One also begins to understand how painters who show great strength and promise in their earlier works, based upon surroundings they know, lose both strength and promise when, flushed by prosperity or attracted by tinsel and glitter, they establish their studios in cities and still try to paint the sea or the country. * * * * * Japanese artists are not bound down to the literal presentation of things seen. They have a canon, called _esoragoto_, which literally means an invented picture, or a picture into which certain fictions are painted. Every painting to be effective must be _esoragoto_; that is there must enter therein certain artistic liberties. It should aim not so much to reproduce the exact thing as its sentiment, called _kokoro mochi_, which is the moving spirit of the scene; it must not be a facsimile. * * * * * It is related that Okubo Shibutsu, famous for painting bamboo, was requested to execute a kakemono representing a bamboo forest. Consenting, he painted with all his well-known skill a picture in which the entire bamboo grove was in red. The patron upon its receipt marveled at the extraordinary skill with which the painting had been executed, and, repairing to the artist’s residence, he said: “Master, I have come to thank you for the picture; but, excuse me, you have painted the bamboo red.” “Well,” cried the master, “in what color would you desire it?” “In black, of course,” replied the patron. “And who,” answered the artist, “ever saw a black-leaved bamboo?” This story well illustrates _esoragoto_. The Japanese are so accustomed to associate true color with what the _sumi_ [the black so commonly used in Japan] stands for, that not only is fiction in this respect permissible but actually missed when not employed. * * * * * _Esoragoto_ is a very good word for the Post-Impressionists to appropriate. We have no word in English and I know of none in French that is anywhere near its equivalent. Impressionism is painting with a minimum of _esoragoto_; Post-Impressionism is painting with a maximum of _esoragoto_. The pendulum in art and literature swings from less _esoragoto_ to more--from realistic transcription with a minimum of self, to idealistic compositions with a _maximum_ of self. * * * * * All the great art of the world is _esoragoto_. The greatest paintings in the world are indoor not outdoor paintings--_in-self_ not _out-self_. All the great Italian paintings and frescoes are creations of the imagination. The portraits of Velasquez, Rembrandt, Hals are _esoragoto_. They are the sitters idealized by the genius of the artists. They are far removed from photographic realism.