Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

Many years ago I fell under the spell of Japan when I was posted to the Australian Embassy in Tokyo in the mid 1950s, and I have remained under that spell ever since. Japan is one of the very few countries in the world that constantly disproves the Western saying 'To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive'.' In Japan one not only travels hopefully, but one arrives exultantly, whether the travel be physical or mental and whatever the object of the voyage may be-landscape, mountains, the sea or coast, food, art, literature, calligraphy or-as tonight-craft. It is not surprising that Lafcadio Hearn, one of the great nineteenth-century European exponents of Japanese culture, wrote: 'There must be something lacking, or something very harsh, in a nature to which Japan can make no emotional appeal'. That appeal has been apparent for centuries for those with eyes to see and minds to absorb. At a time when a young courtier in the Heian period in Kyoto--that is to say, about one thousand years ago--would be pondering whether it would be more productive to send his loved one a branch of half-open blossom or only a row of buds, indicating expectant reserve, our own noble Anglo-Saxon ancestors were letting the mutton fat congeal on their beards as they wolfed down their food. It is proper that we in the West should recognise the appeal of types of civilisation more venerable and more artistic than our own. I happened to be in Melbourne when the Director of this beautiful Gallery, Mrs Fran Considine, telephoned to ask if I would open an exhibition called 'The Art of Ai'. She may, perhaps, have been surprised at the alacrity with which I accepted her invitation. I had quickly put two and two together, and, as so often happens in Japan, come up with five. Ai is one of the Japanese words for 'love' and that, as some of you may know, is an art which the Japanese practise with great competence and enthusiasm, and which they depict with startling and, at least to Western eyes, somewhat exaggerated realism. To open an exhibition of that sort of Ai would be an exciting assignment, but one would need several glasses of strong sake to quieten the nerves! When I realised that we were talking about textiles dyed with indigo, I heaved a sigh-whether of relief or disappointment, I am not quite sure. I only hope that Mrs Considine didn't notice. But, in fact, I am far from any feeling of disappointment. This exhibition of textiles tells us more about Japanese art than an exhibition of the other sort of Ai-shunga is the proper word for it-would have been able to do. It tells us first that Japanese arts and crafts are one. The Japanese are singularly lacking in that modern pretension which somehow places art above craft, and which insists that a piece (shall we say) consisting of two drinking glasses stuck together, and therefore useless for the purpose for which each glass was intended, somehow transcends the glasses themselves, no matter how elegant and useful they may be, particularly if the piece is labelled 'Untitled No. 6'. Second, the exhibition tells us that, at least until recent times, Japanese arts and crafts have been basically ornamental. Both artists and craftsmen have sought to beautify our lives and not, as so often happens in the West, to bare their souls to the world-for which I personally say 'thank God'. Third, it tells us something about the importance of symbolism. In Western art, for example, a peach is a peach is a peach, as Gertrude Stein might have said. In Japanese art it suggests long life, fruitfulness and feminine beauty. 17