The social fabric in old Japan was one of sharp distinctions. At the upper end of the scale were the Emperor; the kuge, or court nobles; the daimyo, or lords of the two hundred and fifty-one provinces; and the samurai, or hereditary military men, from whom were recruited the officials, priests, and scholars. Between these and the lower classes was an almost immeasurable gulf. Highest among the heimen, or commoners, were the farmers. Below them were the artisans, and still lower were the merchants, innkeepers, servants, and the like; while lowest of all were the eta, or outcasts, a class comprising scavengers, butchers, leather-workers, and others engaged in what were considered degrading occupations.

Under the peaceful regime of the Tokugawa shoguns there was a sociological change that in the cities almost amounted to a transformation. The most salient feature was the rise of the tradesmen and artisans to wealth and power. Many places of amusement sprang up, restaurants and tea-houses multiplied, jugglers, story-tellers, musicians, and other itinerant entertainers found audiences in every street, fÊtes were frequently held in the temple compounds, the theatre rose to a position of prominence, and the yukwaku, or courtesan quarters, with their medley of attractions, became established institutions.

Many of the prints produced during the early years of the eighteenth century were large single figures of actors, geishas, and women of the Yoshiwara. These were broadly treated, with strong, free brush-strokes based upon the technique of the Kano masters and quite different from Moronobu's style, which was more nearly like that of the Tosa painters. Each of the classical schools, I may explain, had its own peculiar methods, for which brushes of special shape were required. In their spontaneity, their freedom, their glorious sweep of line, these prints are among the finest works of the UkiyoÉ school. Among them are many masterpieces of linear composition. Yet by the people of the upper classes they were regarded as hopelessly vulgar. Though the Kano painters used similar sweeping strokes, they laid great stress upon carefully modulated tone. The notan, or lightness and darkness of the ink in different parts of the drawing, was an essential quality. It should not be confused with chiaroscuro, the science of light and shade. Notan signifies merely difference in lightness and darkness of tone. In the early prints this did not appear. All the lines were uniformly black. And the addition of colouring which was looked upon as coarse and gaudy was a further offence to persons of refined taste.

Even to-day inherited prejudice prevents wide-spread appreciation of the prints in the land of their origin. Our enthusiastic admiration is still more or less a mystery to our neighbours across the Pacific. Only now, when most of the fine prints have passed into the hands of European and American collectors, are the Japanese connoisseurs beginning to understand how it is that the Western art-lover, unfettered by any traditional point of view and not disturbed by any meanings the subject may hold or suggest, is able to perceive the glorious colour, the superb composition, the masterly treatment and rare beauty to which they have been blind.

The history of art is everywhere among civilized peoples a record of the influence of a succession of ideas, each in turn dominating for a longer or a shorter period the character of what is produced. When an idea has sufficient vitality to constitute the germ of a specific type of art, and artists of creative genius are inspired by it, the votaries working under the stimulus of a common ideal form what we designate as a school. “When left to pursue its course of development unchecked,” each marked type of art, as John Addington Symonds pointed out in one of his essays, “passes through stages corresponding to the embryonic, the adolescent, the matured, the decadent, and the exhausted,” This sequence, he showed, was clearly marked in the evolution of Italian painting, the Attic and the Elizabethan drama. Any of the classic schools of Japanese painting, the KosÉ, the Yamato, the Sesshu, or the Kano, would furnish an excellent illustration, though in studying these movements it would be necessary to follow them back to their Chinese antecedents. The UkiyoÉ school affords a particularly striking example. In the works of the earlier artists—Moronobu, Kiyonobu, Kiyomasu, and the Kwaigetsudo̅ group—we find [pg 10] superabundant vigour, swift inspiration, and splendid though sometimes brutal force. The note of prophecy that these works contain is found also in those of the next generation of artists, foremost among whom was Okumura Masanobu. The fire of enthusiasm still glows brightly, but more attention is paid to subtleties of style, to beauty of detail, and to the development of technical processes. Hand-coloured prints are superseded by those in which the colour as well as the black outline is printed. UkiyoÉ has become an art of the printed pictures which in large measure have taken the place of paintings.

Then, after a brief interval of eager experiment and rapid changes, comes the flowering-time, when a group of great artists turn out by the thousand works in which spiritual intensity is combined with grace, beauty, refinement of composition, and technical perfection. This is the epoch of Harunobu, Shunsho̅, Shigemasa, Koryusai, Kiyonaga, and Shuncho̅.

The decline of the initial impetus that brought the school into being is plainly apparent in the works of the next generation. Utamaro was an artist of the very first rank, whose genius cannot be gainsaid; Eishi and Toyokuni were only a little less brilliant; but it was their misfortune to come upon the scene when the cycle of animating ideas had been exhausted. Too virile to be content merely to echo the performances of their predecessors, they spent their energy in inventing variations upon the perfected type. It was the only course open to them, but it led steadily and swiftly downward, though neither the artists nor the people who gleefully applauded each successive innovation were conscious of the decadence.

With the appearance of still another generation of artists upon the scene, the degradation of the school was complete. Artistic feeling was obscured by blatant vulgarity and affectation. There was a steady letting down to the level of the popular taste, which was steadily lowered in consequence. The skill of the more able artists was expended in the production of works interesting chiefly as tours de force, more remarkable for technical than for artistic merit; the tendency toward exaggerated drawing became more pronounced; colouring grew more crude, raw, and over-vivid. Coincident with this decline in the art of [pg 11] the Popular School was a change for the worse in the fashions of the time. Loud patterns for brocades and other fabrics came into vogue; garments became showy and elaborate; coiffures, more especially those of the demi-monde, were often startling in their extravagance. As the prints were accurate mirrors of contemporary life, in these changed fashions may be found a partial explanation of the inferiority of the works of the later men. The UkiyoÉ Ryu̅ was a school of design which laid its impress upon all of the arts. The prints were but one of its phases, though the principal and the most distinguished of them. The rise, culmination, and disintegration took place all along the line. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century the UkiyoÉ school sank into the dotage of decrepitude, and then into the sleep from which there is no awakening. I choose this phrase deliberately. An art that is of the past can never be revived. We may strive to work in the style of Harunobu or of Kiyonaga. All we can do is to copy their forms and imitate their mannerisms. We cannot possibly get our inspiration from the same source as they; that dried up at the fountain-head long ago. The best work we can do in their style must necessarily lack creative force and be without a spark of real vitality.

From about 1670, when Moronobu began to issue single-sheet prints, until about 1742, a period of at least seventy years, the prints were in black outline and were coloured by hand. They were, in fact, cheap paintings. Early in the eighteenth century the chief pigment used in colouring them was red lead. The Japanese name for this pigment is tan, and the prints upon which it appears are designated as tan-yÉ. About 1710 yellow and citrine were commonly used with the tan. Four or five years later a new style of hand-colouring, said to have been [pg 12] devised by Torii Kiyonobu, came into vogue and greatly modified the style in which the prints were designed. In place of tan he substituted beni, a very beautiful but fugitive red extracted from the saffron. This was used in combination with a greenish yellow (probably gamboge) and low-toned blues and purples. Finer details were introduced into the designs, and the colouring in general was more carefully done. In response to a growing demand for less expensive pieces smaller prints (hoso-yÉ) became common. To give brilliance to the pigments a little thin lacquer (urushi) was mixed with them, and, while wet, parts of the design were sprinkled with metallic powder, which was probably applied by blowing it through a small bamboo tube. These prints were known as urushi-yÉ, or lacquer prints. A little later the custom grew up of painting parts of the prints with black lacquer.

By many the beni-yÉ are regarded as the choicest products of the school. So charming were they when first printed that they speedily drove the urushi-yÉ prints out of the market, with the exception of the tall hashira-yÉ, or pillar prints, of which hand-coloured editions continued to be produced for a year or two, to satisfy those who still wished paintings rather than prints. Most of the beni-yÉ that have survived until our time are very much faded. The beni has quite generally turned into a soft yellow or disappeared altogether. The green is more stable, but that also has in many instances become a warm citrine or russet. Extremely rare are the specimens in which the original colour has not suffered material modification.

From the testimony of the prints themselves it appears probable that very soon after Okumura Masanobu issued the first prints in beni and green, similar prints were put forth by Nishimura Shigenaga, Ishikawa [pg 14] Toyonobu, Torii Shiro (otherwise Kiyonobu the second), and all the Yedo print-designers, among them the veteran Torii Kiyomasu. None of these men seems to have attempted any marked departure from the type established by Okumura. About 1755, however, a group of young men appeared upon the scene, who were fired with zeal for further experiments. The leaders were Torii Kiyomitsu, Kitao Shigemasa, and Suzuki Harunobu. Kiyomitsu began by trying novel colour schemes such as two tones of beni instead of beni and green. Then he tried a third colour-block. After this new developments followed in rapid succession. The variety and range of the colour schemes broadened almost from day to day. At first the wider resources proved an embarrassment, but the mastery attained in dealing with the simpler means soon enabled the artists to take advantage of them. Invention was stimulated. In 1764 a printer named Kinroku discovered a method by which printing in colours from many blocks became possible. We can only guess at the nature of the difficulty that was surmounted; but as it is known that the printing was usually done upon dampened paper, it is evident that the stretching or shrinking of the sheets, to which I have already referred, must have proved extremely troublesome, and that every additional block must have multiplied the liability to defective register. It is reasonably safe to assume, therefore, that to find some means of overcoming this was the problem which remained unsolved for so many years.

The name of Suzuki Harunobu is familiar to every admirer of Japanese prints. It is in large measure to his genius that the development of full-colour printing is due. He was not only the first artist to make use of the new process, but he took advantage of it to bring out prints of a novel type. Very dainty and graceful these were, and in the poetic allusions or quiet humour with which they were charged, and in the quality of the brush-strokes with which the drawings were executed, they made a direct appeal to men of taste. Success was instantaneous. By the year 1765 Harunobu had come to the front and distanced all competitors for popular favour. The serenity and compelling charm of his compositions brought him wide fame. Realizing the possibilities that now lay before him, he proudly exclaimed, “Why should I degrade [pg 15] myself by the delineation of actors?” His ambition, he said, was to become “the true successor of the painters in the department of printing”; that is to say, to design prints that should be worthy substitutes for paintings. Instead of restricting himself to a few primary or secondary hues and the variations resulting from their superposition, he mixed his colours to get the precise tint desired, and he used as many colour-blocks as were needed for the effects at which he aimed. The Yedo-yÉ, or Yedo pictures, as the prints had been called from the fact that they were produced only at the eastern capital, were now denominated nishiki-yÉ, or brocade pictures, from the number of colours woven together in them. To the printing itself, the charging of the blocks with colour, the character and quality of the pigments and of the paper used, Harunobu gave careful attention, and these things were greatly improved as a result of his experiments.

Under his leadership the art now entered upon the period of its greatest triumphs. In the eager search for novel subjects scarcely anything was left untouched. History, mythology, and romance, the numberless fÊtes and merrymakings of the people and the daily routine of their lives, representations of celebrated poets and heroes, scenes from the drama, portraits of popular actors and courtesans, the revels of the Yoshiwara, animals and plants, familiar scenes and famous landscapes, furnished motives for almost endless broadsheets and book illustrations. No other art was ever more crowded with human interest.

The forward movement in print-designing at this epoch was helped on by a number of highly gifted artists who seem to have worked together to some extent. Katsukawa Shunsho̅, who took up the theatrical branch of print-designing that Harunobu scorned, is one of the most distinguished masters of the UkiyoÉ school. He was a designer of marked power, a colourist of the first rank. His works are not yet appreciated as they should be, but the finest of them yield pure aesthetic delight of most exalted quality. Kitao Shigemasa, Ippitsusai Buncho̅, and Isoda Koryusai also rank among the first-rate men of this period. In the contest for popular favour during the ten years following the death of Harunobu, which took place in the summer of 1770, it has been said that the guerdon rested upon Koryusai, but that is a mistake, [pg 16] for both Shunsho̅ and Shigemasa stood higher in the estimation of qualified judges. All, however, were surpassed a few years later by Kiyonaga, the last great artist of the Torii line and the culminating figure in the history of the Popular School. He conquered by the rugged strength and marvellous quality of his brush-strokes, by the richness of his colouring and the ripe mastery he displayed over all the resources of his craft. But also he created a new type of design—that which found expression in the great diptychs and triptychs that stand as the triumphs of colour-printing. At the height of his power his influence over his contemporaries was so great that, without exception, the younger men among them copied his style as closely as they could.

When Kiyonaga, about 1793, stopped designing prints, the decadence had already set in. The decade that followed was a period of rapid deterioration, with Utamaro as its particular evil genius. Yet many of the most splendid of the prints were produced in that decade. Where shall we look for anything finer than Eishi's wonderful series with the chocolate background, or his triptychs of the Prince Genji series? Where shall we find anything to equal the brilliant characterization of Sharaku's actor portraits? Where else shall we turn for such marvellously facile rhythmic line, such swift, vital handling as that which made Utamaro's masterpieces the despair of his many imitators? Toyokuni also designed many fine prints; but as he was a man of less force than the others I have named, he fell faster and farther than they did, and fewer of his works command our admiration.

I have left myself little time to speak of two eminent artists, both of them world-renowned, who by their genius made the latter years of the UkiyoÉ school as notable in their way as any in its entire history. Either Hokusai or Hiroshige might well engage our attention for an entire evening. Both were extraordinarily prolific; Hokusai was the more versatile and has the wider reputation. Both are among the greatest landscape artists the world has ever known. Their numerous prints of landscapes are a revelation of the possibilities of originality in composition and variety of interest in this field. Unless one has studied these prints in fine examples, it is impossible to realize how great is their [pg 17] merit. This is true of all the prints, but particularly true of Hiroshige's. Between the best impressions and the very good ones the difference is really astonishing. But the best are so extremely rare as to make it probable that because of the difficulty and the cost of printing, very few of them were issued—the publishers finding cheaper editions more profitable.

Though classed as UkiyoÉ artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige really represent a separate movement which undoubtedly would have crystallized into a distinct school had worthy followers arisen to carry it forward, had the times been different, and, last but not least, had the genius of the two masters been less transcendent.

In this sketch of the history of the art of UkiyoÉ colour-printing only the more salient features have been touched upon. Of the prints themselves it is not too much to say that the finest of them are the most beautiful specimens of printing that have been done in any land at any time.

In printing, a sheet of paper was laid upon the block and the printer rubbed off the impression, using for the purpose a kind of pad called [pg 19] a baren. This was applied to the back of the paper and manipulated with a circular movement of the hand. By varying the dampness of the paper and the degree of pressure the colour could be forced deep into the paper, or left upon the outer fibres only, so that the whiteness of those below the surface would shine through, giving the peculiar effect of light which is seen at its best in some of the surimono (prints designed for distribution at New Year's or other particular occasions) by Hokusai and his contemporaries. Uninked blocks were used for embossing portions of the designs. The skill of the printer was a large factor in producing the best results. Even the brilliancy of the colour resulted largely from his manipulation of the pigments and various little tricks in their application. The first impressions were not the best, some forty or fifty having to be pulled before the block would take the colour properly. Many kinds of paper were used. For the best of the old prints it was thick, spongy in texture, and of an almost ivory tone. The finest specimens were printed under the direct personal supervision of the artists who designed them. Every detail was looked after with the utmost care. No pains were spared in mixing the tints, in charging the blocks, in laying on the paper so as to get the best possible impressions. Experiments were often tried by varying the colour schemes. Prints of important series, as, for example, Hokusai's famous “Thirty-six Views of Fuji,” are met with in widely divergent colourings.

The pigments most frequently used were comparatively few, and different lots of the same pigment seem to have been far from uniform in hue. As to this and some other points upon which we should be glad to have light, no very certain information exists. We do not know how soon some of the colours began to fade. Internal evidence indicates that in some instances the change took place within a comparatively short time, as in the case of the lovely blue used by Harunobu and Shunsho̅ chiefly as a colour for sky and water. It appears to have been a compound tint formed of blue mixed with some other colour to modify its intensity. In the change which followed—possibly a chemical one—the blue disappeared in whole or in part, leaving in its stead a buff hue having peculiar depth and a soft, velvety texture. To our [pg 20] eyes the modified colour is often far more beautiful than the original, but the variation, it may safely be asserted, was not desired by the artist.

The quality of the colour wrought by these changes explains why it is not possible to-day to reproduce the prints successfully. The printing process is still in use, and, as the plates in such publications as “Kokka” attest, very splendid results are still yielded by it. But some of the old pigments cannot now be obtained; and if they could be, we should still have to wait long years for time to mellow the prints made with them. Indigo can be had, but it is not the same indigo and its colour is not quite like the old, which was extracted from blue cloth imported from China. Beni can be made, but the secret of the blue added to it to produce the divine violet seen in many of the prints has been lost, as has that of the precious moss-green used by Utamaro. Many reproductions have been made during the last twenty-five years, and some of them are extremely clever; but the printing lacks depth, and when placed beside the old works they appear dull and lifeless.

Colour-prints were made for many purposes. To some extent they were used as advertisements. Incidentally they served as fashion plates. Some were regularly published and sold in shops. Others were designed expressly upon orders from patrons, to whom the entire edition—sometimes a very small one—was delivered. The number struck from any block, or set of blocks, varied widely. Of the more popular prints many editions were printed, each one, as might be expected, inferior to those that preceded it. Not infrequently the Yedo publishers removed from their out-of-date blocks the marks showing their imprint, and sold them to publishers in Osaka and Nagoya, by whom poor and cheap editions were issued. Eiraku-ya of Nagoya, in particular, is said to have bought many old blocks, some of which were revamped in various ways before being reprinted.

In a number of instances, when blocks had worn out or had been accidentally destroyed in the fires by which Yedo was ravaged, the artists were called upon to make new drawings of the same subjects. Usually, in such cases, the second design differed very little from the first, save in such details as the patterns upon the garments of the [pg 21] figures and the styles of hair arrangement, which invariably reflected the current mode. Kiyonaga's “Iris Garden” and his well-known triptych “Ushiwaka Serenading Jorurihime” are notable examples of this practice. Two designs of each of these were issued, the intervals between the appearance of the first and second being, in each instance, about three or four years. For the later editions of many of the prints designed by Harunobu changes were made in the blocks, and the number was sometimes increased and sometimes decreased. After his death re-engravings of a number of his prints appear to have been made, as well as forged works in imitation of his style to which his name was attached.

Most of the prints were sold at the time of publication for a few sen. The finer ones brought relatively higher prices, and such prints as the great triptychs and still larger compositions by Kiyonaga, Eishi, Toyokuni, Utamaro, and other leading artists could never have been very cheap. In general, however, the price was small and they were regarded as ephemeral things. Many were used to ornament the small screens that served to protect kitchen fires from the wind, and in this use were inevitably soiled and browned by smoke. Others, made into kakemono or mounted upon the sliding partitions of the houses, perished in the fires by which Japanese cities have been devastated; or, if in houses that chanced safely to run the gauntlet of fires, typhoons, cloudbursts, and other mishaps, their colours faded and their surfaces were rubbed until little more than dim outlines were left. These lost prints include a very large proportion of those that were most beautiful, and especially of those having inoffensive subjects.

Fortunately, though the upper classes did not consider the prints as works of art, that did not prevent them from buying them for the entertainment they afforded. The samurai, though they considered it degrading to take part in the amusements of the lower classes and affected to despise the vulgarity of the theatre, sometimes attended the performances in disguise. And when they returned to their home provinces with their feudal lords after the six months of every year spent in the capital, they usually carried with them large quantities of prints. Country people visiting Yedo rarely returned without taking [pg 22] many of these cheap souvenirs of the city to distribute among their neighbours. Of course many were destroyed, but the Japanese have always been accustomed to take care of their possessions, and so many thousands of prints were neatly packed away in boxes and placed in the kuras, or fireproof storehouses. There they were often spoiled by mildew, the dread foe of the Japanese housewife, and eaten by insects. Those pasted in albums, as were many of the noted series by Hokusai and Hiroshige, fared better than the loose ones.

Thus it has come about that in spite of the enormous number printed, really choice specimens are very rare. Of many of the most important only two or three copies in good condition are known. Even at the time of their issue the number of those in what may be called the “proof” state could not have been large. The best printing, as has already been pointed out, was not only difficult and relatively expensive—perhaps prohibitively expensive in many instances except for a small number of impressions—but when the blocks had worn so that the edges of the finest lines had lost their sharpness, it was quite impossible. Collections of prints were rarely made. Literary men often saved such as were inscribed with odes of especial merit, or had recondite meanings that appealed to them, and to their care we are indebted for the preservation of the majority of those that have survived in perfect or nearly perfect condition.

For those who have learned the elements of their language the charm of the prints is very great. I should perhaps say the charm of some of the prints is very great; for, as we learn what we ought to admire, we learn to discriminate, at first between the works of the different artists, then between different works by the same artist, and finally between different copies of the same work. The truth is that the prints are only in a remote sense to be spoken of as reproductions. Each impression is more or less an individual work of art; the difference in quality between one and another is often astonishingly wide.

In conclusion it may be well to specify briefly some of the qualities in the prints that appeal to people of taste. In the first place, there is the compelling charm of colour. Equally notable are excellence of composition, grace, beauty, and sweep of line, distinctive character, [pg 23] daringness of conception, and perfect balance of both line and mass. Collectively the prints furnish the clearest exemplification of the basic principles of design that the world has to offer. Nowhere else can we find so much accomplished with simple means. Technically, also, they fulfil every requirement. Considered merely as wood-engravings, they are of the first order of excellence. Though the drawing is seldom scientifically accurate, it is, nevertheless, of exquisite refinement and subtlety. In short, the best prints are creative works of very high order which amply justify our admiration because of their intrinsic merit.