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 with their vanity, and the public who adored them, were so offended by Sharaku’s delineations that the satirist was forced, after not more than about three years of activity, to cease making prints and to spend the remainder of his life in obscurity—perhaps on the country estates rather than in the city entourage of his feudal lord. Some years ago one of the compilers of the present catalogue attempted to explain the psychology of Sharaku and to describe his art with the legend in mind, and wrote as follows:

The legend had something to commend it—at least from the point of view of the West, but it did not take into account the definite possibility that Lord Hachisuka may very well have told Sharaku that association with the outcast actors and depiction of them were entirely unsuitable occupations for a man in his position; and in eighteenth century Japan one did not disobey his feudal lord. Other things that the legend failed to consider were the facts that during his brief activity Sharaku made portraits of actors appearing in all three of the most important theatres of the Tokugawa capital, and that the very existence of second states of some of his most satiric prints seems sufficient to attest a demand for them.

The legend is correct in its statement that the more “savagely satiric”