"ONLY LIVING ART"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22819, 28 August 1937, Page 21

"ONLY LIVING ART"

JAPANESE PICTURES TALK TO PENWOMEN'S CLUB Ihafc the only living art was Japanese was tho opinion, startling to western minds, quoted by Mrs. W. A. Cleal, Who spoke to members of the Penwomen s Club yesterday afternoon on ."The Painting of a Japanese Picture." There was no doubt, she said, that the Japanese were artists; and loved and understood the beautiful. In western countries, artists were taught to draw from an object placed before them on a platform, whereas the Japanese learned to study every detail of their' model and then they went away to draw it from memory, llien again, when a Japanese artist drew a bird, ho began with some point of interest, for instance the eye, and from the first strokes that portrayed this sprang tho outlining of the neck, legs and body. 'I ho Japanese methods of painting ,wore quite different from ours, Airs. Cleal said, Tho size of an ordinary picture was two feet by four and ahalf feet long, and as n rule three times as much space was loft at tho top as at the bottom of the drawing. Tho brushes were flat-ended and varied greatly in width. Tho painting was done on bilk, specially prepared with alum and size. Preparing Colours Mrs. Cleal then described tho way in which tho different colours were 'propared, most of them being made from powders, which were beaten up in little porcelain cups and mixed with size and water. Taisha, a colour much used, was like burnt sienna, and with it tho faco and' hair in tho picture were coloured, the hair being shaded olf with Indian ink. The muscles of tho face were washed in with taisha, to which a little black had been added, and the feet and hands were similarly treated. A mixture of red, white and Indian ink, making a dull purple, was used for the pupils of the eyes. In the old silk pictures great depth was obtained by painting tho hair on the back," as well as tho front, of tho picture. For painting leaves, a mixture of indigo and gamboge was generally used, with a full brush, the tip being dipped in the indigo, a gradation of colour resulting. The Ideal Woman Tho Japanese artist, said tho speaker, considered it coarse and vulgar in the extreme to paint a woman in the glaring light of a studio. Kvosa explained that the only way to create a beautiful face was by imitating a conventional type from nature. This ideal was a woman possessing small lips, eyelids scarcely showing, eyebrows far above the eves, forehead narrow at tho top, and tlie nose aquiline. In conclusion, tho speaker emphasised the importance attached by the Japanese to their stick of Indian ink. It was essential that this should be of the finest quality, sinco they always used their brushes full, pointing them with their lips. Kyosa, she said, possessed a small piece which was hundreds of years old, and all the money in the world would not buy it.