Impressions of Ukiyo-ye, the school of the Japanese colour-print artists — Reading Companion

ome was largely a Greek revival.” There seems ever to have been a reciprocal action in Japanese Art. Tosa, famed for delicacy of touch, minutiæ of detail and brilliance of colour, yielded to the black and white, vigorous force of Kano. Kano again was modified by the glowing colouring introduced by Kano Masanobu and Motonobu. Later we see the varied palette of Miyagawa Choshun efface the monochromic simplicity of Moronobu, the ringleader of the printers of Ukiyo-ye.

The leading light in art in the beginning of the fifteenth century was Cho Densu, the Fra Angelico of Japan, who, a simple monk, serving in a Kyoto temple, must in a trance of religious and artistic ecstasy have beheld a spectrum of fadeless dyes, so wondrous were the colours he lavished upon the draperies of his saints and sages. The splendour of this beatific vision has never faded, for the masters who followed in the footsteps of the inspired monk reverently preserved the secret of these precious shades, till at last, in the form of the Ukiyo-ye print, they were sown broadcast, and revolutionized the colour sense of the art world.

It has been remarked that Japanese Art of the nineteenth century is often nothing but a reproduction of the works of the ancient great masters, and the methods and mannerisms of the fifteenth century artists have ever served as examples for later students. The glory of the fifteenth century was increased by Mitsunobu of Tosa, and above all by the two great Kano artists, Masanobu and his son, Motonobu, who received the title of “Hogen,” and is referred to as “Ko Hogen,” or the ancient Hogen, of whom it has been remarked, “He filled the air with luminous beams.”

By the close of the fifteenth century the principles of art in Japan became definitely fixed, as, almost contemporaneously, Giotto established a canon of art in Florence, which he, in turn, had received from the Attic Greeks, through Cimabue, and which was condensed by Ruskin into a grammar of art, under the term “Laws of Fésole.”

The two great schools, Tosa and Kano, flourished independently until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the genius of the popular artists, forming the school of Ukiyo-ye, gradually fused the traditions of Tosa and Kano, absorbing the methods of these rival schools,—which, differing in technique and motive, were united in their proud disdain of the new art which dared to represent the manners and customs of the common people. Harunobu and Hokusai, Kiyonaga and Hiroshige were the crowning glory of all the schools,—the artists whose genius told the story of their country, day by day, weaving a century of history into one living encyclopedia, sumptuous in form, kaleidoscopic in colour.

Ukiyo-ye prepared Japan for intercourse with other nations by developing in the common people an interest in other countries, in science and foreign culture, and by promoting the desire to travel, through the means of illustrated books of varied scenes. To Ukiyo-ye, the Japanese owed the gradual expansion of international consciousness, which culminated in the revolution of 1868,—a revolution, the most astonishing in history, accomplished as if by miracle; but the esoteric germ of this seemingly spontaneous growth of Meiji lay in the atelier of the artists of Ukiyo-ye.

To trace the evolution of the Popular School in its development through nearly three centuries is a lengthy study, of deep interest. The mists of uncertainty gather about the lives of many apostles of Ukiyo-ye, from the originator, Iwasa Matahei, to Hiroshige, one of the latest disciples, whose changes of style and diversity of signature have given rise to the supposition that as many as three artists are entitled to the name. These mists of tradition cannot be altogether dispersed by such indefatigable students as M. Louis Gonse, Professor Fenollosa, M. Edmond de Goncourt, Wm. Anderson, John S. Happer and many others, but by their aid the methods of Oriental Art are clarified and explained.

Iwasa Matahei, the date of whose birth is given as 1578, is considered to be the originator of the Popular School. The spontaneous growth of great movements and the mystery of the source of genius are illustrated in the career of Matahei. His environment fitted him to follow in the footsteps of his master, Mitsunori of Tosa. Yet the city of Kyoto, veiled in mystic sanctity, where religion and princely patronage held art in conventional shackles, gave birth to the leader of the Popular School. Still, was not Kyoto, the sacred heart of Japan, a fit cradle for Ukiyo-ye, the life and soul of the Japanese people?