There is a keynote to art, as to music, and to genius; through the inner vision this harmony is revealed. It lies within the precincts of the soul, beyond the reach of talented mediocrity, however versed in the canon of art. Nor can this occult gift be handed down. The most ardent disciples of Raphael tried in vain to express themselves after his pattern. The sublime inspiration which found its fullest outward manifestation in the Sistine Madonna rested there. The poets realized this colour vision, for Dante cried— “Had I a tongue in eloquence as rich As is the colouring in Fancy’s loom.” Inspiration must be sought by other than mechanical means. Have not the most inspired revelations of colour come to the great master, William Keith, when, invoking the aid of his old temple bell, its lingering vibrations yielded to him rich secrets of colour harmony, as the song of the bell revealed to the soul of Schiller the mystery of life and birth and death, which he crystallized in his immortal poem? This is the keynote of Impressionism, the touchstone of art. What a fairy wand was wafted by Whistler, standing upon Battersea Bridge! “The evening mist,” he said, “clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become Campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairyland is before us!” Leaning upon the bridge, the sweet influence of Hiroshige permeating his soul, in the crucible of his fancy he blent with the radiant Orient a vision of old London, grimy and age-worn, and realized “a Japanese fancy on the banks of the gray Thames.” To this picture he set the seal of his brother artist, and so the two apostles of Impressionism, Occidental and Oriental, in that loveliest nocturne, will together go down to posterity. Analytical Comparisons between the Masters of Ukiyo-ye. It is difficult rightly to determine the distinguishing characteristics of the noted artists of Ukiyo-ye: but the connoisseurs speak of the extreme grace of pictorial line in Moronobu: the sweeping areas of pattern in the garments of Kiyonobu and his followers, and their forceful ways of outlining the folds of drapery, all full of meaning.