cult for the Japs to hold fast to their artistic
instincts, and in the end I expressed my conviction that it would pay
them better to adhere to their principles rather than to pander to the
foolish demands of the dull American or British merchant who had neither
idea nor concern as to the beauty of the work he buys.

[Illustration: LEADING TO THE TEMPLE]

Unfortunately, to a great extent these traders are lowering the standard
of painting in Japan. Not a few of these sixty men who came to meet me
would do work they did not care about, not being men of such
individuality and independence of character as Kiyosai. With them, as
with us, the prize of money-reward is a bait too tempting to be
resisted. Two days afterwards some of these friends were good enough
to write a long discourse in one of the Japanese papers on my address,
saying how much pleased they were to find an artist from England with my
ideas of Japanese art--one who condemned the notion so common among them
that it was necessary to pander to the tastes of a foreign market. They
were especially glad that I had condemned that, and many of the
painters, more or less on the strength of my conversation, decided to do
thenceforth what they felt to be true to their principles--to go to
nature and themselves, to choose their lovely harmony of colour, instead
of designing stereotyped screens with gold birds on black backgrounds.
Many were determined to give up that kind of art altogether, and one in
particular (whose studio I called at the day after) pointed out that he
had already quite altered his style. He was an artist by nature, and he
told me he felt that having to do this horrible work was going against
him, and he had made up his mind that in future he would insist upon
doing what he felt to be beautiful, and would be ruled by the merchant
no more. I visited the studios of a great many of the artists to whom I
had delivered my lecture, and saw their sketch-books and their method of
work. In nearly every case their method coincided with the principles
laid down by Kiyosai--each having, of course, his own method, but each
working in the same broad way of "impression picture."

Japan might be said to be as artistic as England is inartistic. In Japan
art is not a cause, but a result--the result of the naturalness of the
people--and is closely allied with all aspects of their daily life. In
the houses, the streets, the gardens, the places of public
resort--everyw