In our time, where small minds see only incoherence and confusion, but which, in the history of the arts, will remain famous for its richness, I know nothing more delightful than the renewals of Japanese painting. Where do they come from, these little yellow men with high cheekbones and straight hair, where do they come from and where are they going?
We know their past, their heritage is known to us. But we must still determine what they take and what they leave behind; I’m not very sure they care much for the dual Chinese influence that blossomed among them: the first, the great, the sublime, which multiplied its masterpieces in the 6th and 7th centuries; the other, the academic, from the 16th century; nor that their national Yamato-e school has left a deep mark on them. Nevertheless, whether we like it or not, we remain prisoners of an artistic inheritance so gloriously rich.
Article by Henri d’Ardenne de Tizac, Curator of the Cernush Museum, 1926