Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/100

Rh to make the necks, especially the napes, the points of almost tantalising grace; what a charm of abandon in those shoulders! And what a beautiful elusiveness of the slightly inclined faces of the women! I am always glad to see Shunsho's famous picture, "Seven Beauties in a Bamboo Forest," owned by the Tokyo School of Art, in which the romantic group of chignons leisurely promenade, one reading a love-letter, another carrying a shamisen instrument, through the shade of a bamboo forest. Not only in this picture, but in many other arrangements of women and sentiment, Shunsho reminds me of the secret of Cho Densu of the fifteenth century in his elaborate Rakan pictures, particularly in the point that the figures, while keeping their own individual aloofness, perfectly well fuse themselves in the alembic of the picture into a composition most impressive. And you will soon find that when the sense of monotony once subsides, your imagination grows to see their spiritual variety.

It is rather difficult to see a best specimen of the originals of Harunobu or even of Utamaro. I think there is some reason, however, to say in the case of Utamaro that he did not leave many worthy pictures in original, because he made the blocks, fortunately or unfortunately, a castle to rise and fall with; while I see the fact on the one side that, while he was not accepted in the polite society of his time, he gained as a consequence much strength