Why has Japanese art made so little of man as man?  Is it due to the “impersonality” of the Orient, as urged by some?  This suggests, but does not give, the correct interpretation of the phenomenon in question.  The reason lies in the nature of the ruling ideas of Oriental civilization.  Man, as man, has not been honored or highly esteemed.  As a warrior he has been honored; consequently, when pictured or sculptured as a warrior, he has worn his armor; his face, if visible, is not the natural face of a man, but rather that of a passionate victor, slaying his foe or planning for the same.  And so with the priests and the teachers, the emperors and the generals; all have been depicted, not for what they are in themselves, but for the rank which they have attained; they are accordingly represented with their accouterments and robes and the characteristic attitudes of their rank.  The effort to preserve their actual appearance is relatively rare.  Manhood and womanhood, apart from social rank, have hardly been recognized, much less extolled by art.  This feature, then, corresponds to the nature of the Japanese social order.  The art of a land necessarily reveals the ruling ideals of its civilization.  As Japan failed to discover the inherent nature and value of manhood and womanhood, estimating them only on a utilitarian basis, so has her art reflected this failure.

Apparently it has never attempted to depict the nude human form.  This is partly explained, perhaps, by the fact that the development of a perfect physical form through exercise and training has not been a part of Oriental thought.  Labor of every sort has been regarded as degrading.  Training for military skill and prowess has indeed been common among the military classes; but the skill and strength themselves have been the objects of thought, rather than the beauty of the muscular development which they produce.  When we recall the prominent place which the games of Greece took in her civilization previous to her development of art, and the stress then laid on perfect bodily form, we shall better understand why there should be such difference in the development of the art of these two lands.  I have never seen a Japanese man or youth bare his arm to show with pride the development of his biceps; and so far as I have observed, the pride which students in the United States feel over well-developed calves has no counterpart in Japan—­this, despite the fact that the average Japanese has calves which would turn the American youth green with envy.

From the absence of the nude in Japanese art it has been urged that Japan herself is far more morally pure than the West.  Did the moral life of the people correspond to their art in this respect, the argument would have force.  Unfortunately, such does not seem to be the case.  It is further suggested as a reason that the bodily form of Oriental peoples is essentially unaesthetic; that the men are either too fat or too lean, and the women too plump when in the bloom of youth and too wrinkled and flabby when the first bloom is over.  The absurdity of this suggestion raises a smile, and a query as to the experience which its author must have had.  For any person who has lived in Japan must have seen individuals of both sexes, whom the most fastidious painter or sculptor would rejoice to secure as models.