The finest of the colour-prints designed by these men and their fellow-artists are masterpieces of rare distinction. This does not mean that all of their works should be so classed. The method by which the prints were produced enabled the artists to turn them out rapidly, and many were made that were trivial in character. They served almost as many purposes in their time as engravings, etchings, lithographs, and the photographic process reproductions do with us to-day. Naturally they varied widely in merit and in quality. Many have been preserved, but the important prints by the greater artists are unfortunately very rare; few of them have survived the vicissitudes of time, and fewer still in good condition.

The inception of the UkiyoÉ school dates back to the early years of the seventeenth century, when a painter named Iwasa Matahei, departing from the traditional subjects of the painters of the classic schools, made pictures of dancing-girls and scenes of every-day life. The first prints were made about 1660 by Hishikawa Moronobu and were in simple black outline. They were sometimes coloured by hand with a few touches of colour roughly laid on, probably by the publisher's assistants.

In the early years of the seventeenth century a style of colouring known as tan-yÉ (from the predominant use of a red-lead pigment known as tan) came into vogue. A little later prints were sold with more elaborate hand-colouring. Lacquer was mixed with the pigments to give them brilliancy, and the prints were known as urushi-yÉ, or lacquer prints. In or about the year 1742 Okumura Masanobu began [pg 28] to make the first true colour-prints. For these he used only two colours, green and a soft red called beni, and the prints were known as beni-yÉ. For some years difficulties connected with the printing prevented the use of more than two colour-blocks, and not until 1764 was a method discovered which made it possible to use as many blocks as might be required. Suzuki Harunobu was the first artist to take advantage of the discovery. The prints designed by him during the next six years are among the finest works of the school. Under his guidance and that of Katsukawa Shunsho, the art of colour-printing was brought to perfection. Then followed a period when many prints of precious quality were produced. The culmination was reached during the seventeen hundred and eighties, when Torii Kiyonaga turned out his marvellous single sheets, diptychs, and triptychs.

Many splendid prints were designed in the next decade. It was then that Eishi made his delightful triptychs, that Sharaku stirred the people of Yedo with his wonderful caricature portraits of popular actors, and that Utamaro gained wide fame by the products of his facile brush. It was, however, a period of decadence, and by the end of the century a considerable distance had been travelled upon the downward path.

The prints made in the nineteenth century were, for the most part, coarse and gaudy, the chief exceptions being those designed by Hokusai and Hiroshige. These men, though classed as of the UkiyoÉ school, in reality represent what may more properly be termed another “movement” growing out of, but distinct from, the UkiyoÉ art that reached its apogee under Kiyonaga.

While the present exhibition includes specimens of most of the different kinds of prints—some of them, more especially the earlier ones, of extreme rarity—historical completeness has not been attempted. The aim has been rather to show such prints of exceptional quality and beauty as are available in New York.