By the end of the sixteenth century the process of wood-engraving had come into use as a means of illustrating books. From this time on, mythological, romantic, and legendary works, such as the "Ise Monogatari," were frequently so embellished. Most of the designs were very crude, and the cutting of the wood blocks displayed only elementary skill. These early books were in no way connected with the Ukioye School, which they in fact antedated; they were wholly the product of the old classical tradition. Contemporaneously with them were produced fairly vigorous but clumsy broadsides, representing historical scenes. Occasionally a few spots of coarse colour were applied by hand to these designs. By the middle of the seventeenth century there began to appear illustrated books in which the rudimentary elements of artistic pictorial feeling are visible. A few have a slight Ukioye cast. Not until the last quarter of the century, however, did wood-engraving achieve the dignity of a fine art and the scope of a popular method of expression. That it then did so was due to the genius of Moronobu, an Ukioye painter, the first of the great print-designers. III THE FIRST PERIOD: THE PRIMITIVES FROM MORONOBU TO THE INVENTION OF POLYCHROME PRINTING (1660-1764) CHAPTER III THE FIRST PERIOD: THE PRIMITIVES FROM MORONOBU TO THE INVENTION OF POLYCHROME PRINTING (1660-1764). GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. The Primitive Period, first of those epochs into which the history of Japanese prints may be roughly divided, begins about 1660 with the appearance of the work of Moronobu. The period ends a century later when, after many experiments, the technique of the art had been developed from the black-and-white print to the full complexity of multi-colour printing. The commonly accepted name of "the Primitives" requires some explanation when applied to these artists lest it create the impression that we are dealing with designers in whose works are to be found the naïve efforts of unsophisticated and groping minds. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Thousands of years of artistic experience and tradition lay back of these productions; and the level of æsthetic sophistication implied in them was high. The word Primitive applies to these men only in so far as they were workers in the technique of wood-engraving. As producers of prints they were indeed pioneers and experimenters; but as designers they were part of a long succession that had reached full maturity centuries earlier.