rs painting in Japan seems, to some extent, to have come
under Western influences. There is, indeed, a progressive party in
painting which not only does not resist these Western influences but
actually advocates the utilisation of Western materials and methods in
painting and the discarding of all that had made Japanese painting
essentially what it is. I confess to a hope that this progressive
school will not make quite so much progress as its disciples desire.
To introduce European pigments, canvas, brushes, &c., and discard the
materials formerly in use, to get rid of the Japanese method of
treating subjects, whether landscapes, country scenes, the life of the
people, representations of animals, and so on, and replace that method
by imitations of European schools of painting, must simply involve the
destruction of all that is essentially and characteristically Japanese
and the replacing of it by something that is not Japanese or indeed
Oriental. The essence of art is originality. I admit that art may come
under foreign influences and be improved, just as it may be degraded,
by them. If the influences of foreign art are to be advantageous that
art must, I suggest, be in some measure akin to the style of the art
which is affected by it. For example, the influence in the past of
China or Korea upon an analogous style of art in Japan. But for
Japanese painters to remodel their peculiar style upon that of Europe
must prove as fatal to Japanese painting as an art as any similar
endeavour of European painters to remodel their style upon that of
Japan would be fatal to the distinctive art of Europe. I make this
statement with full knowledge of the fact that some art critics in
this country declare that Mr. Whistler and other artists have been
largely affected or influenced in their style by a study of Japanese
art in painting and its methods.

I have referred to kakemonos, those wall pictures which are such a
pleasing feature of the simple decoration of Japanese houses. Many of
these are superb specimens of art, and the same remark may be made in
reference to the makimonos, or scroll pictures. It may be that not
every Western eye can appreciate these Japanese paintings fully at a
first glance, but they certainly grow upon one, and I hope the time is
far distant when kakemonos will be replaced in Japanese homes by those
mural decorations, if I may so term them, to be seen in so many
English houses, which are a positive eyesore