Both branches were united, however, in the use of the multiple colour-blocks, but although Shunsho followed Harunobu’s experiments in colouring, varying his actor designs with domestic scenes and book illustrations, Harunobu resolutely refused to portray the life of the stage, and in this determination he was followed by his pupil and successor, Koriusai. About the year 1765, the art of printing colours, by the use of individual blocks, technically called chromo-xylography, was perfected. It is an interesting reflection, from the standpoint of Buddhism,—which teaches that in the fullness of time, the great masters in religion, art and learning become reincarnated upon earth, for the benefit of humanity, that at this period Hokusai was born, the crowning glory and master of Ukiyo-ye. Had he appeared earlier in the century, his genius might have been diverted to the technical development of printing, and the world thus been the loser of his creative flights. Professor Fenollosa beautifully defines the inception of the Ukiyo-ye print as “the meeting of two wonderfully sympathetic surfaces,—the un-sandpapered grain of the cherry-wood block, and a mesh in the paper, of little pulsating vegetable tentacles. Upon the one, colour can be laid almost dry, and to the other it may be transferred by a delicacy of personal touch that leaves only a trace of tint balancing lightly upon the tips of the fibres. And from the interstices of these printed tips, the whole luminous heart of the paper wells up from within, diluting the pigment with a soft golden sunshine. In the Japanese print we have flatness combined with vibration.” To the connoisseur, one of the most important considerations, scarcely secondary to that of colouring, in the selection of Ukiyo-ye gems, is this vibratory quality, depending equally upon the texture of the paper and the magnetic pressure of the master printer’s fingers. This characteristic seems to have vanished from the modern print, and cannot be imitated, though the enthusiasm for fine specimens has flooded the market with spurious antiques, deceptive to the uninitiated. In the exquisite reproductions of the early Ukiyo-ye prints and paintings now being issued,—though a joy to the student unable to acquaint himself with the originals,—this ineffable effect of vibration is lost, probably owing to the substitution of a less sympathetic medium than the luminous vehicle of the early impressions.