The Popular School, aided by Okio, effected a revolution in the laws of painting at Kyoto, for the Torii artists forsook their academic methods, painting birds, flowers, grass, quadrupeds, insects and fishes from nature. Okio’s name ranks high among the great masters of Japanese art, of whom so many fanciful legends are told. The charming artist with brush and pen, John La Farge, says: “As the fruit painted by the Greek deceived the birds, and the curtain painted by the Greek painter deceived his fellow-artist, so the horses of Kanaoka have escaped from their kakemonos, and the tigers sculptured in the lattices of temples have been known to descend at night and rend one another in the courtyards.” Then the story is told of a moonlight picture, which, when unrolled, filled a dark room with light. A pretty legend of Tanyu, the great Kano artist, and the crabs at Enryaku Temple, is given by Adachi Kinnotsuke. Upon one panel of the _fusuma_, or paper screen, is seen a crab, marvellously realistic, only with claws invisible. On the other panels the artist had painted its companions, and at the bidding of his patron furnished them with claws. “Nevertheless,” the master declared, “I warn you that if I give these crabs claws they will surely crawl out of the picture.” As the visitor glances from the wonderful counterfeit crab to the four empty panels beside it, he knows the old master had only spoken the truth. [Illustration: Under the Cherry Blooms. By Kiyonaga, the regenerator of Torii, whose classic figures recall, in their dignity and simplicity, the methods of the early Italian master.] And so with Okio. He breathed into his pictures the breath of life. His animals live, and his flights of storks swoop across the great kakemonos, each bird with an individuality of its own, though one of a multitude of flying companions. To view Okio aright, we should see him at home in his own environment, not in Europe, where so many copies of his masterpieces abound. John La Farge gives us a glimpse of an Okio, fitly set, framed in oriental magnificence, in the Temple of Iyemitsu at Nikko: “All within was quiet, in a golden splendour. Through the small openings of the black and gold gratings a faint light from below left all the golden interior in a summer shade, within which glittered on golden tables the golden utensils of the Buddhist ceremonial. The narrow passage makes the center, through whose returning walls project, in a curious refinement of invention, the golden eaves of the inner building beyond. Gratings, which were carved, and gilded trellises of exquisite design, gave a cool, uncertain light. An exquisite feeling of gentle solemnity filled the place. In the corridor facing the mountain and the tomb, a picture hangs on the wall. It is by Okio. Kuwannon, the Compassionate, sits in contemplation beside the descending stream of life.”