With the appearance of still another generation of artists upon the scene, the degradation of the school was complete. Artistic feeling was obscured by blatant vulgarity and affectation. There was a steady letting down to the level of the popular taste, which was steadily lowered in consequence. The skill of the more able artists was expended in the production of works interesting chiefly as _tours de force,_ more remarkable for technical than for artistic merit; the tendency toward exaggerated drawing became more pronounced; colouring grew more crude, raw, and over-vivid. Coincident with this decline in the art of the Popular School was a change for the worse in the fashions of the time. Loud patterns for brocades and other fabrics came into vogue; garments became showy and elaborate; coiffures, more especially those of the demi-monde, were often startling in their extravagance. As the prints were accurate mirrors of contemporary life, in these changed fashions may be found a partial explanation of the inferiority of the works of the later men. The Ukiyoé RyuÌ was a school of design which laid its impress upon all of the arts. The prints were but one of its phases, though the principal and the most distinguished of them. The rise, culmination, and disintegration took place all along the line. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century the Ukiyoé school sank into the dotage of decrepitude, and then into the sleep from which there is no awakening. I choose this phrase deliberately. An art that is of the past can never be revived. We may strive to work in the style of Harunobu or of Kiyonaga. All we can do is to copy their forms and imitate their mannerisms. We cannot possibly get our inspiration from the same source as they; that dried up at the fountain-head long ago. The best work we can do in their style must necessarily lack creative force and be without a spark of real vitality. Primarily the charm of the Ukiyoé colour-prints is due to the fact that the leading masters of the school were artists of exceptional power. It is also due to the fact that most of them(3) made print-designing their chief occupation, to which they devoted their thought, time, and skill, and that with rare exceptions they were less distinguished as painters. [TOYONOBU. Actor reading Letter] TOYONOBU. Actor reading Letter