Therefore small marvel that her footsteps be Like strides of Destiny! _Pillar Print of a Man._ Out of spaces hazed with greyness, out of years whose veils are grey, With the slow majestic footsteps of a lord of far-away, Comes a form that out of glooming Rises from some old entombing To confront once more the day. And with splendid gesture dwarfing the confusion of our hands, With his ancient calm rebuking the unrest of vain demands, He with solemn footsteps slowly Passes: and his garments holy Leave the scent of holy lands. [Illustration: TORII KIYOMITSU.] Kiyomitsu took his place as the third great head of the Torii line, succeeding his father Kiyomasu. In subject and in manner, it is the Torii tradition that he carries on. We know nothing of his life, save that he was born in 1735 and died in 1785. His work falls almost entirely within the class of two- and three-colour prints. I know of only one hand-coloured print by him; but as his dates denote, he lived far into the period of polychrome printing, and was a partaker in Harunobu's experiments in colour. Von Seidlitz is wrong in saying that no polychrome prints by Kiyomitsu are known; a few exist and are very beautiful. He did little work after 1765, and is to be regarded as most characteristically an artist of the Primitive Period--in fact one of the greatest. Certainly between 1755 and 1764, no one but Toyonobu could rival him; and these two may be ranked the supreme designers of the three-colour epoch. The outstanding feature of Kiyomitsu's work is its formalism. Whatever he touches is compressed to a pattern, and rendered into bold hieroglyphics of sweeping curves. His line is simple, powerfully dominated by a circular movement that is singularly and inexplicably delightful. His colours, even while they remain only two or three in number, never lack variety and strong decorative effect. The slightness of the use which he makes of black is noteworthy; he compensates for its absence by choosing heavy opaque colours of rich tone. Some authorities regard him as the first to employ a third colour-block.