Page:Brinkley - The Art of Japan, vol. 1.djvu/43

Rh artists the most facile and inspired. It is to that age that we owe the glories of Mitsunaga and Keion, the greatest draughtsmen of Japan; of Tsunetaka and Takanobu; of the divine Nobuzane; of Arimune, Genkei, and Tamehisa the superb, with his colour rivalling Titian, and of Shoga, Rioga, and Tameyuki, the pride and flower of the Takuma line. All these were men whose works stand in the very foremost rank of the time. Compared with them the artists of Tokugawa days seem scarcely better than pigmies.”

In the twelfth century was born a style of art entirely independent of foreign inspiration. It consisted of humorous sketches, in which not merely the motives but also the drawing were burlesqued. The Japanese have never been notably skilful caricaturists. Even in modern times their attempts to produce comic publications after the fashion of Punch or Puck are not successful owing to their persistent inability to preserve a likeness while distorting it. In the Toba-ye, as humorous pictures were called after their