The Kwaigetsudō reproduced in Plate 3 exhibits these qualities. The body
is merely suggested, but with complete effectiveness, under the great
swirls of the robes. The dominance of the main curves, the vigour of
the blacks, and the importunate life that vitalizes every touch and
line, give Kwaigetsudō a place as high as the greatest contemporaries or
successors.
All the Kwaigetsudō work was printed in black and white; sometimes the
print was hand-coloured by the application of spots of _tan_, or red
lead. Excellent full-size reproductions of several of them are
obtainable. With these reproductions the ordinary collector will be
obliged to content himself, for the whole number of Kwaigetsudō prints
in existence can scarcely be more than a score or two. They are perhaps
the rarest of all prints.
THE FIRST KIYONOBU.
_Kiyonobu Speaks._
The actor on his little stage
Struts with a mimic rage.
Across my page
My passion in his form shall tower from age to age.
What he so crudely dreams
In vague and fitful gleams--
The crowd esteems.
Well! let the future judge if his or mine this seems--
This calm Titanic mould
Stalking in colours bold
Fold upon fold--
This lord of dark, this dream I dreamed of old!
With Kiyonobu begins that school of painters, the Torii, which was to
take the initiative during the first half of the eighteenth century in
developing the actor-portrait to a very high level, and which still
later was to have the honour of claiming as its head Kiyonaga, in whom
the whole art culminated. It may be convenient to list here the
successive leaders of the school, who were in their turn entitled to the
name of _the_ Torii, and whom we shall take up in their order.
Torii I Kiyonobu I (1664-1729)
Torii II Kiyomasu (1679-1763)
Torii III Kiyomitsu (1735-1785)
Torii IV Kiyonaga (1742-1815)
Torii V Kiyomine (1786-1868)
Torii VI Kiyofusa (1832-1892)
The importance of the school terminated with Kiyonaga, or at latest with
Kiyomine.
[Illustration: TORII KIYONOBU.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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