The names of the Kwaigetsudo group of print-designers that have so far come to light are--
KWAIGETSUDO ANCHI (or YASUTOMO); KWAIGETSUDO DOHAN (or NORISHIGE); KWAIGETSUDO DOSHU (or NORIHIDE); KWAIGETSUDO DOSHIN (or NORITATSU).
The Kwaigetsudo work is perhaps the most powerful and imposing in the whole range of Japanese prints. The sheets, of large size, generally represent the single figure of a standing woman clad in flowing robes. So much for the theme; it is nothing. But the treatment consists of a storm of brush-strokes whose power of movement is like that of writhing natural forces; out of this seething whirl of lines is built up the structure of the monumental figure.
[Illustration: KWAIGETSUDO: COURTESAN ARRANGING HER COIFFURE.
_Signed Nippon Kigwa Kwaigetsu Matsuyo Norishige._
The Kwaigetsudo reproduced in Plate 3 exhibits these qualities. The body is merely suggested, but with complete effectiveness, under the great swirls of the robes. The dominance of the main curves, the vigour of the blacks, and the importunate life that vitalizes every touch and line, give Kwaigetsudo a place as high as the greatest contemporaries or successors.
All the Kwaigetsudo work was printed in black and white; sometimes the print was hand-coloured by the application of spots of _tan_, or red lead. Excellent full-size reproductions of several of them are obtainable. With these reproductions the ordinary collector will be obliged to content himself, for the whole number of Kwaigetsudo prints in existence can scarcely be more than a score or two. They are perhaps the rarest of all prints.
The actor on his little stage Struts with a mimic rage. Across my page My passion in his form shall tower from age to age.
What he so crudely dreams In vague and fitful gleams-- The crowd esteems. Well! let the future judge if his or mine this seems--
This calm Titanic mould Stalking in colours bold Fold upon fold-- This lord of dark, this dream I dreamed of old!
With Kiyonobu begins that school of painters, the Torii, which was to take the initiative during the first half of the eighteenth century in developing the actor-portrait to a very high level, and which still later was to have the honour of claiming as its head Kiyonaga, in whom the whole art culminated. It may be convenient to list here the successive leaders of the school, who were in their turn entitled to the name of _the_ Torii, and whom we shall take up in their order.