Midway between the Matsumoto school and the pure style approved by the native taste in former times stand a number of wood-carvers headed by Takamura Koun, who occupies in the field of sculpture much the same place as that held by Hashimoto Gaho in the realm of painting. Koun carves figures in the round which not only display great power of chisel and breadth of style, but also tell a story not necessarily drawn from the motives of the classical school. This departure from established canons must be traced to the influence of the short-lived academy of Italian art established by the Japanese government early in the Meiji era. In the forefront of the new movement are to be found men like Yoneharu Unkai and Shinkai Taketaro; the former chiselled a figure of Jenner for the Medical Association of Japan when they celebrated the centenary of the great physician, and the latter has carved life-size effigies of two Imperial princes who lost their lives in the war with China (1894-95). The artists of the Koun school, however, do much work which appeals to emotions in general rather than to individual memories. Thus Arakawa Reiun, one of Koun's most brilliant pupils, has exhibited a figure of a swordsman in the act of driving home a furious thrust. The weapon is not shown. Reiun sculptured simply a man poised on the toes of one foot, the other foot raised, the arm extended, and the body straining forward in strong yet elastic muscular effort. A more imaginative work by the same artist is a figure of a farmer who has just shot an eagle that swooped upon his grandson. The old man holds his bow still raised. Some of the eagle's feathers, blown to his side, suggest the death of the bird; at his feet lies the corpse of the little boy, and the horror, grief and anger that such a tragedy would inspire are depicted with striking realism in the farmer's face. Such work has very close affinities with Occidental conceptions. The chief distinguishing feature is that the glyptic character is preserved at the expense of surface finish. The undisguised touches of the chisel tell a story of technical force and directness which could not be suggested by perfectly smooth surfaces. To subordinate process to result is the European canon; to show the former without marring the latter is the Japanese ideal. Many of Koun's sculptures appear unfinished to eyes trained in Occidental galleries, whereas the Japanese connoisseur detects evidence of a technical feat in their seeming roughness. Private Dwellings.