[p. 29]

IWASA-MATABEI NOT THE ORIGINATOR OF UKIYO-E

Most of those who discuss ukiyo-e speak of Iwasa-Matabei as if he were the originator of the art, but a study of his surviving works shows this view to be baseless.

Matabei, whose nom de guerre was Syōi, was born in 1578. He was certainly a genre painter, but he has left us no genre pictures representing contemporary manners and customs such as are entitled to the name of ukiyo-e. Matabei was fond of treating the classical themes of China and Japan in his pictures, and such pictures cannot be included among ukiyo-e. Pictures of contemporary life commonly attributed to him are not really his works at all. They have been ascribed to him by conjecture merely because they do not carry their painter’s signature. Pictures of contemporary society that bear the alleged seal of Syōi are mostly counterfeits. Thus, it should be repeated, one hardly sees genuine works of Matabei that deserve the name of ukiyo-e. How can we give him the honour that would be his due if he had really originated ukiyo-e, in as much as all his extant works treat of classical subjects? Another fact worthy of note is that Matabei has not left us a single print.

It was only after the middle of the Edo period (1600–1867) that people began wrongly to call him the originator of ukiyo-e, and this seems the proper place to point out the fallacy.