Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/297

Any such summing up is, however, necessarily imperfect. It is not feasible to give here any account of the various schools and artists, and the reader desiring more extended information is referred to the sources indicated in the bibliography appended to this chapter. Before leaving this branch of the subject, mention should be made of calligraphy, which, although justly regarded in Japan as an art, is not so much a separate art as the art of painting applied to writing the Chinese ideographs. It will not appear strange, therefore, that masterly writing should be esteemed equally with painting.

An art closely allied to painting is that of chromoxylography, or color printing from engraved wood blocks. Nothing could be simpler than the method employed, the sheets of paper being laid face down on the block which has been previously inked with a brush, and pressure is then applied by rubbing the back of the sheets with a pad held in the hand of the printer. Nevertheless no greater triumphs of the printer's art have ever been achieved than the beautiful color prints of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries after designs by Harunobu, Koriusai, Shunsho, Kyonaga, Toyokuni, Utamaro, Hokusai, and other noted artists of the Popular school. Though still in use, this process is largely being superseded by the cheaper, if less artistic, processes of lithography, collotype, etc.

In glyptic art the triumphs of the Japanese have been little less than in that of painting. The most remarkable specimens are the ancient figures in bronze