Arts of Japan. Hugo Münsterberg

      1

      The Prehistoric Art of Japan

      ALTHOUGH Japan has been inhabited for at least five thousand years, the Japanese as we know them today have probably only existed for about half that time. Who they were and where they came from are questions about which archaeologists and historians have never been able to agree. Their racial strains are varied, but it is generally recognized that the three chief components are Mongoloid, Malayan, and Caucasian. It is also agreed that waves of immigrants from the mainland, especially from China and Korea, came to Japan during the course of the neolithic period. It seems unlikely that Japan was settled before this, though archaeological discoveries may substantiate the theories of those who believe that it was inhabited during paleolithic times.

      The Kojiki and the Nihonshokj, two sacred books compiled in the eighth century of our era, record myths which tell of the origin of the universe and of the Japanese people. These stories are confused in the extreme. A fantastic number of kami are created, spirits of every conceivable kind, such as the three Kami called "Shore Distant," "Wave-Edge-Shore-Prince," and "Intermediate-Shore-Direction." The creation myth, retold by Post Wheeler in his book The Sacred Scriptures of the Japanese, is as follows:

      Of old time the Sky and the Earth were not yet set apart the one from the other nor were the female and male principles separated. All was a mass, formless and egg-shaped, the extent whereof is not known, which held the life principle. Thereafter the purer tenuous essence, ascending gradually, formed the Sky; the heavier portion sank and became the Earth. The lighter element merged readily, but the heavier was united with difficulty. Thus the Sky was formed first, the Earth next, and later Kami were produced in the space between them.

      When the Sky and the Earth began, there was a something in the very midst of the emptiness whose shape cannot be described. At the first a thing like a white cloud appeared, which floated between Sky and Earth, and from it three Kami came into being in the High-Sky-Plain. These three Kami, appearing earliest, were born without progenitors and later hid their bodies. They were Mid-Sky-Master, High-Producer, Divine-Producer. (Some hold that the last two did not appear till after He-Who-Invites and She-Who-Invites, and that High-Producer was their child.) These first three were called the Three-Creator-Kami.

      Seven generations of gods, or kami, followed, ending with the divine pair Izanagi and Izanami. They descended from heaven to an island in the ocean and from their union sprang the islands of Japan and all of nature. They also gave birth to various deities, among them the Sun Goddess, Ama-terasu-ō-mi-Kami, or the Heaven-Great-Shining Kami, the chief deity of the ancient Japanese, who to this day is worshipped at Shinto shrines throughout Japan.

      These legends were not put into writing until a relatively late date, for no written language had existed in Japan prior to the introduction of Chinese culture during the sixth century. They therefore show certain Chinese elements which were introduced long after the original myths were created. Other elements, similar to Polynesian legends, are probably Malayan in origin. It seems likely that these stories, even in their oral form, are no earlier than the Yayoi period, that is, the second or first century B.C, for they relate the coming of a southern people and seem to bear no relationship to the original northern inhabitants.

      The earliest settlers, who came to Japan at least at the beginning of the second millenium, are called Jōmon people, a name coined by modern archaeologists from the kind of cord-impressed pottery they produced. It is not clear where they came from, but the most reliable anthropologists think that they are related to the modern Ainu, who today inhabit certain parts of Hokkaido, the Kurile Islands, and Sakhalin. They are of Caucasian stock, and it is believed that they came to Japan from the Asian continent. Their original home is thought to have been in northern India, and from there they migrated to Central Asia, Manchuria, and Siberia and finally, pushed farther and farther east by neolithic peoples coming from the west, to Japan. The fact that the skeletons of these Jōmon people show none of the Mongoloid characteristics present in the modern Japanese indicates that they belonged to a completely different racial group, although an admixture of Jōmon stock was no doubt absorbed by the people who supplanted them. From philological evidence, especially that of place names, it is believed that these Ainoid people originally inhabited all of Japan but that they were driven north, as conquerors from the south arrived with a higher civilization. These later people are usually referred to as Yayoi, a name taken from the street in Tokyo where the first remains of this civilization, which flourished between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200, were discovered. It is these people who are the real ancestors of the modern Japanese, although the Japanese have, of course, other racial components.

      JOMŌN POTTERY

      The earliest art objects created in Japan are the pottery vessels known as Jōmon doki, or rope-design ware, and the idols (found at the same sites as the vessels) which are called dogu, or clay dolls. They were usually made of dark-grey clay, which was shaped by hand rather than on the potter's wheel. Both the vessels and the figures not only show a great variety of form but also have an extraordinary expressiveness. In fact, they are among the most remarkable artistic achievements of any neolithic culture, the idols in particular being without close parallel anywhere in the world. There is a feeling of mystery about them as well as a strange beauty which appeals to modern taste because it recalls contemporary expressionist and surrealist art.

      No clear relationship exists between Jōmon pottery and that of the Asiatic continent although certain ornamental motifs such as the spiral design, the wavy line, and the cicada in larva form are reminiscent of prehistoric Chinese pottery and Shang bronzes. Some of the ornamental designs are also similar to those in Ainu costumes and wood carvings, although the link between Ainu and Jōmon art has not been discovered. Jōmon pottery ceased being made around the fourth or fifth century A.D., but as recently as seventy-five years ago the Ainus of the Kuriles were making pottery which was similar to Jōmon ware. It must be assumed that such designs were transmitted to the Ainu in perishable materials such as wood and cloth. Here again scholarly opinion is by no means in agreement, and it may well be impossible to establish with certainty any such connections.

      The pottery vessels of the Jōmon type are often impressive both in size and ornament (Plate 1). They are called rope-design pottery because of the raised, cord-like designs so frequently seen on their surfaces, patterns which were made by pressing rope, or a stick wound with rope, against the clay. The designs themselves are very irregular, not balanced or static but filled with a dynamic movement. The dominant motif is one of curves often resembling those spirals found on prehistoric Chinese vessels. The nature of these designs, depending on the age and place of origin, varies all the way from simple cord impressions to the most intricate and fantastic reliefs. Experts distinguish between Proto-Jōmon, Early Jōmon, and Late Jōmon, and there is even a final degenerate form of Jōmon which continued in northern Japan after Yayoi and Iwaibe wares had replaced Jōmon pottery in the rest of the country.