CATALOGUE THE EXHIBITION OF U K I Y O Y E PAINTINGS AND PRINTS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/catalogueexhibitOOyama CATALOGUE THE EXHIBITION OF UKIYOYE PAINTINGS AND PRINTS AT The Yamanaka Galleries 254 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK February 27th, to March 1 4th, 1908 AL£^ANDBR PKKS!^, 18-20 Astor Place, Nbw York PREFATORY NOTE. ]y[ESSRS. YAMANAKA AND COMPANY are appropriately celebrating the open- ing of their New Gallery, with a choice Exhibition of Japanese Paintings and Prints, belonging to the Edo popular school of Ukiyoye. From their large stock they have selected ex- amples of the best periods and masters, in an almost uniformly remarkable state of preserva- tion. Many of the impressions have the sharp- ness of proofs. Paintings by several of the same artists, are so added to the Prints as to make possible a direct comparison between these two lines of work. It has been a pleasure to write, at request, such a full Catalogue of both series as will enable visitors to make for themselves a careful historical study of this branch of Oriental Art. Krnkst Francisco FknoIvIvOSA New York, February 25th, 1908. CATALOGUE PAINTINGS. Matahei. Dancing figure of a girl with a fan on a gold ground. It was Hideyoshi’s school of Kano Yeitoku and his followers, who, toward the end of the Sixteenth Century for the first time changed the Chinese subjects of their brilliant mural paintings to Japanese. This occasional change was followed as a regular profession in the early Seven- teenth Century by several artists who based their technical methods upon the Kano. Among these were at least two who bore the name of Matahei. The greater of these was the one who painted the famous Hikone screen in Japan. It has been said by some Japanese crit- ics that no artist named Matahei can be identified, but it is just as well to give his name to the finest work of this sort, which centers from about the years 1620 to 1640. This painting and the five fol- lowing must belong to the later phases of this movement, but whether they are by the identical hand that painted the earlier Hikone screen is uncertain. The patterns in the garments are here becoming minute. Very charming is the treatment of the flying storks. The maple and water design upon the fan is in the style of Koyetsu. Date, from 1640 to 1650 2. Matahei. Girl dancing, with a fan. In this the larger and more fantastic pattern recalls the work of the Hikone screen, but the figure is not so slender or graceful. The two-footed objects embroidered in gold upon the dress are the bridges used in raising the strings of the musical instru- ment called the koto. The design on the fan, the sun rising behind grasses, seems to be in the style of Kano Takanobu. Date, about 1640 to 1650. 3. Matahei. Girl dancing, with fan. The costume is very splendid in color with its fully worked out large medallions of dragons in gold against a barred pattern of gold and green on black. Here are the new dances which delighted the populace of Tokugawa days, the predecessors of the present geisha dancing. The design of hills upon the fan seems to be by a Tosa artist. Date, 1640 to 1650. 4. Matahei. Girl dancing, with fan. The beautiful, strange, low-toned costume has patterns of dragon-flies in blue, green, black, yel- low and cream, flying over a silver ground. On the sleeves this silver pours over an under spotting of white, as if it v/ere the glaze of pottery. Here the sinuous twist of the figure approximates to the style of the Hikone screen. Date, 1640 to 1650. 5. Matahei. Girl dancing, with a closed fan. This has the most beautiful pattern on the dress, composed of great phoenix or Hoo birds in kaleidoscopic colors flying over a clouded gray ground. The expression of the face is specially sweet. Date, 1640 to 1650. 6. Matahei. Girl dancing, with fan. Here the move- ment is quiet and pensive, as if it were approaching the cadence of the dance. The pearly medallions are done in blue and white peacocks. ■These six panels were originally paint- ed, in all probability, for a single low screen. In type of figure and pattern they stand just between the early work of the century and the late work of Moronobu. Date, 1640 to 1650. 7. Hishkawa Moroshige. Young man reading a novel. Moro- shige is an early companion of Alorono- bu, the founder of the Hishikawa school. It is possible that he may be a younger brother. Here the drawing is similar to Moronobu’s in his middle period. The painting is very light and pearly in tone. The tokonoma, with its one plant in a jar, is well rendered. The reader has thrown his sword behind him on the mat, and taken an easy attitude, with his back against an arm-rest. The volumes of the old story lie open on a rack. Date, about 1680 to 1685. 8. Hishikawa Morofusa. This figure of a woman in her pale, dawn-tinted robes checkered with thin gold squares on which are jewel-like paintings of ancient scenes of poetry and romance, has a lithe grace and charm that are lacking in many of the more elaborate depictions of later artists. One feels the turn and pose of the body within the rich dress. Morofusa was probably the eldest son of Moronobiq and this represents the late work of the school when it is just about to pass into the richer toning of Choshun. The beautiful painting of the panels show ing illustrations of the ancient romances might have been painted by the very hand of Sumiyoshi Gukei. The very special harmony between the mounting, the old ivory toned silk and the colors of the robe should be noted. Date, about 1703. 9. Miyagawa Choshun. Very fine and rare painting of a young girl dressed in the most fashionable of street costumes. It is as if a new world had supplanted that of the Hishikawa. All the old poetical feeling and ancient allusion, in which the latter affiliated with the patrician schools of Kano and Tosa, is here discarded for the sheer pictur- esqneness of the costumes of a people now cut off from the samurai by distinc- tion of caste. The blue stripes on a fawn ground and the gilt plum-blossoms on the scarlet lining are a pure Yeddo invention. 'The change, indeed, concerns the sup- planting of Kioto standards with the popular tastes of the new capital. How picturesque the great sweeps of the large sleeves and the ample skirt. The new fashion of hair dressing has abolished all excresences over the forehead and the ears, and has put the weight of the hair into a long, flat, extended thrust, like a beaver’s tail, behind the neck. This last proves the date to be about 1715. Okumura Masanobu. Rare painting of a tall woman in loose street over-robe. The picturesqueness of the new patterns has now become more extravagant. Blocks a dozen color con- trasts cut the garments into patches of mere brilliancy. The glossy black of the coat suggests the lacquer hand-painting of contemporary prints. In fact, the whole painting is the exact analogue of the urushi-ye of about 1730. Though unsigned, there can be no ques- tion that this is a fine and rare original work of the artist. Date, about 1730. II. Harushige. As in the prints, the great change from the primitives in ukiyo-ye painting is af- fected by Suzuki Harunobu. His paint- ings are very rare, but we have here a most beautiful picture by one of his pu- pils. The charm of the little, slender mother who is blowing bubbles to amuse her child, dancing with delight, is increased by the delicate wonder of the colors she wears. The transparent gray robe be- comes a purple through the suffusion of the revealed pink of her flesh, but where it trails below it is darkened with flower- shaped medallion in deep blue fringed with green leaves. The effect is jewel- like. Date, about 1774. 12. Koriusai. A charcoal girl astride her pack, riding upon the back of a great bullock. Koriusai was perhaps the most famous pupil of Harunobu. Certainly in the ma- king of polychrome prints, especially in the size known as kakemono-ye, he very nearly, if not quite, equalled the master. A painting by Koriusai is rare indeed. In this there is an unusual delicacy of coloring in the garments of the girl, and a softness of treatment in the willow tree above and the huge body of the animal below. Date, about 1777. 13. Shunman. Among the romantic subjects loved by the ukiyo-ye artists, this offering of a spray of the yama-buki flowers is one of which they never tire. It illustrates a poem, not here written out. This is a very early painting by Shun- man, and still retains the inlluence of his master, Shigemasa. The drawing of the Autumn flowers on her black robe is bril- liant. The thick, pointed wings of the hair show that the period is approaching Temmei. Date, about 1779. 14. Shunman. Very rare and fine painting by this artist of a lady and her maid walking, with a lantern, by a river. Shunman now has the whole range of Kiyonaga’s work to build upon, and so he is here seen at his strongest. He gives a new and individual swirl to water, to willow branches and the long sleeves of his lady. In such realistic bits as the draw- ing of the lantern he is approached only by Kiyonaga and Hokusai. Date, about 1790. 15. Utagawa Toyoharu. This rich and splendid painting by Toyoharu suggests, in its proportions and the placing of the figure, the long, narrow prints or kake-mono-ye so rarely yet so finely done by him. This represents neither a lady nor a tea-house girl, as is usual in ukiyo-ye, but a maid servant starting out on some night errand with her round lantern fastened to the end of a lacquered stick. The sleeve held to her mouth indicates either timidity or distress. The color is put in with a wonderfully free and broad wash. The proportions are of Kiyonaga. Date, about 1786. 16. Katsukawa Shunsho. A very rare and beautiful painting of a woman standing at the garden door of her room. Torn pieces of a letter have just been thrown by her on the verandah. Her agitation she betrays, not in any vio- lent motion but by the restrained way in which she tears with her teeth the re- mainder of the offending missive. The drawing has all the fineness of Shunsho’s plates in the Seiro Bijin Awase ; even the same dignified treatment of bamboo stems, and ornamental leaves. The color is all Shunsho’s own, deep, cool claret edged with sk}^-blue for the dress, just balancing the soft green of the plants. The picture is wonderfully mounted. Date, about 1778. 17. Shunsho. Large portrait bust of a Yeddo belle. The proportions are almost of natural scale. The execution is of fine finish, the main angles setting strongly into the frame. The hair, pointed in the Kiyona- ga style, indicates a date about 1784. 18. Yeishi. A girl in a green kimono beautifully embroidered in white vine-leaves, and a deep orange colored sash brocaded in gold, is about to step from a low river- pier into a waiting boat. The willow branch in full leaf shows that the time is mid-summer. Yeishi here gives us the analogue of that long series of tall, loosely drawn fig- ures, when the balloon of the hair is forming. Date, about 1798. 19. Utagawa Toyokuni. Finely executed painting of a very tall girl in green tuning her semisen. The cool olive of the robe is made more beau- tiful by the blue and brown flowers em- broidered on the skirt. The head, in the new elongated style, is a masterpiece. Compares with prints of about the date 1800. 20. 20 and 21. Utagawa Toyohiro. Very fine pair of large paintings, show- ing contrasted scenes of summer and winter. Each shows two tall women of the most exaggerated Kiowa type. Toyo- hiro, as here, often gives more attention to his values than does his brother, Toyo- kuni, thus making his figures stand for- ward like Kiyonaga’s against the atmos- pheric background of the landscape. In the summer picture the maid points out to her mistress some feature of the show, perhaps, which they are approach- ing. The transparent gray of the lady’s outer-robe charmingly reveals the pink petals of her underdress. In the winter picture the slender forms are clad in thicker stuff, and they freely open their door to the crisp air from the snow-laden garden. The dull ochre red of the standing figure, barred with yellow, makes a fine note against the luminous landscape. The value of both pictures is enhanced by the poetical comment so freely written above by the great scholar and novelist, Santo Kioden. Date, about i8oi. Utamaro. Famous painting of a young girl stepping out of her bath. Here is that rare thing for a Japanese artist, to repre- sent the nude. The hot water has given the skin a fine glow of pink. As she steps back to the precarious level of the bench she balances with her left hand against the door. The coils of the jet hair are wonderfully drawn. Date, about 1803. 23 - Rakusentei Yeiri. Picturesque group of two young girls walking in a violent wind. The low land- scape shown behind is charmingly ren- dered in a style derived from the Chinese scholars. In the figures the dominating influence is from Utamaro, but there is also a suggestion of Hokusai. Date, about 1802. PRINTS. 1. Torii Kiyonobu. Large sumi-ye. Design of two armor- ed warriors in hand to hand combat. Single sheet printing was made a cheap substitute for painting late in the seven- teenth century by the artist Moronobu. Such prints were cut from a single block, and printed in black, hence the name ‘'Su- mi-ye, ” or “ink picture.” The successors of Moronobu, chiefly Torii Kiyonobu and his brother Kiyomasu, continued the su- mi-ye into the early eighteenth century, and frequently composed in them dramatic groups of legendary warfare, or theatri- cal scenes on the newly invented stage. As in this case, the action is represented with tremendous vigor. Date, about 1705. 2. Torii Kiyomasu. Large Tan-ye print. This represents two actors, a male and female figure, in some theatrical dialogue. The male actor is the celebrated Ichikawa Danjuro, proba- bly the second generation of that name. The second stage of printing is here reached, in which the outline ink impres- sion is filled in, for the whole or part of the edition with colors applied by hand. Of these colors the dominant one was at first red lead, in Japanese, tan, hence the name, Tan-ye. This form of print reached its highest stage from 1710 to 1715. Date, about 1715. 3. Torii Kiyonobu. Small print of the actor size. Very brilliant design of a female figure on the stage, bearing a leafy branch. This second stage of the hand-colored printing is called Kurenai-ye, meaning red picture, because the dominant color was now changed from tan to a transpar- ent red. The supporting colors were at the same time made more elaborate. The Kurenai-ye usually have no background except the ivory tint of the paper. They lasted for only two or three years. Date, about 1718. 4. Okumura Masanobu. Small Urushi-ye print of the actor size. This figure, an actor, represents a young girl walking pensively with a letter in her hand by a small stream. The third stage of the hand-colored prints is generally a development of the Kurenai-ye by the addition of a back- ground design, as of lacquer as a medium for applying some of the colors, espe- cially the black, hence the name ‘‘Urushi- ye,’’ or “lacquer picture.” The rich black of the sash, and the pale olive of the up- per garment are here mixed with lacquer. Masanobu founds a school parallel with that of the Torii in which the faces and the figures are a little more graceful. Date, about 1722. 5. Okumura Toshinobu. Small Urushi-ye of the actor size. De- sign of a young man carrying boxes con- taining fans. The lines of drapery are here finely composed, and the dark olive of the dress is applied with lacquer. Date, about 1722. 6. Torii Kiyomasu. Small urushi-ye of actor size. Figured design of a tall lady in a palace, with a bird cage and a large painted screen. This print may be classed with urushi-ye, al- though in this particular case no lacquer was used. The colors have faded to an harmonious softness. The drapery lines of the Torii school at this date are the most noble in composition. The hair reaches far down and back behind the neck. Date, about 1725. 7. Nishimura Shigenaga. Small urushi-ye print of the actor size. It represents a traveling priest gazing at Mount Fuji. Shigenaga, who comes from the school of Okumura Masanobu, first introduces distant landscape into his back- grounds. Those here shown are scenes in the neighborhood of Fuji, famous for poetic association. Date, about 1735. 8. Okumuru Masanobu. Exceptionally large urushi-ye, repre- senting the interior of a theatre during a performance. The elaborate color is still applied entirely by hand, but the use of lacquer at this late day is discontinued. About 1742 the use of hand coloring for small and cheap prints is supplanted by colors printed from wooden blocks ; but for complicated pieces like this hand col- oring is retained for a few years longer. The design of the theatre and stage at this date is of great interest, as is also the rep- resentation of a contemporary Japanese audience sitting in boxes on the floor and in the galleries. Date, about 1742. 9. Okumura Masanobu. Very large and striking hand colored print of a boy holding up a puppet. With such puppets miniature theatrical scenes were enacted. This artist, now past his seventieth year, is still growing in splendor of drapery lines and in the rich opposition of color masses. At this date small patterns, and especially checks, are conspicuous in the garments. Such large pieces were now made only as a sort of edition de luxe for the more wealthy buyers. Date, about 1745. .10. Torii Kyomasu. Fine example of a beni-ye in small actor size. Here is represented a stage scene in wiiicli two figures are fighting with branches of blossoming plum. In such small prints, after 1742, two tints only, at first rose and green, were applied from wooden blocks, instead of by hand. It was this very limitation of the colors which at once produced a popular cheapness and also led to a pro- gressive color composition in the oppo- sition of simple tones. The black of the original ink block and the white of the paper are made to break against the green and rose with much variety of ef- fect. The name of this kind of print is taken from the transparent pigment of the pink, beni. Date, about 1743. Okumura Masanobu. Very large sized beni-ye printed in two tones. It represents a young woman lighting a pipe. All the artists who had worked for years in the urushi-ye now designed in the new technique, the lead- ers of the two schools being still the vet- erans, Torii Ktyonobu and Okumura Masanobu, each having been prominently before the public for about fifty years. Masanobu, as here, still retains suprem- acy for grace of figure and charm of composition, and derives his subjects rather from street scenes and portrait studies of dancing girls than from theat- rical groups. The original schemes in which his several colors play against each other are here finely exemplified. Such striking prints by Okumura are now ex- ceedingly rare, and held as the great treasures of large collections. Date, about 1746. 12 . Okumura Masanobu. Very large beni-ye in two tones. This represents a street group of two belles, whose special robes their boy carries in a box. With later years the colors be- came gradually darker, but Masanobu’s charm in the handling of his delicate, swaying girls never ceases. The attitude of the girl in green, who is reading a letter, is especially fine. The tones of the boy’s dress, broken with much white, come out in an almost jewel-like bright- ness. It will be noticed that a third color, a sort of dull purple, has been deliberate- ly produced in places by printing the green over the red. Date, about 1750 13- Ishikawa Toyonobu. Very large tall beni-ye in two tones. A graceful young man is walking on clogs in large blue overcoat and half closing his umbrella. This artist is the principal pupil of Masanobu, and continues the latter’s style of representing belles and young boys after the latter’s death. Here Toyo- nobu has substituted a dull blue for the color of the green block. Date, about 1750. 14. Ishikawa Toyonobu. Large square beni-ye print in two tones. Here a young boy is represented as danc- ing with the lion masque against back- ground of peonies. The green has now become an olive which, printed over the red in places, produces a third tone of bronze. Date, about 1754. 15. Torii Kiyohiro. Beautiful large beni-ye in two tones, representing a young Samurai, who talks to a girl holding an abacus. This is a group from the theatre. Kiyohiro is a new name in the Torii family, coming in just as his predecessors Kiyonobu and Kiyomasu, are about to pass away. He was probably a brother of the Torii Kiyomitsu who inherited the headship of the family after Kiyomasu. Kiyohiro has here chosen a clear blue for his darker tone, the pink having been di- luted to a pale tint. The elaborate breaking of the colors into each other in subdivided pattern, follows the method of Masanobu. The composition is exceptionally beauti- ful. Date, about 1748. 1 6. Torii Kiyomitsu. Large beni-ye print in two tones. This represents a young girl as a monkey train- er, who beats a small hand drum for her monkey to perform his antics. The ground of her under dress has the unus- ual tone of black. Date, about 1756. 1 7. Torii Kiyomitsu. Small actor beni-yet print in three tones. Woman carrying two swords and a ro- nin’s hat. About 1758 a third color-block was added, and regularly used till 1765. The chief designer in this new style was this new head of the Torii school, Kiyomitsu. The color chosen for the third block was at first, as here, a pale yellow. In this print the gray has also been superposed over the yellow upon the hat, thus giving a fourth tone of a warmer olive. Date, about 1758. i8. Torii Kiyotsune. Small actor beni-ye in three tones. Very charming figure with one sword and a fan. Here the color scheme is well com- posed in the three primary colors, red, blue and yellow, all used in soft tints. Kiyotsune is apparently a son, and at least a pupil of Kiyomitsu. Such an early work of his is extremely rare. Date, about 1760. ig. Torii Kiyomitsu. Small actor beni-ye in three tones. Com- ic scene of a male figure playing on a broom with a fan, instead of a samisen. A girl comes in from behind with the real instrument. Here the third tone, the yellow, is deep. Date, about 1761. 20. Kitao Shigemasa. Small actor beni-ye in three tones. Young girl riding upon a horse.' In the background is seen the sacred mountain Fuji. The three tones here chosen are rose, a soft gray and a clear yellow. By super- position of the yellow and the gray an olive is given to the hills. The pattern on the garments is remarkably distributed. This young artist was the pupil of Ni- shimura Shigenaga, but here is seen as a follower of Kiyomitsu. His early work of the beni-ye period is rare. Date about 1762. 21. Torii Kiyomitsu. Tall, narrow “kakemono-ye” or pillar- print. Fine figure, cleverly placed, of a young samurai. Here Kiyomitsu has chosen a rose and two olives for his three tones, and then has used freely a fourth, made by superposing the lighter green over the rose. The strong admixture of the blacks in the elaborate pattern adds to the coolness of the efifect. Date, about 1763. 22. Suzuki Harunobu. Very beautiful pillar-print beni-ye in three tones. Young girl in rich costume walking under an umbrella. Harunobu, originally a pupil of Shige- naga, has now become the great rival of Kiyomitsu. The drawing of his figures is less stiff, the head and hair more beau- tifully drawn. Here he has chosen for his three tones a soft pink, yellow and blue-gray. By superposing the gray and the pink he produced a purple and freely used, which here has faded into some- thing like a brown. But though faded, the colors were originally very soft, and this delicate effect was what the rival artists were striving for. Harunobu’s beni-ye are extremely rare, and this is one of the finest specimens. Date, about 1764. 23. Tsukioka Tange. Small square polychromic print. The subject is three ladies, the central one ap- parently a Chinese, who seems to be parodying, with the tasted contents of the jar, the Chinese classic design of the three founders of religion, Confucius, Laotse and Buddha. At this date the greatest innovation of Japanese printing was made, under the leadership of Harnnobu, of using as many color blocks as were needed for the design, without super-position. Ground- tones were used for the several sub- stances, as here in the sky and the glazes of the jar. The third intention was to make the scheme of colors soft and melting. Tange, a Kioto pupil of the famous Sukenobu, and already noted as an il- lustrator of books, here elects to follow Harunobu in his single-sheet experi- ments. The composition, coloring and printing are most beautiful. Date, 1765. Suzuki Harunobu. Small square print of a cat under a begonia plant, watching a butterfly. Hereafter all prints being polychrome, the name need not be repeated. This print, though unsigned, should be ascribed to Harunobu, because we do not know of any such early experiment by Koriusai. Here some six or seven tints have been most delicately placed, the grey of the sky being of a tint composed of a lead pigment, which has darkened with oxydation. The tender effects reached far surpass anything conceived in earlier color printing. Date, 1765 or 6. 25. Suzuki Harunobu. Very charming small square print of a young lady walking with her maid. Here it is hard to say whether the charm is more due to the willowy young figures swaying in opposite directions, or to the frankness and fullness of the color mosaic. The background has been printed of a lovely gray. The lady’s overdress has the grace of its lines enhanced by its embroid- ered pattern of willow branches in snow. Date, 1766 or 67. 26. Suzuki Harunobu. Small square print of a full domestic scene. On this fine print, in the ground alone six clear, soft tints are used to differen- tiate the substances of paper, plaster, win- dow, mats, lacquer and iron. Four or five more brilliant tints are used in the cos- tumes. The charm of Harunobu’s design often consists, as here, in the representa- tion of little human household scenes, which have naturally been ignored by the national literature. Here a small boy is attaching a long streamer to the hairpin of his sleeping elder sister. Another girl looks on with amusement at the mischief. Date, 1766 or 67. 7. Suzuki Harunobu. Interesting and unusual small square print, representing a girl in a temple grove washing her hands at a granite basin be- fore entering the sanctuary. Here the choice of the spotted gray to represent stone, and the sombre purples and olives of the sacred cedar trees are very striking. Date, 1766 or 1767. 8. Suzuki Harunobu. Very brilliant and perfect small square print, representing a young girl bursting through a heavy gate, a scene parodying the classic story of Benkei. Here the warmth of the tones in both the costume and the lacquered gate contrasts finely with the grays of the granite wall and steps, and of the tiles. Date, about 1766 or 1767. 2g. Suzuki Harunobu. Unusual small square print, represent- ing a young man fishing with a net from an improvised straw hut, and by torchlight. The effect of night, given by the black of the sla. moral lesson delivered with a dash of humor. Date, 1769. 47. Suzuki Harunobu. Splendidly composed large square print. A young girl, wading in a shal- low 'Stream, offers a spray of the yellow yama-buki flower to a woman with a pipe who crosses the stream on a white pack-horse. Here the shell-like curve of the side hair over the ears, which has been kept relatively low and close from about 1730, is now so raised and ex- panded as to change the whole aesthetic balance of the head, and it is partly this new fashion which demands as a com- plement the specially tall figures of this date. Date, 1770. 48. Suzuki Harunobu. Kakemono-ye. Tall figure, nearly nude, of one of the girl-divers for shells who is wringing out the water from her red skirt. To her from the distance ap- proaches a monster cuttlefish with 'sin- ister expression in his semi-human face. Date, 1770. 49- Suzuki Harunobu. Brilliant large square print represent- ing a stolen interview between a young samurai in the street, and a girl crouch- ing be'hind lacquered wooden bars. Here the new balance of the head requires an excessive length of nose, which is most characteristic of Harunobu’s latest man- ner. In all respects the piece shows tran- sition to the well-known styles of Koriu- sai that follow the master in subsequent years. Date, about 1771. 50. Torii Kiyomitsu. Polychrome print of the actor size, showing a charmingly composed figure in the more formed Torii style, tuning a samisen. Kiyomitsu, after Harunobu’s innova- tion of 1765, for the most part ceased to compete in printed designs of young girls, confining his work largely to the- atrical hand-bills. But 'in rare cases, like this, he has ventured to use all the new color schemes of his rival. It is at this date, and in this 'style, that his young adopted son, Torii Kiyonaga, who was to become so famous ten years later, begins his print designing. Date, about 1768. 51. Tanaka Masunobu. Kakemono-ye. Girl leaping from a terrace with a parachute. Tanaka Ma- sunobu was another pupil of Shigenaga, who after 1765 followed the lead of runobu. The colors here are a little cold, but s'oft and clear. Date, about 1769. 52. Koriusai. Small square print of the size invented by Horunobu. Girls looking through a window at their lovers approaching on the causeway through a rain storm. The at- titude of these distant figures braced against the wind is finely rendered. The colors of the costumes and of the interior are quite in the manner of Harunobu, whose pupil Koriusai became from about 1767. Date, 1768. 53. Koriusai. Small square print of the same series as the last, showing girls disembarking from a pleasure boat near the end of a bridge over the Sumida River. Here wide use is made of Harunobu’s method of rem dering wood by tones of red lead. Date, 1768. 54. Koriusai. Small square print, showing a young man and a standing girl regarding with interest a large ornamental plant of the growing in porcelain pot. The drawing of the fuyo flowers in the garden is also beautiful. Date, 1768. 55. Koriusai. Finely preserved kakemono-ye. A young boy standing under a willow plays on a flageolet to a young girl who lolls on a rustic bench. Here for the first time we see that strong leaning of Koriusai to the use of dull blues in dominant masses, which Harunobu never used. The draw- ing of the girl’s figure almost achieves European foreshortening, the sinuous curves of the body being beautifully felt under the rose garment. This is surely one of the finest figures ever drawn by an Ukiyo-ye-shi. Date, about 1768 . 56 . Koriusai. Small square print, showing in charm- ing colors a group walking in a street at night. The young man with a sword throws his arm lightly about the girl’s shoulder, while his servant carries a large lantern. Date, about 1769. 57. Koriusai. Striking kakemono-ye, representing a young waitress at a tea house. The small black ring which she holds about her wrist is a stand used for passing sake cups. The type of the hairdressing has quite changed, by making the wings over the ears expand far to the sides and also fall in a deep curve. Date, about 1777. 58. Koriusai. Fine kakemono-ye of a girl looking through a window at a young man who removes the disguise of his ronin hat. Here the scheme of color is a contrast of a silvery white, a velvety black, and a deep tan orange. Date, about 1778. 59- Utagawa Toyoharu. Large square print with the large di- mension lateral. This represents an im- aginative scene in a great Chinese palace opening to the sea. Seated upon the floor, amusing themselves with games, music and feasting, are seen the Seven Gods of Good Luck. A Dragon-Ship filled with bales of treasure is coming into port from the left. Far through an opening on the right we see the fire-proof storehouses where the wealth of the world is kept. We may speak of this as in the mythical Isles of the Blest, in some far corner of the Pacific ocean. Toyoharu is the principal pupil of that Ishikawa Toyonobu whose best work was in the line of beni-ye. Here he has fol- lowed Harunobu’s, and especially Koriu- sai’s thought, in building the woods of the architecture in strong orange. But the most notable feature is the fine, elaborate drawing of the complex architecture in a well-nigh perfect imitation of European perspective. This he must have learned, even if indirectly, from the Dutch at Nagasaki. One of Toyoharu’s finest de- signs. Date, about 1770. 6o. Kitao Shigemasa. Very fine large square print of a child kneeling and playing on a toy stringed in- strument devised in the manner of a koto. The strong lines of the drapery, and the very fine treatment of the hair, are characteristic of this rare artist at his ripest. We have already seen his early work in beni-ye; at this date he is the strongest rival to Koriusai and the young Kiyonaga. Date, about 1774. 6i. Kitao Shigemasa. (Small square print of two girls cross- ing a rustic bridge. The artist has al- ready discarded Harunobu’s use of ground tones for sky and earth. He treats his soft pearly textures of costume with great delicacy. Date, about 177 62. Katsukawa Shunsho. Very rare and striking small square print of a devil descending in a storm to the very gate of a temple, and dragging to destruction by his head a warrior in full armor. This artist, Shunsho, was at first a pupil of Shunsui, a son of Choshun, and a man who worked only in painting. But after Harunobu’s polychromic ex- periments he changed the practice of his school, and became one of the leaders in the new art, color printing. The granite of the temple steps, which he has done in spotted grays borrowed from Harunobu, serves to enhance the extraordinary bril- liancy of the three reds, orange, rose and a dark ochre. The finely drawn blacks of the supernatural storm add to the dramatic intensity. Date, 1766 or 1767. 63. Shunsho. Very fine and rare actor print. A samurai is standing at the entrance of a large hall, and trying to defend himself from a shower of arrows shot by his enemies by cutting them with whirling strokes of his sword as they fly through the air. Shunsho almost immediately after 1765 supplants the whole Torii family in pro- ducing popular prints of actors. The whole scheme of color he has borrowed from Harunobu. Date, about 1769. 64. Shunsho. Small square print in the style of Haru- nobu, showing two girls on the balcony of a tea-house, watching a flight of sea- birds. The distant water is finely shut out by an incoming bank of gray mist. In this print the prevailing Harunobu green has been heightened into a pure yellow. Date, 1769 or 1770. 65. Shunsho. Striking small square print of two scenes separated by a jagged diagonal. The lower scene shows a group by day in late summer about to cross over a drum-bridge. A small boy offers his wares of ornamental grasses and gourds. Above is a strange group of the crowded roofs of the city of Yeddo by night, under the decorations and illuminations of the Tanabata festival. It is as if Christmas trees stood at every door. The print is in almost the state of a proof. Date, about 1770. 66. Shunsho. Striking actor print in perfect condi- tion, showing a tall male figure with folded arms' against a background of the hagi plant. The pattern of his costume is in the conventionalized leaf of the icho tree. This print is notable for the exquisite condition of its color, in which a very luminous warm green, accent- ed by small touches of dark green, con- trasts or blends with the soft purples of the robe. This' print has probably un- dergone little fading, since it was the aim of both artist and printer at this day to achieve the very softest effects on some of their first impressions. Date, about 1772. 67. Shunsho. Fine actor print representing a samu- rai in deep thought, leaning on his long s'word. The many tones are now frank- ly in the manner of Koriusai. Date, about 1773. 68. Shunsho. Actor print in two tones, representing a woodman who has returned from cut- ting grasses on the hills. The fine pat- tern on his robe of herons poising among river- reeds, is' noticeable. Date, about 1775. 6g. Shunsho. Pine actor print of a young girl danc- ing a ceremonial dance with two whirl- ing white banners. The colors and the treatment of the hair perfectly corre- spond to the usages of Koriusai at this date. The whirling garments of the dancer, and the beauty of the drawing of the head, are the 'chief features. Date 1176, or 1777. 70. Ippitsusai Buncho. Actor print of two figures, male and female, posing in the dance of the pe- onies. Buncho, under the influence of Shun- sho, began a rival series of actor-prints soon after 1765. A rare charm attaches to every piece of his 'work. Date, about 1767. 71. Ippitsusai Buncho. Actor print showing a young girl with a pipe, standing pensively at an open door. The patterns of the conventional fat sparrows on her sleeve, of the bam- boo stems upon her skirt, and of the ritsuo-like pines inlaid in pearl on her lacquered tray, are unusual an(J charm- ing. Date, about 1768. 72. Ippitsusai Buncho. Very powerful and unusual actor print of the young girl who, crazed bv passion, turns into the dragon of the Do-jo-ji bell. The drawing of the pine tree in the stage scenery is of remarl'able force and beauty. The use of the strong blue .in the sky is almost unique. Date, about 1770 or 1771. 73. Shunko. Actor print of a tall man standing by a river. Shunko is the leading pupil of Shunsho, and parallels the master’s work between 1766 and 1785. This should date about 1780. 74. Shunko. Actor print. Tall girl in red, green and purple, carrying a small yellow washtub. The drawing is in the late actor style of the School. Date, about 1782 . 75. Shunko. Actor iprint of a tall man in green and purple who has been carrying on his back a heavy cabinet. The patterns on the robe of the freely-written characters of a poem, and the rough design of pine-trees on the wall behind him, are the unusual features. Date, about 1783. 76. Shunko. Large square print showing a strong dramatic grouping of two actors. Here the style is partly influenced by Kiyon- aga and partly develops a free, pictur- esque manner of his own that later influ- enced Toyokuni. Date, about 1786. 77. Torii Kiyonaga. Early, small square print of the Haru- nobu size. Representing two women engaged in domestic duties. One, ap- parently the maid, is washing bits of cloth in a copper pan. The standing woman has been sewing these together for a garment. It would be hard to de- scribe all the innovations', full of the spirit of advance, which Kiyonaga has introduced into this striking print. The drawing of the garments, in thick, crisp strokes instead of the previous hair lines, gives a new naturalness of fall, and ■bringsi figures into sharper detachment from the untoned sky. The use of blue upon the roibes is softer than Koriusai’s and cut with remarkable mottlings of blue-gray and yellow-green. Every one of the crowded accessories is so drawn as to bring out new character. Date, 1/77 or ^778. 78. Kiyonaga. Kakemono-ye. How much new effect of motion Koyonaga can now add to the dignified compositions already produced in this shape by Harunobu and Koriusai can be seen from this piece. The strong draw- ing of the “tanabata” tree seen with its Christmas-like pendants through the barred window shows that this scene is a suggestion in terms of contemporary life of the ancient story of the Star of the “Herd Boy,” forced to return at an early hour across the River of the Milky Way from his yearly visit to his love, the star of the “Weaver Girl.” Date, about 1781 . 79* Kiyonaga. Charming and crisply drawn group of a handsome young Samurai under the gui- dance of a priest, turning in a plum garden to talk to two young girls of the people. The cool scheme of the colors, centering in the contrast of a yellow-green against velvet black, and accented with a cherry pink, is quite unlike anything seen before in Japanese art. This Kiyonaga, the adopted son of the veteran Torii Kiyomit- su, has broken away from all traditions of his school, and is blending all the fine in- novations of Harunobu, Koriusai, Shige- masa, and Shunsho into a new and sur- passing realism. Date, 1782 or 1783. 8o. Kiyonaga. Fine kakemono-ye of a single girl stand- ing in thought. Her white cat sleeps on the window ledge. Perhaps it is the sug- gestions of the tinkle of the wind-bell, stirred by the attached poem, which has awakened in her pensive thoughts. Be- hind the soft pearly tones of the dress Kiyonaga has set two tints for the archi- tectural wood, a pale yellow for the fresh carpentry, and retaining the tan orange only for ancient stained panels. Date, 1783 or 1784. 8 i. Kiyonaga. Large square print, being the central panel of a triptych representing a gay sup- per party. Here is sake drinking, samisen playing and the charming, languid inter- est of the young waiter girls. Two of the little heads are finely drawn from behind, showing that the long tail of hair behind the neck, which has been curling upward in thinner sweep since 1725, has at last been reduced to a rudimentary stump. The lustrous and transparent wings over the ears are now held out in finely curved skeins by a framework of bamboo visible at the tips. The new cool coloring de- lights in textures, playing in sheens of the gauzy overcoats, and in the brocading of sashes. Date, 1784 or 1785. 82 . Kiyonaga. One of a pair of large square, sunny, out-of-doors scenes, representing the do- mestic work of women in a garden. Such private gardens, so screened and so breaking against the river’s edge can still be seen along the upper western reaches of the Sumida. The^ gray masses of the stacked timbers on the farther bank show where the network of canals give access to the lumbermen, one of whom is seen pol- ing down his rafts. In the absence of. shadow and formal perspective it seems incredible that foreground figures should so detach from the atmospheric planes. This is achieved mainly by values and the texture of outlines — deep values thrown against light grounds, light against softest grays, and both enlivened by tints of warm cherry or plum purple. The values of color can be noted in the sheer relief of the crimson cloth soaking in the dish of orange copper, that sets upon the irregular granite of the garden’s stepping- stones. The violet of the morning glories in the foreground just peeps through the identical sunny values of the grass and the leaves. The bright red band is of washed cloth stretched in the air to dry. Date, about 1786. 83. Kiyonaga. Companion scene, in large square print, coming at the left of the previous. Here a rustic fence separates the sunny garden from the platform of the kitchen well, whose water is pouring into the low, coopered tubs. Here the master utilizes every device for detachment, from the warming of a girl’s dress by under toning the cherry pink with gold to the startling silhouette of the crouching wash-maid in jade-like light against the black fence, a contrast which would reduce the cut-out figure into an empty patch were it not for the extraordinarily accented drawing of the details of the dress. The sunniness of the total scheme, though no shadow be used, is the dominant note. Date, about 1786. 84. Kiyonaga. Large square print, showing a charm- ing group of three girls looking out upon a little yard in winter. The cold of the pre- vailing tone finely dififerentiates the season from the sunniness of the previous piece. There is sun here, but it has an icy glint. A straw covering shelters from the snow the young shoots of a potted plant. One girl warms her feet under a kotatsu and her body with a cup of sake. The stand- ing girl against which cuts the cool wood of a pillar, is one of the most statuesque figures in all art, worthy of a place upon a Greek vase. Date, about 1786. 85. Kiyonaga. Charming and rare small square print of a young girl at her morning ablutions on a verandah. A maid sets the brass wash bowl, but both she and her mistress pause to watch the opening of the pale purple cups of the morning glories. The soft diluted tan pink of the woods was, even before its partial oxidation, thrown into a soft secondary purple by its cold- ness. Date, about 1787. 86. Shuncho. Large square print, being one of a triptych showing crowded groups of rich- ly dressed girls in a bambo garden. Here the figures are as stately, and the tones almost as sunny, as those of Kiyo- naga, with whom Shuncho supplanted Shunsho as his master ; but we miss something of the free motion and the al- most demonic fire of penstroke of the master’s figures. It is interesting to note the well distinguished methods of ren- dering the near and the distant bamboo clumps. Date, about 1786. 87. Shuncho. Companion piece of the same triptych. Here the complicated tones upon the gar- ments of the five figures utilize every re- source^ Kiyonaga’s teaching for richness, softness and warmth. It is like a new world of quiet Greek figures, for whom Keats might write another ode. The glimpse of the rustic gate and villa half hidden in the distant bamboo grove adds to the stately charm. Date, about 1786. 88. Shuncho and Shunyei. In collaboration. Large square print, showing a domestic group of three per- sons. About the floor are musical in- struments and various utensils, suggest- ing that this may be the improvised dress- ing room of a geisha. The wings of the hair have now become much smaller and less pointed. Date, about 1790. 8g. Shunman. Large square print showing a group of figures about a girl washing clothes in a stream. This is a portion of a triptych. Shunman, at first a pupil of Shigemasa, came under the influence of Kiyonaga soon after 1780. With Yeishi he made experiments in colors so soft that they seemed merely to modify the basic grays. In this case a yellow, purple and green are used for the modification. In con- trast with their warmth the very grays resolve into a pearly blue. The small touches of brighter colors have been em- broidered upon the ground by some later owner. Date, about 1787. go. Shunman. Kakemono-ye, showing two girls under a maple tree. Here below the tree Shun- man adds to his grays nothing but a suspicion of purple upon the obis. The faces are of Kiyonaga’s later type. Date, about 1790. gi. Yeishi. Very charming small square print, showing three figures resting at the edge of the bay of Yeddo. Here all the magic of tone employed by Kiyonaga to give relief without shadows is again employed. The figures seem to sv/im in a soft sum- mer atmosphere. Yeishi was at first an artist of the Kano school, being a pupil of the Sho- gun’s court painter, Kano Yeisen, whose touch is here imitated in the tree. Some- where about 1785 he determined to be- come an ukiyoye-shi, and suddenly jumped into the full wielding of Kiyona- ga’s methods. The colors of his cos- tumes are here beautifully differentiated between a warm orange, a pearl blue, and a plum purple. There is a special charm in the sweetness and innocence of Yeishi’s early heads. This is in the condition of an original proof. Date, about 1787. 92 . Yeishi. Small square print of three girls walk- ing in the grounds of the great temple at Uyeno. A great green bronze water ves- sel, in the shape of a lotus leaf, is shown at the right. At the left, the sacred birds are interestingly rendered. The accent of the color is given in the contrast of the tones in the central garment, where a velvety black is broken by rose-spotted clouds of white. Date, about 1788. 93 . Yeishi. One of a specially rich and finely pre- served triptych in Yeishi’s middle man- ner, representing a special autumn fete in the palace gardens, where a band of fe- male musicians play court music. Here Yeishi has borrowed the sunny yellows of his grounds from Kiyonaga. They are like the gold-leaf upon a palace screen. Against them the gray tones of the fore- ground become pearly blues. In some of them this blue is enhanced with a suspi- cion of pigment. Against this double ground of gold and pearl the strong notes are four — a bright purple-pink, a more scarlet pink of the maple leaves, bits of olive green on the right, and a few glossy blacks of lacquer and dresses. In this way a brilliant chromatic harmony is pro- duced, unlike anything before seen in Japanese art. In this first piece upon the left one of the girls beats the great dragon drum. The top of the curtain that screens the group is shown in the lower left hand corner. Date, about 1793. Yeishi. Central piece of the same triptych. This stands for the most brilliant color passage in the set. It may be seen how the sec- ond tone of the ground yellows is differ- entiated by mixing with the softest gray. Here Yeishi has departed from Kiyona- ga’s drawing in reducing ithe strokes that bound the garments to hardly more than a hair line ; but the counter point of the three central figures with their richly pat- terned dresses is like a stained glass window. Date, about 1793. 95. Yeishi. Same triptych, panel on the right. Here the one male figure of the group is seated in full ceremony, his arm in an em- bossed white robe leaning upon a rest of scarlet and gold lacquer. The costumes of his attendants play in deep purple against yellow, green upon gray, or re- strained black cutting into a soft green. Dated, about 1793. g 6 . Yeishi. Three pieces of a similar triptych set showing sports in the palace grounds of ancient days. The plan of such subjects is generally taken from the old Fujiwara romances, such as Genji Monogatari. But there is no attempt to get historic ac- curacy of costume. The robes approxi- mate to those worn in court life by peo- ple of the Tokugawa age, but the treat- ment of the women’s hair is brought into conformity with the ever changing fash- ions of the belles of the people. Here the gold screen effect is enhanced by the clouds of greenish gold introduced above. In this first left panel ladies are bring- ing various utensils from the interior of the palace. The purples here used are of a much duller and grayer tone, and the blues are sharper and less pearly. The color of the palace wood work is here rendered in a soft tan pink, instead of the deep grays of the previous set. Date, about 1794. 97 . Yeishi. Central piece of the same triptych. Girls look out from the corner of the verandah toward the central scene on the right. Small pines grow from hillocks in the distant garden. The blues here come out dark against the sunny ground. Date, about 1794. 98 . Yeishi. Third panel upon the right. Here the young noble, the petted darling of the court, is varying his occupation of listen- ing to music with a game of football. With a two-lobed ball in his hand he is walking toward the bamboo enclosure, where this game can be played in safety. The spiky leaves of the pine add a third green. These last two triptychs are remarkable examples of Yeishi’s art. Date, about 1794. Yeishi. The next three numbers form a well preserved triptych in Yeishi’s later man- ner. It represents tall girls walking or seated in an improvised rustic booth, looking at the scenery of an artificial gar- den, where a paper dragon seems to spout water in a fountain, and a wild tiger rages on a distant hill. Few years sepa- rate this from the previous triptychs, but an enormous change separates the work of all artists of this day. The figures have become tall and slim, the heads very oval, with long noses and small slits for eye and mouth. The wings over the ears have become much smaller, but the bulk of the hair is beginning to be looped into a great balloon shaped member that rises from the back of the head. This quite distinguishes the aesthetic type of this day from the beautifully balanced heads of Kiyonaga ten years earlier. In this first print on the left the tall standing figure of a tea-house girl is most typical of the new manner. The head has the picturesque pose of an Utamaro, and more stress is laid upon the sheen of the gray and white summer blouse than to the graceful lines of its fall. Four tones of red break into each other at the waist. Date, about 1798. 100. Yeishi. Central panel of the same triptych. These closely composed figures are most typical of Yeishi’s later manner, even as seen in the paintings of this period. The little azalea bush in the distance adds to the gaiety. Date, about 1798. 101. Yeishi. Right panel of the same triptych. Two girls enter the booth, a lady and her maid, followed by the small messenger boy of some mercantile house. With all the fa- cdity, we cannot deny that a certain care- lessness and emptiness shows a degenera- tion from such full designs as Kiyonaga and Yeishi himself gives us about 1786. Date, 17Q8. 102 . Utamaro. Large square print showing a riotously full design of figures at a booth by night. Utamaro’s better known styles are his later, but whole important ranges of his work precede. At first a pupil of Sekiyen, he takes in the 1770’s the name Toyoaki. In the early 1780’s he riots in a style of closely packed lines drawn with a vigor almost as great as Kiyonaga’s. A mixture of the latter’s outline with Shi- gemasa’s and Sekiyen’s. A year or two later his lines become fewer, thinner and more restrained, and still later he gives up the contest, and becomes a worker in the pure style of Kiyonaga. In this very rare early print we come upon the second of these four move- ments. The name Utamaro is already signed but in a square seal like character. The full composition is quite unlike that of any other artist, being full of move- ment and incident. The colors are full and gorgeous, as if they were trying to represent heavily loaded pigment. Here one of the carriers who has been march- ing in costume in the great street proces- sion has stopped at a booth for a cup of sake. Two little silver spangled maids of one of the belles of the procession, who is probably resting within, are proudly examining the man’s heavily em- broidered robe, upon the skirt of which a great mythical gold spider runs down his web. The conventional balance of Utamaro’s later lines hardly compensates for the loss of so much crowded vitality. Date, 1782 or 1783. 103. Utamaro. Small square print representing an in- terior where a man and three girls are looking at a set of illustrated books. Here we strike Utamaro’s fourth stage, where he has acquired all of Kiyonaga’s subtleness. The colors are composed for their mosaic values. A screen by some Kano master decorates the background. Date, about 1793. 104. Utamaro, Large square print, showing an inter- esting scene of the kitchen of a large tea- house at New Year’s time. One girl is ladling some hot liquid into a cup asked for by the maid who holds the black cup stand on the left. On the shelf over the window buckets and pans alternate with the dough offering to the household gods. The hangings of the upper left are of the New Year’s straw. Date, about 1794. 105 Utamaro. Large square print, showing the inte- rior and garden hills of a rich tea-house. The standing lady has just stopped to read the letter taken from a lacquered box, which describes the gift of splendid peonies growing in a basket. Far within a group of girls is practicing a dance for the evening. The temple lanterns and groves are in the beautiful realistic man- ner that Utamaro uses for illustrated books at this date. The perspective is almost faultless. Date, about 1795. 106. Utamaro. Large square print, showing a new kind of design, namely the portrait in half- length of a prominent Yeddo belle. The girl is here represented in informal, in- door costume, and the tints have been softened to harmonize with the silvery ground of the specially prepared paper. Prints of this sort, drawing heads on a much larger scale, form a complete inno- vation in the history of the Art, and what we may call the beginning of Utamaro’s fifth manner. At this date the pictur- esque coiling of the hair does not yet expand to extraordinary proportions. It would seem that Utamaro first won his great Yeddo popularity with this change. Date, about 1796. 107. Utamaro. Portrait, showing only head and shoul- ders of a Yeddo belle at her toilet. Du- ring the brief interval Utamaro’s innova- tions have become far more sensational, filling the sheet with the largely drawn flesh outlines, and with the great masses of the hair that have now expanded into the exaggerated proportions of a black balloon. How carefully Utamaro planned for new sensations in his realisms can be seen in the extraordinarily refined drawing and toning of the hair where it springs from the line of the forehead. No doubt Utamaro partly followed and partly forced new extravagancies of fash- ion with his strange aesthetic fancies. Date, about 1798. 108, Utamaro. Domestic scene of a woman inspecting a piece of gauzy black cloth. Her child, leaning over her knee, plays with her fan. One sees needles and pins stuck in her red pincushion ; scissors and footrule lie dropped upon the floor. Date, about 1798. log. Utamaro. Full length standing portrait of a Yed- do belle. The elongating proportions now advance by leaps. The heads have now become about one-twelfth of the body’s height, and the slenderness which this en- tails on arms, legs and neck is part of the very Beardsley-like aestheticism which Utamaro affects. It is perhaps the enor- mity of the growing hair which tips all normal scales out of balance. But Uta- maro does not forget to draw every detail with a refinement of sentimental impres- sion and to treat the texture of his stuffs, as here spotted with blue morning-glories as a new artistic asset. Date, about 1799. no. Utamaro. Charming print on tinted paper, show- ing an immensely tall girl in her night- robe being offered a cup of morning tea by her maid. No amount of manifest exaggeration can detract from our en- joyment of such drawing; rather does the very abandon and suggestion of the lines compose for us a new aesthetic charm. In thus passing from the stateliness of Kiyonaga to a romantic realism vital with the instantaneous sway of stuffs, it appears that Utamaro first found full play for an erratic and somewhat deca- dent genius that first showed itself in the disorderly crowds of his boyish work. The sharpness of the lines here show an early proof. Date, about 1799. Ill* Utamaro. Domestic group showing three figures at toilet. The remarkable drawing of the crumpled letter leads to the magnificent sway of the central gray woman who leans under the double motive of reading and of dipping her hand into her brocad- ed tobacco-pouch. The little girl beyond experiments in balancing her own pre- carious balloon. Date, about 1799. 1 1 2. Utamaro. This and the next two pieces form a single design in triptych of a group of women awaking on a warm summer morning. In this the tall servant on the left is just detaching the string which has held a corner of the great green mos- quito net to the ceiling. A reclining girl in blue talks to the maid while she awaits her release from the heavy net. The upraised arms are very charmingly drawn. Date, about 1799. 1 13. Utamaro. Second panel of the same set. Within the net a girl who has just thrown off the striped coverlet scratches her head with a hairpin, while the standing figure without ties up her loose gray day robe with a small under-sash. Date, about 1799. 1 14. Utamaro. Right hand print of the same set. The striking figure here is that of the maid who comes with her hair tied in the stump of a balloon to bring the gauzy over robe for her mistress. The pattern of the printed blue stuff of the maid’s dress shows new resources in drawing. Date, about 1799. 1 1 5- Utamaro. This and the two following form a con- tinuous scene, showing figures of tall girls walking or resting by the banks of the Sumida river on the night of “Bon Matsuri.” Here the colors of the illumi- nated figures on the shore come into greater brilliancy in contrast with the grays of the boats and the Ringoku bridge. Especially fine is the small boy who holds the lantern, with his blue robe and orange sash. Date, 1799 or 1800. 1 1 6. Utamaro. Middle panel of the same set. The river fete is rendered finely luminous by the festoons of pink lanterns on the boats and the serpentine fireworks. On the three foreground figures there is a strange com- bination of at least six quiet red tones. Such sparkling nocturne effects doubt- less stimulated Whistler to compose into rectangular paintings the kaleidoscopic lights on the Thames. Date, 1799 or 1800. 1 1 7. Utamaro. Right panel of the same triptych. In this we have a strong passage of grays on grays, rendered all the richer by the sheen on the thin-printed blacks of the seated lady’s dress. She seems nearly pulled over backward by the unbalanced weight of her balloon. Date, 1799 or 1800. 1 8. Utamaro. Very striking design of figures catch- ing fireflies at night under a willow tree. It is with fans that the little insects are beaten down, to be stored by the small boy in his lacquered cage. The strange tones of the costumes are so finely iso- lated as to give a most vivid impression, the blacks and silver feathers of the cen- tral obi taking on almost a tone of purple. The effect of the other sash, orange against pearl gray, is almost weird. Date, about 1800. ig. Utamaro. Plate belonging to the same set as the previous. The tall, slim woman in gray catches up her skirts in preparation to de- part, while the little attendant peeps into her cage to see whether she has fireflies enough. The balloon here reaches its ex- treme of extravagance. Date, about 1800. 120. Utamaro. Large heads of two kitchen girls. With a large brass knife the girl in red cuts a cake of bean curd into slices. The drawing of the kerchiefs that protect the hair is striking. Date, about 1801. I2I. Utamaro. Striking and unusual large, tall, nar- row print of two finely contrasted figures in a boat under a bridge. The girl has just caught a fish which she holds firmly on the end of the line. The man, in a splendid checked robe of grays, in dip- ping up the river water with his sake cup sees his own flattened reflection in the somewhat turbid stream. This is one of the rare instances where Japanese design- ers have introduced reflections in water. In this case the symmetrical repetition of the lines finely enriches the composition. Date, about 1802. 122 . Utamaro. This and the next four pieces compose one of Utamaro’s rarest and most splen- did pentaptychs. The crowds surging through the terraces of a great temple gate are wonderfully unified, in their rich mottling, by the enormous hanging lan- tern of the central portal. It is a pic- turesque jumble of green and olive skirts, sleeves and sashes, broken with irregular black spots of hair and hood and lacquer, and against rosy tinted pillars and the network of the cages behind which bluster the carved temple guardians. Servants force their way with dragon lanterns and festival decorations, while on the right is hung a perfect checkerboard of baskets, sieves, banners, shrines, water buckets and gigantic umbrellas. In this left plate crowds press in with an enormous straw hanging in shape of a twist. Date, about 1803. 123 . Utamaro. Second panel from left of the same set. Here figures emerge wrapped in black hoods and carrying strange symbols of folded paper and quivers of arrows in wooden buckets. Date, about 1803. 124- Utamaro. Central ])anel of the same set. Every- one seems carrying home some toy or symbol. The boy on the left bears a gigantic “Daruma” doll, while the little fellow on his father’s shoulder triumphs in a long bamboo spray hung with coins, masks and fishes made of dough. Date, about 1803. 125. Utamaro. Second panel from the right. The con- fusion grows greater as we approach the right. The sacred pigeons fly about, dis- turbed. Sacred tokens of lobster and evergreens are carried off in a tray. The small boys let out for a holiday are hav- ing more than their share of the fun. Date, about 1803. 126. Utamaro. Last panel on the right. The perspec- tive here is fine, as the viewer seems to look down on the first of the booths that sweep backward from the edge of the gate. Finely carved wood ware is here sold, a boy in red holds out a nest of rice-boxes to a lady. Under the umbrella probably crouches an old woman who takes the change. Date, about 1803. 127. Sharaku. This and the four following impressions are selected from the Sharaku Collection, which comprises eighteen different ex- amples. Large, ugly, realistic head of a man against a dull silver ground. This artist was doubtless influenced by the new movement toward extravagance to try new experiments in rivalry with Utamaro. His work seems to have lasted but a very few years, hardly more than from 1796 to 1802. His is the apotheosis of the ugly under the plea of realism, a thing that may be said of many of the ultra impressions in modern French art. But the power of his impressions is unques- tionable, and his holding of the tones down to broad grays and blacks makes us think of the simplicity of the schemes of Goya and Yanet. It is this affinity with extreme modern European tenden- cies that has made the French the chief buyers of the work of this artist. Date, about 1797. 128. Sharaku. Striking portrait of a man in the cos- tume of a carrier in a procession peering out of a crowd. The keenness of the glance startles us like an apparition. Date, about 1797. 129. Sharaku. Large head of a woman. The printing of these designs is very carefully execut- ed against a low-toned silver ground, which makes the untinted whiteness of the faces the more ghastly. The exces- sive slant of the eyes and of the eye- brows helps to throw the absurdly elon- gated head of the day into harmony with the top-heavy coiffure, as if the very strain of the hair upon the roots pulled the eyes nearly out of their sockets. Date, about 1798. 130. Sharaku. Fine head of a strange old lady. The power of the impression is like that which pursues us after waking from a fantastic dream. The eyebrows rise al- most back to back. The eyes are little inlaid beads of ebony. The nose is so thin and sensitive that you can barely trace it, and the little slit of a mouth holds back a smile that suggests a carica- ture of Mona Lisa. It is, after all, the splendor of the spreading hair, like some magical night-flower, that gives a name- less distinction to the head. Date, about 1799. 1 31. Sharaku. Portrait of the same woman in fine composition with the head of a fat friend. The eyes fairly twinkle with the malice of their gossip. It is rare to find more than a single large head on a sheet of this artist. Date, about 1799. 132. Utagawa Toyokuni. This and the two following numbers show us a very finely designed and pre- served triptych, representing complicated groups in the large hall of a tea-house. Here Tolokuni, the pupil of Toyoharu, has well combined his master’s architec- tural perspective with the fine tints on costumes, purples warming pearly grays and blacks, introduced by Yeishi a little before this date. The soft tan pink of the paneled ceiling combined with the warm green plaster above the lintels makes a brilliant background in its night lighting for the striking roups. In this print a servant brings up the stairs a lacquered tray surmounted with a horticultural decoration of the congra- tulatory pine and bamboo growing out of a laden treasure-ship. A languid girl regards it with hardly more interest than she gives to shaking the soft paw of the cat she holds in her arms. How finely the gray of the male servant is subordi- nated to the velvet black of a girl’s loose coat, a black whose play against green seems to lend it a suspicion of a plum blue. Date, about 1795. 133. Toyokuni. Middle panel of the same set. Here the incredibly rich complication of the mosaiced tones would require a whole chapter for dissection. Against the gold and green of the floors and the satin pinks of the woods and the soft purples of the girls, a scheme of about six grays, ranging from pale porcelain glaze to satin black, seems to take on such a positive color that it is the colors which fall back into neutrality. As for the finest grays on the man’s robe, 'they are made the more brilliant by little cuttings of yellow and green. In the robe of the crouching girl drinking sake, the purples are broken now with white, now with yellow and gray, and again with blacky white and green. No less complicated are the cos- tumes of the small group in the middle distance. It seems strange that the quiet gray of a light porcelain bowl should center the whole brilliant scheme. Date, about 1795. 34. Toyokuni. Panel on the right of this set. The grand lady of this occasion is just having the last touches to her costume given by the little maids, whose heads are each a forest of tinselled hair-pins. There is less breadth to this as an independent composition, but it plays in finely with the tones of the whole triptych. Date, about 1795. 35. Toyokuni. This and the two following prints compose another of Toyokuni’s finest triptychs. Groups of figures lounge in the park, where the chief attraction is the wired cages of a great aviary. Here the composition retains much of the out-of-door sunniness of Kiyonaga. The colors, too, glowing, yet not obtrus- ive, are very close to Shuncho at his best. Date, about 1795. 136. Toyokuni. Central panel of the same set. The three girls are here statuesque in pose, even almost Greek. The crossed tim- bers of a Shinto temple roof cut the distance. The drawing of the trees re- tains something of European tinge bor- rowed from the Dutch. Date, about 1795. 137. Toyokuni. Right panel of the same set. The rus- tic details of the garden and the two- storied house rising above its bamboo fence are finely suggested. A small Ki- yonaga-ish boy brings a rude tobacco tray, while the one-sworded man looks back at the three Greek girls of the cen- tral panel. Date, about 1795 138. Toyokuni. This and the two following numbers compose a rare triptych of large figures of girls disposing .themselves on a tea- house terrace overlooking the river. The causeway of the distant bank is pictur- esquely rendered, a bank which since the middle of the nineteenth century has been all overgrown with the splendid cherry- park of Mukojima. In this piece the lines of the drapery get force from being drawn at crisp angles. The heads are finely posed. Were it not for 'the fine sketch of chrysanthemums on the screen there would he no central accent. Date, about 1797. 139. Toyokuni. Central panel of the triptych. The crouching figure holds up a brass hi- bachi. We see the same elongating fig- ure, used by Yeishi and Utamaro, show- ing it to be a popular fashion. Date, about 1797. 140. Toyokuni. Panel on the right. This charming and freely composed group shows us again the fan and the little decorated cage of the fire-fly catchers. Figures on the dis- tant shore stop to watch the flight of birds. The steps of a ferry landing open to the left. Date, about 1797. 141. Toyokuni. Striking design of a maid scrubbing her mistress in a hot water bath-tub. There is the same directness of impres- sion without the exaggeration of Shar- aku. A rare feature is the finely-drawn shadows on the wall of the bamboo racks and the bits of discarded costume. This shadow indicates a strong light falling through a narrow window h?gh up on the side of the spectator. Here the fully developed balloon and the extreme oval of the faces indicate a date about 1800. 142. Hokusai. Fine boad landscape, in which figures gaze 'from the bank at the fireworks let off from the Ringoku bridge. The breadth of treatment in the distant shore, drawn in soft, wet, blended washes, is nearer to Whistler than the bridges of Utamaro. The play of the children on the old boom that projects from the tim- ber stack, is most characteristic of the artist. The tall figures, with over-bal- anced hair prove that this should be dat- ed about 1802. 143. Hokusai. Interesting print of a scene from the No opera, in which the girl, once loved by a prince, carries sea-water in her buckets for the salt manufacture. Hu- kusai’s style has greatly changed since the preceding print, for now line of a certain formal sort takes first place. Date, about 1826. 144. Hokusai. One of the famous sets of the thirty- six views of Fuji. Here is shown a corner of a Yeddo canal where great piles of lumber and of firewood are stacked. The deep blue tiled roofs of the distant store houses contrast finely with the warm color of the wood. Date, about 1830 to 1835. 145. Hokusai. Very unusual and large print of a ser- ies which illustrates scenes from poems. Here we have a most striking composi- tion in the style of Hokusai’s most elab- orate paintings. The scene is steeped in the melancholy feeling of autumn. Wild birds by from the north in the path of the moon. The farmer stacks in straw baskets the grain that he has threshed from the stalks which are now tied to the stem of the tree. The beat- ing of the cloth in preparation for the winter’s sewing is poetically associated with feelings of longing and sadness. The fine pyramid of the distant temple roof well completes the composition. Date, 1830 to 1835. 146. Hokusai. Another brilliant, piece of the same large set. Here the stately figure of a Chinese gazes at a huge waterfall that plunges into a chasm. His two boy at- tendants try to hold him back from the abyss. The color is very rich, but spec- ially fine is the soft drawing of the tree clumps and reeds that rise behind the group of figures. Date, 1830 to 1835. 147. Hokusai. Another of the same set. An old far- mer crosses a tumbling stream on a rustic bridge. The treatment of the river grasses and the copse behind which the moon rises is the finest part of it. Date, 1830 to 1835. 148. Hokusai. Brilliant wide print illustrating one of the scenes of the anthology of a hundred poems. As usual in Hokusai’s work the scene is full of realistic details. A porter bearing leaves in his basket throws down his load and stoops to tie his sandal. On the stone steps of the descending path travellers in Norimons are making haste not to be belated at evening. The path leads from a hillside pass, where the roofs of a village are seen far below, and then leads across the marsh in zigzag lines of causeway. The waning light of day is already throwing up the boun- daries of the distant trees into shadowy masses and damp mists are creeping over the valley. Date, 1835 to 1840. 149. Hiroshige. Brilliant landscape design of the ma- ple trees on the temple grounds of Tofu- ku-ji. This is one of the series of fam- ous Kioto places. The composition is beautifully completed without lifting the eye as high as the sky line. Date, about 1825. 150. Hiroshige. Another of the famous scenes of Ki- oto, brilliantly representing the river at the foot of the well-known Arashiyama. Here the hills are famous for their dot- ting of wild cherry trees. The boatmen plunge down the rapids on their frail raft. Here again the sky-line is not seen. Date, about 1825. 1 5 1. Hiroshige. One of the series of the Eight Scenes of Lake Biwa. The foreground shows a little gray harbor whence the fishing and the passage boats make their way across to the distant shore of Otsu. Beyond the low hills rises into the warm sky, though half obscured by mists, the mighty bulk of the sacred Mount Hiye. Here the strata of evening orange in the sky con- trasting with the deep shadow blues of the hills and the horizon composes one of the most brilliant color passages in the whole range of Japanese color land- scape. Date, 1825 to 1830. 152. Hiroshige. Tall, narrow print of a series illus- trating famous views in Yeddo. Here we see the brightly shingled roofs of a river suburb, behind which from their sacred grove rise the jewel-like roofs of an old temple. This set gives us some of the most unusual of Hiroshige’s com- positions. Date, 1835 to 1840. I S3* Hiroshige. One of a late set of 53 views on the Tokaido. A heavy snowstorm is cover- ing the villages and the hills. Hiroshige is particularly happy in his rendering of vast, cold reaches of snow. The little sharp lines of the tree-stems come up like strokes of an etcher’s needle. Date, 1845 to 1850. 154. Hiroshige. This and the next two numbers form a very fine triptych showing the rocky reaches and indentations of the north- western coast near Kanazawa. Without any embroidery of captivating colors Hiroshige makes of the sheer contrast in values between the gray shore and the luminous bay a noble and interesting impression. Date, about 1850. 55. Hiroshige. Central piece of the same set. The fine drawing by which Hiroshige throws the planes of his nearer shore into dis- tance is noticeable. 56. Hiroshige. Right panel of the same set. A little causeway, with bridges in the fore- ground, is imitated from the larger struc- tures thrown across the western lake at Hang Chow, China. The restraint of drawing in the distant mountain ranges is wonderful. GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00897 4822