These various methods of hand-colouring prevailed up to about the year 1742. At this time, a method was perfected by which two colour-blocks could be used in printing; and the true colour-print came into existence. Masanobu is generally credited with being the inventor of the new technique. The first colours employed were green and the red known as beni; and from this the prints derived their common name of beni-ye ([Plate 6]). Later many varieties of colour were tried. To some print-lovers, these two-colour prints seem unequalled in beauty.
About 1755 a method was devised by which a third colour-block could be employed, and blue was the colour at first selected to accompany the original green and red. Then blue, red, and yellow were used, and other variations; and in the hands of such men as Toyonobu and Kiyomitsu, rich decorative effects resulted ([Plate 7]).
To the end of the period hand-colouring was still occasionally used for large and important pieces such as pillar-prints; but the old method lost ground steadily, and the day of the polychrome-print was at hand.
To give in more detail the history of this period, the strict chronological method must be abandoned; and each of the important artists must be taken up in turn as an independent creator.
Moronobu.
Hishikawa Moronobu, born probably in 1625, was the son of a famous embroiderer and textile designer who lived in the province of Awa. Moronobu worked at the trade of his father during his youth, obtaining thus a training in decorative invention that is traceable in all his later work. Upon the death of his father, he came to Yedo and took up the study of painting under the masters of the Tosa and Kano Schools. Gradually, however, the Ukioye style, introduced by Matabei some years before, became his chosen province; and from painting he turned to the designing of woodcuts for book illustrations and broadsheets. Later in life he became a monk; and died probably in 1695, though some authorities say 1714.
HISHIKAWA MORONOBU.
Moronobu's importance in the history of Japanese prints is twofold. He inspirited the Ukioye School with a new vitality; and he turned wood-engraving into an art.
The Ukioye movement, when Moronobu appeared, was still indeterminate. A great personality was needed to crystallize the vague tendencies then in solution. This Moronobu accomplished; and the far-reaching effect of his work was due to the fact that he did not confine his work to painting, but took up the hitherto unexplored field of woodcuts. As we have seen in the previous chapter, there had been produced up to Moronobu's time no illustrated book that could lay claim to artistic value. The little that had been done in this field was crude artizan work without charm. Now Moronobu seized this medium and transformed it. Into his woodcuts he poured that powerful sense of design which he so notably possessed, creating real pictures of striking decorative beauty. These books and prints, widely circulated, carried to the eyes of the masses a new and delightful diversion, spreading far and near the contagious fascination of this lively Ukioye manner of drawing and awakening in the populace a thirst for more of these productions. Matabei had devised the new popular style, but it was Moronobu who threw open the gates of this region to the people.