children engaged in various occupations and amusements, street scenes, illustrations of moral anecdotes, history and folk lore, architecture and landscape, were all represented in our collections of early colour prints, but it was the theatres which drew forth the most ambitious efforts of Kiyonobu and his successors. Portraiture, indeed, was almost confined to the theatrical artists, for although some admirable and characteristic transcripts of the features of famous priests of bygone times have been handed down to us by the temple wood-carvers, there is scarcely anything deserving the name of portraiture in painting, and no example of it even in the works of the prolific nétsuké carver. It is said that the figures of the actors depicted in the sheets really gave accurate impressions of the stage faces of the men who were so well known by almost every one of the populace in the great towns, but little was left to speculation, since the name of the person represented is always writ large upon the print. Were it not for this there are but few of the countenances, and those, too, only on account of the exaggeration of certain traits, that convey any impression of individuality to the foreigner. The dramatic rendering of action in the figure, however, is often magnificent, though sometimes extravagant, and in artistic strength of line many of the representations are unsurpassable.
The popularity of these sheets is easy to understand. The plebeian stage, which must be carefully distinguished from the classical Bugaku and No performances that appealed only to the culture of the patrician, was the most exciting and most delightful of the amusements of the hard-working and contented traders and artisans that made up the bulk of the population of the towns. A play too was not a thing to be disposed of in two or three hours, but a serious performance that went on from morning till night before an audience collected in friendly or family parties grouped in little square enclosures fronting the stage, and prepared to spend their whole day in enjoying the pathetic or comic impersonations of their favourites who trod the boards. The position of the Japanese actor (there were no actresses on the orthodox stage) was a peculiar and somewhat anomalous one. His professional fame might assume the widest proportions, his name might became a household word, and his features be as familiar and welcome as those of a brother for the masses from which his audience was exclusively drawn, but socially he was almost a pariah. The
