of Hanzan and Yoshitada (see p. 62), and a few curious attempts to imitate European art (Fig. 31), were the principal issues between 1850 and 1870; but within the last twenty years an energetic revival of book illustration has taken place, and a few of the recent publications show that neither pictorial nor xylographic power is wanting. The "single-sheet" industry is still in difficulties, and may never resume its ancient glories, although a spur to effort in this
Fig. 30.—Bishamon and the Demon. From an engraving after Katsushika Isai in the Kwa-cho-san-sui dzu-shiki (1866).
direction has been given by the popular demand for pictures of the Chino-Japanese war; but in the volumes of bird and flower drawings of Bairei, the graceful fairy-tale pictures and collections of artisan designs by Sensai Yeitaku (Figs. 32 and 34), the albums of Kiosai, often called the second Hokusai, whose original and humorous work deserves a monograph to itself (Fig. 33), and the recent war broadsides of Gekko, there is much to redeem the failure of the earlier years of the period; and the encouragement given by Europe and America to the charming
