested that the practice of dwarfing trees and shrubs by confining their roots in pots had not been inaugurated long before the days when the Ashikaga dilettante carried the aesthetic cult to extravagant lengths in Kyoto. But it had not attracted special attention prior to that time, nor given any indications of the extraordinary proportions it was destined ultimately to attain. Something of the impulse it then received must be attributed to the contemporaneous development of keramic skill which marked the epoch. The pot itself began to rank as an object of art, and to take shapes, sizes, and colours which, by suggesting new possibilities of harmony between the receptacle and its contents, encouraged new conceptions on the part of the tree-trainer. Thenceforth the bonsai (potted shrub) became a specialty of the Japanese gardener, and the worship of the cult is perhaps more fervent among the upper classes to-day than it ever was. There is only one canon of practice, and only one test of perfection: the tree or shrub, though but five or six inches in height, must be, in everything save dimensions, an absolute facsimile of what it would have been had it grown for cycles unrestrained in the forest: must have the same spread of bough in proportion to girth of trunk; the same girth of trunk in proportion to height; the same set of branch, gnarling of stem, and even symptoms of decrepitude. To be able to place upon the alcove-shelf one of the monsters of the forest in miniature, and to receive from it unerring suggestions of the broad moor, the mossy glade, the play of shadow and sunlight, the voice of the distant waterfall, and the sound of the wind in the tree-tops,—that is the ideal of the disciple of the cult. Each pigmy tree must tell faithful stories of the landscape among which its giant representative lives and dies. It would seem at first sight that this canon can never be applied to the foliage; that there the art is foiled; for though the trunk may be dwarfed and the branch stunted, the leaf must always attain its natural size. Such is not the case. By accurately regulating the tree's diet of water, its foliage, too, may be reduced to dimensions exactly proportionate to its stature, and thus the delusion becomes complete in every detail. There may be differences of opinion as to whether the decades and cycles of unremitting labour and attention required to bring nature's processes into such precise control are justified by results, but there can be no doubt that to sacrifice the art on the altar of economy would be to rule a delightful element out of the life of the nation. Many a Japanese statesman or man of affairs, when he finds himself in the presence of his treasured collection of bonsai, can pass from the troubled realm of political squabbles and business cares to the imaginary contemplation of quiet rustic scenes and tranquil landscapes, and can refresh his tired brain by realistic visions of nature's peaceful solitudes.
It may well be supposed that the art of interpreting and emphasising the aesthetics of vegetation finds its extreme development in the training of the bonsai, and that the attempt to give full expression within such narrow limits often tends to exaggeration or even grotesqueness. Thus, on first acquaintance with the products of the art, one is disposed to denounce some of them as monstrosities. But it may safely be asserted that the fault is generally subjective. In every branch of Japanese aesthetics a multitude of conventions, evolved from infinitely painstaking study of nature's methods, and stamped with the cachet of great masters in bygone times, have passed into a revelation from which no one ventures to take away an alpha or an omega. Intelligent sympathy with the spirit that dictated these conventions cannot survive slavish obedience to their laws, and it may not be denied that some of these dwarfed trees and shrubs show the mechanics of the art without its genius. But when that seems to be the case with a specimen which has obtained the sanction of two or three generations of connoisseurs, its faithfulness to some freak of nature can be taken for granted, since although hyperbole of type or abuse of convention may be temporarily permitted, such solecisms cannot pass current for any length of time among people like the Japanese. A stranger must be careful, therefore, before he condemns as unnatural in Japan everything which offends his own sense of nature's methods. Eloquence of orthodox form is probably there if his faculties were trained to recognise it.
The object of this book being to trace the growth of Japan's civilisation through the historical stages of her existence, it should be noted that, in strict accuracy, the above developments of landscape gardening and its correlated arts do not belong entirely to the Military epoch. But the additions that were made to these refinements under the Tokugawa epoch, which succeeded the Military, are not sufficient to require special discussion. Virtually all the principles destined to guide subsequent devotees of the art were conceived and coded in the closing days of the Ashikaga Shōgunate, and though landscape gardening in Yedo during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reached a scale of grandeur and elaboration such as had never previously been witnessed, these splendid results were not new departures, but only extended applications of the science.
The characteristic, though not by any means the unique, type of garden affected during the Military epoch was dictated by the canons of the Cha-no-yu cult. Cha-no-yu literally signifies "hot water for tea," a title which assumes almost offensive simplicity when contrasted with the extraordinary complexity and subtlety of the practices it designates. The Cha-no-yu garden bears to the great park of princely palace or nobleman's mansion much the same relation as an impressionist sketch bears to a highly finished representative picture. The chambers where the Tea Ceremonial is carried on are specially constructed in strict accord with rules inspired by principles of severe simplicity and rustic chasteness. Their proportions are of the smallest; their framework of the frailest, and their furniture of the scantiest. It is necessary that the gardens surrounding them should be of a similar character. For in laying out a Japanese garden no principle is more carefully observed than that there should be thorough congruity between the scenic scheme and the nature of the edifice from which it is contemplated. So studious, indeed, is the designer's attention to this canon that he will even vary the nature of a garden's parts so as to suit the different sections of the edifice it surrounds; a fact which becomes more intelligible when we remember that a Japanese house is often divided into several virtually independent blocks connected by covered passages, and that each block has its own individuality. The Cha-no-yu garden, then, having for its basis an edifice which is little more than a suggestion of a dwelling, and being intended for the contemplation of men who live in a world of impressions and abstractions rather than of realities and facts, is itself a mere sketch, suggesting landscapes, not portraying them. The semblance of a mountain moor is conveyed by some of the shrubs and grasses that grow on its expanse; a lake is implied by a few of its marginal rocks and overarching trees; special rivers are shown by the flowers for whose bloom their banks are celebrated, and a sea-beach is sketched by a mound of sand and a stunted pine. There is also a favourite style of Cha-no-yu garden which may be called a studied wilderness. Trees and shrubs are encouraged to grow in rustic confusion, so that, viewed from the veranda of the pavilion, nature is seen in her fresh and least artificial mood. Of course these austere canons are frequently departed from. Sometimes the designer of a Cha-no-yu garden follows the principle that if only he works in miniature, he may fill in all the details of the picture and make it perfectly representative. Exquisite gems of gardens on a tiny scale have thus been produced, but it need scarcely be said that the solecism is never perpetrated of associating these finished efforts of art with the essentially inornate style of Cha-no-yu edifice. Some pavilions intended for the practice of the tea ceremonial, though of dimensions restricted in careful obedience to rule, are constructed with materials of the rarest and costliest nature, and it would be absurd to lay out the grounds of such edifices in the sketchy, rude style of the classic system.
The Tea Ceremonial is a conspicuous example of the radical modification that many customs, derived from abroad, underwent in Japanese hands. Its embryo came from China, but its full-grown conventions as practised by the Japanese would not be recognised in the land of their origin. Great interest attaches to it, not only because its popularity dates from the Military epoch, when a pastime so essentially effeminate ought to have been quite incongruous with the spirit of the time, but also because it constitutes a mirror in which the extraordinary elaborateness of Japanese social etiquette may be seen vividly reflected.
A coarse variety of the tea-plant appears to have existed in Japan from time immemorial, but its properties did not receive popular recognition until the twelfth century, when Eisai, a priest of the Zen sect of Buddhism, travelling to China for the purpose of studying the methods of propagandism which had brought the doctrine of religious meditation into wide favour there, learned immediately the value attached to the leaf and was informed of the nine virtues it possessed. He carried back with him to Japan a book of directions for the culture and curing of tea, together with a jar of choice seed, and from that time the beverage came into favour among the upper classes. During more than a hundred years, however, the fine leaf was so rare and so highly prized that a small quantity of it, enclosed in a little jar of pottery, used to be given to warriors as a reward for deeds of special prowess, and the fortunate recipients assembled their relatives and friends to partake of the precious gift. The ceremony observed on these occasions might be described as tea-tasting rather than tea-drinking. Several plantations of tea had been formed in different provinces, and the leaf produced at each was supposed to vary in quality, incomparably the best being that grown at Tagano-o, where the seed brought by Eisai from China had been sowed. Upon these differences the social function was based, the conception having been borrowed from an older form of refined amusement, namely, discriminating between the perfumes of various incenses. The "teacup test" was that most commonly applied. Three varieties of tea having been divided into four parts each, one cup made from each group was tasted with the object of furnishing three standards. Then to the nine remaining parts a tenth was added, this last receiving the name of "guest," inasmuch as, though tasted with the rest, it had to be spared the rudeness of classification. It will be observed that there were now ten parts. Cups brewed from them were next handed to the convives, who displayed the delicacy of their palates by determining with which of the three standards each cup should be classed. In the eyes of a Japanese samurai the triviality of this pastime was relieved by two facts: first, that it came from China, whence all ethical pleasures were derived; secondly, that it had the sanction of the Zen sect of Buddhists, whose tenets were regarded as the essence of a warrior's creed. The first evidence of slavish obedience to precedent, which is certainly one of the tendencies educated by the cult, was furnished in the fourteenth century, when the nine horizontal rings of shakudo,—a metal composed of copper, silver, and a small quantity of gold,—enriching the finial of the Ten-no-ji pagoda, were taken down and used for casting tea-urns, by order of a military chief. Thenceforth a pagoda ring became the orthodox material for a tea-urn, and it is said that among more than a hundred pagodas in the provinces of Izumi and Kawachi, not one escaped having its rings stripped off. The pastime of tea-tasting was now so popular that every street in the two capitals—Kyōtō and Kamakura—had a shop for the sale of tea-utensils, and the store-keeper sat among his wares calling out, "Won't you condescend to want a cup of tea?"
But the Cha-no-yu had not yet developed its distinctive features, or acquired anything of the immense influence it afterwards exercised socially and aesthetically. Yoshimasa, the eighth of the Ashikaga Shōguns, was the patron of the new departure. He did not himself originate anything, but being a ruler whose unlimited lavishness of expenditure on objects of beauty attracted the attention of the entire nation, and produced a wave of aestheticism that swept through the whole country, his devotion to the Cha-no-yu brought it at once into prominence. The deviser of the extraordinarily detailed system of etiquette and labyrinth of observances that now became associated with tea-drinking, and the author of the philosophy that grew up about it, was Shukô, a prelate of the Zen sect of Buddhism. Shukô being an ardent believer in the rite of religious meditation which his creed prescribed, his affection for tea, prepared according to the new method, seems to have been primarily derived from its property of promoting wakefulness, and thus assisting him to practise the rite through long intervals. Gradually this adjunct of his reverent exercises became associated in his mind with the moral conditions they produced. He conceived that a great influence for good might be exerted by employing the Cha-no-yu as a vehicle for the direct promotion of a system resembling that of religious meditation and introspection, and for the indirect inculcation of the virtues attributed by the Zen creed to such exercises. It was thus that he elaborated for the practice of tea-drinking a ceremonial of the most minute and formal description. From an Occidental point of view perhaps the most intelligible explanation that can be given of Shukô's cult is to call it the Free Masonry of Japan. Free Masonry has for its sole object the inculcation of the most beautiful and comprehensive of all virtues, but its rituals, its rites, its ceremonials, its mysteries, its paraphernalia, and its costumes hide from the outside public the true spirit of its aims. The Cha-no-yu has fared similarly. Its esoteric philosophy has been obscured by its exoteric observances. The inventors of both cults showed profound knowledge of human nature, for they saw that in order to popularise a system of high morality it must be associated with ceremonies that appeal to a comparatively low range of feelings. Four cardinal virtues constituted the basis of Shukô's system: they were urbanity, courtesy, purity, and imperturbability (ka-kei-sei-jaku), this last including repose of manner, a prime essential of polite intercourse.
Before considering the exoteric side of the cult, a word must be said about its history. If to Shukô belongs the credit of conceiving the system, the Ashikaga Shōgun Yoshimasa was the means of bringing it at once into prominence. On his retirement from public life (1472), this singular man devoted himself almost exclusively to æsthetic pursuits, and by the advice of three great artists, Noami, Geami, and Soami, who stood high in his favour, he sought the acquaintance of Shukô, then known chiefly as a connoisseur of painting and an expert in the art of "flower-setting." Shukô seized the occasion to obtain a powerful patron for his special cult, and Yoshimasa, charmed by the novelty as well as the quaint grace of the conception, espoused it vigorously. He had just planned his celebrated Silver Pavilion, and he added to it the first "tea chamber" ever built in Japan, calling it Shukô-an, after its deviser, and writing the name with his own hand on a tablet which was placed over the door. At once the Cha-no-yu obtained wide vogue among the aristocracy. They found in it, just as Shukô had hoped, an element of gentle asceticism gratifying to the conscience, and a charm of method appealing to the most refined taste. It seemed, in fact, to bring within easy reach of fashionable dilettante the virtues which the samurai cultivated by the severe discipline of religious meditation; while to the samurai, on the other hand, it disclosed a vista of refined graces without any apparent concession to the vices of self-indulgence or effeminacy. For the tendency of the cult was to combine aesthetic eclecticism of the most fastidious nature with the severest canons of simplicity and austerity. As each disciple of the system sat in a tiny chamber, its dimensions and furniture conforming with rigid rules, handled utensils of rude type, and looked out on a garden where the wild and rustic features of nature were prominent, he seemed to himself to be a kind of social anchorite eschewing every form of luxury or ostentation, but at the same time cultivating artistic tastes which differentiated him agreeably from the vulgar and the uninitiated. The aristocrat and the soldier thus came together on a common plane, and if the blasé sybarite, Yoshimasa, found something delightful in the cult, the jovial soldier, Nobunaga, and the splendid strategists and statesmen, Hideyoshi (the Taikō) and Tokugawa Iyeyasu, patronised and practised it with equal ardour. Its greatest master, the man who has been placed by the unanimous acclaim of posterity on the highest pinnacle of the craft, was the ill-fated Sen-no-Rikiu, who, obedient to the spirit that directed the policy of his patron Hideyoshi, the Aristarchus as well as the Cæsar of Japanese history, added many features of simplicity and economy to the ceremonial, so that it ceased to be limited to the aristocracy and was brought within reach of the middle classes. There have been in four centuries only six acknowledged high-priests of the cult: Shukô, who initiated the Ashikaga ruler, Yoshimasa; Jô-ô, who taught the principles of the cult to Nobunaga; Sen-no-Rikiu, preceptor of the Taikō; Furuta Oribe-no-jo, who initiated Hidetada, the second Tokugawa Shōgun; Kobori Yenshu-no-Kami, who performed the same office for the third of the Tokugawa rulers, Iyemitsu; and Katakiri Iwami-no-Kami, the teacher of Tokugawa Iyetsuna.
In the tea pavilion devised by Shukô, the principal chamber was nine feet square, with an alcove which measured six feet by three. The pavilion was roofed with shingles, and the guest-chamber was ceiled with a single board of finely grained timber. The walls were covered with monochromatic paper having a wrinkled surface, and the tea utensils were arranged in set order on a movable cabinet (daisu). The hearth was a foot and a half square, and over it was placed an iron urn chased in low relief. Jô-ô, the immediate successor of Shukô, while preserving the dimensions fixed by the latter, substituted plaster for paper on the walls, reduced the number of articles in the tea equipage, and caused the door to be made of bamboo instead of boards. He also introduced the custom of placing the tea equipage in a cupboard instead of on a cabinet, and of hanging the urn by a chain from the ceiling instead of supporting it over the hearth on a tripod. This simplified form of room subsequently came to be called the "Chain Chamber," as distinguished from the more elaborate pavilion of Shukô. By Sen-no-Rikiu further modifications were devised in the direction of homeliness. He reduced the dimensions of the tea-room from four and a half mats (a mat is six feet by three) to two and a half; caused it to be covered with a thatch of bamboo grass instead of a roof of elaborately laid shingles, and generally simplified the character of the equipage. But after his death (1591) his disciples dispersed, some abandoning altogether a cult whose greatest master had met with such a tragic fate, and some eschewing the particular fashions to which he had given his name. One man only, Sôkei, remained faithful to the principles of his teacher, and he, observing the gradual degeneration of Sen's art, and recognising his own inability to arrest its decadence, left his home, clad in pilgrim's garb, and was never heard of again. Evil days for the Cha-no-yu continued until the
time of the Second Tokugawa Shōgun, Hidetada 
A WRESTLING RING.
But though, as years went by, fashion and fancy introduced various innovations, the general character of the Tea Ceremonial remained unchanged. Notably invariable were six rules originated by Rikiu, but reduced to writing by his faithful disciple Sôkei. Of these, two are curiously trivial. They direct that when the guests have assembled in the waiting place, the signal for their entry to the tea pavilion shall be given by wooden clappers; and that the ablution bowl shall be kept filled with pure water. The other four precepts are very characteristic of the spirit of the cult. The first is that any guest who, having been invited to a tea réunion, experiences a feeling of dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of the furniture or the inelegance of the surroundings, should withdraw quietly as soon as possible, so as not to disturb the harmony of the party. The second is that all social tittle-tattle, whether of present or past times, is out of place in a tea pavilion, as it should be everywhere out of place for disciples of the cult. The third is that, however noble the host, words of flattery or deceit should be strictly interdicted; and the fourth, that a tea réunion ought never to last more than four hours unless some moral or chivalrous topic, demanding longer discussion, has been broached. These rules, taken in conjunction with the four cardinal qualities which each professor of the craft is bound to cultivate, indicate sufficiently clearly the nature of the Cha-no-yu philosophy.
But they do not give any clear indication as to the so-called mysteries of the cult; the thirteen methods that the novice had to study by way of preliminary; the five arts that were acquired by the craftsman; the "three degrees of the broad salver," with their three varieties of "genuine," "abbreviated," and "cursive"—corresponding to the three styles of calligraphy—which the passed-master had to be familiar with. These, which, in truth, are nothing more than a multitude of conventions and ceremonials, cannot possibly be set forth in any volume of ordinary dimensions, and would be utterly wearisome to the reader. A brief general sketch will be sufficient.
The ceremony has various names according to the time of its performance. There is the "morning tea" (asa no Cha-no-Yu, or ake no Cha-no-Yu, or asa-gomi), which takes place at any hour between three a. m. and eight a. m. There is the evening tea (yo-gomi). There is the kashi no Cha-no-Yu, or tea with cake, which follows the morning or afternoon meal, and is thus between eight and ten o'clock in the forenoon, or between two and four o'clock in the afternoon. Then there are the casual cup (fuji no yakusoku), which is practically the same as the post-prandial; the mid-day cup at the hour of the Horse (noon); the "evening chat," at the hour of the Cock (from six to eight o'clock p. m.): the atomi, or "after glance," which is a sort of second-hand entertainment after some guest of note has departed ; and finally the kuchikiri, or "firstlings," which takes place when the jar containing the new leaf is opened for the first time in the tenth month.
The phraseology employed with reference to all matters bearing on the ceremony is precisely fixed, but this part of the affair has little meaning for Westerners. It is enough to mention that one never speaks of "drinking" tea, but of "taking" it; that to "abridge" any part of the ceremony becomes to "apologise;" that all objects of art which have received the approval of the old masters are respectfully alluded to as "models;" and that in indicating dimensions the plait of a mat is used as a unit, such vulgar terms as "feet" and "inches" being carefully eschewed.
The details of carrying out the ceremony vary, but there are some general customs which scarcely permit alteration. The first care of the host is to see that the pavilion is thoroughly cleansed, and that every apparatus of an ignoble character is removed. Similar scrutiny is extended to the outer passage, which should be sprinkled lightly with pure water. A tobacco-box is then placed in the outer waiting-place, after which the condition of the inner waiting-place is attended to, and cushions, one for each guest, are there arranged. On the first day of the tenth month pine sprays are spread all over the garden, and from the first day of the first month these are taken up, little by little, commencing with the parts in the immediate vicinity of the tea pavilion. This is by way of welcoming the gradual advent of spring. At the beginning of the second month the process is extended, and at the end of the third month the sprays about the outer waiting-place are entirely removed. The dust-bin is always kept covered with green leaves. In the outer waiting-place is set a ewer of white pine with a lid of red pine and a ladle of white pine, the latter being laid across the lid, mouth uppermost; if the ewer be of metal, the mouth of the ladle is turned downward. In the inner waiting-place is set a stone ewer with red pine ladle. In the outer waiting-place are two pendent lamps, one of metal, the other of wood, the latter being suspended beside the ewer. The oil vessel for these lamps is of unglazed Fukakusa pottery. The inner passage should have a stone lantern, with an oil-holder of the same wood as that of the wooden lamp in the waiting-place. The inner waiting-place is lit by a standing lantern (andon), of which the upper lid should be removed and placed against the wall, except in windy weather. Beside it are placed a wick tongs and oil ladle. At morning réunions the decoration of the alcove consists of pictures during the first part of the entertainment, and flowers during the second. However cold the weather and however numerous the guests, only one brazier is allowed to be placed in the outer waiting-place. Even the lining of tobacco-boxes is regulated according to their shape. Equally strict rules apply to the length of the pipe, the manner of placing it on the tobaccobox, the colour of its stem, and the direction in which the bowl should lie with respect to boxes of different forms. The position of each guest is fixed; the construction of the windows in the tea pavilion and the material of the blinds are determined; the management of the rain-doors is in accurate accord with the season, and every article of the tea equipage has its own invariable position. All these things are the alphabet of the cult. As for the host, the routine of his behaviour is accurately prescribed. So soon as he receives word that all the guests have assembled in the outer waiting-place, he repairs to the tea pavilion, raises the ewer, and mends the fire under it; clears away the ashes; lights the incense; sweeps the mats with a small hand-brush; puts the lid of the ewer, half on, and then, seating himself before the alcove, looks carefully at the picture and other ornaments. Satisfied that everything is as it ought to be, he pours some fresh water into the ewer, and goes out to welcome the guests. In greeting them, the usual method is to kneel within the door of the pavilion and make an obeisance, but if there be a nobleman among the guests, the obeisance must be made outside. Then the host returns, leaving the door of the tea pavilion partially open. The guests, on their side, having concluded their greetings, proceed to wash their hands in the order of their rank, and then, entering the pavilion, go to the alcove, one by one, and examine the picture hanging there. Thence they pass, in the same order, to the hearth, where they inspect the urn. In these proceedings the rule is that so soon as the principal guest reaches the threshold of the tea pavilion, the next senior goes to the ewer and washes his hands, advancing thence to the door of the pavilion so soon as he sees the senior opposite the alcove, and thence to the alcove when the senior is in the neighbourhood of the hearth. This order is observed throughout. It is the duty of the junior guest to restore the tobacco-box to its place before leaving the waiting-room, and to pile the sitting cushions one upon the other. At reunions where lights are used, their management is also duly regulated. The last guest has to shut the door of the pavilion, not, however, before he has performed the prescribed circuit of the room and reached his appointed place. The first subject of conversation is the picture in the alcove. When the guests have expressed their opinions about it, the host replenishes the charcoal on the hearth. The length and thickness of the sticks of charcoal are fixed with precision according to the style of the hearth. So soon as the host raises the urn to put on the charcoal, the guests approach the hearth in order and examine it as well as the urn. When a furo (a pottery fire-box) is used, this examination is not made until a later stage; neither does the host replenish the charcoal. He merely wipes the rim of the furo, handling his cloth in a set fashion and passing it twice over the right of the furo and once over the left and front. He then opens the kitchen door and calls for the repast. Numerous rules apply to the minutiæ of the repast; to the conduct of the host and guests; to the manner of the latter's first retirement; to the re-arrangement of the pavilion in their temporary absence, and to their return for the second stage of the entertainment, during which the tea is served. It is made by the host in presence of his guests. No teapot is used. The tea, taken in the form of the finest powder from a little jar of choice faience, is placed at once in the drinking cup, and boiling water is then poured on it. Minute attention must be paid to the temperature of the water. A brisk fire should be used. The water gives the first indication of heat by a low, intermittent singing, and by the appearance of large, slowly rising bubbles known as "fish eyes" (gyo-moku). The next stage is marked by agitation like the seething of a hot spring, accompanied by a constant succession of rapidly ascending bubbles. In the next stage waves appear upon the surface, and these finally subsiding, all appearance of steam is lost. The water has now attained the condition of maturity: it is "aged hot water" (rô̄tô). If the fire is good and well sustained, all these stages can be distinctly noted, says the canon. Then the cup, together with a neatly folded napkin, is handed to the guests in order, each one wiping it after he has drunk, the last guest being careful to finish its contents. Thereafter the cup goes round again to be itself examined. Even in these comparatively simple operations there are numerous points of etiquette to be observed. Every part of the equipage, every article that is used, even to the charcoal and its receptacle, are separately scrutinised by the guests at strictly ordained periods of the entertainment and in regular order. The whole thing is a study: host and guest alike must be drilled by long instruction and practice. It is impossible to conceive any code of etiquette more minute and less flexible. In former days of perfect politeness it was counted a mark of pride, and even of inhospitality, to issue an ordinary invitation at long notice: men were supposed to be always ready to receive their friends. But with the Cha-no-Yu a different fashion was observed. Invitations were sent three or four days in advance, and were even repeated in the case of old or busy persons. On the other hand, it amounted almost to an insult did a guest fail to visit his host the day after the ceremonial. The relative importance of the guests did not necessarily depend on their rank. Under the thatched roof of the tea pavilion, such distinctions often failed to receive recognition. It is related that, during an entertainment given by Sen-no-Rikiu, a nobleman of high station arrived and asked permission to join the party. Rikiu consented, but placed him in the lowest seat. In fact, the etiquette of the Cha-no-Yu had precedence of every social code.
The details here set down, elaborate and wearisome as they seem, represent only a fraction of the immense mass of minutiæ that a devotee of the cult was expected to master. But the task had its reward, for skill in the craft constituted an universally recognised certificate of refinement, and the practice of the ceremonial tended to educate serenity of mind as well as to substitute a placid atmosphere of æstheticism and graceful courtesy for the storm of fierce ambitions and feudal struggles that had long swept over the country. The Cha-no-Yu never had more zealous patron than the Taikō. In October, 1585, he organised a grand réunion in the Kitano Pine Forest. It lasted for ten days, and instead of sending invitations to selected individuals, the Taikō caused placards to be posted not only in Kyōtō but also in the distant towns of Nara and Sakai, announcing that every lover of the cha-dō (tea-path) would be welcome, and that all would be free to erect temporary pavilions according to their fancy. During this fête, which became a historical event, the Taikō went from pavilion to pavilion, viewing the objects of virtu that formed part of the tea equipage of each owner, and showing the keenest interest in everything connected with the ceremonial.
The æsthetic influence of the tea cult was even more remarkable, perhaps, than its social or philosophical aspect. Every man of refinement or opulence may be said to have been a cha-jin, and every cha-jin was, of necessity, a virtuoso of greater or less skill. A collection of art-objects soon came to signify simply a tea equipage so extensive as to offer constant novelties to the connoisseurs who from time to time were bidden to the pavilion, and so choice that each specimen might safely endure the ordeal of close examination by parties of skilled connoisseurs. Nothing faulty or spurious could survive such ordeals,—that is to say, nothing faulty or spurious from the point of view of the tea clubs. This reservation is necessary, because the tea clubs had two distinct and altogether dissimilar points of view. One of their canons prescribed an artistic standard of the highest excellence, though never sanctioning anything florid or meretricious; another passed to the opposite extreme of homeliness, and established rules of taste which attached no value whatever to elegance of form, perfection of technique or beauty of design, but bade the true virtuoso look first for qualities owing their value solely to association and appreciable by courtesy only. This second variety of objects, an extensive class, received from the irreverent an appropriate title, "rusty things" (sabi-mono). They were strictly and logically true to the esoterics of the cult, their redeeming points being entirely of the impressionist order and their qualities having reference solely to the moral attributes that the tea philosophy sought to inculcate. Perhaps in the whole range of Japanese characteristics there is none so perplexing to a foreign observer as this phase of æsthetics. Yet the riddle is resolved at once when the "rusty things" are considered not exoterically but esoterically; not as specimens of art but as symbols of a cult. Many of them are indescribably ugly. Never intended to be choice productions, they present gross technical defects, which very defects constitute merits in the eyes of a Cha-jin. Blisters resulting from excessive heat in the potter's kiln become marks of special manufacture; solutions of continuity in the glaze of a porcelain vessel are prized evidences of a certain era; deformity of shape is a natural caprice; absence of every outwardly attractive quality typifies unpretentious utility, and accidents of decoration suggest freedom from artifical regularity. These homely failures survived originally by tolerance. Some of them had even been thrown into the refuse heap before the Cha-jin picked them up and consecrated them to his cult, wrapping them in silk crape or rich brocade, repairing their fractures with gold lacquer, and enclosing them in boxes of the finest and costliest workmanship. Evidently this phase of the tea cult offered no encouragement to the progress of the fine arts, for it discredited everything elaborate or beautiful. Korean porcelain and pottery, inferior at their best and worthless at their worst, were particularly prized, and of all the keramic products of China the tea clubs took only cups of Chien-yao—temmoku (heaven's eye) they called it—not because they cared for the wonderful raven's wing glaze with its singular streaking of silver or dappling of russet which characterises this Sung ware, but because its heavy thick pate and black colour had the merit of keeping the tea warm and of presenting a cool rim to the lips of the drinker. It must be admitted, however, that the Cha-jin was not altogether sincere when he aped this humility of selection. If he professed himself content with a homely object, he averted any suspicion of economical motives by lavishing money freely on its wrappers and receptacles; and if he dispensed with beauty he exacted prestige and "odile." Enormous value attached to objects that had been approved, above all used, by acknowledged masters of the cult. A certificate from Kobori Masakazu, Furuta Oribe, or Sen-no-Rikiu added many tens of gold pieces to the value of an object. Yoshimasa brought together in the Silver Pavilion a collection of utensils which were regarded as standards of the orthodox tea-equipage. Oda Nobunaga did the same in his castle of Azuchi, and Hideyoshi surpassed them both when he furnished the Palace of Pleasure. To have belonged to any of these collections raised an object at once to a pinnacle of esteem. Kobori Masakazu com- piled a catalogue, called the Meihyō-ki (celebrated utensils), in which he entered a detailed account of all the Cha-no-Yu apparatus regarded in his era as the acme of classical taste. For the originals of any of the objects thus catalogued a Cha-jin has always been willing to pay a fabulous price. An illustration was afforded at a public sale which took place in Tōkyō in April, 1899, when certain specimens which were identified as having been described in the O-kura-chō (honourable store-room register of Yoshimasa's collection) were thus disposed of:—
- A cup of stone-ware covered with lustrous black glaze having ash-coloured spots. (A specimen of Chinese Chien-yao of the Sung dynasty, known in Japan as Haikatsugi Temmoku (ash-coloured Temmoku). The most ardent Occidental lover of "antiques" would probably think five sovereigns a very high price for such a cup). Sold for 3,000 yen.
- A bamboo flower-vase (of the kind known as Hitoye-giri; without decoration of any kind). 507 yen.
- A bronze vase; body undecorated; cloud-shaped handles; nine inches high. 1,680 yen.
- An iron water-boiler (kama) of peculiar shape. 251 yen.
- A charcoal-holder made of woven bamboo. 211 yen.
- An incense-box (diam. two and a half inches; depth one inch) of black lacquer carved in layers ; with a deal case marked by Kobori Yenshiu no Kami. 466 yen.
- An incense-box (smaller than the last) of blue and white porcelain, the decoration a roughly painted water-ox. 158 yen.
- An iron water-boiler (the style known as arari gama; i. e. the surface granulated in hail-stone diaper. 356 yen.
- A similar boiler with handles. 250 yen.
- A stand of black lacquer, for an alcove ornament (worth about fifty sen from an artistic point of view). 238 yen.
- A scroll inscribed with the ideographs hei shin (mens æqua), from the pen of a litterateur of the Tang dynasty. 1,580 yen.
- A scroll inscribed with ideographs from the pen of a Sung litterateur. 488 yen.
- A bamboo tea-ladle (used by Sen-no-Rikiu). 518 yen.
- A miniature screen, of the kind used for placing beside the furnace in the Tea Ceremony; painted by Shokwado. 258 yen.
- Five small blue and white porcelain cups, from the kiln of Shonzui Gorodayu. 121 yen.
- Five small cups of Ming porcelain (red glaze with traces of gold decoration). 110 yen.
The only plea that could ever have been set up on behalf of such objects, namely, their simplicity and costlessness, is at once destroyed when they are thus extravagantly valued for the sake of association.
Had the aesthetics of the Cha-no-yu been limited to this narrow sphere, the result must have been to create hopeless confusion between beauty and archaism, and to rob art of all incentive. But, as has been stated above, there was another side to the cult. If the ceremonial of the Ko-cha, or powdered tea, when conducted on perfectly orthodox lines, forbade any departure from the severest and rudest principles, the ceremony of the Sen-cha, or infused tea, permitted a wide range of ideals, and dispensed with many of the forms and conventions of the practice. In the Sen-cha rite technical excellence, gracefulness of shape, and rarity were valued at their full worth, though prime importance continued to be attached to the sobriety prescribed by the classics of the cult. Hence from the catalogue of objects of virtu offered by China and Korea, her implicitly trusted preceptors in so many matters, Japan made a strikingly narrow choice. Instead of taking for porcelain utensils the liquid-dawn reds, the ripe-grape purples, the five-coloured egg-shells, or any of the glowing monochromes and half-toned enamels of the Chinese keramists, she confined herself to ivory whites, delicate céladons, comparatively inornate specimens of blue sous couverte, and full bodied, roughly applied, over-glaze enamels such as characterised the later eras of the Ming dynasty. It has astonished many students of Japanese manners and customs to find that objects which Europe and America search for to-day in the markets of China with eager appreciation, are scarcely represented at all in the collections that Japanese virtuosi made at an epoch when such masterpieces were abundantly produced within easy reach of their doors. The explanation is to be sought in the conservatism of the tea clubs. But the justice must be done of acknowledging that, to a certain extent, the Japanese adopted in this matter the standards set by the Chinese themselves. There exists in China an illustrated manuscript compiled by Hsiang, an art critic of the sixteenth century. Among some eighty specimens therein depicted as chefs-d'œuvre on which the Chinese virtuosi of the time had set their cachet, fifty are céladons. Hence, when the Taikō decided to import, for presentation to certain great temples, the finest keramic products obtainable in China, he had no hesitation in selecting vases of Lung-Chuang-yao, then the best céladon of the Chin-te-ching kilns. It need scarcely be added that in her own arts also, both pictorial and applied, Japan was largely guided by the dicta of the tea clubs. For their use and in obedience to their taste, her potters toiled through centuries to produce cups, bowls, ewers, and tiny jars covered with glazes which, while they testify great technical skill and often show glows and gleams of most attractive colours, are nevertheless sober almost to severity. It was also for their use and in obedience to their taste that her artists carried the stenography of painting to its extreme limits, making half-a-dozen strokes convey a wide range of impression. And it was also for their use and in obedience to their taste that her lacquerers and other art-artisans lavished a wealth of decorative effort on the least visible parts of an object, and gave infinite care to technical minutiæ which almost equal care is needed to appreciate. In fact, throughout the whole range of Japan's ethics and æsthetics the influence of the tea cult may be clearly traced. To it she owes much of the delicate grace and extraordinary refinement of detail that distinguish her art products; to it she owes much of the repose of manner, elaborate courtesy, and studied imperturbability of demeanour, that characterise her social intercourse; to it she owes a widely diffused exercise of the art-critical faculty; and to it she owes an impulse of generous patronage which contributed immensely to the progress of all her art industries. But to it also must be attributed a conservatism which cramped the genius of her artists; a false standard which confused beauty and archaism, and an influence which contributed largely to the formalism that constitutes a distinct blemish in her character.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 40.
Note 40.—Mr. J. Conder in his admirable work, "Landscape Gardening in Japan."
- ↑ See Appendix, note 41.
Note 41.—Conder's "Landscape Gardening in Japan."