Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Catalogue of the Collection of Antique Japanese Art Objects and Curios Formed by the Well-Known Connoisseur, the Late Dr. S. M. Burnett of Washington, D. C: The Entire Collection to Be Sold at Unrestricted Public Sale by the Order of the Executors, Beginning January 7th, 1907; The Sale Will Be Conducted by Mr. Thomas E. Kirby of the American Art Association, New York, 1907
And there is one grateful quality that will be found everywhere pervading Japanese art - Humor. One would almost think that more than half the time the Japanese artist's intention was humorous. He seems to revel in the monstrous and horrible, and yet his monstrosity is so humorous that it has no terror in it. No doubt this is due to the fact that he has been brought up, so to speak, on familiar terms with dragons and imps and horned demons, his mythology and religion dealing almost exclusively with them. More than not being afraid, he likes the oddity of them, and it amuses him to picture them, in paint or lacquer, and to imagine strange and awful grimaces for them to make, and bone-racking positions for them to twist themselves into. But beyond the humor in monsters and grotesques, he finds the amusing side of the work uppermost everywhere, and with a chuckle in his throat he slashes away with his brush, having a good time, and producing marvellously fresh and spirited things. There is evident always a joy in the work - which seems among us now a thing much to be sought after. Possibly. We have learned the need of it from other sources, but truly the Japanese are the best examples that could be found of the success of the principle.
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