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THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON *
No one will be surprised to learn that fourteen
hundred years ago the Chinese laid down six Oct - * 911
canons of art. Nothing is more natural than
that some great artist, review' ng in old age
his life and work, should deduce from the
mass of experience and achievement certain
propositions, and that these, in time, should
become rules, to be preached by pedants,
practised by dilettanti, and ignored by every
artist worthy of the name. What does
surprise us is that the first of these Chinese
canons should be nothing less than a definition
of that which is essential in all great art.
"
Rhythmic vitality," Prof. Giles calls it Mr.
;
Okakura, " the Life-movement of the Spirit
through the Rhythm of things " ; Mr. Binyon
suggests " the fusion of the rhythm of the spirit
with the movement of living things."
" At any rate," he says, " what is certainly
meant is that the artist must pierce beneath
1 " The Flight of the Dragon : an Essay on the Theory
and Practice of Art in China and Japan." By Laurence
Binyon. (John Murray.)
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