JAPAN
OTHER BEAUTIFUL BOOKS ON JAPAN
EACH CONTAINING FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
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ANCIENT TALES AND FOLK-LORE OF JAPAN
BY R. GORDON SMITH, F.R.G.S.
57 ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAPANESE ARTISTS
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THE FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF JAPAN
DESCRIBED BY FLORENCE DU CANE
50 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ELLA DU CANE
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"JAPAN"
In the "Peeps at Many Lands and Cities" Series
BY JOHN FINNEMORE
12 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
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PEEPS AT THE HISTORY OF JAPAN
BY JOHN FINNEMORE
8 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND NUMEROUS LINE DRAWINGS IN THE TEXT
PUBLISHED BY ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, 4, 5 AND 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
[Illustration: MISS POMEGRANATE]
JAPAN . A RECORD IN COLOUR BY MORTIMER MENPES . TRANSCRIBED BY DOROTHY MENPES . PUBLISHED BY ADAM & CHARLES BLACK . SOHO SQUARE . LONDON . W.
_Published December 1901 Reprinted May 1902, January 1903, January 1904 January 1905_
TO MY FRIEND
THE LADY EDWARD CECIL
TO WHOSE ENTHUSIASTIC SYMPATHY MY WORK IN JAPAN OWES SO MUCH OF THE SUCCESS IT HAS ATTAINED
Note
In this book I endeavour to present, with whatever skill of penmanship I may possess, my father's impressions of Japan. I trust that they will not lose in force and vigour in that they are closely intermingled with my own impressions, which were none the less vivid because they were those of a child,--for it was as a child, keenly interested in and enjoying all I saw, that I passed, four or five years ago, through that lovely flower-land of the Far East, which my father has here so charmingly memorialised in colour.
DOROTHY MENPES
_November 1901._
Contents
CHAPTER I PAGE ART AND THE DRAMA 1
CHAPTER II THE LIVING ART 29
CHAPTER III PAINTERS AND THEIR METHODS 49
CHAPTER IV PLACING 75
CHAPTER V ART IN PRACTICAL LIFE 91
CHAPTER VI THE GARDENS 105
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: Japan by Dorothy Menpes
- 2: Kioto 132 49
- 3: But the deception is not pleasant
- 4: Just as you might see it played any day in Belgrave Square
- 5: This is all very terrible and inartistic
- 6: Built as the Japanese theatres are
- 7: This Danjuro was unable to find out
- 8: But just a simple dignified gentleman
- 9: But this Danjuro firmly denied
- 10: Danjuro prefers as an audience the middle classes
- 11: The manager does not know what puce means
- 12: But the obi looked best against the light purple
- 13: After this the pasteboard monkey reigned supreme
- 14: I do not mean to say that every Jap is a born artist
- 15: And I employed a Jap to make them for me
- 16: I never saw such a gorgeous screen
- 17: What would a Japanese gentleman say
- 18: Or a pipe if it is not useful it is considered inartistic
- 19: Atalanta appears glued to the spot
- 20: I am sad to say we are thoroughly inartistic
- 21: I have often thought that could Hokusai and Velasquez
- 22: First by being mixed cold in a cup with a pestle
- 23: In mixing indigo blue from a cake
- 24: Especially as Captain Brinkley
- 25: I saw a number of Japanese pictures
- 26: Captain Brinkley told me a story
- 27: The ink is of course swallowed
- 28: A masterpiece Kiyosai knew it was a masterpiece and
- 29: Is the true secret of the Japanese art
- 30: Can you imagine a tradesman and his family
- 31: The dear ancient Japanese gentleman
- 32: Splitting them up into fragments
- 33: They would be incapable of building battleships
- 34: The Japanese are not over anxious
- 35: With Tokio and Yokohama I was disappointed
- 36: The policeman gives him a slight impetus
- 37: The Ajikawa is still the Ajikawa of the olden time
- 38: And the avenue is still the fashionable promenade
- 39: With their festoons of lanterns and orange interiors
- 40: And bunches of flowers stuck loosely into vases
- 41: If there were twenty beautiful boughs
- 42: He took a bundle of iris leaves
- 43: In the Japanese woman the geisha
- 44: Nothing can be too brilliant for the geisha
- 45: The troupe of geishas and maikos appears
- 46: And the geisha is always a picture
- 47: If the parents are rich enough the stencils are destroyed
- 48: And although Japan is the land of ceremony
- 49: There were kites of every variety red kites
- 50: She afterwards called Momotaro
- 51: All with their kimonos tucked up
- 52: To beware of the Japanese merchant
- 53: And gazing at me with his little beady eyes
- 54: From that moment I christened him Inchie
- 55: Which costs him two sen eight rin
- 56: And were made of gold on silk varnished over and lacquered
- 57: The change in Inchie was extraordinary
- 58: Inchie only held his sides and laughed
- 59: Almost to the dethronement of Inchie
- 60: I have spent hour after hour with the embroiderers
- 61: Stencil cutting is one of the most beautiful arts imaginable
- 62: And reds that there is in lacquer
- 63: Inchie invited three other Japanese friends
- 64: Inchie became more and more brilliant
- 65: Inchie was struck with another brilliant idea
- 66: There is one sure test of real gold lacquer
- 67: Big pockety man look at you and he no talk
- 68: And Inchie went through the performance in pantomime
- 69: Steamer at Yokohama to see me off on my journey to England
- 70: Self control is almost a religion with the Japanese
- 71: All the Japanese possess imagination
- 72: Two coolies sweeping the roads