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to a very conspicuous extent. Their art was founded more upon the best ideals of the Thang and Sung dynasties of China. They had no rivals among the contemporary Chinese. It is said that when Sessiu went to China to study art he lamented that there was no master to study with. The art of the Nara period and the early part of the Heian period was distinguished by an excellent sobriety of religious feeling: it was the very embodiment of the period; it could never be resuscitated again, any more than that of Raphael or Michael Angelo could be revived in Europe, and therefore even Siubun and Sessiu could not compete with their predecessors of those early periods in that respect; but in their own way they stood very high, and these are the kind of pictures which are most admired and appreciated by the native Japanese of later years, inasmuch as they embrace the highest conceptions of fine art in their productions independently of any direct subserviency to religion. Between the Ashikaga period and the Tokugawa period is interposed the short Oda-Toyotomi period. Some time before this period the country was in a turmoil owing to the internal dissensions of different military chiefs, which were ultimately assuaged and the feuds extinguished by the efforts of Oda and Toyotomi. The latter—i.e., Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who is known as Taiko-sama by foreigners, and spoken of as the Japanese Napoleon—was a great factor in the revival of art. Through his patronage it was that Japan produced Yeitoku and Sanraku, whose boldness of design was unsurpassed even by the best of the Ashikaga artists. The castle of Fushimi, built by Hideyoshi, where the genius of these artists was chiefly engaged, and where architectural art was also evinced in a remarkably high degree, was pulled down some time after the death of that great hero, but its remnants, together with some other productions, are still to be found in different places; those who have seen them are the best judges in appreciating how pictorial art, without being converted into a conventional form of pure decorative art, may be utilized for decoration.

After the Oda-Toyotomi period came in the Tokugawa period, which lasted over 270 years, until our own time. The greater part of this period enjoyed perfect peace; and though the country was hampered in some respects by the further development of the feudal system, it witnessed more prosperity than any other period, and different branches of art made significant progress. As is seen from the last sentence of Dr. Anderson’s remark quoted above, the grandeur of the Nara period has never been revived, nor had we under this period any such master-hands as Siubun or Sessiu of the Ashikaga period; but, speaking generally, there is no doubt that all branches of art have made great progress in dimension, if not in depth. The