Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/69

RV 47 the monogatari, or historical romance. Nearly all the great artists of the Ukiyo-ye school assisted in the illustration of these books, though it is plain that they did not consider the task worthy of their best efforts. Much more elaborate work appears in the pages of the "illustrated accounts of celebrated places" (meishozuye), several of which were compiled in each important city or province, for the purpose of depicting the scenic features of the locality and recording everything of topical interest. In fine, before the middle of the eighteenth century, Japanese xylography had attained a stage of development much higher than that reached at the same epoch in Europe.

Very soon after the woodcut had begun to be used artistically for purposes of illustration, the practice of colouring it by hand came into vogue. At first, only two colours were used, orange and green, but yellow was subsequently added. It is evident that the painter desired to preserve the quality of the line engraving, and that he subordinated these broad, decorative effects of colour to the character of the black and white drawing. Among hand-coloured prints two kinds are sometimes mistaken for chromo-xylographs. They are the tan-ye, or orange picture, and the urnshi-ye, or lacquered picture. The former derived its name from the fact that orange was the dominant colour, yellow the secondary; and the latter was so called because of the addition of black lacquer, which helped to emphasise the delicate lines of the engraving, though occasionally it threw the other colours out of scale. In some cases the heaviness of the black lacquer was relieved by a sprinkling of gold leaf. All this work, though it produced many beautiful examples, needs only cursory mention.