Note 112 — Chapter XI

It will be remembered that this conversation took place in the summer of 1915 at the outset of my investigation. Since then, as noted throughout this book, economic questions have increasingly pressed themselves forward. I may mention that in 1919 Yanagi wrote a vigorous and moving protest against misgovernment in Korea. In a recent letter to me he says: "You know that I am going to establish a Korean Folk Art Society in Seoul. This is a big work, but I want to do it with all my power for love of Korea. I approach the solution of the Korean question by the way of Art. Politics can never solve the question. I want to use the gallery as a meeting-place of Koreans and Japanese. People cannot quarrel in beauty. This is my simple yet definite belief." Yanagi's manifesto on his project made one think of the age when the great culture of China and India glowed across the straits of Tsushima in the wake of early Buddhism.