. Chats on Japanese prints. the symphonist THIRD PERIOD: KIYONAGA 247 of greys ; for a large part of his most notable produc-tion is done in modulated shades of this colour,heightened and made luminous here and there bycarefully calculated touches of green, yellow, red,or violet. His figures are drawn in a manner lesssolid than Kiyonagas; as in Plate 45, the lines seemtormented and strained into arabesques of peculiarand restless baauty. The harmonyof his colour is kept by this sharpintensity of line-work from sinkinginto mere sweetness and flatness. These figures of Shunman,sketched with the
. Chats on Japanese prints. the symphonist THIRD PERIOD: KIYONAGA 247 of greys ; for a large part of his most notable produc-tion is done in modulated shades of this colour,heightened and made luminous here and there bycarefully calculated touches of green, yellow, red,or violet. His figures are drawn in a manner lesssolid than Kiyonagas; as in Plate 45, the lines seemtormented and strained into arabesques of peculiarand restless baauty. The harmonyof his colour is kept by this sharpintensity of line-work from sinkinginto mere sweetness and flatness. These figures of Shunman,sketched with the curious uneasi-ness of line of which I speak,stand before backgrounds of equalstrangeness. The landscapes seeminstinct with an obscure life; theTalking Oak of Dodona was nevermore haunted than are they. Hisgreat six-sheet composition, TheSix Tamagawa, is positively dis-turbing in the feeling of super-natural forces that it awakens. AsFenollosa says : Everything hedoes has a strange touch. Thebecomes distorted with a sort of. KUEO SHUNMAN. Kiyonaga facedivine frenzy;trees grope about with their branch-tips like sentientbeings; flowers seem to exhale unknown perfumes,and the waters of his streams writhe and glide witha sort of reptilian fascination. Or, as Mr. ArthurMorrison puts it: There is a touch of fantasy inmost of his published designs, ae well as in some 248 CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS of his original pictures—an atmosphere as of somestrange country where the trees, the rocks, the flowers,and the streams are alive with human senses andmysterious communion. For reasons not wholly clear, the work of Shunmanis received by the Japanese connoisseurs withmore favour than that of most Ukioye obscure quality of restraint and imaginationrelates him to the older classical schools in a waythat makes him acceptable to their aristocraticexclusiveness of taste. Shunmans best prints are so rare as to be beyondthe dreams of the ordinary collector. His complete Tamagawa is a w
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