Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings

Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings

Within twenty years there has gradually appeared in our country a variety of Japanese objects conspicuous for their novelty and beauty,lacquers, pottery and porcelain, forms in wood and metal, curious shaped boxes, quaint ivory carvings, fabrics in cloth and paper, and a number of other objects as perplexing in their purpose as the inscriptions which they often bore. Most of these presented technicalities in their work as enigmatical as were their designs, strange caprices in their ornamentation which, though violating our hitherto recognized proprieties of decoration, surprised and yet delighted us. The utility of many of the objects we were at loss to understand; yet somehow they gradually found lodgment in our rooms, even displacing certain other objects which we had been wont to regard as decorative, and our rooms looked all the prettier for their substitution. We found it difficult to formulate the principles upon which such art was based, and yet were compelled to recognize its merit. Violations of perspective, and colors in juxtaposition or coalescing that before we had regarded as inharmonious, were continually reminding us of Japan and her curious people. Slowly our methods of decoration became imbued with these ways so new to us, and yet so many centuries old to the people among whom these arts had originated. Gradually yet surely, these arts, at first so little understood, [pg xxvi] modified our own methods of ornamentation, until frescos wall-papers, wood-work and carpets, dishes and table-cloth metal work and book-covers, Christmas cards and even railroad advertisements were decorated, modelled, and designed after Japanese style. It was not to be wondered at that many of our best artists,men like Coleman, Vedder, Lafarge, and others,had long fore recognized the transcendent merit of Japanese decorative art. It was however somewhat remarkable that the public at large should come so universally to recognize it, and in so short a time. Not only our own commercial nation, but art-loving France, musical Germany, and even conservative England yielded to this invasion. Not that new designs were evolved by us; on the contrary, we were content to adopt Japanese designs outright, oftentimes with a mixture of incongruities that would have driven Japanese decorator stark mad. Designs appropriate for the metal mounting of a sword blazed out on our ceilings; motives fror a heavy bronze formed the theme for the decoration of friable pottery; and suggestions from light crape were woven into hot carpets to be trodden upon. Even with this mongrel admixture, it was a relief by any means to have driven out of our dwelling the nightmares and horrors of design we had before endured so meekly,such objects, for example, as a child in dead brass, kneeling in perpetual supplication on a dead brass cushion, while adroitly balancing on its head a receptacle for kerosene oil; and a whole regiment of shapes equally monstrous. Our walls no longer assailed us with designs that wearied our eyes and exasperated our brains by their inanities. We were no longer doomed to wipe our feet on cupids, horns of plenty, restless tigers, or scrolls of architectural magnitudes. Under the benign influence of this new spirit it came to be realized that it was not always necessary to tear a flower in bits to recognize its decorative value; and that the simplest objects in Naturea spray of [pg xxvii] bamboo, a pine cone, a cherry blossomin the right place were quite sufficient to satisfy our craving for the beautiful. The Japanese exhibit at the Centennial exposition in Philadelphia came to us as a new revelation; and the charming onslaught of that unrivalled display completed the victory. It was then that the Japanese craze took firm hold of us. Books on Japan rapidly multiplied, especially books on decorative art; but it was found that such rare art could be properly represented only in the most costly fashion, and with plates of marvellous elaboration. What the Japanese were able to do with their primitive methods of block-printing and a few colors, required the highest genius of our artists and chromo-lithographers; and even then the subtile spirit which the artist sought for could not be caught. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 52868
Author: Morse, Edward Sylvester
Release Date: Aug 21, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English