Page:Brinkley - The Art of Japan, vol. 1.djvu/53

Rh Popular School we must trace, not a new artistic departure, but simply a reflection of the changes which the civilization of the era was undergoing. From the end of the sixteenth century, the actor, the courtesan and the danseuse began to occupy an unprecedented place in everyday life, and became the centres of a voluptuous æstheticism which constantly presented new spectacular attractions for dilettanti and made new appeals to the artistic as well as the sensuous instincts of the people.

Matahei caught the first note of this innovation and fixed it pictorially with wonderful fidelity. The figure-subjects which constitute his specialty are instinct with refined sensuality and graceful abandon. He introduces us to a life where dancing, music and sybaritism in every form are beginning to take the place of politics and war, and where even the strong contours of the male figure show a tendency to merge into the soft curves of the female. He did not succeed, however, in transmitting his inspiration to any of his pupils or immediate successors, and it was not till the close of the seventeenth century, when Hishigawa Moronobu employed the art of wood-engraving to bring the ukiyo-ye within reach of the masses, that the Popular School began to assume a really important place, and to associate itself directly with the production of chromo-xylographs which are now the wonder and the delight of Western collectors. The story of the chromo-xylographic development and of the wealth of artistic treasures and technical triumphs that it has bequeathed to us, deserves an independent treatise, but we must confine ourselves here to a few salient facts.

There is some uncertainty about the origin of wood engraving in Japan. It is generally attributed to the ninth century. That would make it fully a hundred years subsequent to the introduction of block-printing, which came from China certainly not later than the middle of the eighth century. Nothing like proficiency was developed, however, until the time (1320) of a priest named Ryôkin, and even his productions—a few of which are extant—derive interest from their period rather than their quality. All the motives of the early wood-cuts were religious. The blocks, being preserved in temples,