To-day the old art of the colour-print is completely dead. But an entirely new school has produced some pleasing though weak designs of birds, flowers, and landscapes; and some attractive illustrated books have also been issued. The larger part of such work bears the obvious stamp of having been produced for the tourist and the foreign market, and has not a trace of that vigour and integrity which marked the prints of the great masters, whose inspiration sprang from and spoke to the heart of the Japanese people. European influence has produced a bad effect upon the style of these modern prints; and the weak colour used tends toward prettiness rather than toward beauty. It is idle to hope that real vitality will ever return to animate this lost art. VIII THE COLLECTOR CHAPTER VIII THE COLLECTOR The field of Japanese prints is so wide, and the cost of different classes of prints is so various, that almost any taste and almost any pocket-book can find appropriate material for collection. A print-lover who is prepared to invest considerable sums of money, running perhaps into many thousand pounds, will naturally seek only important examples from the hands of the most renowned designers. A great collection must in the first place contain representative specimens of the distinctive manners of the notable men in each period; and in addition a great collector will wish to acquire considerable numbers of the supreme treasures--large-size Primitives, Harunobu pillar-prints, Kiyonaga triptychs, Utamaro silver-prints, Sharaku portraits, matchless impressions of Hiroshige landscapes, and the like. But even the modest collector who is able to expend only a few pounds a year can, with patience, secure beautiful and desirable pieces. It would be vain for him to imagine that he can have things of the first importance and rarity; but he may confidently expect to obtain delightful minor examples of the work of even great artists, at prices that are within any one's reach. A Yeishi triptych will cost from ten to eighty pounds, but a charming small sheet by Yeishi can perhaps be bought for two. The pleasure which the collector obtains from his collection is not necessarily proportionate to the amount of his expenditure; and the intelligent lover of beauty can derive lasting satisfaction from his carefully selected but inexpensive little group of Hiroshige landscapes, Shunsho actors, Harunobu book-illustrations, and similar works.