[HARUNOBU. Lovers walking in Snow.] HARUNOBU. Lovers walking in Snow. Japanese Colour-Prints and Their Designers A Lecture Delivered Before the Japan Society of New York on April 19, 1911 By Frederick William Gookin New York The Japan Society 1913 CONTENTS JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS AND THEIR DESIGNERS CATALOGUE OF A LOAN COLLECTION OF JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS INTRODUCTION CATALOGUE ILLUSTRATIONS HARUNOBU. Lovers walking in Snow. MORONOBU. Nobleman and two Ladies at Seashore. KIYOMASU. Actors’ Boating Party MASANOBU. Geisha playing Samisen. TOYONOBU. Actor reading Letter KIYOMITSU. Daimyo Procession Game. HARUNOBU. Young Woman before Torii. HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister. HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister. HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister. HARUNOBU. Woman reading Letter. KORYUSAI. Musume leaping from Temple Balcony. SHUNSHO. Woman in Red. KIYONAGA. Holiday Group at Gotenyama. KIYONAGA. Picnic Party. BUNCHO. Actor as Woman talking to Men. KIYONAGA. Man and two Women approaching Temple. SHUNCHO. Women watching Girls bouncing Balls. EISHI. Fête in a nobleman’s palace. SHARAKU. Two Actors. UTAMARO. Woman with a Musical Toy. TOYOKUNI. Women in Bath House. HOKUSAI. Fuji from Ushibori. HIROSHIGE. Pines at Hammamatsu. JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS AND THEIR DESIGNERS In the annals of art production the colour-prints designed by the master artists of the Ukiyoé school occupy a unique place. They represent a plebeian art which was not a spontaneous upgrowth from the soil, but, so to speak, a down-growth or offshoot from an old and highly developed art of aristocratic lineage. This elder art had its fountain-head in ancient China. That country, during the Tang and the Sung dynasties (618-905, 960-1280), was the seat of an aesthetic movement during which painting and other arts reached an extraordinarily high development. To the works produced during this great flowering-time of art the Japanese painters of the classical schools turned for inspiration and enlightenment. These works were distinguished by singleness of purpose, rhythmic vitality, and synthetic coherence, and by a clear conception of the essential that goes far beyond anything elsewhere attained, and which, when fully apprehended, must inevitably force a revision of Western ideas and criteria.