Masanobu's earliest works were book-illustrations and albums, which closely follow the manner of Moronobu. Plate 4 reproduces one of these. Parallel with them he produced a number of _tan-ye_, the large single-sheet prints in black and white, which, after printing, were coloured by hand with orange pigment. These probably date from before 1720, although exactness cannot be hoped for. About 1720 he began to do work in a medium which he is said to have invented--the _urushi-ye_, or lacquer-prints, in which the lacquer gives a new richness and luminosity to the various colours. An example of these appears in Plate 5. The device of heightening the effect by applying gold powder to certain portions of the design was also employed by him. A play of light that is extraordinarily fascinating often marks his combinations of colours. By about 1742 a new technical advance, the most vital in the whole history of the art, came into existence; and Masanobu is generally credited with its invention. This was the employment of two blocks beside the black key-block to print two other colours upon the paper. The importance of this step was immeasurable: when it was taken the doom of the hand-coloured print was sealed, and the way to still further development lay open. At first the colours used by Masanobu in his two-colour works were a delicate apple-green and the equally delicate rose called _beni_, from which the name _beni-ye_ came to be applied to all the two-colour prints of this period. A print of this type appears in Plate 6. The combination of these two colours is singularly lovely, and the fresh charm of these sheets has led some collectors to prize them as the most beautiful products of the art. Certainly Masanobu's mastery of the problem of producing a rich and vivacious colour-composition by the use of only two colours is noteworthy. By varying the size and shape of his colour masses, and by a judicious use of the white of the paper and the black of the key-block, he produces an effect of such colour-fullness that it requires a distinct effort of the mind to convince oneself that these prints are designs in two tones only, and not full-colour prints. Masanobu lived long enough to produce some three-colour prints, when these were devised about 1755, but the effects he obtained in them were possibly less fascinating than those of his earlier process.