This volume reflects the following convictions: first, that ukiyo-e -- Japanese
prints and genre paintings--achieved a peak of artistic quality practically
from its commencement, and in general maintained that level throughout
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most Western books on ukiyo-e
emphasize styles that are closest to our own; after some years of consider-
ing the subject and living among the Japanese people, I have here chosen
the artists who seem really significant, whether or not they are yet well
known in the West.

My second conviction is that the finer ukiyo-e paintings are fully as
great as the prints. The paintings are comparatively rare and are, by their
nature, beyond the reach of the average Western collector; the fact that
there are few important ukiyo-e paintings in the West has been the principal
reason for their being little known even among enthusiasts or scholars. Yet
in the artists' own day, it was their paintings upon which they concentrated
their greatest efforts. The reader will therefore find here a departure in
the form of a unified discussion of both paintings and prints. In several
cases -- e.g., Kaigetsudo Ando and Miyagawa Choshun -- he will realize
for the first time the stature of artists who devoted their lives to the paint-
ing of ukiyo-e masterpieces yet never allowed their work to be printed for
popular consumption, and hence are hardly known among either collectors
or connoisseurs in the West. No stronger argument could be presented for
a re-evaluation of ukiyo-e painting than this.

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