. Chats on Japanese prints. e was renowned,doubtless augmented her romantic fame. Of herbeauty and lordly carriage the prints leave us nodoubt. Again and again we find lavished upon herwell-beloved figure all the resources of the greatestartists. In Plate 25 she is the leading figure, withher attendants grouped around her; in Plate 32 shestands beside a latticed window opening on to theSumida River, alone and meditative. TF is necessary for any one who would understandthe art of the period to put aside preconceivedI notions and realize that these courtesan-portraits arenot representations of l
. Chats on Japanese prints. e was renowned,doubtless augmented her romantic fame. Of herbeauty and lordly carriage the prints leave us nodoubt. Again and again we find lavished upon herwell-beloved figure all the resources of the greatestartists. In Plate 25 she is the leading figure, withher attendants grouped around her; in Plate 32 shestands beside a latticed window opening on to theSumida River, alone and meditative. TF is necessary for any one who would understandthe art of the period to put aside preconceivedI notions and realize that these courtesan-portraits arenot representations of low gutter creatures, but thatthey portray women of the highest degree of intel-lectual refinement who were in real life much like thecultivated ketairce of ancient Athens, the companions,7;friends, and beloveds of Pericles and Plato. ^ And as one examines the few records whichJapanese writers have given to the Western world,the conviction grows ever stronger that at this time,when the free and romantic love of men and women. KIYONAGA : LADY WITH TWO ATTENDANTS. One of a Series Brocades of the East. Size 15 x 10. Signed Kiyoimga iGookin Collection. Plate 26. THIRD PERIOD: KIYONAGA 217 was a thing alien to the businesslike Japanesemarriage system, the one region where love as weunderstand it might flourish—the one region wheremight arise those desperate attachments of heart forheart which we regard as heroic—was the isolatedenclosure of the Yoshiwara. There no shrewdparents arranged the unwilling, blind match; therethe hampered spirits of that day found freedom, how-ever perilous; and there alone men and women,though surrounded by an atmosphere of sordidcorruption, faced death as did the Tristram andIseult of our legends, in the service of a passion moreprecious than life itself . . For the Oiran couldturn lover. Scene. What gods are these, reborn from gracious daysTo fill our gardens with diviner mouldThan therein dwelling? What bright race of oldRevisits h
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