Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/195

Rh that the suggestion at least may have been derived from Europe. The fact that no traces of it have been discovered in Japan would be easily accounted for, when it is remembered that the examples taken home would almost certainly have been religious pictures, would have been preserved in well-known and accessible places, and would thus have been entirely destroyed in the terrible and minute extermination of Christianity by Hideyoshi at the beginning of the 17th century. Japanese tradition ascribes the invention of colour-printing to Idzumiya Gonshirō, who, about the end of the 17th century, first made use of a second block to apply a tint of red (beni) to his prints. Sir Ernest Satow states more definitely that "Sakakibara attributes its origin to the year 1695, when portraits of the actor Ichikawa Danjiuro, coloured by this process, were sold in the streets of Yedo for five cash apiece." The credit of the invention is also given to Torii Kiyonobu, who worked at about this time, and, indeed, is said to have made the prints above mentioned. But authentic examples of his work now remaining, printed in three colours, seem to show a technique too complete for an origin quite so recent. However, he is the first artist of importance to have produced the broadsheets—for many years chiefly portraits of notable actors, historical characters and famous courtesans—which are the leading and characteristic use to which the art was applied. Pupils, the chief of whom were Kiyomasa, Kiyotsume, Kiyomitsu, Kiyonaga and Kiyomine, carried on his tradition until the end of the 18th century, the three earlier using but few colours, while the works of the two last named show a technical mastery of all the capabilities of the process.

The history of the illustrated book in Japan may be said to begin with the Ise monogatari, a romance first published in the 10th century, of which an edition adorned with woodcuts appeared in 1608. In the course of the 17th century many other works of the same nature were issued, including some in which the cuts were roughly coloured by hand; but the execution of these is not as good as contemporary European work. The date of the first use of colour-printing in Japanese book illustration is uncertain. In 1667 a collection of designs for kimono (garments) appeared, in which inks of several colours were made use of; but these were only employed in turn for single printings, and in no case were two of them used on the same print. It is certain, however, that the mere use of coloured inks must soon have suggested the combination of two or more of them, and it is probable that examples of this will be discovered much earlier in date than those known at present.

Sculpture and Carving.—Sculpture in wood and metal is of