Our vision not being hampered by the canons of the Kano academy, we can appreciate the distinguished character of these compositions. Unquestionably the brush-work of a Sesshu, a Motonobu, or a Tanyu—to name a few only of the most eminent of the Japanese painters—has a precious quality not to be found in any printed line.[2] Nevertheless the primitive Ukiyoé prints have a freshness and vital force peculiarly their own. The word “primitive” as applied to these prints calls for a word of explanation. They are primitive, not in their art, which is highly developed, but merely as regards its application to wood-engraving.
The failure of Japanese connoisseurs to appreciate Ukiyoé art is not, however, entirely or even principally because of its technique. The art of the classical schools is deeply imbued with poetic feeling and usually is dignified in subject. Ukiyoé art, on the contrary, is flippant, whimsical, comic. Except when it deals with portraits, landscapes, or birds and flowers—subjects that are not strictly Ukiyoé—it is seldom that the things depicted are intended to be taken quite seriously. In nearly every picture there is some joke, open or cleverly hidden, some amusing fantasy in the shape of a modern analogue or travesty of popular myth, well-known tale, or historical event. Sly hits at the vices or follies of the aristocrats are not uncommon. A very large proportion of the subjects deals with the theatre and the denizens of the Yoshiwara. To the Japanese of the upper classes Ukiyoé art was a synonym for the art of the underworld. It is not surprising that they failed to appreciate its merit. To give Ukiyoé paintings or prints an honourable place in one's house was a confession of lack of taste. Were there no other reason, the subjects for the most part rendered them unfit, if not impossible. The prints were indeed amusing, and therefore many of them were saved; but they were looked upon much as we regard the pictures in our comic periodicals. Even when the art in these is good, it is hard to disassociate it from the humour and to enjoy it for itself alone. More commonly we fail to appreciate it as art or even to think of it as such. So it was with the prints. To the Japanese they [pg 9] appeared little better than children's toys. In considering this we should not overlook the important circumstance that when first printed they were in general less charming than they are to-day. The wonderful colour that makes them so entrancing has come in large measure through the mellowing influence of time. Not infrequently this has wrought transformations that would seem incredible did not close study show clearly the changes that have taken place.
MASANOBU. Geisha playing Samisen.
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 KwaigetsudoÌ 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, ShunshoÌ , Shigemasa, Koryusai, Kiyonaga, and ShunchoÌ .
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 RyuÌ 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.
Primarily the charm of the Ukiyoé colour-prints is due to the fact that the leading masters of the school were artists of exceptional power. It is also due to the fact that most of them[3] made print-designing their chief occupation, to which they devoted their thought, time, and skill, and that with rare exceptions they were less distinguished as painters.