Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/101

96 through his restriction of artistic purpose. There was nothing more ridiculous for the Ukiyoye artists of those days than to intrude their work of the so-called "Floating World" into the aristocratic tokonoma, the sacred alcove of honour for the art of a Tosa or a Kano, and to attempt to call themselves Yamato Yeshi, whatever that means. What wisdom is there to become neutral, like Yeishi or in some degree Koryusai, who never created any distinct success either as Ukiyoye artist or as so-called polite painter. I can easily read the under-meaning how they were even insulted, by the cultured class, when they tried to satisfy their own resentment by such an assumption of Yamato Yeshi ("the Yamato artist," Yamato being the classic name of Japan); I see more humiliation in it than pride. The contempt displayed toward them, however, was not so serious till the appearance of Moronobu, who created his own art out of their sudden descent; his realism accentuated itself in the portrayal of courtesans and street vagrants of old Yedo, for the popular amusement, at the huge cost of being criticised as immoral. The artists before his day, even those to-day roughly termed the Ukiyoye artists, were the self-same followers. To begin with Matabei, after the Kano, Tosa, and Sumiyoshi schools successively, their work was strengthened or weakened according to the situation by the irresistibility of plebeianism; it is clear that the final goal for their work