Notes in Japan. By Alfred Parsons. (Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co
)—Mr. Parsons went to Japan with the main purpose of painting. Flowers were the chief subject of his pencil, but he also busied himself with landscape and figures. Japan and the Japanese seem to have pleased him, as they seem to please all visitors, who, indeed, have only to shut their eyes a little to believe that they are in an earthly Paradise. He gives us some very pleasant narratives of his experiences of travel, and of his acquaintance with the people, made sometimes in places seldom visited by European*, delightful sketches of Nature, in which his pencil agreeably supplements his art, and occasionally shrewd observations on the art of the country. This is now under a certain servitude to tradition. To a certain extent it is a repro- duction of a by-gone impressionism. Some great artist in the past seized with rare skill one aspect, say of a flower; his successors follow him, and exaggerate the things which he emphasised. The instance that Mr. Parsons gives of this is worth quoting. "Take, for example, the spots on the lotus stoma; if you look very closely you can see that there are spots, but cer- tainly they would not strike every artist as a marked feature of the plant, for they are not visible three yards away. But some master noticed them many years ago and spotted his stems, and now they all spot them, and the spots get bigger and bigger ; and so it will be until some original genius arises who will not be content with other people's eyes, but will dare to look for him- self, and he may, perhaps, without abandoning Japanese methods, get nearer to Nature, and start a renaissance in Japanese art."
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