Dorothy Menpes

“ All this beauty and perfection that meets one on every side is the result of centuries and centuries of habit, until it has become intuitive to the people. I can safely say there is no point in Japan where an artist cannot stand still and frame between his hands a picture that will be perfect in placing and design. In a Japanese garden, every stepping-stone, every tree, every little miniature out-house, is thought out as a bit of placing to form perfect balance. ”

“ One child, in the clearness and freshness of its dress, seems to embody an expression of that unselfish cheerfulness so characteristic of the Japanese, among whose children you can go for days without seeing one cry. Another, in the graceful dignity and rich yet severe colouring of its costume, tells of that faithful spirit of loyalty and pride that has always marked the lives of the Japanese. One tiny baby, in the dainty sombreness of colour and quiet arrangement of the folds of its little kimono, suggests the thoughtful consideration and sweet seriousness of the women of Japan ”

“ But come with me for a walk on any day, in sun or in rain, whether on a gala day or on an ordinary day, and we shall meet little units in the decorative whole, every one of them a colour picture bringing to the mind some characteristic of the people. We shall find one little one who, to the eye of the artist, flashes like a gem, her white kimono, decorated, or rather made vivid, as by the hand of a master, with only three or four great black crosses, each formed of the crisp dexterous drags across the surface of the cloth. ”

“ It is very seldom that they will show you their fine classical dances; but if by good fortune you can over-persuade them, as I have done, the sight is one that you will never forget—the slow, dignified movements, the placing of the foot and the hand, the exquisite curves and poses of the body, forming a different picture every time,—all is a joy and a perfect intellectual treat to the artist and to the lover of beautiful things. There is no rushing about, no accordion skirt and high kick, nothing that in any way resembles the Western dance. ”

“ In Japan the scenic work of a play is handled by one man alone, and that man is the dramatic author, who is almost invariably a great artist. To him the stage is a huge canvas upon which he is to paint his picture, and of which each actor forms a component part. This picture of his has to be thought out in every detail; he has to think of his figures in relation to his background, just as a Japanese architect when building a house or a temple takes into consideration the surrounding scenery, and even the trees and the hills, in order to form a complete picture, perfect in balance and in form. ”

“ It would be utterly impossible for the Japanese to keep art out of their lives. It creeps into everything, and is as the very air they breathe. Art with them is not only a conscious effort to achieve the beautiful, but also an instinctive expression of inherited taste. It beautifies their homes and pervades their gardens; and perhaps one never realises this all-dominating power more fully than when in a Japanese theatre, which is, invariably, a veritable temple of art. ”

“ The geisha-girl is an artist: I am an artist: we understand each other.
My geisha-girl brings out her dainty lacquer-box, and under the gaze of all sits down to decorate herself with a frank joy in the pleasure she knows she is going to give. And she knows too what she is about. She knows the value of a tone in a lip. Something suggests to her that you, an artist, may have found the vermilion lip not quite in harmony with the plan, and she changes it to bronze. ”

“ Their taste with regard to enjoyment is widely different from ours: a little bit of Nature which would give them intense pleasure would probably be ignored by us altogether. We want parks and stags and moorlands, broad expanses of country and huge avenues, while the Japanese will be content with one exquisite little harmony. They will gaze for whole hours in rapture at a little branch of peach-blossom, only a cluster, just a few inches of rose-red peach-blossom, with a slim grey twig, placing itself against a background of hills that stretch away in the distance indefinitely. ”

“ Nothing can be too brilliant for the geisha; she is the life and soul of Japan, the merry sparkling side of Japanese life; she must be always gay, always laughing and always young, even to the end of her life. But 128 for the girl who is to become the ordinary domesticated wife it is different. Starting life as a bright, light-hearted little child, she becomes sadder and sadder in colour and in spirits with every passing year. Directly she becomes a wife her one ambition is to become old—in fact, it is almost a craze with her. ”

“ It is the harmonic combination of untouched naturalness and high artistic cultivation. The tea-houses owe much of their charm to the absence of paint. The benches, lintels, the posts, are uncoloured, except by age. The white mats and the paper screens act as a foil to the bright flashes of the musmés—waiting-girls—who move noiselessly through the rooms like gigantic butterflies flitting to and fro. The iris blooms are a rich mass of colour of blue and white, and the gardener has exhausted his art in pruning all the unnecessary growths 112 without leaving a trace of his handiwork. ”

“ Self-control is almost a religion with the Japanese. In their opinion it is wrong and selfish to the last degree to inflict one’s sorrows and one’s cares upon other people. The world is sad enough, they argue, without being made sadder by the petty emotions of one’s neighbour: so the people of Japan all contrive to present a gay and happy appearance to the outside world. You may express your feelings in the solitude of your own room, and there is no doubt that the Japanese suffer terribly among themselves, although a stranger, and especially a European, will never detect a trace of it. ”

“ She is a bewildering symphony in vermilion, orange, and gold. Her kimono is vermilion embroidered in great dragons; her obi is cloth of gold; her long hanging sleeves are lined with orange. Just one little slim slip of apple-green appears above the golden fold of the obi and accentuates the harmony; it is the crape cord of the knapsack which bulges the loops at the back and gives the Japanese curve of grace. The little apple-green cord keeps the obi in its place, and is the discord which makes the melody. ”

“ For example, the philosophy of balance, of which the Japanese are past masters, is to us unknown. The fact that Nature is commonplace, thereby forming a background, as it were, for Tragedy and the spirit of life to work, has never occurred to us; while the background of our Western play is not by any means a plan created by a true artist upon which to display the dramatic picture as it is in Japan, but simply a background to advertise the stage-manager’s imitative talent. The result is, of course, that the acting and the environment are at variance instead of being in harmonic unity. ”

“ All idea of framing the stage must be done away with; else we are in danger of going to the other extreme, as some artists have done, and cause our picture to overlap and spread itself upon the frame. An artist in a realistic mood has been known, when painting a picture of the seaside, to so crave after texture as to sprinkle sand upon the foreground, and becoming more and more enthusiastic he has at last ended in an exuberance of realism by clapping some real shells on to the frame and gilding them over. ”

“ You will often see a little child sitting in a garden in Japan gazing attentively for perhaps a whole hour at a bowl of goldfish, watching the tiny bright creatures as they circle round and round in the bowl. Remarking on some particular pose, the child will retain it in its busy brain, and, running away, will put down this impression as nearly as it can remember. Perhaps on this first occasion he is only able to put in a few leading lines; very soon he is at a loss—he has forgotten the curve of the tail or the placing of the eye. ”